# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Juli 1862_S210
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

210 The Articles of the Christian Faith.

Articles are those whose truth is evident not only through divine
revelation, but also from the light of natural reason, e.g.,
the article of the existence of God, of the divine attributes, and so on.

Insofar as the mixed articles of faith are recognized by the light of
reason, they are not articles of faith, and theology
has nothing to do with them; for man knows them [by nature], Rom. 1:19, 21;
Heb. 11:1. But insofar as they are found in Holy Scripture, and their
true and complete knowledge is given therein, they are rightly
called articles of faith.

IV.

Fundamental articles of faith are those articles which
stand in so close a connection with the foundation of faith and salvation
that they may not, without injury to it, remain unknown, or at least may not
be denied. But the foundation on which the faith and salvation of man
rests is Jesus Christ, as the cause of
blessedness — called the personal or real foundation of faith.
If one considers the same in respect of the doctrine in which it is
set before man for belief, it is called the dogmatic foundation, or the foundation of doctrine
(fundamentum reale et dogmaticum).

"Foundation" properly denotes that which, among all the parts
of a building, is first, and is therefore the ground and cause why that
which rests upon it, namely the building, is, or at least can be.
By analogy, one now speaks of a foundation of faith and of
salvation as that which, for the saving faith and salvation
of men, is the first thing, and therefore the ground and cause why
saving faith and salvation is, or at least can be, at all.

Thus the holy Apostle Paul, 1 Cor. 3:11, names as the foundation
on which the Christian church, or the fellowship of believers, rests — that is, of those
who are to be saved through faith —
Jesus Christ, besides whom no other foundation can be laid.
Eph. 2:20 he calls believers "built upon the
foundation of the apostles and prophets" — that is, upon the doctrine preached by
them — "Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone, in whom the
whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the
Lord." — (Heb. 5:12-13; 6:1-2.)

There is therefore only one foundation, which, however, according to
different ways of considering it, is called now the personal or real, now the dogmatic
or doctrinal foundation. — By the doctrinal foundation one understands
only the sum total of all the fundamental articles of faith,
and not each individual fundamental article considered by itself.
But all fundamental articles stand in so close a connection
with the foundation that, by the removal of one or
another article, the faith and salvation of man likewise falls.