aintains that she adheres to Christianity in the old dogmatic
sense, this claim of hers cannot be contested. She has embraced new
things and changed her relations to the old, but still preserved the
old. But she has further developed new dogmas according to the scheme of
the old. The decrees of Trent and of the Vatican are formally analogous
to the old dogmas. Here, then, a history of dogma may really be carried
forward to the present day without thereby shewing that the definition
of dogma given above is too narrow to embrace the new doctrines.
Finally, as to Protestantism, it has been briefly explained above why
the changes in Protestant systems of doctrine are not to be taken up
into the history of dogma. Strictly speaking, dogma, as dogma, has had
no development in Protestantism, inasmuch as a secret note of
interrogation has been here associated with it from the very beginning.
But the old dogma has continued to be a power in it, because of its
tendency to look back and to seek for authorities in the past, and
partly in the original unmodified form. The dogmas of the fourth and
fifth centuries have more influence to-day in wide circles of Protestant
Churches than all the doctrines which are concentrated around
justification by faith. Deviations from the latter are borne
comparatively easy, while as a rule, deviations from the former are
followed by notice to quit the Christian communion, that is, by
excommunication. The historian of to-day would have no difficulty in
answering the question whether the power of Protestantism as a Church
lies at present in the elements which it has in common with the old
dogmatic Christianity, or in that by which it is distinguished from it.
Dogma, that is to say, that type of Christianity which was formed in
ecclesiastical antiquity, has not been suppressed even in Protestant
Churches, has really not been modified or replaced by a new conception
of the Gospel. But, on the other hand, who could deny that the
Reformation began to disclose such a conception, and that this new
conception was related in a very different way to the traditional dogma
from that of the new propositions of Augustine to the dogmas handed down
to him? Who could further call in question that, in consequence of the
reforming impulse in Protestantism, the way was opened up for a
conception which does not identify Gospel and dogma, which does not
disfigure the latter by changing or paring down its meaning while
fail