Quotes from Philip Schaff

The New Testament evinces its universal design in its very, style, which alone distinguishes it from all the literary productions of earlier and later times.

To the first class belong the Gospels and Acts to the second, the Epistles to the third, the Revelation.

We find everywhere in this world the traces of a revealed God and of a hidden God; revealed enough to strengthen our faith, concealed enough to try our faith.

Paul was the only scholar among the apostles. He never displays his learning, considering it of no account as compared with the excellency of the knowledge of Christ, for whom he suffered the loss of all things, but he could not conceal it, and turned it to the best use after his conversion. Peter and John had natural genius, but no scholastic education; Paul had both, and thus became the founder of Christian theology and philosophy.

The Bible gives us a theology which is more human than Calvinism, and more divine than Arminianism, and more Christian than either of them.1243

Luther, the hero of Worms, the champion of the sacred rights of conscience, was, in words, the most violent, but in practice, the least intolerant, among the Reformers.

Calvin sets the absolute sovereignty of God and the infallibility of the Bible over against the pretended sovereignty and infallibility of the pope. Fearing God, he was fearless of man. The sense of God's sovereignty fortified his followers against the tyranny of temporal sovereigns, and made them champions and promoters of civil and political liberty in France, Holland, England, and Scotland.

If we wish to be good, we must first believe that we are bad.

Who touches money touches dirt; and the less religion has to do with it, the better.

The idea of universal history presupposes the Christian idea of the unity of God, and the unity and common destiny of men, and was unknown to ancient Greece and Rome.

In reference to Mary, Pelagius is nearer the present Roman Catholic view than Augustine, who exempts her only from actual sin, not from original...in other passages he affirms the conception of Mary in sin. Jerome, with all his reverence for the blessed Virgin, does not even make this exception but says, without qualification, that every creature is under the power of sin and in need of the mercy of God.

The new law requires you to keep perpetual sabbath, and you, because you are idle for one day, suppose you are pious, not

What St. Augustine so aptly says of the mutual relation of the Old and New Testament, "Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet, Vetus in Novo patet,

The Son of God, prompted by the same infinite love, laid aside his divine glory and mode of existence, emptied himself exchanged the form of God for the form of a servant, humbled himself and became obedient, even unto the death of the cross.

He also sent messengers to Pope Leo III., with the request to sanction the insertion of the clause in the Nicene Creed. The pope decided in favor of the doctrine of the double procession, but protested against the alteration of the creed, and caused the Nicene Creed, in its original Greek text and the Latin version, to be engraved on two tablets and suspended in the Basilica of St. Peter, as a perpetual testimony against the innovation.

A Creed,3 or Rule of Faith,4 or Symbol,5 is a confession of faith for public use, or a form of words setting forth with authority certain articles of belief, which are regarded by the framers as necessary for salvation, or at least for the well-being of the Christian Church.

The remark of Goethe is as profound as it is true: "The conflict of faith and unbelief remains the proper, the only, the deepest theme of the history of the world and mankind, to which all others are subordinated.

If ever a monk got to heaven by monkery," says Luther, "I ought to have gotten there.

It is not the business of the historian to construct a history from preconceived notions and to adjust it to his own liking, but to reproduce it from the best evidence and to let it speak for itself.

The Saviour of the world a carpenter! the greatest preacher of the gospel a tent-maker!

To define the limits of the Kenosis, and to adjust it to the immutability of the Godhead and the intertrinitarian process, lies beyond the sphere of exegesis and belongs to speculative dogmatics.

but if the Spirit "bloweth" where He "listeth," those, too, who have become believers here are made partakers of that gift; and that according to the proportion of their faith, not in consequence of their pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

Calvin answered in an elaborate letter (June 26, 1549), to the effect that marriage with Romanists was to be condemned; that popish baptism was valid and efficacious, and should be resorted to when no other can be had, since the Roman communion, though corrupt, still retained marks of the true Church as well as a scattered number of elect individuals...

Severe against others, he was most severe against himself. He resembled a Hebrew prophet He may be called a Christian Elijah.