Saturday, May 7, 2016

Speaking of Chemnitz versus Marquart - Another Great Quotation from the Senior Editor of the Book of Concord



"Beautiful is the statement of Cyprian, which Augustine declares to be the best without any doubt, showing what ought to be done when examples and customs are held up to us which do not have the authority of the canonical Scripture. 'If,' says he, 'we return to the head and origin of the divine tradition, human error will cease. For if the channel of water, which before flowed copiously and purely, either fails or brings muddy water, then certainly one goes to the source in order to find out whether there is something wrong in the veins or in the source, or whether something got in midway.' So also it is rightly, necessarily, and indeed safely done when things that happened in later times in matters of religion must be examined."
Martin Chemnitz, Examination of the Council of Trent, trans., Fred Kramer, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1986, III, p. 237.

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GJ - The source is not the Synodical Conference but the Scriptures.