Скачать или смотреть [16] (Early Reformation Christian Creeds, Confessions and the Defense of the Faith)

Lesson 16:
Intro.
The nature and use of creeds and confessions. (confessions in general, Westminster in particular)
1. To set down and put to writing the fundamental points of the faith in logical form. 2. To furnish the church with edifying material to contemplate and sanctify.
3. To refute errors and heresy in the church.
4. To promote Christian unity on account of the truth being confessed, not unity for the sake of unity.
1. That which is necessary.
(creation, election, justification, limited atonement)
2. That which is beneficial.
Sacraments, church order.
3. That which is disputed.
Christ's deity at Nicea, the true church as opposed to the Papists in the Reformed creeds, the doctrine of sin in Westminster.
4. That which unites Christians against outsiders. Necessary disunity (separation from heretics, those who are in scandalous sin), sinful disunity (separation over secondary issues).
App. Labor to understand the doctrine, in order to have a fuller grasp of the truth as a whole, as one unified system of Divinity.

The relationship of the Reformation to Christian creeds. The public and political demand for a defense of Protestant doctrine.
The occasion of the Reformation. (Papist corruption, doctrine and practice)
Justification,
Good works,
Free will,
Papal supremacy,
The Mass, (transubstantiation and a re-sacrificing of Christ)
The office of the priesthood.
(Christ is the only Mediator between God and man. The Catholic priest would be a mediator between man and Christ)

1. Early Creeds of the Reformation.
i. 95 theses.
(1-5 summarize them as primarily an attack on indulgences, not a contestation against the Roman pontiff, or the Catholic Church)
The events leading up to the formulation of Augsburg. Luther's excommunication in 1521, his debates with Catholic scholars, shaping his theology, the rise of Protestantism and the call by the Emperor to make a defense of their doctrine.
ii. Augsburg Confession (1530)
iii. Tetrapolitan Confession (1530)
iv. Sixty-Seven Articles of Ulrich Zwingli (1523)
Brief history of Zwingli, summary of the articles. (Schaff)

App. The necessity of the Spirit in theology and clarification of doctrine in history.