Page:History of Freedom.djvu/393

 DÖLLINGER ON THE TEMPORAL POWER 349

exploded by the advancement of religious learning. Dr. Döllinger gives a list (p. 430) of the names of the leading theologians, by all of \vhom it has been abandoned. Yet it \vas for the sake of this fundamental and essential doctrine that the epistle of St. James \vas pronounced an epistle of stra\v, that the Augsburg Confession declared it to have been the belief of St. Augustine, and that \vhen the author of the Confession had for very shame omitted this falsehood in the published edition, the passage was restored after his death. For its sake Luther deliberately altered the sense of several passages in the Bible, especially in the \\Tritings of St. Paul. To save this doctrine, which was unkno\vn to all Christian antiquity, the breach was made with all ecclesiastical tradition, and the authority of the dogmatic testimony of the Church in every age was rejected. While the contradiction between the Lutheran doctrine and that of the first centuries was disguised before the laity, it was no secret among the Reformers. Melanchthon confessed to Brenz that in the Augsburg Confession he had lied. Luther adlnitted that his theory was new, and sought in consequence to destroy the authority of the early Fathers and Councils. Calvin declared that the system \vas unknown to tradition. All these men and their disciples, and the whole of the Lutheran and Calvinistic theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, professed to find their doctrine of imputation laid do\vn distinctly in the Bible. The whole modern scientific theology of the Protestants rejects both the doctrine and the Lutheran exegesis of the passages in question. But it is the supreme evangelical principle, that the Scripture is perfectly clear anà sufficient on all funda- mental points. Yet the point on \vhich this great divergence subsists is a doctrine which is decisive for the existence of the Church, and most important in its practical influence on life. The \vhole edifice of the Protestant Church and theology reposes therefore on two principles, one material, the other formal-the doctrine of itnputation, and the sufficiency of the Bible. But the material principle is given up by exegesis and by dog-