(2.) Many persons altogether object to Creeds isi Confessions of Faith on the ground that they inMs^ Christian liberty, supersede the Scriptnres, exdodi topics which ought not to be excluded, and adn^ such as ougHt not to be admitted ; are often too ps^ ticular and long ; are liable to be abused ; tempt oks to hypocrisy; preclude improvement; and have beei employed as means of persecution. It Is said fnrtbtf " that confessional formularies, if they do not npe^ sede the Word of God, are placed on a parity with it and, to a wide extent, are of greater practical aatkf> ity. Two consequences follow : the first is, that spir- itual life is either altogether extinguished, or, where it exists, is so dwarfed and imprisoned that it hss neither scope nor power of manifestation ; and the second, that fellow-Christians who occupy a domaia on the outside of the confessional pale are condemimi as schismatics, and at the same time feared as if thej were foes."
(8.) On the other hand, the arguments hi fevor of them are such as the following. All arts and sdeoeei have been reduced to system, and why should not the truths of religion, which are of greater importance? A compendious view of the principal points of the Christian religion must be useftil to inform the mini as well as to hold forth to the world which are tbt sentiments of particular churches. They tend to dis- cover the common friends of the same fiuth to cacli other, and to unite them together. The Scriptures countenance them. We have the mcoral law, the Lord's prayer, ** the form of doctrine," mentioned by St Paul (Rom. vi, 17), and "the form of sound words" (2 Tim. i, 18). Their becoming the occasion of hy- pocrisy is not the feult of the Confessions, but of those who subscribe them. If all Creeds and Cos- fessions were expressed in the words of ScriptuR, this would set aside all exposition and interpretition. and would destroy all means of distinguisUng the sentiments of one man from those of anciber (Famr, s. v.). And to say that each individual is to interpRt the Creeds by the BiUe, and to hold and pnblidi his own interpretation, without reference to that of tk Church to which be may belong; **is not to exalt the Scriptures, but only to confound the uses of the Woid
CONFESSION OF FAITH 467 CONFESSION OF FAITH
of God and the word of the Ohnrch. The one is at •11 times the ultimate appeal of eyeiy belieyer's con- science ; the other is the interpretation of that appeal by the collective body of the Chnrch. The Church does not first make a minister, and then tie him down to her articles ; but the minister, professing to have been moYed by the Holy Qhost, and demanding to exerdse his office and to be intmsted with the core of souls in the community to which he applies, is ask- ed by the Church whether his individual interpreta- tion of the Scripture accords with that of the collec- tive mind of hb brethren. If he cannot answer in the affirmative, it is evident that he must exercise his ministry elsewhere. A particular Church may be in the wrong, and an individual may be in the right; in which case there will arise controversy, and the Church, by the secession and opposition of individuals, may be led to modify and improve its theology. But this must be done by a collective act, and not by the insubordination of private clergymen filling the Church with ^various doctrines, and giving to its proclamation of the €k>spel an uncertain sound. For, if it were oth- erwise, what heresy could be excluded ?"
(4.) In the interpretation of Confessions there are some distinctions perpetually overlooked, some most important principles of interpretation but little attend- ed to. For instance, sometimes the private opiniont of the ftamers of formularies confessedly go beyond them ; now these private opimom are sometimes ap- pealed to as a proof that the formularies ought to be understood in that extended sense, whereas they prove the direct contrary, (See Archbishop Whately*s Kinff- don of Chritt, sec. 24.) If, indeed, the writings of these framers contain indications of the detiffn with which they were framed, this ought to be considered. For instance, articles, etc., framed manifestly on pur- pose to exclude certain Romish doctrines, as being so utterly unscriptural as to justify and enforce that sep- aration from Bome which the Beformers deliberately resolved on, ought not to be interpreted so as to 6e consistent with these doctrines ; not, however, because this would have been at variance with the private opinions of each Beformer separately, but because it would be at variance with their deliberate public dec- laration as a ho€^. Again, there is a distinction to be observed between the interpretation (i) of anything put forth by an iftdmdual for the purpose of instruct- ing others or explaining his own views, and (ii) of anything emanating from an asMm%, the members of which could not' be expected exactly to agree, not only in every shade of opinion, and the relative im- portance also of every point, but slso in the degree of concession to be made to those before whom their dec- larations were to be put; e. g. an individual (unless a blunderer) will never make one part of his statement 80 far neutralise the other, that the whole effects no object which might not have been equally well ob- tained by omitting the whole, yet some public dec- larations drawn up by assemblies of sensible men may be expected to be such; the XVIIth 'Article' of the Chnrch of England, ibr instance, is by many consider- ^ to contain nothing which might not have been at- tained by omitting it. In any such case, it may have been that a strong majority think it will be requisite to say something on the point ; many may think that so and so ought to be said ; and many others may ob- ject to this, unless some qualification be added, such M newly to neutralize it These principles of hiter- protation are incalculably important, and should be constantly remembered*' (Eden, s. v.). See Creeds. n. ConfessionB of different Churches.— 1. That of the w^ Church, entitled " The Confessions of the True ^d Qenuine Faith," which was presented to Moham- ni«d II in 1463, but which gave place to the " Ortho- dox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Greek Chwch,*' composed by Mogfla, metropolitan of Kiev, m Bossia, and approved in 1648 by the patriarchs of