3. When we reflect that these same ideas which formed the all-sufficing creed of the early Church, are not openly disputed by any Church or sect in Christendom, it may be worth while to ask whether, after all, there is anything very absurd in supposing that all Christians have something in common with each other. The pictures of the Good Shepherd and of the Vine, the devotional language of the epitaphswhether we call them sectarian or unsectarian, denominational or undenominational-have not been watchwords of parties; no public meetings have been held for defending or abolishing them, no persecutions or prosecutions have been set on foot to put them down or to set them up. And yet it is certain that, by the early Christians, they were not thought vague, fleeting, unsubstantial, colourless, but were the food of their daily lives, their hope under the severest trials, the dogma of dogmas, if we choose so to call them, the creed of their creed, because the very life of their life.

doubtful example of any passage relating to a dogma controverted by any Christian Church.

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CHAPTER XIV.

THE CREED OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS.

THE formula in which the early Christian belief shaped itself has since grown up into the various creeds which have been adopted by the Christian Church. The two most widely known are that of Chalcedon, commonly called the Nicene Creed, and that of the Roman Church, commonly called the Apostles'. The first is that which pervaded the Eastern Church. Its original form was that drawn up at Nicea on the basis of the creed of Cæsarea produced by Eusebius. Large additions were made to it to introduce the dogmatical questions discussed in the Nicene Council. It concluded with anathemas on all who pronounced the Son to be of a different Hypostasis from the Father. Another Creed much resembling this, but with extensive additions at the close, and with the omission of the anathemas, was said to have been made at the Constantinopolitan Council, but was first proclaimed at the Council of Chalcedon. It underwent a yet further change in the West from the adoption of the clause which states that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, as well as from the Father. The Creed of the Roman Church came to be called the Apostles' Creed,' from the fable that the twelve Apostles had each of them contributed a clause. It was successively enlarged. First was added the Remission of Sins,' next the Life Eternal.' Then came the Resur

See Chapter XVI.

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2 This clause unquestionably conveys the belief, so emphatically contradicted by St. Paul (1 Cor. xv. 35, 36, 50), of the Resurrection of the

rection of the Flesh.' Lastly was incorporated the 'Descent 3 into Hell,' and the Communion of the Saints.' It is observable that the Creed, whether in its Eastern or its Western form, leaves out of view altogether such questions as the necessity of Episcopal succession, the origin and use of the Sacraments, the honour due to the Virgin Mary, the doctrine of Substitution, the doctrine of Predestination, the doctrine of Justification, the doctrine of the Pope's authority. These may be important and valuable, but they are not in any sense part of the authorised creed of the early Christians. The doctrine of Baptism appears in the Constantinopolitan Creed, but merely in the form of a protest against its repetition. The doctrine of Justification might possibly be connected with the Forgiveness of Sins,' but no theory is expressed on the subject. Again, most of the successive clauses were added for purposes peculiar to that age, and run, for the most part, into accidental questions which had arisen in the Church. The Conception, the Descent into Hell, the Communion of Saints, the Resurrection of the Flesh, are found only in the Western, not in the original Nicene Creed. The controversial expressions respecting the Hypostasis and the Essence of the Divinity are found only in the Eastern, not in the Western Creed.

But there is one point which the two Creeds both have in common. It is the framework on which they are formed. That framework is the simple expression of faith used in the Baptism of the early Christians. It is taken from the First Gospel, and it consists of the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.'

corporeal frame. It has been softened in the modern rendering into the Resurrection of the Body,' which, although still open to misconception, is capable of the spiritual sense of the Apostle. But in the Baptismal Service the original clause is presented in its peculiarly offensive form.

3 This was perhaps originally a synonym for He was buried,' as it occurs in those versions of the Creed where the burial is omitted. But it soon came to be used as the expression for that vast system-partly of fantastic superstition, partly of valuable truth--involved in the deliverance of the early Patriarchs by the entrance of the Saviour into the world of shades.

It is not certain that in early times this formula was in use. The

I. It is proposed to ask, in the first instance, the Biblical meaning of the words. In the hymn Quicunque vult, as in Dean Swift's celebrated Sermon on the Trinity,' there is no light whatever thrown on their signification. They are used like algebraic symbols, which would be equally appropriate if they were inverted, or if other words were substituted for them. They give no answer to the question what in the minds of the early Christians they represented.

1. What, then, is meant in the Bible-what in the experience of thoughtful men-by the name of The Father? In one word it expresses to us the whole of what we call Natural Religion. We see it in all religions. Not only is the omnipresence of something which passes comprehension, that most abstract belief which is common to all religions, which becomes the more distinct in proportion as they develope, and which remains after their discordant elements have been mutually cancelled; but it is that belief which the most unsparing criticism of each leaves unquestionable, or rather makes ever clearer. It has nothing to fear from the most inexorable logic; but, on the contrary, is a belief which the most inexorable logic shows to be more profoundly true than any religion supposes.'5 As mankind increases in civilisation, there is an increasing perception of order, design, and good-will towards the living creatures which animate it. Often, it is true, we cannot trace any such design; but whenever we can, the impression left upon us is the sense of a Single, Wise, Beneficent Mind. And in our own hearts and consciences we feel an instinct corresponding to this-a voice, a faculty, that seems to refer us to a Higher Power than ourselves, and to point to some Invisible Sovereign Will, like to that which we see impressed on the

first profession of belief was only in the name of the Lord Jesus (Ac's ii. 38, viii. 12, 16, x. 48, xix. 5). In later times, Cyprian (Ep. lxxiii.), the Council of Frejus, and Pope Nicholas the First acknowledge the validity of this form. Still it soon superseded the profession of belief in Jesus Christ, and in the second century had become universal. (See Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, i. 162.)

Herbert Spencer, First Principles, p. 45.

natural world. And, further, the more we think of the Supreme, the more we try to imagine what His feelings are towards us-the more our idea of Him becomes fixed in the one simple, all-embracing word that He is the Father. The word itself has been given to us by Christ. It is the peculiar revelation of the Divine nature made by Christ Himself. Whereas it is used three times in the Old Testament, it is used two hundred times in the New. But it was the confirmation of what was called by Tertullian the testimony of the naturally Christian soul-testimonium animæ naturaliter Christiana. The Greek expression of 'the Father of Gods and men' is an approach towards it. There may be much in the dealings of the Supreme and Eternal that we do not understand; as there is much in the dealings of an earthly father that his earthly children cannot understand. Yet still to be assured that there is One above us whose praise is above any human praise, who sees us as we really are, who has our welfare at heart in all the various dispensations which befall us, whose wide-embracing justice and long-suffering and endurance we all may strive to obtainthis is the foundation with which everything in all subsequent religion must be made to agree. One thing alone is certain the Fatherly smile which every now and then gleams through Nature, bearing witness that an Eye looks down upon us, that a Heart follows us.' To strive to be perfect as our Father is perfect is the greatest effort which the human soul can place before itself. To repose upon this perfection is the greatest support which in sorrow and weakness it can have in making those efforts. This is the expression of Natural Religion. This is the revelation of God the Father.

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2. What is meant by the name of the Son?

It has often happened that the conception of Natural Religion becomes faint and dim. Starting with the being of a God, which is as certain to me as the certainty of my own existence, . . . I look out of myself into the world of

Renan's Hibbert Lectures for 1880, p. 201.