Old Lutheran Quote of the Day

If we find our faith in the Fathers, we must not always expect to find it couched in the terms which we should now employ.  It is their faith rather than their theology we are seeking; and we should compare our faith with their faith rather than our dogmatics with theirs.  Systematic thinking and nicely balanced expression are the growth of ages in the Church.  We must not suppose that the faith of the Church in not found in a particular writer, because we miss many of its now current phrases.... The oak of a thousand years is not a fac-simile of itself at a hundred years; yet less a fac-simile of the acorn from which it grew.  Yet the oak is but the acorn developed, its growth is its history; and if the bond with its past be broken anywhere, the oak dies.  -- C. P. Krauth, *The Conservative Reformation* pp. 726, 727.