The Institutes of the Christian Religion: The Mercersburg Perspective -3

“The scientific labors of all Christian thinkers from Clement and Origen onward through the middle ages I appreciate and honor, especially the great ideas of Augustine, which, as reproduced and matured by John Calvin, mark a mighty epoch of progress in evangelical theology and practical religion. But the Reformation did not propose to break the bondage of Romanism in order to replace it with a Calvinistic yoke. It laid claim to freedom of thought no less than freedom of faith, a freedom which has been fruitful of progress in spiritual culture and divine science. Set amid new religious and civil conditions, an emancipated church has during three centuries been unfolding the deeper meanings of the Christian Creed. The knowledge of Scripture has become more accurate, thorough, and complete; and under the discipline of the Spirit there has come to personal faith a revelation of the primordial worth of the Son of Man, such as the Church has not possessed since the Nicene age.”

“While it does not undervalue the decided progress in several branches of theology achieved by the heroes of the Reformation, this work is in sympathy with the Christological trend of the Christian sentiment and scholarship of our age. It is an earnest effort to make answer to the call for a doctrinal system in which Jesus Christ stands as the central truth; not only as the instrument of redemption and salvation, but also as the beginning and the end of revelation.”