142 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1868- 



minor differences, running as they do through the whole 

 system of theology, are not mere slips on the one side or 

 on the other in a process of logical &quot; deduction from 

 Holy Scripture rightly interpreted.&quot; Slips of that kind 

 may be made by individuals, but not surely by all 

 theologians of one Church and no theologian of another. 

 The cause of the theological differences of Churches must 

 be looked for in the character of the Churches them 

 selves ; in the fact that the same Reformation principles 

 are not grasped quite in the same way by Lutherans and 

 Calvinists, that the tendency is for the two Churches to 

 lay stress on different sides of the same truth ; that in 

 short, there is between the two branches of reformed 

 theology that dialectical opposition which is not incon 

 sistent with fundamental unity, and which, for that very 

 reason, can never be got over by the refutation of the 

 one party, but only by the advance to a higher position, 

 which, while it adopts the individual conclusions now 

 of this, now of that party, not seldom it may be of neither, 

 will differ from eclecticism by satisfying and reducing 

 to harmony the divergent tendencies of both Churches. 



It is absurd to think that such a position can be 

 honestly aimed at unless we are prepared to allow that 

 there may be in our present theology not only defect, 

 but error, that even leading ideas may have a relative 

 rather than an absolute validity, and that those require 

 ments of the Christian consciousness which they supply 

 approximately may be fully supplied partly by a new 

 arrangement, partly by real modifications of our main 

 theological principles. 



The source of that confidence in the absolute truth of 

 the confessional dogmatic, which has in some measure 

 come to play the same part in the Reformed Churches 

 as the belief in the infallibility of the Church does in the 

 Romish Communion, is very aptly indicated in the ex 

 pression quoted above &quot; System of doctrines fairly 

 and honestly deduced from the Holy Scriptures rightly 



