ach confession and of each
doctrine confessed lies, must be the object of our search. To tear
passages from their connection, or to represent isolated passages and
merely incidental statements as having confessional authority is as
unfair to the Confessions as it is to the Holy Scriptures." (Jacobs
denies that all of the astronomical, geological, historical, and similar
statements of the Bible are true.) The _Lutheran World_, commenting on
Dr. Jacobs's statements, remarked: "But do not Dr. Jacobs's declarations
sound very much like a _quatenus_ rather than a _quia_ mode of
confessional subscription? For a long time we have not seen a
theological statement that reminds us so much of the 'substantially
correct' mode of subscription formerly in vogue in the General Synod. It
certainly does not sound as stalwart as the General Synod's resolution
in 1895, when she declared 'the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as
throughout in perfect consistence with that Word'--namely, the Word of
God." (_L. u. W._ 1908, 233.) In his _Book of Concord_, 1893, Dr. Jacobs
declared that only the primary, not the secondary, arguments of the
Confessions are involved in the subscription. "'The primary,' says
Jacobs, 'are the dogmas set forth with the purpose of showing they are
believed and taught by the Lutheran Church, the confutations of errors
whereby it wished to declare that it contradicted them, and formulas of
speech either expressly prescribed or proscribed.' The secondary are
'all those particulars introduced to confirm or illustrate the former,'"
etc. (2, 13.)

ROMANISM.

133. Jacobs and Haas on Ordination, etc.--With respect to the doctrine
that the public office of the ministry originates in, and is transferred
by, the local congregation, Dr. Jacobs declared: "Nothing can be clearer
than the antagonism of our great Lutheran divines to this position, nor
anything be more convincing than their arguments against it."
(Gerberding, _The Lutheran Pastor_, 73.) Luther's language on this
question, Jacobs maintains, is "not guarded with the same care as that
of the later dogmaticians." (74.) According to Jacobs the right to call
a minister "belongs neither to the minister alone nor to the laity
alone, but to both in due order." (_Summary of Christian Faith_, 427.
424.) Dr. J.A.W. Haas: "The transference theory has been developed in
antithesis to Rome, and in it Lutherans have agreed with the Reformed."
It "makes the ministry an organ growing