Quotes from Philip Schaff

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.

Calvinism emphasizes divine sovereignty and free grace; Arminianism emphasizes human responsibility. The one restricts the saving grace to the elect: the other extends it to all men on the condition of faith. Both are right in what they assert; both are wrong in what they deny. If one important truth is pressed to the exclusion of another truth of equal importance, it becomes an error, and loses its hold upon the conscience.