simply considered, is the same with _creed_, and
signifies a summary of the principal articles of belief adopted by any
individual or society. In its more common acceptation, it is restricted
to the summaries of doctrine published by particular Christian churches,
with the view of preventing their religious sentiments from being
misunderstood or misrepresented, or, by requiring subscription to them,
of securing uniformity of opinion among those who join their communion.
Except a single sentence in one of the Ignatian Epistles, (A. D. 180,)
which relates exclusively to the reality of Christ’s personality and
sufferings in opposition to the _Docetæ_, the earliest document of this
kind is to be found in the writings of Irenæus, who flourished toward
the end of the second century of the Christian æra. In his treatise
against heresies, this father affirms that “the faith of the church
planted throughout the whole world,” consisted in the belief of “one
God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and sea, and all
that are in them; and one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became
incarnate for our salvation; and one Holy Spirit, who foretold, through
the Prophets, the dispensations and advents, and the generation by the
virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the
ascension in the flesh into heaven, of Jesus Christ our beloved Lord,
and his appearing from heaven in the glory of the Father, to unite
together all things under one head, and to raise every individual of the
human race; that unto Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, and Saviour and
King, every knee may bow, and every tongue confess; that he may
pronounce just sentence upon all.” In various parts of Tertullian’s
writings similar statements occur, (A. D. 200,) which it is unnecessary
particularly to quote. We shall only remark, that in one of them, the
miraculous conception of Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost is
distinctly mentioned; that in another, he declares it to have been the
uniform doctrine from the beginning of the Gospel, that Christ was born
of the virgin, both man and God, _ex eâ natum hominem et Deum_; and that
in each of these, faith in the Father, Son, and Spirit, is recognised as
essential to Christianity. The following passage we cite, for the
purpose of marking its coincidence with the Apostles’ Creed, to which we
shall have occasion soon to advert: “This,” says he, “is the sole,
immovable, irreformable rule of faith; namely, to believe in the only
God Almighty, maker of the world; and his Son Jesus Christ, born of the
virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, the third day raised from
the dead, received into heaven, now sitting at the right hand of the
Father, about to come and judge the quick and the dead, by the
resurrection also of the flesh.” The summaries contained in the works of
Origen (A. D. 520) nearly resemble the preceding; any difference between
them being easily accounted for, from the tenets of the particular
heresies against which they were directed. In his “Commentary on St.
John’s Gospel,” he thus writes: “We believe that there is one God, who
created all things, and framed and made all things to exist out of
nothing. We must also believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in all the
truth concerning his Deity and humanity; and we must likewise believe in
the Holy Spirit; and that, being free agents, we shall be punished for
the things in which we sin, and rewarded for those in which we do well.”
According to Cyprian, the formula, to which assent was required from
adults at their baptism, was in these terms: “Dost thou believe in God
the Father, Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit, the remission of sins, and
eternal life, through the holy church?” This was called by him _symboli
lex_, “the law of the creed;” and by Novatian, _regula veritatis_, “the
rule of truth.”
2. From these and similar sources, the different clauses of what is
commonly called the Apostles’ Creed appear to have sprung. For, though
it was long believed to be the composition of the Apostles, its claims
to such an inspired origin are now universally rejected. Of its great
antiquity, however, there can be no doubt; the whole of it, as it stands
in the English liturgy, having been generally received as an
authoritative confession in the fourth century. Toward the end of that
century, Rufinus wrote a commentary on it, which is still extant, in
which he acknowledges that the clause respecting Christ’s descent into
hell was not admitted into the creeds either of the western or the
eastern churches. We learn also that the epithet _catholic_ was not at
that time applied in it to the church. Its great simplicity and
conciseness, beside, prove it to have been considerably earlier than the
council of Nice, when the heretical speculations of various sects led
the defenders of the orthodox faith to fence the interests of religion
with more complicated and cumbrous barriers.
This confession of faith was then preëminently named _symbolum_; which
might be understood in the general acceptation of _sign_, as the
characteristic, representative sign of the Christian faith; or, in a
more restricted sense, in reference to the σύμϐολον ϛρατιωτικὸν, or
_tessera militaris_, the watch word of the Christian soldier,
communicated to each man at his first entrance into the service of
Christ. Perhaps this word, at first, only denoted the formula of
baptism, and was afterward transferred to the confession of faith.
3. In the celebrated council of Nice, (A. D. 325,) in which Arianism was
not only condemned, but proscribed, the confession established as the
universal standard of truth and orthodoxy runs thus: “I believe in one
God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things
visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of
God, begotten of the Father, before all worlds, God of God, Light of
Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance
with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for
our salvation, descended from heaven, and became incarnate by the Holy
Ghost, of the virgin Mary; and was made man, was crucified for us under
Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose
again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth
on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again with glory to
judge both the quick and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no
end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost who spake by the Prophets; and one
catholic, and Apostolical church. I acknowledge one baptism for the
remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the
life of the world to come.”
It were endless to specify the particular shades of difference by which
the Arian confessions (the number of which amounted nearly to twenty in
the space of a very few years) were distinguished from each other:
suffice it to say, that while they agreed generally in substance,
especially in rejecting the Nicene term, ὁμοούσιος, as applied to the
Son, their variations of expression concerning the nature of his
subordination to the Father were so astonishingly minute, as almost to
bid defiance to any attempt which might be made, at this distance of
time, to determine in what their real and essential differences
consisted.
4. “The Book of Armagh,” a very ancient collection of interesting
national documents, which have recently been published by Sir William
Betham in the second part of his curious “Irish Antiquarian Researches,”
contains the Confession of St. Patrick; who has been supposed, from
several collateral circumstances, to have flourished some years prior to
the time of St. Jerom, or about the commencement of the fourth century.
The subjoined are the first two paragraphs in it, and will be admired
for the orthodoxy, artlessness, and Christian experience which they
exhibit:--“I, PATRICK, a sinner, the rudest, the least, and the most
insignificant of the faithful, had Calphurnius, a deacon, for my father,
who was the son of Potitus, heretofore a priest, the son of Odissus, who
lived in the village of Banavem Taberniæ. For he had a little farm
adjacent, where I was captured. I was then almost sixteen years of age;
but I knew not God, and was led into captivity by the Irish, with many
thousand men, as we deserved, because we estranged ourselves from God,
and did not keep his laws, and were disobedient to our pastors, who
admonished us with respect to our salvation: and the Lord brought down
upon us the anger of his Spirit, and dispersed us among many nations,
even to the extremity of the earth, where my meanness was conspicuous
among foreigners, and where the Lord discovered to me a sense of my
unbelief; that late I should remember my transgressions, and that I
should be converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who had
respect to my humiliation, and pitied my youth and ignorance, even
before I knew him, and before I was wise, or could distinguish between
right and wrong, and strengthened me, and cherished me, as a father
would a son. From which time I could not remain silent; nor, indeed, did
he cease to bless me with many acts of kindness; and so great was the
favour of which he thought me worthy in the land of my captivity. For
this is my retribution, that, after my rebuking, punishment, and
acknowledgment of God, I should exalt him, and confess his wonderful
acts before every nation which is under the whole heaven; because there
is no other God, nor ever was before, nor will be after him, except God,
the unbegotten Father, without beginning, possessing all things, as we
have said, and his Son Jesus Christ, who, we bear witness, was always
with the Father, before the formation of the world, in spirit (or
spiritually) with the Father, inexpressibly begotten before all
beginning, through whom visible things were made: he became man, having
overcome death, and was received into heaven. And God has given to him
all power ‘above every name, as well of the inhabitants of heaven as of
the earth and of the powers below, that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord and God;’ whom we believe, and whose coming we
expect, as presently about to be Judge of the living and dead, who will
render unto every man according to his actions, and has poured upon us
abundantly the gift of his Holy Spirit, and the pledge of immortality;
who makes us that believe and are obedient to be the sons of God and
joint heirs of Christ; whom we believe and adore, one God in the Trinity
of the sacred name. For he spoke by the Prophet, ‘Call upon me in the
day of tribulation, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.’
And again he says, ‘It is an honourable thing to reveal and confess the
works of God.’”
5. Macedonius having denied not only the divinity but the personality of
the Holy Spirit, maintaining that he is only a divine energy diffused
throughout the universe, a general council was called at Constantinople,
A. D. 381, in order to crush this rising heresy. The confession
promulgated on this occasion, and which “gave the finishing touch to
what the council of Nice had left imperfect, and fixed, in a full and
determinate manner, the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is still received
among the generality of Christians,” exactly coincides with the Nicene
confession, except in the article respecting the Spirit, which it thus
extends: “And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of life,
who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who, together with the
Father and the Son, is worshipped and glorified.”
6. Subsequent to this, and probably toward the middle of the fifth
century, the creed which bears the name of Athanasius appears to have
been composed. That it was not the work of this distinguished opposer of
Arianism is established by the most satisfactory evidence. No traces of
it are to be found in any of his writings, though they relate chiefly to
the very subject of which it is an exposition; and so far from its being
ascribed to him, not the least notice is taken of it by any of his
contemporaries. Its language, beside, concerning the Spirit is so
similar to that of the council of Constantinople, but still more precise
and explicit, that there can be no doubt of its having been written
posterior to the time of that assembly. Yet Athanasius died in the year
373. Accordingly, it has been, with great probability of truth,
attributed, particularly by Dr. Waterland, to Hilary, bishop of Arles,
who is said by one of his biographers to have composed an Exposition of
the Creed: a title which certainly is more appropriate and
characteristic of it than that of Creed simply, by which it is now so
universally known. The damnatory clauses in this creed have frequently
been made subjects of reprehension; and some clergymen of the church of
England have scrupled to read them as directed by the Rubric. The
following is an apology for those clauses, by the late venerable
Archdeacon Dodwell, who seems to have felt none of those misgivings
which troubled his doubting brethren:--“The form, as well as the
substance, of this creed, and the very introduction to the main article,
has been objected to: ‘Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is
necessary that he hold the catholic faith;’ to which is added, ‘Which
faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he
shall perish everlastingly.’ This, with a like condemnatory sentence in
the conclusion of the creed, wherein a possibility of salvation is
denied to him who does not cordially embrace this doctrine, is
pronounced _unreasonable_, _uncharitable_, _unchristian_, with every
other aggravating appellation that can be used. But the ground of this
charge, and the whole of the difficulty suggested in it, from the
variety of the circumstances of different persons, depends upon the
interpretation of the phrase of ‘being saved.’ The meaning of this term
in its primary signification, and as it is applied to common subjects in
common discourse, means a preservation from threatening perils, or from
threatened punishment. But, in an evangelical sense, and as it occurs in
the New Testament, it includes much more: it means the whole Christian
scheme of redemption and justification by the Son of God, with all the
glorious privileges and promises contained in that scheme. It means not
merely a hope of deliverance from danger or from vengeance, but a
federal title to positive happiness, purchased by the merits, and
declared to mankind by the Gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord. St. Paul
calls it ‘_the obtaining the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with
eternal glory_,’ 2 Tim. ii, 10. ‘Whosoever,’ then, says the creed,
‘will’ thus ‘be saved,’ will be desirous to secure the glorious promises
of the Gospel, must pursue it upon the terms which that Gospel proposes,
and particularly must embrace the doctrines which it reveals. The creed
speaks of those only to whom the evidence of the Gospel has been fully
set forth, and the importance of it fully explained. We are to justify
it only to professed believers, and of them only. The state and lot of
the Heathen world are quite out of the question. Neither common sense
nor Scripture will permit us to interpret it of those who still ‘_sit in
darkness and the shadow of death_,’ and never had the means of grace and
the hope of glory proposed to them. Even with respect to those to whom
the Gospel is preached, there is no necessity of interpreting the words
here used in the harshest and strictest sense. There are many
distinctions and limitations, which are always understood and supposed
in such cases, though they are not expressly mentioned. General rules
are laid down as such, are true as such; while excepted cases are
referred to the judgment of those who are qualified to judge of them,
and are not particularly pointed out; as for other reasons, so lest they
should be extended too far, and defeat the general rule. Sufficient
capacity in the persons to whom it is applied, and sufficient means of
information and conviction, are always presupposed, where faith is
spoken of as necessary. Where either of these is wanting, the case is
(where it should be) in the hands of God. The creed is laid down as a
rule of judgment to men, not to their Maker. We may learn from thence on
what terms alone we can claim a title to the promises of the Gospel; but
we do not learn from thence how far uncovenanted favour may be extended
to particular persons. It is not intended to exclude the mercy of God to
Heathens or heretics; it being his prerogative, and his alone, to judge
how far the error or ignorance of any one is his wilful fault, or his
unavoidable infirmity. But it is intended to establish the terms on
which WE may now claim acceptance, and, in consequence of his gracious
promise, may say, that ‘_God is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins_.’ The creed relates only to the covenant of salvation; and any
expression which, used separately without this view and connection,
might be thought to bear a stronger and more absolute sense, yet is
limited by this relative coherence, and is to be interpreted by it.
‘Perishing everlastingly,’ in other discourses, may sometimes be
understood of everlasting damnation; but here it means the being for
ever excluded from the only stated claim of promised mercy. And ‘without
doubt,’ he who does not embrace the truths proposed by revelation, has
no title to those hopes which that revelation, and that only, offers to
mankind. And even when such expressions of terror are used in the
strongest sense, and threatened to unbelief or disobedience, they
universally imply such exceptions as these,--‘Unless personal
disabilities lessen the guilt, or repentance intervene to prevent the
punishment.’ In short, no objection can be made against this assertion
in the creed, but what would hold as strongly against that declaration
of our blessed Lord, ‘_He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned_,’ Mark xvi, 15.
Indeed, this condemnatory sentence in this form by human authority is
plainly founded on and borrowed from that divine authority in the
Gospel; and whatever distinctions and limitations are allowed in that
case are equally applicable to this, and will fully justify both. The
necessity of a true belief in all whom Providence has blessed with the
means and opportunities of learning it, in order to entitle them
federally to eternal salvation, being thus established upon Scripture
proof, the creed goes on very regularly to declare what is that true
belief so indispensably necessary.” This is, perhaps, all that can be
said in favour of these comminations; but few will think it quite
satisfactory. The effect of them has doubtless been, to induce many to
fly to the opposite extreme of laxity on the subject of fundamental
doctrines.
Before leaving the ancient formulas of Christian doctrine, it may be
stated, that both in the council of Ephesus against the Nestorians, held
A. D. 431; and in that of Chalcedon, against the Eutychians, in 451; it
was solemnly declared and decreed, that “Christ was one divine person,
in whom two natures, the human and the divine, were most closely united,
but without being mixed or confounded together.”
7. Amid the variance and opposition of council to council, and pope to
pope, (A. D. 1553,) which prevailed for centuries in the Romish church,
it would be no easy task to ascertain the real articles of its
confession. The decrees of the council of Trent, however, together with
the creed of Pope Pius IV, are now commonly understood to be the
authoritative standards of its faith and worship. These, beside
recognising the authority of the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds,
embrace a multitude of dogmas which it is unnecessary particularly to
specify, relating to traditions, the sacraments of baptism,
confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, order, and matrimony,
transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, worshipping of images,
purgatory, indulgences, &c, &c.
8. The Greek church has no public or established confession; but its
creed, so far as can be gathered from its authorized catechisms, admits
the doctrines of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, with the exception of
the article in each concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, which
it affirms to be “from the Father only, and not from the Father and the
Son.” It disowns the supremacy and infallibility of the pope, purgatory
by fire, graven images, and the restriction of the sacrament to one
kind; but acknowledges the seven sacraments of the catholics, the
religious use of pictures, invocation of saints, transubstantiation, and
masses and prayers for the dead.
9. Though the Romish church early appropriated to itself the exclusive
title of catholic, or universal; and though, for many centuries, its
unscriptural tenets pervaded the far greater part of Europe; not only
were there always some individuals who adhered to the doctrines of
genuine Christianity, but, long before the Protestant reformation, there
appear to have been whole congregations who maintained, in considerable
purity, the substance of the faith contained in Scripture. Such were the
churches of the Waldenses in the valleys of Piedmont, whose confession,
of so early a date as the beginning of the twelfth century, is still
preserved. It consists of fourteen articles, of which the following is a
copy, taken from the Cambridge MSS, and bearing date A. D. 1120:--“(1.)
We believe and firmly hold all that which is contained in the twelve
articles of the symbol, which is called the Apostles’ Creed, accounting
for heresy whatsoever is disagreeing, and not consonant to the said
twelve articles. (2.) We do believe that there is one God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. (3.) We acknowledge for the holy canonical Scriptures
the books of the Holy Bible. [Here follows a list of the books of the
Old and New Testament, exactly the same as those we have in our English
authorized version. Then follows a list of “the books apocryphal,
which,” with admirable simplicity they say, “are not received of the
Hebrews. But we read them, as saith St. Jerom in his Prologue to the
Proverbs, ‘for the instruction of the people, not to confirm the
authority of the doctrine of the church.’”] (4.) The books above-said
teach this, that there is one God, almighty, all-wise, and all-good, who
has made all things by his goodness; for he formed Adam in his own image
and likeness, but that by the envy of the devil, and the disobedience of
the said Adam, sin has entered into the world, and that we are sinners
in Adam and by Adam. (5.) That Christ was promised to our fathers who
received the law, that so knowing by the law their sin, unrighteousness,
and insufficiency, they might desire the coming of Christ, to satisfy
for their sins, and accomplish the law by himself. (6.) That Christ was
born in the time appointed by God the Father; that is to say, in the
time when all iniquity abounded, and not for the cause of good works,
for all were sinners; but that he might show us grace and mercy, as
being faithful. (7.) That Christ is our life, truth, peace, and
righteousness; also our pastor, advocate, sacrifice, and priest; who
died for the salvation of all those that believe, and is risen for our
justification. (8.) In like manner, we firmly hold that there is no
other Mediator and Advocate with God the Father, save only Jesus Christ.
And as for the virgin Mary, that she was holy, humble, and full of
grace. And in like manner do we believe concerning all the other saints;
namely, that, being in heaven, they wait for the resurrection of their
bodies at the day of judgment. (9.) _Item_, We believe that, after this
life, there are only two places, the one for the saved, and the other
for the damned; the which two places we call paradise and hell,
absolutely denying that purgatory invented by antichrist, and forged
contrary to the truth. (10.) _Item_, We have always accounted as an
unspeakable abomination before God all those inventions of men; namely,
the feasts and the vigils of saints, the water which they call holy: as
likewise to abstain from flesh upon certain days, and the like; but
especially their masses. (11.) We esteem for an abomination, and as
antichristian, all those human inventions which are a trouble or
prejudice to the liberty of the spirit. (12.) We do believe that the
sacraments are signs of the holy thing, or visible forms of the
invisible grace; accounting it good that the faithful sometimes use the
said signs or visible forms, if it may be done. However, we believe and
hold, that the above-said faithful may be saved without receiving the
signs aforesaid, in case they have no place nor any means to use them.
(13.) We acknowledge no other sacrament than baptism and the Lord’s
Supper. (14.) We ought to honour the secular powers by submission, ready
obedience, and paying of tributes.” These churches had, in modern times,
another confession imposed upon them, after they began to receive
pastors from Geneva, which is strongly tinged with Calvinism. It bears
date A. D. 1655.
10. The first Protestant confession was that presented in 1530, to the
diet of Augsburg, by the suggestion and under the direction of John,
elector of Saxony. This wise and prudent prince, with the view of having
the principal grounds on which the Protestants had separated from the
Romish communion, distinctly submitted to that assembly, entrusted the
duty of preparing a summary of them to the divines of Wittemberg. Nor
was that task a difficult one; for the reformed doctrines had already
been digested into seventeen articles, which had been proposed at the
conferences both at Sultzbach and Smalcald, as the confession of faith
to be adopted by the Protestant confederates. These, accordingly, were
delivered to the elector by Luther, and served as the basis of the
celebrated Augsburg confession, written “by the elegant and accurate pen
of Melancthon:” a work which has been admired by many even of its
enemies, for its perspicuity, piety, and erudition. It contains
twenty-eight chapters, the leading topics of which are, the true and
essential divinity of Christ; his substitution and vicarious sacrifice;
original sin; human inability; the necessity, freedom, and efficacy of
divine grace; consubstantiation; and particularly justification by
faith, to establish the truth and importance of which was one of its
chief objects. The last seven articles condemn and confute the Popish
tenets of communion in one kind, clerical celibacy, private masses,
auricular confession, legendary traditions, monastic vows, and the
exorbitant power of the church. This confession is silent on the
doctrine of predestination. This is the universal standard of orthodox
doctrine among those who profess to be Lutherans, in which no
authoritative alteration has ever been made.
11. The confession of Basle, originally presented, like the preceding,
to the diet of Augsburg, but not published till 1534, consists of only
twelve articles, which, in every essential point, agree with those of
the Augsburg confession, except that it rejects the doctrine of
consubstantiation; affirming that Christ is only spiritually present in
the Lord’s Supper, _sacramentaliter nimirum, et per memorationem fidei_;
[that is to say sacramentally, and by faith;] and that it asserts the
doctrine of predestination and infant baptism. But the more detailed
creed of the whole Swiss Protestant churches is contained in the former
and latter Helvetic confessions. The first was drawn up in 1536, by
Bullinger, Myconius, and Grynæus, in behalf of the churches of Helvetia,
and presented to an assembly of divines at Wittemberg, by whom it was
cordially approved. But being deemed too concise, a second was prepared
in 1556, by the pastors of Zurich; which was subscribed not only by all
the Swiss Protestants, but by the churches of Geneva and Savoy, and by
many of those in Hungary and Poland. They fully harmonize with each
other, with only this difference, that the doctrine of predestination,
and an approbation of the observance of such religious festivals, as the
nativity, &c, are to be found in the latter confession only.
12. The Bohemic confession was compiled from various ancient confessions
of the Waldenses who had settled in Bohemia, and approved of by Luther
and Melancthon in 1532; but it was not published till 1535; when it was
presented by the barons and other nobles to King Ferdinand. It extends
to twenty articles, similar to those of the Waldensian confession, with
the addition of others on the divinity of Christ, justification by faith
in him, “without any human help or merit,” predestination, and the
absolute necessity of sanctification and good works.
13. The confession of the Saxon churches was composed in 1551 by
Melancthon, at the desire of the pastors of Saxony and Misnia met in
assembly at Wittemberg, in order to be presented to the council of
Trent. It is contained in twenty-two articles; and while, like that of
Augsburg, it is silent on the subject of predestination, it lays equal
stress on the doctrine of justification by faith; and has a separate
article entitled “Rewards,” in which the doctrine of human merit,
particularly as connected with future blessedness, is condemned and
refuted.
14. Some account of the framing of the English Confession of Faith has
been already given under the article _Church of England and Ireland_.
The “Articles of Religion” are there said to have been amended and
completed in the year 1571; and the Rev. Henry J. Todd, in his very able
work on this subject, has shown their Melancthonian origin and character
by extracts from the “_Articles of Religion_,” “set out by the
Convocation, and published by the king’s authority,” in 1536;--from
those of 1540;--from Cranmer’s “_Necessary Erudition of any Christian
Man_,” published in 1543;--from the _Homilies on Salvation, Faith, and
Good Works_, in 1547, which three were, according to Bishop Woolton’s
unimpeached testimony (in 1576) composed by Archbishop Cranmer;--from
the “_Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum_,” “composed under the
superintendence of the same watchful primate, in 1551;”--from the
“_Articles of Religion_” formed in 1552, almost wholly by
Cranmer;”--from “_Catechismus Brevis, Christianæ Disciplinæ Summam
continens_,” in 1553, which was published in English, as well as Latin,
and commonly called “Edward the Sixth’s Catechism;” and from Bishop
Jewel’s celebrated “_Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_,” “published in 1562
by the queen’s authority, thus recognised as a national Confession of
Faith, and as such has been printed in the _Corpus Confessionum Fidei_.”
“Such,” says Mr. Todd, “are the several public documents or
declarations, produced or made before the establishment of the
_Thirty-nine Articles of Religion_, from which I have given extracts, to
which the framers of these Articles directed their attention, with the
spirit of which they concur, and the words of which they almost
literally adopt. There will also be found, as chronologically preceding
these, considerable extracts from the _Confession of Augsburg_, the
whole article from the Saxon Confession, _De Remissione Peccatorum, et
Justificatione_, [respecting the forgiveness of sins, and
justification,] and such passages in our _Liturgy_ as concern the points
which the Articles and Homilies exhibit.” No one who has perused these
documents will require any additional argument to convince him, that, in
its very foundations, the English Confession of Faith was most
explicitly in favour of general redemption. We cannot therefore be
surprised at all the old orthodox divines of the church of England, from
1610 to 1660, refusing to be called ARMINIANS; for they repeatedly
declared that their own church openly professed similar doctrines to
those promulgated by the Dutch professor, long before his name was known
in the world. In this assertion they were perfectly correct; and by
every important fact in our ecclesiastical history, as connected with
doctrinal matters, their views are confirmed. If the Articles were
actually of a Calvinistic complexion, as they are now often represented
to be, what could have induced Whitaker and other learned Calvinists to
waste so much valuable time and labour in fabricating the Lambeth
Articles in 1595? Those worthies avowed, that the original Thirty-nine
Articles were not doctrinal enough for their purpose.--When four choice
divines, two of them professors of divinity at Cambridge, were sent to
the synod of Dort as deputies from the English church, and one from the
church of Scotland, though their political instructions went the full
length of assisting in the condemnation and oppression of the Arminians,
personally considered as a troublesome party in the republic, yet they
had different instructions respecting their doctrines. On the second
article, discussed in that synod, “the extent of Christ’s redemption,”
Balcanqual, the deputy from the church of Scotland, informs the English
ambassador at the Hague, that a difference had arisen among the British
deputies: “The question among us is, whether the words of Scripture,
which are likewise the words of our confession, be to be understood of
all particular men, or only of the elect who consist of all sorts of
men? Dr. Davenant and Dr. Ward are of Martinius of Breme his mind, _that
it is to be understood of all particular men_: the other three [Bishop
Carleton, Dr. Goad, and Dr. Balcanqual] take the other exposition, which
is that of the writers of the reformed churches.” The ambassador wrote
home for instructions, and received orders for the British deputies “to
have those conclusions concerning Christ’s death, and the application of
it to us, couched in manner and terms as near as possibly may be to
those which were used in the primitive church, by the fathers of that
time, against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, and not in any new
phrase of the modern age; and that the same may be as agreeable to the
confessions of the church of England and other reformed churches, and
with as little distaste and umbrage to the Lutheran churches, as may
be.” Archbishop Abbott expressed his approbation of their “cautelous
moderation” in withholding their “hand from pressing in public any
rigorous exclusive propositions in the doctrine of the extent of our
Saviour Christ’s oblation.” The history of this affair, which cannot be
here detailed, shows, that, however willing the three deputies were to
condemn the remonstrants, the resistance of the two more moderate
divines was approved by the authorities at home, and their opinions on
this subject were recorded in such theses as no true Calvinist could
consistently subscribe. During our civil troubles in 1643, the Assembly
of Divines at Westminster revised the first fifteen of the Thirty-nine
Articles “with a design,” as Neal in his “_History of the Puritans_”
candidly declares, “to render their sense more express and determinate
in favour of Calvinism.” This they found to be a hopeless task, as the
ancient creed was too incorrigible to be bent to their views; and they
found it much easier to frame one after their own hearts, some account
of which the reader will find in a subsequent paragraph.--All these
facts go to prove, that the best informed Calvinists have always viewed
the English articles as not sufficiently high in doctrine, unless, as in
the case of the seventeenth, they be allowed to interpret them by
interpolations or qualifying epithets.
15. The confession of the reformed Gallican churches was prepared by
order of a synod at Paris in 1559; and presented to Charles IX. in 1561,
by the celebrated Beza, in a conference with that monarch at Poissy. It
was published for the first time in 1566, with a preface by the French
clergy to the pastors of all Protestant churches; and afterward, in
1571, it was solemnly ratified and subscribed in the national synod of
Rochelle. It is extended to forty articles; but they are in general
concise, and embrace the usual topics of the other Protestant
confessions, including the doctrines of election, and justification by
faith only.
16. The Protestants in Scotland having presented a petition to
parliament in 1560, requesting the public condemnation of Popery, and
the legal acknowledgment of the reformed doctrine and worship, they were
required to draw up a summary of the doctrines which they could prove to
be consonant with Scripture, and which they were anxious to have
established. The ministers on whom this duty was devolved, being well
acquainted with the subject, prepared the required summary in the course
of four days, and laid it before parliament, when, after having been
read first before the Lords of the Articles, and afterward twice (the
second time article by article) before the whole parliament, it received
their sanction as the established system of belief and worship. It
consists of twenty-five articles, and coincides with all the other
Protestant confessions which affirm the doctrine of election, and reject
that of consubstantiation; for although it is not so explicit as some of
them respecting the unconditional nature of election, yet a distinct
recognition of this doctrine pervades the whole of it; and though it has
no separate article on justification, it no less plainly recognises this
fundamental principle of the Protestant faith.
17. The tenets of Arminius having obtained considerable prevalence in
Holland toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Calvinists,
or Gomarists, as they were then called, appealed to a national synod,
which was convened at Dort in 1618, by order of the states-general; and
attended by ecclesiastical deputies from England, Switzerland, Bremen,
Hesse, and the Palatinate, beside the clerical and lay representatives
of the reformed churches in the United Provinces. The canons of this
synod, contained in five chapters, relate to what are commonly called
the _five points_; namely, particular and unconditional election;
particular redemption, or the limitation of the saving effects of
Christ’s death to the elect only; the total corruption of human nature,
and the total moral inability of man in his fallen state; the
irresistibility of divine grace; and the final perseverance of the
saints; all of which are declared to be the true and the only doctrines
of Scripture.
18. The Remonstrants, as the Dutch Arminians are generally called, did
not present a confession of faith to the synod of Dort, but only their
sentiments on the five points enumerated in the preceding paragraph,
with corresponding _rejections of errors_ under each of those points.
However, in the first year of their exile, they applied themselves
diligently to this task, and soon produced an ample confession,
principally composed by the celebrated Episcopius. In the preface they
give copious reasons for such a record of their opinions; which
Courcelles has thus expressed in a more summary manner:--“They did not
publish it for the purpose of making it a standard of schism, by which
they might separate themselves from men who held other opinions; nor for
the purpose of having it esteemed by those under their pastoral care as
a secondary rule of faith;--which is in these days with many persons a
most pernicious abuse of this kind of confessions. But it was published
solely with the intention to stop the mouths of those who calumniously
assert, that the Remonstrants cherish within their bosoms portentous
dogmas which they dare not divulge. For there is no cause for doubting,
whether under such circumstances and for this purpose, it is not lawful
for men to publish a confession of their faith, especially as St. Peter
admonishes us ‘always to be ready to give an answer to every man that
asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear.’”
This confession is of a more practical character than any of the
preceding: it inculcates, at great length, all the most important duties
of Christianity, and, in the words of the preface, “directs all things
to the practice of Christian piety. For we believe that true divinity is
merely practical, and not either simply or for its greatest or chief
part speculative; and therefore whatever things are delivered therein
ought to be referred thither only,--that a man may be the more strongly
and fitly inflamed and encouraged to a diligent performance of his duty,
and keeping of the commandments of Jesus Christ.” In the English
translator’s address to the reader in 1676, it is said, “Touching the
worth of this book, as a summary of Christian religion, if Doctor Jeremy
Taylor’s judgment be of credit with thee, I am credibly informed he
should prefer it to be one of those two or three which, next the Holy
Bible, he would have preserved from the supposed total destruction of
books. A high encomium from the mouth of so learned and pious a divine!”
But though its contents were chiefly practical, one expression in it,
respecting the propriety of tolerating in a Christian community a man
who denied the eternal generation of Jesus Christ, produced a
controversy in Holland, as well as in this country, in which the famous
Bishop Bull eminently distinguished himself. See DORT and REMONSTRANTS.
19. The only other confession of which we shall take notice is that of
the Westminster assembly, which met in 1643, and at which five ministers
and three elders as commissioners from the general assembly of the
church of Scotland attended, agreeably to engagements between the
convention of estates there, and both houses of parliament in England.
This confession is contained in thirty-three chapters, and in every
point of doctrine, fully accords with the sentiments of the synod of
Dort; and on some points going rather beyond it, as with respect to a
supposed election of angels. It was approved and adopted by the general
assembly in 1647; and two years after, ratified by act of parliament, as
“the public and avowed confession of the church of Scotland.” By act of
parliament in 1690, it was again declared to be the national standard of
faith in Scotland; and subscription to it as “the confession of his
faith,” specially required of every person who shall be admitted “a
minister or preacher within this church.” Subscription to it was also
enjoined by the act of union in 1707, on all “professors, principals,
regents, masters, and others bearing office,” in any of the Scottish
universities.
signifies a summary of the principal articles of belief adopted by any
individual or society. In its more common acceptation, it is restricted
to the summaries of doctrine published by particular Christian churches,
with the view of preventing their religious sentiments from being
misunderstood or misrepresented, or, by requiring subscription to them,
of securing uniformity of opinion among those who join their communion.
Except a single sentence in one of the Ignatian Epistles, (A. D. 180,)
which relates exclusively to the reality of Christ’s personality and
sufferings in opposition to the _Docetæ_, the earliest document of this
kind is to be found in the writings of Irenæus, who flourished toward
the end of the second century of the Christian æra. In his treatise
against heresies, this father affirms that “the faith of the church
planted throughout the whole world,” consisted in the belief of “one
God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth and sea, and all
that are in them; and one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became
incarnate for our salvation; and one Holy Spirit, who foretold, through
the Prophets, the dispensations and advents, and the generation by the
virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the
ascension in the flesh into heaven, of Jesus Christ our beloved Lord,
and his appearing from heaven in the glory of the Father, to unite
together all things under one head, and to raise every individual of the
human race; that unto Christ Jesus, our Lord and God, and Saviour and
King, every knee may bow, and every tongue confess; that he may
pronounce just sentence upon all.” In various parts of Tertullian’s
writings similar statements occur, (A. D. 200,) which it is unnecessary
particularly to quote. We shall only remark, that in one of them, the
miraculous conception of Christ by the power of the Holy Ghost is
distinctly mentioned; that in another, he declares it to have been the
uniform doctrine from the beginning of the Gospel, that Christ was born
of the virgin, both man and God, _ex eâ natum hominem et Deum_; and that
in each of these, faith in the Father, Son, and Spirit, is recognised as
essential to Christianity. The following passage we cite, for the
purpose of marking its coincidence with the Apostles’ Creed, to which we
shall have occasion soon to advert: “This,” says he, “is the sole,
immovable, irreformable rule of faith; namely, to believe in the only
God Almighty, maker of the world; and his Son Jesus Christ, born of the
virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, the third day raised from
the dead, received into heaven, now sitting at the right hand of the
Father, about to come and judge the quick and the dead, by the
resurrection also of the flesh.” The summaries contained in the works of
Origen (A. D. 520) nearly resemble the preceding; any difference between
them being easily accounted for, from the tenets of the particular
heresies against which they were directed. In his “Commentary on St.
John’s Gospel,” he thus writes: “We believe that there is one God, who
created all things, and framed and made all things to exist out of
nothing. We must also believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in all the
truth concerning his Deity and humanity; and we must likewise believe in
the Holy Spirit; and that, being free agents, we shall be punished for
the things in which we sin, and rewarded for those in which we do well.”
According to Cyprian, the formula, to which assent was required from
adults at their baptism, was in these terms: “Dost thou believe in God
the Father, Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit, the remission of sins, and
eternal life, through the holy church?” This was called by him _symboli
lex_, “the law of the creed;” and by Novatian, _regula veritatis_, “the
rule of truth.”
2. From these and similar sources, the different clauses of what is
commonly called the Apostles’ Creed appear to have sprung. For, though
it was long believed to be the composition of the Apostles, its claims
to such an inspired origin are now universally rejected. Of its great
antiquity, however, there can be no doubt; the whole of it, as it stands
in the English liturgy, having been generally received as an
authoritative confession in the fourth century. Toward the end of that
century, Rufinus wrote a commentary on it, which is still extant, in
which he acknowledges that the clause respecting Christ’s descent into
hell was not admitted into the creeds either of the western or the
eastern churches. We learn also that the epithet _catholic_ was not at
that time applied in it to the church. Its great simplicity and
conciseness, beside, prove it to have been considerably earlier than the
council of Nice, when the heretical speculations of various sects led
the defenders of the orthodox faith to fence the interests of religion
with more complicated and cumbrous barriers.
This confession of faith was then preëminently named _symbolum_; which
might be understood in the general acceptation of _sign_, as the
characteristic, representative sign of the Christian faith; or, in a
more restricted sense, in reference to the σύμϐολον ϛρατιωτικὸν, or
_tessera militaris_, the watch word of the Christian soldier,
communicated to each man at his first entrance into the service of
Christ. Perhaps this word, at first, only denoted the formula of
baptism, and was afterward transferred to the confession of faith.
3. In the celebrated council of Nice, (A. D. 325,) in which Arianism was
not only condemned, but proscribed, the confession established as the
universal standard of truth and orthodoxy runs thus: “I believe in one
God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things
visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus, the only begotten Son of
God, begotten of the Father, before all worlds, God of God, Light of
Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance
with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men, and for
our salvation, descended from heaven, and became incarnate by the Holy
Ghost, of the virgin Mary; and was made man, was crucified for us under
Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried; and the third day he rose
again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth
on the right hand of the Father; and he shall come again with glory to
judge both the quick and the dead, of whose kingdom there will be no
end. And I believe in the Holy Ghost who spake by the Prophets; and one
catholic, and Apostolical church. I acknowledge one baptism for the
remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the
life of the world to come.”
It were endless to specify the particular shades of difference by which
the Arian confessions (the number of which amounted nearly to twenty in
the space of a very few years) were distinguished from each other:
suffice it to say, that while they agreed generally in substance,
especially in rejecting the Nicene term, ὁμοούσιος, as applied to the
Son, their variations of expression concerning the nature of his
subordination to the Father were so astonishingly minute, as almost to
bid defiance to any attempt which might be made, at this distance of
time, to determine in what their real and essential differences
consisted.
4. “The Book of Armagh,” a very ancient collection of interesting
national documents, which have recently been published by Sir William
Betham in the second part of his curious “Irish Antiquarian Researches,”
contains the Confession of St. Patrick; who has been supposed, from
several collateral circumstances, to have flourished some years prior to
the time of St. Jerom, or about the commencement of the fourth century.
The subjoined are the first two paragraphs in it, and will be admired
for the orthodoxy, artlessness, and Christian experience which they
exhibit:--“I, PATRICK, a sinner, the rudest, the least, and the most
insignificant of the faithful, had Calphurnius, a deacon, for my father,
who was the son of Potitus, heretofore a priest, the son of Odissus, who
lived in the village of Banavem Taberniæ. For he had a little farm
adjacent, where I was captured. I was then almost sixteen years of age;
but I knew not God, and was led into captivity by the Irish, with many
thousand men, as we deserved, because we estranged ourselves from God,
and did not keep his laws, and were disobedient to our pastors, who
admonished us with respect to our salvation: and the Lord brought down
upon us the anger of his Spirit, and dispersed us among many nations,
even to the extremity of the earth, where my meanness was conspicuous
among foreigners, and where the Lord discovered to me a sense of my
unbelief; that late I should remember my transgressions, and that I
should be converted with my whole heart to the Lord my God, who had
respect to my humiliation, and pitied my youth and ignorance, even
before I knew him, and before I was wise, or could distinguish between
right and wrong, and strengthened me, and cherished me, as a father
would a son. From which time I could not remain silent; nor, indeed, did
he cease to bless me with many acts of kindness; and so great was the
favour of which he thought me worthy in the land of my captivity. For
this is my retribution, that, after my rebuking, punishment, and
acknowledgment of God, I should exalt him, and confess his wonderful
acts before every nation which is under the whole heaven; because there
is no other God, nor ever was before, nor will be after him, except God,
the unbegotten Father, without beginning, possessing all things, as we
have said, and his Son Jesus Christ, who, we bear witness, was always
with the Father, before the formation of the world, in spirit (or
spiritually) with the Father, inexpressibly begotten before all
beginning, through whom visible things were made: he became man, having
overcome death, and was received into heaven. And God has given to him
all power ‘above every name, as well of the inhabitants of heaven as of
the earth and of the powers below, that every tongue should confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord and God;’ whom we believe, and whose coming we
expect, as presently about to be Judge of the living and dead, who will
render unto every man according to his actions, and has poured upon us
abundantly the gift of his Holy Spirit, and the pledge of immortality;
who makes us that believe and are obedient to be the sons of God and
joint heirs of Christ; whom we believe and adore, one God in the Trinity
of the sacred name. For he spoke by the Prophet, ‘Call upon me in the
day of tribulation, and I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.’
And again he says, ‘It is an honourable thing to reveal and confess the
works of God.’”
5. Macedonius having denied not only the divinity but the personality of
the Holy Spirit, maintaining that he is only a divine energy diffused
throughout the universe, a general council was called at Constantinople,
A. D. 381, in order to crush this rising heresy. The confession
promulgated on this occasion, and which “gave the finishing touch to
what the council of Nice had left imperfect, and fixed, in a full and
determinate manner, the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is still received
among the generality of Christians,” exactly coincides with the Nicene
confession, except in the article respecting the Spirit, which it thus
extends: “And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord, and Giver of life,
who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who, together with the
Father and the Son, is worshipped and glorified.”
6. Subsequent to this, and probably toward the middle of the fifth
century, the creed which bears the name of Athanasius appears to have
been composed. That it was not the work of this distinguished opposer of
Arianism is established by the most satisfactory evidence. No traces of
it are to be found in any of his writings, though they relate chiefly to
the very subject of which it is an exposition; and so far from its being
ascribed to him, not the least notice is taken of it by any of his
contemporaries. Its language, beside, concerning the Spirit is so
similar to that of the council of Constantinople, but still more precise
and explicit, that there can be no doubt of its having been written
posterior to the time of that assembly. Yet Athanasius died in the year
373. Accordingly, it has been, with great probability of truth,
attributed, particularly by Dr. Waterland, to Hilary, bishop of Arles,
who is said by one of his biographers to have composed an Exposition of
the Creed: a title which certainly is more appropriate and
characteristic of it than that of Creed simply, by which it is now so
universally known. The damnatory clauses in this creed have frequently
been made subjects of reprehension; and some clergymen of the church of
England have scrupled to read them as directed by the Rubric. The
following is an apology for those clauses, by the late venerable
Archdeacon Dodwell, who seems to have felt none of those misgivings
which troubled his doubting brethren:--“The form, as well as the
substance, of this creed, and the very introduction to the main article,
has been objected to: ‘Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is
necessary that he hold the catholic faith;’ to which is added, ‘Which
faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he
shall perish everlastingly.’ This, with a like condemnatory sentence in
the conclusion of the creed, wherein a possibility of salvation is
denied to him who does not cordially embrace this doctrine, is
pronounced _unreasonable_, _uncharitable_, _unchristian_, with every
other aggravating appellation that can be used. But the ground of this
charge, and the whole of the difficulty suggested in it, from the
variety of the circumstances of different persons, depends upon the
interpretation of the phrase of ‘being saved.’ The meaning of this term
in its primary signification, and as it is applied to common subjects in
common discourse, means a preservation from threatening perils, or from
threatened punishment. But, in an evangelical sense, and as it occurs in
the New Testament, it includes much more: it means the whole Christian
scheme of redemption and justification by the Son of God, with all the
glorious privileges and promises contained in that scheme. It means not
merely a hope of deliverance from danger or from vengeance, but a
federal title to positive happiness, purchased by the merits, and
declared to mankind by the Gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord. St. Paul
calls it ‘_the obtaining the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with
eternal glory_,’ 2 Tim. ii, 10. ‘Whosoever,’ then, says the creed,
‘will’ thus ‘be saved,’ will be desirous to secure the glorious promises
of the Gospel, must pursue it upon the terms which that Gospel proposes,
and particularly must embrace the doctrines which it reveals. The creed
speaks of those only to whom the evidence of the Gospel has been fully
set forth, and the importance of it fully explained. We are to justify
it only to professed believers, and of them only. The state and lot of
the Heathen world are quite out of the question. Neither common sense
nor Scripture will permit us to interpret it of those who still ‘_sit in
darkness and the shadow of death_,’ and never had the means of grace and
the hope of glory proposed to them. Even with respect to those to whom
the Gospel is preached, there is no necessity of interpreting the words
here used in the harshest and strictest sense. There are many
distinctions and limitations, which are always understood and supposed
in such cases, though they are not expressly mentioned. General rules
are laid down as such, are true as such; while excepted cases are
referred to the judgment of those who are qualified to judge of them,
and are not particularly pointed out; as for other reasons, so lest they
should be extended too far, and defeat the general rule. Sufficient
capacity in the persons to whom it is applied, and sufficient means of
information and conviction, are always presupposed, where faith is
spoken of as necessary. Where either of these is wanting, the case is
(where it should be) in the hands of God. The creed is laid down as a
rule of judgment to men, not to their Maker. We may learn from thence on
what terms alone we can claim a title to the promises of the Gospel; but
we do not learn from thence how far uncovenanted favour may be extended
to particular persons. It is not intended to exclude the mercy of God to
Heathens or heretics; it being his prerogative, and his alone, to judge
how far the error or ignorance of any one is his wilful fault, or his
unavoidable infirmity. But it is intended to establish the terms on
which WE may now claim acceptance, and, in consequence of his gracious
promise, may say, that ‘_God is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins_.’ The creed relates only to the covenant of salvation; and any
expression which, used separately without this view and connection,
might be thought to bear a stronger and more absolute sense, yet is
limited by this relative coherence, and is to be interpreted by it.
‘Perishing everlastingly,’ in other discourses, may sometimes be
understood of everlasting damnation; but here it means the being for
ever excluded from the only stated claim of promised mercy. And ‘without
doubt,’ he who does not embrace the truths proposed by revelation, has
no title to those hopes which that revelation, and that only, offers to
mankind. And even when such expressions of terror are used in the
strongest sense, and threatened to unbelief or disobedience, they
universally imply such exceptions as these,--‘Unless personal
disabilities lessen the guilt, or repentance intervene to prevent the
punishment.’ In short, no objection can be made against this assertion
in the creed, but what would hold as strongly against that declaration
of our blessed Lord, ‘_He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be
saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned_,’ Mark xvi, 15.
Indeed, this condemnatory sentence in this form by human authority is
plainly founded on and borrowed from that divine authority in the
Gospel; and whatever distinctions and limitations are allowed in that
case are equally applicable to this, and will fully justify both. The
necessity of a true belief in all whom Providence has blessed with the
means and opportunities of learning it, in order to entitle them
federally to eternal salvation, being thus established upon Scripture
proof, the creed goes on very regularly to declare what is that true
belief so indispensably necessary.” This is, perhaps, all that can be
said in favour of these comminations; but few will think it quite
satisfactory. The effect of them has doubtless been, to induce many to
fly to the opposite extreme of laxity on the subject of fundamental
doctrines.
Before leaving the ancient formulas of Christian doctrine, it may be
stated, that both in the council of Ephesus against the Nestorians, held
A. D. 431; and in that of Chalcedon, against the Eutychians, in 451; it
was solemnly declared and decreed, that “Christ was one divine person,
in whom two natures, the human and the divine, were most closely united,
but without being mixed or confounded together.”
7. Amid the variance and opposition of council to council, and pope to
pope, (A. D. 1553,) which prevailed for centuries in the Romish church,
it would be no easy task to ascertain the real articles of its
confession. The decrees of the council of Trent, however, together with
the creed of Pope Pius IV, are now commonly understood to be the
authoritative standards of its faith and worship. These, beside
recognising the authority of the Apostles’ and the Nicene Creeds,
embrace a multitude of dogmas which it is unnecessary particularly to
specify, relating to traditions, the sacraments of baptism,
confirmation, eucharist, penance, extreme unction, order, and matrimony,
transubstantiation, the sacrifice of the mass, worshipping of images,
purgatory, indulgences, &c, &c.
8. The Greek church has no public or established confession; but its
creed, so far as can be gathered from its authorized catechisms, admits
the doctrines of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, with the exception of
the article in each concerning the procession of the Holy Spirit, which
it affirms to be “from the Father only, and not from the Father and the
Son.” It disowns the supremacy and infallibility of the pope, purgatory
by fire, graven images, and the restriction of the sacrament to one
kind; but acknowledges the seven sacraments of the catholics, the
religious use of pictures, invocation of saints, transubstantiation, and
masses and prayers for the dead.
9. Though the Romish church early appropriated to itself the exclusive
title of catholic, or universal; and though, for many centuries, its
unscriptural tenets pervaded the far greater part of Europe; not only
were there always some individuals who adhered to the doctrines of
genuine Christianity, but, long before the Protestant reformation, there
appear to have been whole congregations who maintained, in considerable
purity, the substance of the faith contained in Scripture. Such were the
churches of the Waldenses in the valleys of Piedmont, whose confession,
of so early a date as the beginning of the twelfth century, is still
preserved. It consists of fourteen articles, of which the following is a
copy, taken from the Cambridge MSS, and bearing date A. D. 1120:--“(1.)
We believe and firmly hold all that which is contained in the twelve
articles of the symbol, which is called the Apostles’ Creed, accounting
for heresy whatsoever is disagreeing, and not consonant to the said
twelve articles. (2.) We do believe that there is one God, Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit. (3.) We acknowledge for the holy canonical Scriptures
the books of the Holy Bible. [Here follows a list of the books of the
Old and New Testament, exactly the same as those we have in our English
authorized version. Then follows a list of “the books apocryphal,
which,” with admirable simplicity they say, “are not received of the
Hebrews. But we read them, as saith St. Jerom in his Prologue to the
Proverbs, ‘for the instruction of the people, not to confirm the
authority of the doctrine of the church.’”] (4.) The books above-said
teach this, that there is one God, almighty, all-wise, and all-good, who
has made all things by his goodness; for he formed Adam in his own image
and likeness, but that by the envy of the devil, and the disobedience of
the said Adam, sin has entered into the world, and that we are sinners
in Adam and by Adam. (5.) That Christ was promised to our fathers who
received the law, that so knowing by the law their sin, unrighteousness,
and insufficiency, they might desire the coming of Christ, to satisfy
for their sins, and accomplish the law by himself. (6.) That Christ was
born in the time appointed by God the Father; that is to say, in the
time when all iniquity abounded, and not for the cause of good works,
for all were sinners; but that he might show us grace and mercy, as
being faithful. (7.) That Christ is our life, truth, peace, and
righteousness; also our pastor, advocate, sacrifice, and priest; who
died for the salvation of all those that believe, and is risen for our
justification. (8.) In like manner, we firmly hold that there is no
other Mediator and Advocate with God the Father, save only Jesus Christ.
And as for the virgin Mary, that she was holy, humble, and full of
grace. And in like manner do we believe concerning all the other saints;
namely, that, being in heaven, they wait for the resurrection of their
bodies at the day of judgment. (9.) _Item_, We believe that, after this
life, there are only two places, the one for the saved, and the other
for the damned; the which two places we call paradise and hell,
absolutely denying that purgatory invented by antichrist, and forged
contrary to the truth. (10.) _Item_, We have always accounted as an
unspeakable abomination before God all those inventions of men; namely,
the feasts and the vigils of saints, the water which they call holy: as
likewise to abstain from flesh upon certain days, and the like; but
especially their masses. (11.) We esteem for an abomination, and as
antichristian, all those human inventions which are a trouble or
prejudice to the liberty of the spirit. (12.) We do believe that the
sacraments are signs of the holy thing, or visible forms of the
invisible grace; accounting it good that the faithful sometimes use the
said signs or visible forms, if it may be done. However, we believe and
hold, that the above-said faithful may be saved without receiving the
signs aforesaid, in case they have no place nor any means to use them.
(13.) We acknowledge no other sacrament than baptism and the Lord’s
Supper. (14.) We ought to honour the secular powers by submission, ready
obedience, and paying of tributes.” These churches had, in modern times,
another confession imposed upon them, after they began to receive
pastors from Geneva, which is strongly tinged with Calvinism. It bears
date A. D. 1655.
10. The first Protestant confession was that presented in 1530, to the
diet of Augsburg, by the suggestion and under the direction of John,
elector of Saxony. This wise and prudent prince, with the view of having
the principal grounds on which the Protestants had separated from the
Romish communion, distinctly submitted to that assembly, entrusted the
duty of preparing a summary of them to the divines of Wittemberg. Nor
was that task a difficult one; for the reformed doctrines had already
been digested into seventeen articles, which had been proposed at the
conferences both at Sultzbach and Smalcald, as the confession of faith
to be adopted by the Protestant confederates. These, accordingly, were
delivered to the elector by Luther, and served as the basis of the
celebrated Augsburg confession, written “by the elegant and accurate pen
of Melancthon:” a work which has been admired by many even of its
enemies, for its perspicuity, piety, and erudition. It contains
twenty-eight chapters, the leading topics of which are, the true and
essential divinity of Christ; his substitution and vicarious sacrifice;
original sin; human inability; the necessity, freedom, and efficacy of
divine grace; consubstantiation; and particularly justification by
faith, to establish the truth and importance of which was one of its
chief objects. The last seven articles condemn and confute the Popish
tenets of communion in one kind, clerical celibacy, private masses,
auricular confession, legendary traditions, monastic vows, and the
exorbitant power of the church. This confession is silent on the
doctrine of predestination. This is the universal standard of orthodox
doctrine among those who profess to be Lutherans, in which no
authoritative alteration has ever been made.
11. The confession of Basle, originally presented, like the preceding,
to the diet of Augsburg, but not published till 1534, consists of only
twelve articles, which, in every essential point, agree with those of
the Augsburg confession, except that it rejects the doctrine of
consubstantiation; affirming that Christ is only spiritually present in
the Lord’s Supper, _sacramentaliter nimirum, et per memorationem fidei_;
[that is to say sacramentally, and by faith;] and that it asserts the
doctrine of predestination and infant baptism. But the more detailed
creed of the whole Swiss Protestant churches is contained in the former
and latter Helvetic confessions. The first was drawn up in 1536, by
Bullinger, Myconius, and Grynæus, in behalf of the churches of Helvetia,
and presented to an assembly of divines at Wittemberg, by whom it was
cordially approved. But being deemed too concise, a second was prepared
in 1556, by the pastors of Zurich; which was subscribed not only by all
the Swiss Protestants, but by the churches of Geneva and Savoy, and by
many of those in Hungary and Poland. They fully harmonize with each
other, with only this difference, that the doctrine of predestination,
and an approbation of the observance of such religious festivals, as the
nativity, &c, are to be found in the latter confession only.
12. The Bohemic confession was compiled from various ancient confessions
of the Waldenses who had settled in Bohemia, and approved of by Luther
and Melancthon in 1532; but it was not published till 1535; when it was
presented by the barons and other nobles to King Ferdinand. It extends
to twenty articles, similar to those of the Waldensian confession, with
the addition of others on the divinity of Christ, justification by faith
in him, “without any human help or merit,” predestination, and the
absolute necessity of sanctification and good works.
13. The confession of the Saxon churches was composed in 1551 by
Melancthon, at the desire of the pastors of Saxony and Misnia met in
assembly at Wittemberg, in order to be presented to the council of
Trent. It is contained in twenty-two articles; and while, like that of
Augsburg, it is silent on the subject of predestination, it lays equal
stress on the doctrine of justification by faith; and has a separate
article entitled “Rewards,” in which the doctrine of human merit,
particularly as connected with future blessedness, is condemned and
refuted.
14. Some account of the framing of the English Confession of Faith has
been already given under the article _Church of England and Ireland_.
The “Articles of Religion” are there said to have been amended and
completed in the year 1571; and the Rev. Henry J. Todd, in his very able
work on this subject, has shown their Melancthonian origin and character
by extracts from the “_Articles of Religion_,” “set out by the
Convocation, and published by the king’s authority,” in 1536;--from
those of 1540;--from Cranmer’s “_Necessary Erudition of any Christian
Man_,” published in 1543;--from the _Homilies on Salvation, Faith, and
Good Works_, in 1547, which three were, according to Bishop Woolton’s
unimpeached testimony (in 1576) composed by Archbishop Cranmer;--from
the “_Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum_,” “composed under the
superintendence of the same watchful primate, in 1551;”--from the
“_Articles of Religion_” formed in 1552, almost wholly by
Cranmer;”--from “_Catechismus Brevis, Christianæ Disciplinæ Summam
continens_,” in 1553, which was published in English, as well as Latin,
and commonly called “Edward the Sixth’s Catechism;” and from Bishop
Jewel’s celebrated “_Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ_,” “published in 1562
by the queen’s authority, thus recognised as a national Confession of
Faith, and as such has been printed in the _Corpus Confessionum Fidei_.”
“Such,” says Mr. Todd, “are the several public documents or
declarations, produced or made before the establishment of the
_Thirty-nine Articles of Religion_, from which I have given extracts, to
which the framers of these Articles directed their attention, with the
spirit of which they concur, and the words of which they almost
literally adopt. There will also be found, as chronologically preceding
these, considerable extracts from the _Confession of Augsburg_, the
whole article from the Saxon Confession, _De Remissione Peccatorum, et
Justificatione_, [respecting the forgiveness of sins, and
justification,] and such passages in our _Liturgy_ as concern the points
which the Articles and Homilies exhibit.” No one who has perused these
documents will require any additional argument to convince him, that, in
its very foundations, the English Confession of Faith was most
explicitly in favour of general redemption. We cannot therefore be
surprised at all the old orthodox divines of the church of England, from
1610 to 1660, refusing to be called ARMINIANS; for they repeatedly
declared that their own church openly professed similar doctrines to
those promulgated by the Dutch professor, long before his name was known
in the world. In this assertion they were perfectly correct; and by
every important fact in our ecclesiastical history, as connected with
doctrinal matters, their views are confirmed. If the Articles were
actually of a Calvinistic complexion, as they are now often represented
to be, what could have induced Whitaker and other learned Calvinists to
waste so much valuable time and labour in fabricating the Lambeth
Articles in 1595? Those worthies avowed, that the original Thirty-nine
Articles were not doctrinal enough for their purpose.--When four choice
divines, two of them professors of divinity at Cambridge, were sent to
the synod of Dort as deputies from the English church, and one from the
church of Scotland, though their political instructions went the full
length of assisting in the condemnation and oppression of the Arminians,
personally considered as a troublesome party in the republic, yet they
had different instructions respecting their doctrines. On the second
article, discussed in that synod, “the extent of Christ’s redemption,”
Balcanqual, the deputy from the church of Scotland, informs the English
ambassador at the Hague, that a difference had arisen among the British
deputies: “The question among us is, whether the words of Scripture,
which are likewise the words of our confession, be to be understood of
all particular men, or only of the elect who consist of all sorts of
men? Dr. Davenant and Dr. Ward are of Martinius of Breme his mind, _that
it is to be understood of all particular men_: the other three [Bishop
Carleton, Dr. Goad, and Dr. Balcanqual] take the other exposition, which
is that of the writers of the reformed churches.” The ambassador wrote
home for instructions, and received orders for the British deputies “to
have those conclusions concerning Christ’s death, and the application of
it to us, couched in manner and terms as near as possibly may be to
those which were used in the primitive church, by the fathers of that
time, against the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, and not in any new
phrase of the modern age; and that the same may be as agreeable to the
confessions of the church of England and other reformed churches, and
with as little distaste and umbrage to the Lutheran churches, as may
be.” Archbishop Abbott expressed his approbation of their “cautelous
moderation” in withholding their “hand from pressing in public any
rigorous exclusive propositions in the doctrine of the extent of our
Saviour Christ’s oblation.” The history of this affair, which cannot be
here detailed, shows, that, however willing the three deputies were to
condemn the remonstrants, the resistance of the two more moderate
divines was approved by the authorities at home, and their opinions on
this subject were recorded in such theses as no true Calvinist could
consistently subscribe. During our civil troubles in 1643, the Assembly
of Divines at Westminster revised the first fifteen of the Thirty-nine
Articles “with a design,” as Neal in his “_History of the Puritans_”
candidly declares, “to render their sense more express and determinate
in favour of Calvinism.” This they found to be a hopeless task, as the
ancient creed was too incorrigible to be bent to their views; and they
found it much easier to frame one after their own hearts, some account
of which the reader will find in a subsequent paragraph.--All these
facts go to prove, that the best informed Calvinists have always viewed
the English articles as not sufficiently high in doctrine, unless, as in
the case of the seventeenth, they be allowed to interpret them by
interpolations or qualifying epithets.
15. The confession of the reformed Gallican churches was prepared by
order of a synod at Paris in 1559; and presented to Charles IX. in 1561,
by the celebrated Beza, in a conference with that monarch at Poissy. It
was published for the first time in 1566, with a preface by the French
clergy to the pastors of all Protestant churches; and afterward, in
1571, it was solemnly ratified and subscribed in the national synod of
Rochelle. It is extended to forty articles; but they are in general
concise, and embrace the usual topics of the other Protestant
confessions, including the doctrines of election, and justification by
faith only.
16. The Protestants in Scotland having presented a petition to
parliament in 1560, requesting the public condemnation of Popery, and
the legal acknowledgment of the reformed doctrine and worship, they were
required to draw up a summary of the doctrines which they could prove to
be consonant with Scripture, and which they were anxious to have
established. The ministers on whom this duty was devolved, being well
acquainted with the subject, prepared the required summary in the course
of four days, and laid it before parliament, when, after having been
read first before the Lords of the Articles, and afterward twice (the
second time article by article) before the whole parliament, it received
their sanction as the established system of belief and worship. It
consists of twenty-five articles, and coincides with all the other
Protestant confessions which affirm the doctrine of election, and reject
that of consubstantiation; for although it is not so explicit as some of
them respecting the unconditional nature of election, yet a distinct
recognition of this doctrine pervades the whole of it; and though it has
no separate article on justification, it no less plainly recognises this
fundamental principle of the Protestant faith.
17. The tenets of Arminius having obtained considerable prevalence in
Holland toward the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Calvinists,
or Gomarists, as they were then called, appealed to a national synod,
which was convened at Dort in 1618, by order of the states-general; and
attended by ecclesiastical deputies from England, Switzerland, Bremen,
Hesse, and the Palatinate, beside the clerical and lay representatives
of the reformed churches in the United Provinces. The canons of this
synod, contained in five chapters, relate to what are commonly called
the _five points_; namely, particular and unconditional election;
particular redemption, or the limitation of the saving effects of
Christ’s death to the elect only; the total corruption of human nature,
and the total moral inability of man in his fallen state; the
irresistibility of divine grace; and the final perseverance of the
saints; all of which are declared to be the true and the only doctrines
of Scripture.
18. The Remonstrants, as the Dutch Arminians are generally called, did
not present a confession of faith to the synod of Dort, but only their
sentiments on the five points enumerated in the preceding paragraph,
with corresponding _rejections of errors_ under each of those points.
However, in the first year of their exile, they applied themselves
diligently to this task, and soon produced an ample confession,
principally composed by the celebrated Episcopius. In the preface they
give copious reasons for such a record of their opinions; which
Courcelles has thus expressed in a more summary manner:--“They did not
publish it for the purpose of making it a standard of schism, by which
they might separate themselves from men who held other opinions; nor for
the purpose of having it esteemed by those under their pastoral care as
a secondary rule of faith;--which is in these days with many persons a
most pernicious abuse of this kind of confessions. But it was published
solely with the intention to stop the mouths of those who calumniously
assert, that the Remonstrants cherish within their bosoms portentous
dogmas which they dare not divulge. For there is no cause for doubting,
whether under such circumstances and for this purpose, it is not lawful
for men to publish a confession of their faith, especially as St. Peter
admonishes us ‘always to be ready to give an answer to every man that
asketh us a reason of the hope that is in us with meekness and fear.’”
This confession is of a more practical character than any of the
preceding: it inculcates, at great length, all the most important duties
of Christianity, and, in the words of the preface, “directs all things
to the practice of Christian piety. For we believe that true divinity is
merely practical, and not either simply or for its greatest or chief
part speculative; and therefore whatever things are delivered therein
ought to be referred thither only,--that a man may be the more strongly
and fitly inflamed and encouraged to a diligent performance of his duty,
and keeping of the commandments of Jesus Christ.” In the English
translator’s address to the reader in 1676, it is said, “Touching the
worth of this book, as a summary of Christian religion, if Doctor Jeremy
Taylor’s judgment be of credit with thee, I am credibly informed he
should prefer it to be one of those two or three which, next the Holy
Bible, he would have preserved from the supposed total destruction of
books. A high encomium from the mouth of so learned and pious a divine!”
But though its contents were chiefly practical, one expression in it,
respecting the propriety of tolerating in a Christian community a man
who denied the eternal generation of Jesus Christ, produced a
controversy in Holland, as well as in this country, in which the famous
Bishop Bull eminently distinguished himself. See DORT and REMONSTRANTS.
19. The only other confession of which we shall take notice is that of
the Westminster assembly, which met in 1643, and at which five ministers
and three elders as commissioners from the general assembly of the
church of Scotland attended, agreeably to engagements between the
convention of estates there, and both houses of parliament in England.
This confession is contained in thirty-three chapters, and in every
point of doctrine, fully accords with the sentiments of the synod of
Dort; and on some points going rather beyond it, as with respect to a
supposed election of angels. It was approved and adopted by the general
assembly in 1647; and two years after, ratified by act of parliament, as
“the public and avowed confession of the church of Scotland.” By act of
parliament in 1690, it was again declared to be the national standard of
faith in Scotland; and subscription to it as “the confession of his
faith,” specially required of every person who shall be admitted “a
minister or preacher within this church.” Subscription to it was also
enjoined by the act of union in 1707, on all “professors, principals,
regents, masters, and others bearing office,” in any of the Scottish
universities.