Your ShelfYour Projects

WHAT PROTESTANTS SAY

5%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Mar 7, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 10.

Read the full edition

WHAT PROTESTANTS SAY.

BELOW will be found the declarations of many of the large Protestant denominations. We are Protestants. We stand on the same ground, the Bible and the Bible alone.
The thirty-nine articles of the Protestant Episcopal Church declare:
“Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.”—Article 6.
“No Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the commandments which are called moral.”—Article 7.
“It is not lawful for the church to ordain anything that is contrary to God’s Word written.”—Article 20.
The Methodist Episcopal Catechism No. 2 reads:
“86. What is the rule of our obedience? “The moral law, ‘If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.’ Matt. 19:17. “87. Where is the moral law given? “In the Ten Commandments. Ex. 20:1-17.”
John Wesley, on Matt. 5:17, says:
“It was not the design of Christ to revoke any part of the law. It can not be broken. Every part of it remains in force upon all men in all ages. Neither time, place, nor circumstances make it liable to change.”
Our Baptist brethren declare:
“We believe the Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired, and is a perfect treasure of heavenly instruction; that it has God for its Author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter; that it reveals the principles by which God will judge us, and therefore is, and shall remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and opinions should be tried.”—Baptist Convention of New Hampshire.
From “The Advance Almanac for 1894 and Manual of Congregationalism,” we take the following:
“V. We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the record of God’s revelation of Himself in the work of redemption; that they were written by men under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit; that they are able to make wise unto salvation; and that they constitute the authoritative standard by which religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated and judged.”—Page 56, Creed of 1883.
The “Presbyterian Confession of Faith” thus speaks:
“The Bible contains the whole counsel of God concerning all things necessary for His own glory, or man’s salvation, faith, and life.”
“The moral law doth forever bind all, as well justified persons as others, to the obedience thereof; and that not only in regard to the matter contained in it, but also in respect of the authority of God, the Creator who gave it. Neither doth Christ in the Gospel any way dissolve, but much strengthen, this obligation.”—Article 5.
“Neither are the afore-mentioned uses of the law contrary to the grace of the Gospel, but do sweetly comply with it, the Spirit of Christ subduing, and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done.”—Article 7.
On Matt. 5:17-20 Dr. Albert Barnes, the noted Presbyterian, says:
“We learn hence, (1) that all the law of God is binding on Christians (compare James 2:10); (2) that all the commands of God should be preached, in their proper place, by Christian ministers; (3) that they who pretend that there are any laws of God so small that they need not obey them, are unworthy of His kingdom; and (4) that true piety has respect to all the commandments of God and keeps them (compare Ps. 119:6).”

The Essential Principles of Protestantism.

The principles contained in this celebrated Protest opposes two abuses of man in matters of faith; the first is the intrusion of the civil magistrate, and the second, the arbitrary authority of the church. Instead of these abuses, Protestantism sets the power of conscience above the magistrate, and the authority of the Word of God above the visible church. In the first place, it rejects the civil power in divine things, and says, with the prophets and apostles, “We must obey God rather than man.” In presence of the crown of Charles the Fifth, it uplifts the crown of Jesus Christ. But it goes farther: it lays down the principle that all human teaching should be subordinate to the oracles of God.—D’Aubigne’s “History of the Reformation,” Book 13, Chap. 6, Pars. 19, 20.