Welsh Journals

THE WELSH CALVINISTIC METHODIST RECORD. DECEMBER, 1853. THE POWER OF THE EVANGELICAL FAITH. BY DR. SCHENKEL, HEIDELBERG.* On ivhat is the power of our evangelical faith founded? • Who were the persons that first promulgated it? By what spirit were they led? What have they desired and striven for? Were they skilful inventors of Avords and phrases? Have they sought, by specious Imt delusive means, to perplex the hearts and minds of men, to bind and enslave their consciences? Have they, merely for the gratification of their own vanity, striven to force their opinions upon the world? Even the rudest calumny would hardly dare to advance such a charge against the founders of our faith. That they sought truth, every generous opponent must admit. Truth was, indeed, the precious gem for which they risked their all—their lives. It was because they believed that the pastors and teachers of the people had fallen from and denied the Eternal Truth, as revealed to us by God,—it was because they perceived that the unfortunate people had forsaken the well of revealed truth, and had dug pits in the treacherous sands of human error, that they raised their voices with might for the truth as it is in Jesus. The evangelical faith was born of the spirit of truth—but the truth is of God; and because the evangelical faith is born of the truth, therefore is it born of God, therefore it overcometh the world, and therefore is the victory sure. Oh! that we had ever held fast to this evangelical faith, then had its enemies not been able to dispute with us the victory; but, because pastors and teachers in our church (the Lutheran) have fallen from the purity of faith —because the unfortunate people in our church have resorted to the impure * Extracted from the translation in Evangelical Christendom of a discourse delivered by hhx at the tenth annual meeting of the Gustavus Adolphus Society at Wiesbaden. 2 K