DOGMATIC 341 Christiana of Calvin (1st ed. 1535, final form 1559), are the two chief systematic works of this period, and have formed the starting-points of the Lutheran and Reformed dogmatic respectively. The system expounded in them is summarily set forth in the several Protestant Con fessions of this era, and various special doctrines were elaborated and defended by other leaders of the Reforma tion. The Reformers accepted the doctrinal statements of the ancient creeds and of the first four general councils as scriptural and true ; they also adopted with great earnest ness the Augustinian doctrines of grace, while they added to them the principle with which Luther s name is insepar ably associated of justification by faith, and that of the supreme authority of the Bible as the rule of faith and life, both of these being in their view witnessed and guaranteed by the testimony of the Holy Spirit. Maintaining these principles, they rejected the authority of the church, the multiplication and magical efficacy of the sacraments, the merit of good works, monastic vows, penance, purgatory, and other corruptions of the Middle Ages. In their hands, theology lost the merely objective character that it had borne in patristic and mediaeval times, and was brought into closer connection with religious and Christian life, by the recognition and cultivation of its subjective side. The vital matter with them was, not to have right opinions about the Trinity and the hypostatic union, but to be sure of the true way of salvation by Christ. Their writings are pervaded by a warmth of spiritual life, as well as by a freshness of theological thought, that mark them as the genuine products of a creative age in the history of Christian doctrine. The Reformation age may be said to have closed with the final fixing of the Protestant doctrines in the generally-accepted symbolical books, which took place for the Lutheran church in the adoption of the Formula Con- cordice in 1580, and for the Reformed churches in the decisions of the Synod of Dort in 1618-19. Even earlier, however, a declension may be observed from the lofty and free spirit of the first Reformers ; and a somewhat different character began to mark the theology of both the branches of the Protestant church. V. A fifth period in the history of dogmatic, which may be called the confessional one, extends from the beginning of the 17th till near the end of the 18th century. During this time the doctrinal systems, of which the foundations had been laid by Melanchthon and Calvin, were elaborated and carried into details with great learning and acuteness ; the various doctrines were most carefully and precisely defined, distinguished, and defended. The 17th century was an age of theological controversy. The Roman Catholic Church had recovered from the shock of the Reformation, and by the aid of the Jesuits and the power ful reaction inaugurated by them, had regained strength not only materially but intellectually. Controversialists like Bellarmine, Petavius, and Bossuet taxed the learning and ingenuity of Protestantism to meet them. There were also many less necessary and profitable controversies among Pro testants themselves ; and almost every theologian was led to devote his energy to the attack of what he held to be error, and the maintenance of true doctrine. Much valuable argument was brought into use in the course of these discussions, and the system of dogmatic was more f ally worked out than it had been before. The great dog matic works of the 17th century, such as those of John Gerhard, Calovius, Quenstedt, and Baier in the Lutheran church, and of Francis Turretin, Mastricht, and De Moor among the Reformed, are more minute, precise, and full in their exhibition of the doctrines of the faith than the writings of the Reformers, and they contain a great deal of vigorous and profound thought. Never probably have the doctrines which they handle been so ably and thoroughly discussed. They were, however, treated soinswhat in the scholastic method that had prevailed before the Reforma tion. The theologians of the Nth century did indeed clearly perceive and firmly maintain the principle of the sole authority of Scripture, which was one of those involved in the revolt against the authority of the church and hierarchy of Rome. Hence, in point of matter, their systems are vastly superior to those of the schoolmen, freer from traditional and sacerdotal dogmas, and far more in harmony with apostolic teaching. But they failed to apprehend a deeper principle that was implicitly contained in the Reformation movement, viz., that Christian doctrine, instead of preceding Christian life as a necessary means to it, must come after its actual experience. Sound doctrine was regarded as the preliminary condition of spiritual life ; and as it had thus to be established apart from the living experience of Christianity in the soul, it must rest on purely external authority. This was found in an extreme and one-sided view of the inspiration of Scripture, as equi valent to verbal or literal dictation, and in an uncritical and indiscriminate use of proof texts from all portions of Scripture, without due regard to their historical connection and scope. These became to many of the divines of that age very much what the sentences of the fathers and councils had been to the schoolmen ; and an undue weight was sometimes allowed even to the avowedly human forms in which Protestant doctrine had been expressed. An ex cessive subtlety and minuteness of definition were also often adopted ; and when these were made matters of faith in different parts of the church, numerous schisms and separations took place. The rigid exclusiveness of the Lutheran divines on the basis of the Formula Concordioe, the intolerant zeal of the Anglicans for episcopacy and ceremonies, the extreme doctrinal minuteness of the Formula Consensus Helvetici of 1675, and the narrowness of some of the English Puritans and Scottish Presbyterians are instances of this tendency ; and the disastrous effects of many of these are well known. The issue of this form of theology was very similar to that of the scholastic system. It was gradually undermined by the spirit of rationalism calling in question the validity of its minute definitions. This tendency had been active from the time of the Reformation in various forms ; and though for long it was controverted and excluded from Ihe Protestant Churches, in the course of the 18th century it brought about a general disintegration of their dogmatics. It was found that there was not sufficient evidence to main tain the too minutely articulated systems in the face of a more critical study of the Bible ; and the orthodoxy that had rested on an insecure foundation was for a time almost entirely overthrown. In nearly all the churches there came, in various forms, an age of indifference and even unbelief in the old doctrines of the gospel ; and this was generally nccompaiiied with a declension in spiritual life. It was in Germany that the sceptical movement took the most pro nounced form ; and there, accordingly, the break with the theology of the 17th century has been most complete. In this country the triumph of rationalism has never been so absolute, and the transition to a new era in the history ot theology has not been so marked. VI. But a new period has undoubtedly come, since the Modera neginniug of the present century. A reaction has set in period, against the rationalism that overthrew the older dogmatics In some cases, indeed, this has taken the form of a simple reassertion and re-establishment of the old systems of doc trine, as in the school of Hengstenberg, Haveruick, Philippi, and others, who maintain the Lutheran orthodoxy in all its rigidity, and in many British and American divines, who reproduce the Calvinistic system in its precise 17th century
form. But by many the need is felt of more thoroughly