Another benefit of the long form, multivolume dogmatics is that the author has the time to include funny stuff. Gerhard's volume On the Church has a lot of great laughs, especially when examining Romanist "miracles." And here's a line from the volume I'm currently editing, On Repentance. 

Most often they [the Romanists] pronounce the absolution in Latin, a language unknown to the people. Thus in his memoirs Johannes Gastius tells of a priest who absolved a noble who did not know Latin, was not repentant, and was not willing to abstain from sins in the future, with the following form in order to get a gold coin from him: “May our Lord, Jesus Christ, absolve you if He wills, and may He forgive you your sins, something I do not believe will happen. Finally, may he bring you to eternal life, which is impossible.”

+HRC