lent critical comments on the history of dogma and the theology of
the Fathers, as well as genial conceptions which have certainly remained
inoperative; see especially the treatise "Von den Conciliis und
Kirchen," and his judgment on different Church Fathers. In the first
edition of the _Loci_ of Melanchthon we have also critical material for
estimating the old systems of dogma. Calvin's depreciatory estimate of
the Trinitarian and Christological Formula, which, however, he retracted
at a later period is well known.]

[Footnote 18: Protestant Church history was brought into being by the
Interim, Flacius being its father, see his Catalogus Testium Veritatis,
and the so called Magdeburg Centuries 1559-1574, also Jundt Les
Centuries de Magdebourg Paris, 1883 Von Engelhardt (Christenthum
Justins, p. 9 ff.) has drawn attention to the estimate of Justin in the
Centuries, and has justly insisted on the high importance of this first
attempt at a criticism of the Church Fathers Khefoth (Eml. in. d. D.G.
1839) has the merit of pointing out the somewhat striking judgment of A.
Hyperius on the history of dogma Chemnitz, Examen concilii Tridentini,
1565 Forbesius a Corse (a Scotsman) Instructiones historico-theologiae de
doctrina Christiana 1645.]

[Footnote 19: The learning, the diligence in collecting, and the
carefulness of the Benedictines and Maurians, as well as of English
Dutch and French theologians, such as Casaubon, Vossius, Pearson,
Dallaus Spanheim, Grabe, Basnage, etc. have never since been equalled,
far less surpassed. Even in the literary historical and higher criticism
these scholars have done splendid work, so far as the confessional
dogmas did not come into question]

[Footnote 20: See especially, G. Arnold, Unpartheyische Kirchen- und
Ketzerhistorie, 1699, also Baur, Epochen der kirchlichen
Geschichtsschreibung p. 84 ff., Floring G. Arnold als Kirchenhistoriker
Darmstadt, 1883. The latter determines correctly the measure of Arnold's
importance. His work was the direct preparation for an impartial
examination of the history of dogma however partial it was in itself
Pietism, here and there, after Spener, declared war against scholastic
dogmatics as a hindrance to piety, and in doing so broke the ban under
which the knowledge of history lay captive.]

[Footnote 21: The investigations of the so-called English Deists about
the Christian religion contain the first, and to some extent a very
significant free-spirited