The Columbus Theological Magazine is a real lost treasure. Here’s a short quote from the first article in the first issue, by Loy:
The Missouri doctrine is that God elected some persons, not in view of the faith by which they appropriated Christ and by which they were thus distinguished from the rest as well-pleasing in His sight, but merely because it was the good pleasure of His will to sanctify and save these particular persons. If we ask why these and not others were elected, the answer is, not that these were seen in Christ and thus accepted in the Beloved, but that it so seemed good in His sight, we know not why: it is an unfathomable mystery.
The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol 1. No. 1. 1881. Ed. Prof. Matthias Loy.
4 The new theory endangers the great central doctrine of justification by faith, and thus threatens to revolutionize our whole doctrinal system. "The just shall live by faith" has lost none of its importance since Luther's day. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in Him should net perish, but have eternal life." Salvation is through Christ, by faith in His name: not through Christ without faith, not by faith without Christ. The great commission reads: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature: he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned." Mark 16:15, 16. That is the clear and consolatory way of salvation which our Church has inscribed upon her banner and which she has carried triumphantly, as the peace and joy and hope of millions, through the centuries. She never for a moment entertained the unworthy thought that man's faith could be a merit, on account of which God grants eternal life as the believer's due. How could she harbor such a fancy, when it is destructive of all that makes the doctrine of justification so precious? If faith were saving as a good work under the law, we would still, because of the imperfection of all our works, including faith, be under the curse. But it is the divinely ordained means of embracing Christ, and as such it does put us in possession of a merit and righteousness which renders us pleasing in God's sight, as those are not who do not believe and have not that righteousness, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." Hebrews 11:6. From The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol 1. No. 1. 1881. Ed. Prof. Matthias Loy.
