Evangelical Belief - Its Conflict With Rome (1903) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: communities represent practically different religions. The Catechism of the Free Church Council has done something to remove that impression; but it is possible to go further, and to show that the general principles therein embodied are at the root of all Evangelicalism. Bishop Gore admits that he, as a High Churchman, is pleased with the Catechism, and that, at least as regards those of its definitions with which he is dealing, the underlying principles are his. It may surely be shown that the word Evangelical is not a loose term, but one to which a definite significance can be attached, and which connotes the essential truths of the Christian religion. In attempting to set forth the common faith of Evangelical Protestantism, certain con- Governing siderations by which the study of the considerations. subject is governed need to be indicated. i. The ground taken must be positive throughout. It is not enough to defend ourselves against Rome; to do that and no more, is to sacrifice an Positive ground advantage of position which is properly taken, ours. We do not grant to Romanism any true priority, and turn about to justify ourselves for departing from her fold. That is the position into which she would force us: ' You have left the original Church; you have incurred the responsibility of dividing the Body of Christ; you must answer for it.' We do not accept that statement of the case. We have not broken away; we are the Church of Christ; our Christianity to-day is that of the primitive Christians and of the apostles, and we are prepared to submit it to the test of the Founder'steaching. It is Rome that has made the departure; her system will not bear the same test, and when we come to inquire, we find that she does not claim for it that it will. Hence our answer to Rome is...