B. FUNDAMENTAL AND NON-FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES

The distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental doctrines and the further distinction between primary and secondary fundamental articles is not a dispensation from accepting certain doctrines of the Bible. No man has the right to discard any Scripture teaching. Scripture expressly forbids it. Christ gave His Church the specific commission: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). And Paul declares (Acts 20:27): “I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.” In the Old Testament, too, men were forbidden to add to the written Word or to take anything away from it (Joshua 1:8; Deut. 17:19). That means that nothing in Scripture may be regarded as superfluous or worthless. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning” (Rom. 15:4; 2 Tim. 3:16; 1 Cor. 10:11; Rom. 4:23-24). But while all doctrines of Scripture are important and binding, we do well to distinguish between fundamental and non-fundamental doctrines, as Scripture does. And this distinction has great practical value.

It will become clear that this distinction is Scriptural and of practical value when, for example, the doctrine concerning Christ and the doctrine concerning Antichrist are compared. Both doctrines are revealed in Scripture. But their relation to saving faith differs radically. The doctrine concerning Christ is the foundation of this faith, for saving faith has as its object Christ in His vicarious satisfaction; it is faith in Christ. “Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:26). The doctrine concerning Antichrist, however, is not fundamental to the Christian faith. Scripture nowhere says that men obtain forgiveness of their sins and are saved by knowing who the Antichrist is. What it does say, everywhere and always, in the Old and in the New Testament, is that salvation comes through the knowledge of Christ, through faith in Christ. This does not mean, however, that the doctrine of the Antichrist, as set down in Scripture, serves no purpose. It serves saving faith inasmuch as it warns against the dangers threatening the Christian faith through Antichrist’s seductions. We shall discuss this self-evident truth more fully later on.— A remark in passing: The old Lutheran teachers did not, as some have stated, classify the doctrine of the Antichrist as a “fundamental article.” Rather they have expressly declared that before as well as after the unveiling of the Antichrist by the Reformation many Christians did not, and do not, recognize the Papacy as the Antichrist.

The question which articles are “fundamental articles” as distinguished from non-fundamental articles must be answered by Scripture. And Scripture clearly states which articles constitute the foundation of the Christian faith. Some say that in the interest of freedom of doctrine the concept “fundamental doctrines” cannot be clearly defined; they point to the fact that there is no general agreement among theologians on this question. The Erlangen theologian Hofmann, for instance, thinks that “the dispute about the distinction between fundamentals and non-fundamentals has up to this day yielded no results” (Der Schriftbeweis, 2d ed., I, 9. 10). Our reply is that where the Scriptural concept of the object of saving faith is accepted, there can be no doubt as to which are the articuli fundamentales. According to Scripture, saving faith is faith in the remission of sins for the sake of Christ’s vicarious satisfaction, faith in the grace of God, who justifies the sinner without the deeds of the Law, by faith. Scripture teaches that only he who through the operation of the Holy Ghost accepts this forgiveness, this justification, is a true believer, a “believer” in the Scriptural sense of the term (Gal. 2:16: “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ”). Only such a one is a member of the Christian Church. Believers in the Lord were added to the Church (Acts 5:14).113 One who does not believe the article of justification by faith is not, as Scripture plainly states, a “child of Abraham,” is not numbered among the believers, is outside the Christian Church (Gal. 3:6-10). Luther puts it thus: “This article [of justification] is the head and cornerstone which alone begets, nourishes, builds, preserves, and protects the Church; without it the Church of God cannot subsist one hour” (St. L. XIV:168). Again: “All people in the world who do not hold this article [doctrinam justificationis] are either Jews or Turks or Papists or heretics” (St. L. IX:24). The dogmaticians have called the doctrine of justification _articulum omnium fundamentalissimum. (_See the quotations in Baier-Walther, III, 245 sq.)

But Scripture informs us further that faith in the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake presupposes and includes certain other doctrines. Scripture teaches clearly:

1. That the knowledge of sin and of the consequence of sin, eternal damnation, is a prerequisite of saving faith. As long as men fail to realize that their sins merit eternal damnation and as long as they trust in their own goodness for eternal salvation, they have no interest in the forgiveness of sins obtained by Christ for the condemned sinner. The only effective way of dealing with sinful man is therefore to preach first repentance and then forgiveness of sins. Christ prescribed this method in Luke 24:47. The story of the Pharisee and the publican (Luke 18:9-14) teaches the same truth. Christ rejects very definitely the faith of the Pharisee, who refused to believe that he was under God’s wrath, guilty of eternal damnation, but who thanked God that he “was not as other men are” and believed that in God’s sight he was better than the extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or “this publican.” Christ’s method is shown in all those Scripture passages which declare that the grace of God is nigh unto the “brokenhearted” and dwells with them (Is. 66:2; 57:15; Ps. 34:18; 51:17; Luke 4:18).

2. Scripture furthermore teaches very definitely that saving faith includes the knowledge of the Person of Christ; it knows that Christ is God and Man. Christ’s question, “What think ye of Christ? whose Son is He?” (Matt. 22:42) has not merely academic, but a very practical value. Christ Himself declares that unless men believe in the essential deity of Christ, they do not believe in Christ. He rejects the belief of the Jewish people, who took Him for John the Baptist, Elias, Jeremias, or one of the Prophets; and He commended the faith of His disciples who, through the revelation of the Father, knew Him as the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:13-17; 1 John 1:1-4). The fact that men are ready to give Jesus the title of God honoris causa does not make them believers; as long as they deny His eternal godhead, they do not possess the saving faith. The Unitarians and the Unitarian Modernists are placed by Scripture extra ecclesiam. (See 1 John 5:12-13; Trigl. 103, 2.) — The same is true of the Trinity. Because the unus Deus is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, faith in the three Persons is, according to Scripture, so closely interwoven that there can be no knowledge of the Son without the Father (Matt. 16:17: “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona; for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven”; 11:27 a: “No man knoweth the Son but the Father”); there is no knowledge of the Father without the Son (Matt. 11:27 b: “Neither knoweth any man the Father save the Son and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him”); and there is no knowledge of the Father and the Son without the Holy Ghost (Rom. 8:15: “Ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”; 1 Cor. 12:3: “No man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost”; John 16:13-15). — For the purpose of invalidating these New Testament statements on the Trinity the moderns contend that such “reflections” on Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were far beyond the first Christians. They even challenge the historicity of the Trinitarian baptismal formula of Matt. 28:19 on the ground that the early Christians were totally unaware of the doctrine of the Trinity. The truth of the matter is, as will be shown in the locus on Baptism, that modern theology is, in a most unhistorical manner, foisting its own deficiency in Christian knowledge upon the early Christians. Not only the early Christians, but also the Old Testament believers accepted the revelation of the Trinity as will be shown in the locus “De Deo.”

3. The fides salvifica includes also the knowledge of the work of Christ. According to Scripture, Christ is the object of saving faith, not in so far as He is a Teacher of the divine Law, nor in so far as He is the “ideal man,” the perfect Pattern of morality, but only in so far as He is the Mediator between God and men, who gave Himself a ransom () for all (1 Tim. 2:5-6), the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:29). One who does not believe Christ’s satisfactio vicaria is not a believer in the Scriptural sense; he bases — tertium non datur — his reconciliation with God in some way on his own work and his own worthiness and thus eo ipso excludes himself from the grace earned by Christ. That is the express verdict of Scripture. “Christ is become of no effect unto you … ye are fallen from grace” (Gal. 5:4). True, there are children of God, true believers, within such communions as ban the teaching that justification for the sake of Christ’s perfect merit constitutes the foundation of saving faith (Rome); but that is due to the fact that these men, in spite of the Church’s interdict, put their trust solely in Christ, crucified for their sins. The Apology therefore declares, on the one hand, that the Roman Church does indeed subvert the foundation of the Christian faith: “Most of those errors which our adversaries defend overthrow faith, as their condemnation of the article concerning the remission of sins, in which we say that the remission of sins is by faith. Likewise it is a manifest and pernicious error when the adversaries teach that men merit the remission of sins by love of God, prior to grace. For this also is to remove the ‘foundation,’ i. e., Christ. Likewise, what need will there be of faith if the Sacraments justify ex opere operato, without a good disposition on the part of the one using them? [Now, a person that does not regard faith as necessary has already lost Christ. Again, they set up the worship of saints, call upon them instead of Christ, the Mediator, etc.]” (Trigl. 233, 21.) On the other hand, the Apology says: “Nevertheless, the knowledge of Christ has always remained with some godly persons” (Trigl 225, 271).

4. Scripture teaches, furthermore, that saving faith is always faith in the Word of Christ, faith in the external Word of the Gospel, which Christ commanded His Church to preach and to teach (Mark 16: 15-16; Rom. 1:1-2). This external Word is both the object of faith (“Believe the Gospel,” Mark 1:15) and the means by which faith is created (“Faith cometh by hearing,” Rom. 10:17). A belief whose object is not the Word of Christ as we have it in the Word of His Apostles (John 17:20) and which is not the product of this Word, is according to the Scriptures a delusion, ignorance, and a human fabrication (1 Tim. 6:3-4; 1 Cor. 2:1-5: “faith in the wisdom of men”). The faith which is not based on the external Word is, as Luther puts it, nothing but an air castle.114 True, there are children of God within those communions which officially reject the external Word of Christ as the medium of the forgiveness of sins; but that is due solely to the fact that there are always those who in spite of the official teaching of their Church base their faith on the written Word. (On the “felicitous inconsistency” found within the Reformed communions more will be said later.)

5. Scripture teaches, finally, that the denial of the bodily resurrection of the dead and of the eternal life subverts the Christian faith. This is done by the radical wing of modern Protestantism which says that it is sufficient to believe in Christ for this life; the “hereafter,” the resurrection, heaven and hell, need not concern us.115 But even such conservative “liberals” as Horst Stephan declare: “The strong interest in the human body and its glorified entrance into eternity, which marks the belief in the resurrection, should not be considered an absolutely necessary part of the Christian faith; rather it seems to be an outgrowth of the Jewish ideas of a future recompense” (Glaubenslehre, 1921, p. 119). But Holy Scripture declares that those who, like Hymenaeus, Alexander, and Philetus, denied the future bodily resurrection of the dead and sought to “spiritualize” the resurrection, “saying that the resurrection is past already,” have made shipwreck concerning their faith and erred concerning the truth (1 Tim. 1:19-20; 2 Tim. 2:17-18). Such men do not belong in the Christian Church, but must be excommunicated: “Whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme.”116 When some of the Corinthians declared that “there is no resurrection of the dead” (1 Cor. 15:12), the Apostle informed them that they knew nothing of God (1 Cor. 15:34) and denied the entire Christian religion by denying one of its essential teachings. Christ said the same thing to the Sadducees (Matt. 22:29: “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God”).117

These “fundamental doctrines” did not, of course, originate with the Church. They existed in full force before the Church formulated them in dogmatical terms. The old dogmaticians frequently point that out (see Baier-Walther, I, 61, note e). Luther, too, shows at length that the councils “have proposed nothing new” in their ecclesiastical termini, but have merely maintained “with and through Holy Scripture” the old faith which the Christians held before all councils. This applies also to the Nicene Creed. The Christians, says Luther, have always believed that the Son is of the same essence with the Father, even before the term was adopted over against Arius. (“Von den Conciliis u. Kirchen,” St. L. XVI:2233, 2214.)

Primary and Secondary Fundamental Doctrines

This further division of the fundamental doctrines is not an invention of the orthodox dogmaticians to plague the theologians. It is theologically correct and extremely practical. To illustrate, in the controversies between the. Lutheran and the Reformed Church, one of the disputed questions was whether Baptism and the Lord’s Supper belong to the foundation of the Christian faith.118 Scripture has decided this question. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper certainly do belong to the foundation of the Christian faith, together with the Word of the Gospel, for Baptism is given “for the remission of sins” (Acts 2:38), and in the Lord’s Supper Christ’s body and blood are imparted as “given for you” and “shed for you for the remission of sins” (Luke 22:19 ff.; Matt. 26:26 ff.). The promise and offer of the forgiveness of sins, which is the foundation of faith, is contained also in the Sacraments.119 Hence the doctrines of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are certainly fundamental doctrines. — But why do we call them articuli fundamentales secundarii? A man may, through ignorance of the nature and benefit of the Sacraments, lack that foundation of his faith which the Sacraments supply, but still have the true faith in the forgiveness of sins if he trusts in the Word of the Gospel, as heard or read. The reason is that the Gospel Word gives the full remission of sins gained by Christ, and Baptism and the Lord’s Supper give the same grace only in another and in a particularly consoling way (verbum visibile — applicatio individualis). The Christian who does not make the right use of the Sacraments, but trusts in the Gospel, has the true saving faith though he lacks the additional support for his faith which God has provided in the Sacraments.120 Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, important as they are, do not have the same importance and necessity as basis of faith as the Word in the form of the Gospel and are therefore appropriately called secondary fundamental articles. The one is essential to faith, the other is intended to support faith. What is absolutely necessary is the hearing of the Word. The articuli fundamentales secundarii are, in the words of Quenstedt, those qui non simpliciter fundamentales seu causa salutis sunt, ad fundamentum tamen pertinent (Systerna I, 355).

In view of this relation between the primary and secondary fundamental articles one should exercise due restraint in judging the personal state of faith of those individuals who deny the secondary articles. On the one hand, it must be said that because of the close connection between the secondary and the primary fundamental articles one who denies the former would, for the sake of consistency, also have to deny the latter. To illustrate, whoever denies that God can forgive sins through Baptism and the Lord’s Supper on the ground that these are only external means, must, to be consistent, also deny that God forgives sins through the Word of His Gospel, because that, too, is an external means. Another example: One who denies the communication of attributes (communicatio idiomatum) in Christ on the basis of the axiom that the finite is not capable of the infinite (finitum non est capax infiniti) will, if he is consistent in his reasoning, also deny the communication of the Person of the Son of God to the human nature and thus deny the incarnation of the Son of God. However, we here meet with a “felicitous inconsistency,” not only among laymen, but also among learned theologians. Since the Fall man’s logic is, as we note again and again, in a bad way, and the heat of controversy plays further havoc with it. This prompted Luther to temper his judgment concerning Nestorius. He says: “Though it necessarily and logically follows from Nestorius’ teaching that Christ is a mere man and two persons, Nestorius did not mean to teach that. The crude, unlearned man did not see that he was proposing the impossible when he honestly held that Christ is God and Man in one person and at the same time would not ascribe the idiomata of the two natures to the Person of Christ. He wants to hold the first statement as true, but he will not grant that which follows from that first statement. Thus he shows that he does not really understand what he denies.” (St. L. XVI:2230.) Luther adduces further instances of the same kind, for “such unreason is not rare in the world” (St. L. XVI:2238). The Roman doctrine of the Mass overthrows per se the foundation of faith, the sola gratia. Nevertheless, there are those who believe in the Mass and still believe in the sola gratia. Luther writes in his dissertation “Of the Abuse of the Mass” (1521): “No doubt it still happens to many pious Christians that in the simple faith of their heart they observe Mass and regard it as a sacrifice. But because they do not [before God] rely on the sacrifice, yea, hold that all they do is sin, and cleave solely to the pure mercy of God, they are preserved, so that they do not perish in this error.” (St. L. XIX: 1131.) And in the year 1539 Luther says in his book Of the Councils and Churches: “There are today many great lords and scholars who confess freely and firmly that our doctrine of faith which justifies without merit, by pure grace, is true, yet they resent the thought that therefore monasticism and the worship of saints, and the like, must be discarded as of no value, though logic compels that conclusion. For no man can be justified except by faith; it follows that one cannot be justified by the monastic life.” And honest Luther (“damit ich mich selbst bei der Nase nehme”) confesses to the same inconsistency. Twenty years before, he had taught “that faith alone justifies, without works,” and nevertheless he had clung to monkery and nunnery. “Thoughtless fool that I was, I could not see the consequence, which I ought to have admitted, viz., that if faith alone does it, monkery and Mass could not do it” (St. L. XVI:2238). Synergism, the teaching that man possesses a facultas se applicandi ad gratiam (Erasmus’ phrase), confirms man, as Luther points out, in his trust in his own ability in the matter of obtaining salvation and thus rules out the Christian faith in the remission of sins without the deeds of the Law.121 But at the same time Luther grants the possibility of a “felicitous inconsistency” in the case of individuals. In theory, in their writings and disputations, they hold that man still possesses some spiritual powers; but in practice, “whenever they deal with God, when they stand before Him in prayer, they completely forget their ‘free will,’ despair of themselves, and cry unto Him for pure grace only” (St. L. XVIII: 1730). Later Lutheran theologians have made similar statements. Thus Huelsemann says that not every false doctrine which by its nature is destructive of the foundation of faith, has this effect in the case of every erring individual; the “felicitous inconsistency” may prevent that.122

This truth has at all times been abused in the interest of indifferentism. There are those who hold that because certain errors do not in every case cause the Christian to lose his faith, these errors may be tolerated in the Church. Catholic theologians so argued against Luther. When he insisted that the Romish errors must be abolished, they contended that these doctrines had been taught by “saints,” by men whom Luther himself held to be true children of God. This same line of argument is employed when men claim the right to teach certain errors in the Lutheran Church because outstanding theologians of the Lutheran Church had taught these errors. Over against such notions we need to perceive clearly and to maintain firmly that the “felicitous inconsistency,” through which by the grace of God an erring Christian is kept from losing his personal faith, in no way extenuates the error, much less legitimizes it. Those who defend their false teaching by citing the case of pious erring fathers are reminded by Luther of a possible eventuality: they follow the pious fathers indeed, but “will not be with them at the end” (St. L. XIX: 1133). Teaching in the house of God, the Church, is a most serious matter. The teachers of the Church must never forget:

1. Scripture nowhere gives any man the license to deviate in any point from God’s Word. On the contrary, the regulations governing the household of God until the end of time read: “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:20).

2. Every departure from the Word of Christ, as found in the Word of His Apostles, is expressly designated an offense (, Rom. 16:17: “Mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned”). Through a special gracious intervention of God the error may not harm its author, but it is and remains an offense to others, to those who, unable to discount the error, embrace it in its full implications and, spreading it, in some cases under the aegis of the “fathers,” cause further division in the Church. In order to remove, as far as possible, the offense resulting from the departure from the Word of God, public teachers have felt the need of publicly retracting the errors they formerly taught. This caused Augustine to write his _Retractationes;_123 and Luther asked that his early writings be read “with much charity,” since they were not yet entirely free from Romish errors (St. L. XIV:439; see also XIX:293, 296, and many other places).

3. Everyone who rejects the testimony of Scripture concerning one doctrine, actually, though he is not fully aware of it, invalidates the Christian principle of cognition. We must never forget that all articles of the Christian doctrine have a common source, Holy Scripture, and that the authority of Scripture applies with equal and undivided force to all doctrines. If we, then, had the right to set aside, for reasons of “inconceivability,” irrationality, or any other reason urged by our Ego, the authority of Scripture with respect to one doctrine, e. g., the doctrine of Baptism, of the Lord’s Supper, of conversion, of election, of the inspiration of Holy Scripture, there is no reason why we should bow to the authority of Scripture when it speaks of the Lamb of God that bears the sins of the world (John 1:29) and of the blood of Christ that cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). Luther has this in mind when he utters the warning: “The Holy Ghost [speaking in all words of Scripture] cannot be parceled and divided. He will not have men accept His Word on one point and reject it on other points.” (St. L. XX:1781.)

Here, too, Luther makes the reservation: “Except where there are weak Christians who are ready to receive instruction and do not stubbornly contradict.” The willingness to be further instructed shows that despite their error faith in the forgiveness of sins for Christ’s sake still dwells in the hearts of these weak ones. But the situation is always fraught with danger, particularly so when controversies arise. Luther reminds us that not only secular wars, but also spiritual wars are dangerous. The spiritual wars, too, have their casualties. The greatest danger sets in when in doctrinal controversies the erring Christian, confronted with the clear Word of Scripture, clings to the error in spite of the clear Scripture and the power of the Holy Ghost active in it. Then it may easily happen that the “Christian erring,” i. e., erring from weakness, in which faith still survives, ceases, and the “unchristian erring,” the will to err, takes its place, which renders faith impossible.124 That is the case described Titus 3:10-11: “A man that is an heretic after the first and second admonition reject, knowing that he that is such is subverted and sinneth, being condemned of himself.”125

4. Finally, we should always bear in mind that, like sin in the sphere of morality,126 so every error in the sphere of doctrine has the tendency to spread and to infect other doctrines with its virus. Unchecked, it will corrupt the entire body of doctrine. That is the meaning of Gal. 5:9: “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” 127 Luther illustrates the evil effect of any false doctrine when he compares the Christian doctrine to a ring, which is no longer whole if it has only one break. To put it epigrammatically: “One article is all articles, and all articles are one, and (that) if one article is lost, gradually all will be lost” (St. L. IX:642 ff., on Gal. 5:9). The history of the Church substantiates this in all its periods. The “felicitous inconsistency” is superseded by the “unfelicitous consistency.” Moved by rationalistic considerations, the Reformed reject Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as means of grace; and some of them, in harmony with their principle, have rejected also the external Word of the Gospel as a means of grace and substituted for it an alleged “immediate inner illumination,” and then have fallen prey to outright rationalism. The denial that a communication of attributes in the Person of Christ was possible led others of the Reformed to deny the incarnation of the Son of God, thus landing in Socinianism.128 The synergistic notion of Melanchthon that in order to safeguard universal grace the “different conduct” must be made the decisive factor in man’s conversion and salvation was responsible, in part, for his later vacillations. Furthermore, the error of synergism dulled his discernment in matters of the Christian truth to such a degree that he collaborated on the Leipzig Interim, a document which G. Plitt characterizes as “a veritable travesty, yea, a repudiation of the Reformation and the Evangelical Church. — Deeply depressed, Melanchthon returned to Wittenberg.” 129

Non-Fundamental Doctrines

Non-fundamental doctrines, as distinguished from the fundamental doctrines, are those Scripture truths which are not the foundation or object of faith in so far as it obtains forgiveness of sins and makes men children of God, but with which the faith of those who have already obtained the forgiveness of sins should and does concern itself. The Christians need to learn also these for their spiritual welfare. Such doctrines are, for instance, the doctrine of the Antichrist and the doctrine of the angels. The doctrine of the Antichrist does not, as we have already pointed out, belong to the foundation of the fides salvifica. And the faith which appropriates the forgiveness of sins is not faith in the angels but solely faith in Christ. But the Christian faith should concern itself also with these non-fundamental doctrines. The knowledge of them serves faith, inasmuch as the truth concerning Antichrist warns the believers of a grave danger, and the doctrine of the angels sheds additional light upon the goodness of God, causing faith to sing anew of the goodness and grace of Him who made the angels “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb. 1:14). Faith certainly profits by the articuli non-fundamentales. “All Scripture,” including these non-fundamental articles,” is given by inspiration of God and is profitable” (2 Tim. 3:16).

Furthermore, the denial of non-fundamental doctrines endangers faith. It involves the denial of the divine authority of Scripture. One who knows that the doctrine concerning the angels and their work is taught by Scripture and still refuses to believe in angels, is certainly rejecting the authority of Scripture. But where Scripture has lost its authority, the source of Christian knowledge is stopped up, and there is nothing left for faith to build on. Though we know that these articles are not fundamental, says Baier, “we must be at the same time on our guard lest by embracing and teaching error we rashly sin against the divine revelation and against God Himself” (Compendium I, 65).

This applies also, of course, to the historical, geographic, archaeological, and similar statements of Scripture. While they are not the object of faith in so far as faith obtains forgiveness of sins,130 they cannot be denied without endangering saving faith. If a man will not believe Scripture in minor matters, such as its historical and geographical statements, how shall he in the terrores conscientiae believe Scripture in the great things which tell of the incarnation and the satisfactio vicaria of the Son of God, things which run counter to every religious conception of the natural man (1 Cor. 1:23; 2:14)? — On this account Philippi felt that he must formally retract, in the third edition of his Dogmatics, the doubt that he had previously voiced with regard to the reliability of the historical, etc., statements in Scripture.131