LECTURE XI.

THE NICENE AND ATHANASIAN CREEDS EXPLAINED AND DEFENDED.

BY THE REV. ROBERT DAVIES, M.A.

"HOLD FAST THE FORM OF SOUND WORDS, WHICH THOU HAST HEARD OF ME, IN FAITH AND LOVE WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS." -2 Tim. i, 13.

THE injunction in the text is one of vast importance, and is equally of moment as addressed to us in the present day as it was to Timothy when urged upon him by the Apostle. Erroneous views of Christian doctrine were creeping into the Church even at that early period, and therefore St. Paul would give warning to his young disciple, and thus put him on his guard lest he should be seduced away from the simplicity of truth. The exhortation exhibits the earnestness and affection of one who was deeply solicitous that the young Apostle should "make full proof of his ministry." And this must be done by maintaining and insisting on the faith and doctrines of the Gospel, uncorrupted and unmutilated, clearly and fully. He charges his beloved son in the faith "to hold fast," in a steadfast profession and by faithful preaching," the form of sound words," the substance of evangelical truth which he had heard of him, and of which

perhaps he had given him some compendious epitome. This he must hold fast in faith and love, by which the soul has communion with Christ and communications from him, and so holds the truth in a vital and efficacious manner, and thus he must guard himself and others against the innovations which false teachers were introducing by unsound and specious words.* Archbishop Tillotson explains the expression, "form of sound words," to mean that profession of faith which Christians were called to make at their baptism.† Another bishop of our church,‡ adverting to the continued solicitude of the Apostles, lest their converts, and even the ministers of the churches established by them, should swerve from the true faith, notices the variety of precepts in which this solicitude is expressed, "To hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering: earnestly to contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints: to continue grounded and settled in the hope of the Gospel, which they had heard; to hold fast the form of sound words: and to hold the traditions which they had received." The two latter of these precepts especially suggest to us the existence of compendium or summaries, as the means then in use and approved, to preserve the faith of Christ from the prevailing attempts to corrupt it, -"to hold fast the form of sound words," vпотúпwσw ὑγιαινόντων λόγων, to hold the traditions which they had received, Tapadoσeis, rather articles or institutes of faith, for so the ancients seem to have understood them.

Dr. Doddridge, in his Family Expositor, thus paraphrases the passage I have selected as my text:-" Be thou, O Timothy! engaged resolutely to retain, and exactly to adhere to the form of sound words, that system of divine and everlasting truths which thou hast heard

Scott in loco. † Works, vol. ii. p. 38.

Bishop Cleaver.

of me; keep it not merely in thy memory, but in thine heart." The fact of Dr. Doddridge being a Dissenter will add to the strength of his declared opinion.

While I believe firmly that in the earliest period of the apostolic age there was a prescribed form of belief required from candidates for baptism, and which form comprised what St. Paul calls the principles of the doctrine of Christ, yet I am not at all anxious to insist on this point, because I do not consider it essential to the question at issue between us and Dissenters in general, nor to the controversy now pending between us and the Unitarians. The question may fairly rest on its own merits. But if it can be shown, which I trust I shall be able to do, that precise specific forms were in constant use in the primitive church, as Creeds or formularies of faith, the position we maintain will gain strength from it.

It may at the outset be maintained, that Creeds were not the creatures of choice, but necessity. There was a period of time in the Christian Church when Creeds might be said to be unnecessary. It was the time when it existed in its greatest purity-it was in its earliest days, when the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; but we must add with sorrow or with shame, that these delightful days were few, and have never since returned. Heresies crept into the Church, and were widely and fatally experienced. While the Apostles were alive, and particularly St. Paul, they made it their great object to save their converts from contagion. But even while St. Paul was alive, we can find indications of the ravages of heresy: and it became necessary that the communion of saints should be clearly ascertained to be a communion of religious sentiment based on Scripture truth; and this of itself would render a precise specific formulary necessary.

It is my intention, in dependance on the aid of the Holy Spirit of truth, to attempt to discharge the important duty assigned to me,—

I. BY ENTERING INTO A DEFENCE OF CREEDS IN

GENERAL.

II. BY GIVING SOME EXPLANATION OF THE NICENE AND ATHANASIAN CREEDs.

III. BY DEFENDING THESE CREEDS AGAINST SOME OBJECTIONS WHich are urgED AGAINST THEM. AND, IV. BY ENDEAVOURING TO EXHIBIT THE SPIRIT IN WHICH ALL RELIGIOUS PROFESSION

MAINTAINED.

SHOULD BE

"Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus." I will first endeavour to enter upon,—

I. A DEFENCE OF CREEDS IN GENERAL.

It will not, I trust, be thought an unnecessary step to define the term Creed. Technical terms have, like many other things, their uses, and their inconveniences. They are found to be extremely useful, when properly understood; for they prevent circumlocution, and enable us to condense the matter which we have in hand. But they also occasion considerable inconvenience when their original meaning and design are lost sight of; and thus a man's belief and his Creed may be supposed to be different things.

The term CREED is derived from the Latin word Credo, I believe. It is well known that the various portions of the Services of our Church are designated by the Latin word with which they commence, as the Venite, the Te Deum, the Jubilate, &c. So the form in which we de

clare the various articles of our faith, is called the Credo, or Creed.

Creeds, Confessions and Catechisms, are all of the same nature, although there are, doubtless, distinctions between them. Creeds, in their commencement, were simply expressions of faith in a few of the leading and undisputed doctrines of the Gospel. Confessions were the result of many an hazardous and laborious effort, at the dawn of reviving literature, to recover these doctrines, and to separate them from an enormous mass of erroneous and corrupted tenets. Catechisms are too well known to need any particular explanation.

Now, all these are a species of Commentary; and it may be fairly urged that the Improved Version of the New Testament, as it is denominated, is the Creed of the Unitarians, though some be unwilling to admit this.

Objections have been made against all Creeds and Confessions of faith, because it is said that they infringe Christian liberty, supersede the Scriptures, exclude such as ought not to be excluded, and admit such as ought not to be admitted that they are often too particular and too long are liable to be abused, -tempt men to hypocrisy preclude improvement; and have been employed as means of persecution: that they are THE FOES OF HEA

:

VENLY FAITH, AND THE ALLIES OF WORLDLY POLICY.

I am ready to admit the force of some of these objections; if such summaries are not clearly based on the Word of God, or if their Articles are repugnant to Scripture. There are such Creeds in existence. That of Pius IV. is of this character; and others might be named. But when Creeds are clearly deducible from Scripture: when they present a compendious view of the chief and most necessary points of the Christian religion, which lie scattered up and down in the Scriptures, they of necessity