THE

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY

AND

CLASSICAL REVIEW.

THIRD SERIES, NO. IV.-WHOLE NUMBER LX.

HUMAN nature possesses, generically, a marked propension for extremes. It may be said of it, as one has said of woman, "Aut amat, aut odit, nihil est tertium."

As if the fall struck the fiercest blow at the moderation of the race, the opinions and practices of men oscillate from right to left-from deepest centre to furthest circumference-with vast rapidity. It has always been common for proselytes to be "tenfold more the children of" enthusiasm, than they who proselyted them. The great attempt of the French, to loose from their necks the iron bands of a most rigid despotism, had but fairly begun, ere the shadows of the extreme result, which was a more rigid democracy, began to forecast themselves. And thus, it is no marvel to the world, to witness the straight flights of men from one extremity in politics, religion, morals, or manners, to another exactly the opposite.

THIRD SERIES, VOL. I. NO. IV.

38

To such a frailty of the human character, it might, perhaps, be charitable to refer, along with numerous other eccentricities, the favorite outcry of so many of the present age against the use of church creeds. The creeds, or confessions of the churches, during the era of the Reformation, and shortly after it, (as was indeed not surprising, at a time when the elements of the truth had to be drawn out from the huge heaps of falsities with which a thousand years of darkness had overlaid them,) may have been too ample and minute to comport with the features of different times. The fathers were all eagerness to show to the world, so long bewildered with the errors of Rome, what "be the true sayings of God." And thus their formularies of faith were oftentimes long, usually minutely explicit, and frequently, to us, undeniably tedious Circumstances seemed to call them to define the very verge of truth.

But other ages have advanced. There has been a great, merciful, and marvellous revival of the truth. The fathers have slept; and their children, and children's children, for many generations, have inherited their possessions. And some of them, now in these remote years, forgetful of the straits of their fathers, or, perhaps, what is more true, forgetful of the straits of humanity at any period, from the full summaries of Christian doctrine, arranged and recorded by past ages, go, at a single bound, to the utmost opposite, and sternly disavow all creeds, formularies, or symbols of belief whatever, exterior to the simple text itself of the Scriptures: for a shield, grossly perverting that noble sentiment, "The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants."

Of such men, single and clustered, and in ecclesiastical bodies of various sizes, it is a grief to say, that our own loved country, the North and the East, the sunny South and the portentous West, (not to mention other lands,) is much too full. The names under which they pass, familiar in their more appropriate localities, and more or less known to the reading public, it is not necessary here to repeat. Some of them are evidently wide from the meaning, or intention, of the

sacred Scriptures; and though clinging to the "letter," yet plainly have not the "spirit." Others of them are mainly evangelical; and sometimes knock at the doors of our churches, asking for occasional communion. And this very latitude, or liberty," of belief which they use, they proffer to us as their best recommendation. It is their fair front, also, which they show to the world; claiming thereby those sympathies which profess to eschew "bigotry ;" and present themselves, as obviously, the truest examples of that "liberality," or charity, which is the innermost soul of Christianity. And of this, we are pained to say, a prominent instance occurs in the case of the late "Southern Baptist Convention," May, 1845; whence, in an address, written for every section of the Union, and for "all candid men," the following incidental paragraph was sent forth: "We have constructed for our basis no new creed; acting in this matter upon a Baptist aversion to all creeds but the Bible." Underscore the word Baptist, and consider the reflection it contains upon the customs of other prominent sects, or families, of Christians.

It is not the intention of this short article to enumerate the many objections gathered against the use of creeds in the churches, nor to array against such objections, the ample replies that lie at hand. Examples, both of the objections and their answers, may occur casually in the succeeding remarks. Indeed, were it not that some of these objections wear a specious aspect, and so have power to inveigle the unwary, in many quarters of the land, and are even used as entering wedges of division in our covenanted churches, the whole subject might be passed by, as one of mere secondary importance. But the outcry is loud; and it imitates boldly the shibboleth of the Scriptures, bidding the world beware of the multitude of churches, and of the priesthood thereof, who "teach for doctrines the commandments of men." And for such outcries the world has an "itching ear." Nevertheless, if the church have an answer, the world will hear it. And

such an answer should, verily, be ever ready.

Both ministers

and people, and each individual for himself, should be pre

pared with a reason for this conformity of theirs, in the matter of confessions and covenants, to the long tested custom of their fathers.

A few desultory hints, on this whole subject, may be found in what follows:

1. The ordinary definition of the word creed, as signifying a summary or confession of faith, expressed in phraseology varying more or less from that of the Scriptures, agreed to as a basis of special or local union among a body of professed Christians, cannot be much controverted. It seems to be necessary to a creed, that some of its language should so vary from that of the Scriptures, as to define the particular sense, which those who adopt it may have, of the nature of particular scriptural passages, personages, or doctrines. It also implies a covenant, or agreement of adherence among those who subscribe it.

It is not vital to the genuineness of a creed, that it expresses all which those who adopt it may believe, or regard, as taught in the Scriptures. But few of the creeds of Christian churches speak of the existence of angels; yet all, or almost all of them believe in their existence. Thus the length or brevity of a creed, is not an item vital to its nature. The solemn avowal of the Ethiopian eunuch, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God;" or that of Martha, "Lord, I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world," may have been as really and properly the subscription to a creed, as though all the predictions of Moses and the prophets concerning the Messiah, and concerning the true nature of his office, and all the particular items of their fulfilment in the case of Jesus of Nazareth, had been in long detail recited.

2. It is supposed by many, and by some widely proclaimed, that the use of creeds, or confessions of faith, in churches, entirely lacks scriptural authority.

Indeed, a few inconsiderately aver, that the great Master of the house left his positive record against them, in his quotation of the words of Isaiah, "Howbeit, in vain do they

worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." It needs but a single thought, however, and a brief glance at the comment which our Saviour made upon these words, to see that the "commandments of men" are declared to render the worship of God "vain," only when they contradict those of God; or, in Christ's own language, when they lead men to "reject the commandments of God." The question, whether or not the existing creeds of Christian churches are of this character, is one to be settled by their inspection. and examination individually. The question, also, whether the creeds of the existing evangelical churches of the land, or world, are habitually used, or are capable of being used, as were some of the "traditions" which the Saviour so denounced, (Mark 7: 10-13,) to screen the conscience from the pressure of natural, moral, or religious duties, is one, perhaps, whose answer the revilers of Christian creeds would prefer to decline.

Neither does the controversy concerning the authenticity, or genuineness, of the "Apostles' Creed," so called, much affect the point before us. The "Apostles' Creed" may be the production of a century succeeding the latest of the apostles, and yet the use of ecclesiastical formulas of doctrine be plausi bly shown to possess the authority of apostolical example. Paul wrote to the Romans, commending them for obedience to "that form of doctrine which was delivered unto them:" Túлоv didans, Rom. 6: 17. Beza translates it, "formæ doctrinæ," scheme, fashion, or set form of doctrine. Is there not here implied, that Paul "delivered" unto the Roman converts some explicit sense, mode, or pattern of Christian doctrine, or doctrines, to which they gave their assent, confession, or "obedience?" Did he not enjoin upon them certain tenets, commented upon, or expressed in definite language, not found, identically, in the then received Scriptures? Or must we admit the position that the whole Scriptures then known, verbatim et literatim, and which were common to both receivers and rejectors of Jesus, constituted that "form of doctrine" which he had delivered unto them!

The same expression occurs also in 2 Timothy 1: 15,