Holding the written Word to be the ultimate critical standard of religious thought as well as of faith and practice, the Institutes of the Christian Religion confesses fidelity to the universal Christian creed,.
"The scientific labors of all Christian thinkers from Clement and Origen onward through the middle ages I appreciate and honor, especially the great ideas of Augustine, which, as reproduced and matured by John Calvin, mark a mighty epoch of progress in evangelical theology and practical religion. But the Reformation did not propose to break the bondage of Romanism in order to replace it with a Calvinistic yoke. It laid claim to freedom of thought no less than freedom of faith, a freedom which has been fruitful of progress in spiritual culture and divine science. Set amid new religious and civil conditions, an emancipated church has during three centuries been unfolding the deeper meanings of the Christian Creed. The knowledge of Scripture has become more accurate, thorough, and complete; and under the discipline of the Spirit there has come to personal faith a revelation of the primordial worth of the Son of Man, such as the Church has not possessed since the Nicene age."
"While it does not undervalue the decided progress in several branches of theology achieved by the heroes of the Reformation, this work is in sympathy with the Christological trend of the Christian sentiment and scholarship of our age. It is an earnest effort to make answer to the call for a doctrinal system in which Jesus Christ stands as the central truth; not only as the instrument of redemption and salvation, but also as the beginning and the end of revelation."
Institutes of The Christian Religion (annotated)
by Emanuel V. Gerhart, D.D., LL,D
Introduction by by Philip schaff, D.D., LL.D.
Volumes 3
Edited & Annotated by Phillip A. Ross
Originally published; 1891, Funk & Wagnals
One of the first things that a student of theology will notice is that Gerhart used the same title for his book as John Calvin, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. That fact is awesome, audacious, and interesting. Gerhart, was a practitioner of mediating theology, which developed in Germany in the 1800s as a continuation of the Reformation. Semper Reformanda! These scholars worked to mediate between Christ and His church, between Hegel and Schleiermacher, between rationalism and supernaturalism, and between innovation and tradition. They took seriously the fact that Jesus Christ is the only mediator between humanity and God (1 Timothy 2:5). Because the church is the body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:12), the church is to continue the ministry of mediation in the world.
