On the Use and Abuse of Systematic Theology [pp. 171-190]

Systems of Theology.
common to charge the whole of the continental theologians
with the scholastic subtleties of the middle age. The systems
of the schoolmen are, indeed, notoriously chargeable with
dialectic refinements, and it is not strange, that some of the
same leaven should betray itself in the writings of the early
reformers, just emerging, as they were, from the dreary night
of barbarism. The objection lies against most of the Romish
systems. Revelation is here confounded with philosophy;
the Scriptures are perverted into accordance with traditions
and the schools; and the questions which perpetually arise
are, in a majority of instances, frivolous and ridiculous, or.
knotty and ostentatious. Such, however, are not the faults of
our received works, and the only trait which they have in
common with the former, is that they profess to communicate
the doctrines of the faith, in regular connexion, with scientific
order and method, and sometimes with the teechnical language
of the then predominant philosophy. The terminology of the
reformers and their immediate successors is a dialect of which
no literary antiquary will consent to remain ignorant; it is a
source of alarm to students who consult their ease, and even
grave divines among us have been sadly disconcerted with the
materialiter, formaliter, &c. of the seventeenth century.
Yet the history of theological opinion can never be learned,
in its sources, without some knowledge of this peculiar phraseology.
The plan, or schedule, according to which a system is arranged, may be artificial, unnatural, arbitrary, or otherwise inconvenient. It is not every mind which can be satisfied with
the method pursued by so many eminent divines, especially
in Holland, in arranging the whole circle of truth with reference to the covenants. Others are as much displeased with a
historical or chronological plan, which has been attempted.
Or the whole work may labour under a fault of an opposite
character, namely the want of method, and, under the title oft
a system, may be an unsystematized farrago. Yet in all such.
cases, though the objection is granted to be valid, yet the excellence of systems, as such, is no whit disparaged by the
failure of special attempts: and, indeed, it is not upon these
grounds that the exception is usually taken.
Again, the system may be objectionable, as being incautiously and hastily framed, upon insufficient testimony of the.
Scriptures. Every methodized body of theological doctrine
may be considered as a general theory of the whole sphere of
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