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Mistakes as to Creeds.

these errors are, if they are preventible, they cannot be held by rational men as a sufficient reason for the extinction of all forms of faith. Misuse is not always conclusive of utter unfitness for human service. Because creeds have been abused and made to do work for which they were never intended, it does not follow that they can render no aid to men in their warfare with wrong. If a man seeks to cut down the oaks of Sherwood Forest with a razor instead of an axe, the Sheffield people are not forthwith forbidden to make razors. Because iron is manufactured into murderous swords we do not prohibit its use for the roads on which the civilizing steam may run its journeys of beneficence. Gas is a most dangerous article, but carefully guided it illuminates our cities and towns, and aids our police. So if creeds have been made into millstones and hung about the necks of heretics, or into missiles to be hurled from the catapults of church intolerance against those who, like Paul, have been resolved to maintain their liberty in Christ Jesus, yet this will not hinder us from using them as instruments for leading feebler minds to see the immense range and glorious harmony of the revelation of God.

The great mistake is to imagine that any creed is final, or that any system of theological truth exhausts the Bible, or forms an exact equivalent for the Scriptures. Creeds never can have finality. They are always progressive. Because revelation is closed it does not follow that any scheme for explaining it is infallible even though it receive the approbation of councils and the sanction of learned men. Nature refuses to be exhausted by the mind of Newton or Darwin. Why should the Bible have nothing left in it after a greatly gifted youth of twenty-six years of age has dug Calvinism out of it? The Great Stone Book, our earth, has not revealed all its secrets

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to Lyell; why should that greater book, our Scriptures, be supposed to have given up all its treasures to the noble spirited Arminius? Till the human mind is equal to the divine it is competent to us to expect, with Robinson, that "God has yet more truth to break forth from His holy Word." Further investigation will confirm the cardinal truths of all creeds, and bring out with greater distinctness the broad lines in which our systems coincide, and yet show more and more of the fulness of the revelation of Him who filleth all in all.

Scarcely less serious is the error of treating creeds as cures for doubt. The physician does not send his suffering patient to Page's Outlines of Geology, or Lindley's Botany, in order that his enfeebled body may be invigorated and his failing strength renewed: but religious teachers, who should be wise to win souls, have often put before doubting troubled men their hard and stiff logical forms, built up together in faultless style, but repulsive as a charnel house, and tantalizing as stones for bread and scorpions for eggs. Keble writing concerning the youthful Arnold when the latter was distressed with religious doubts, said, "I am inclined to think that the wisest thing he could do would be to take John M. (a young pupil) and a curacy somewhere or other, and cure himself not by physic, i.e., reading and controversy, but by diet and regimen." Yes, as the doctor says to the invalid, "Get face to face with nature. Let the breezes blow on you. Welcome the sunshine, and obtain the stimulus of appropriate exercise;" so to the doubter we say, "Come face to face with God in His word. Get into the light of the Sun of Righteousness, and attempt the actual work of Christian men." Creeds are bad medicine for doubters, poor food for men hungering for the truth of God.

In fact their main work is educa

tional. They are capital instruments for teacher and taught. As a knowledge of anatomy is indispensable to the man who has to cut off a limb, and of materia medica to him who has to prescribe for different complaints, in like manner an acquaintance with the complex nature of man, as described in the Bible and revealed in life; and with the framework of Scripture, the connection of part with part, and the general relations of the whole to each truth and each truth to the whole, is necessary to the teacher who covets to do his work so that he may not be ashamed in the day of Christ. He may rarely or never go thorough it publicly; but it will be the hidden but strong foundation on which he ever builds. Nor are they less requisite for many of the taught at certain stages of their progress. Some do not need them. They have out grown the alphabet and primer of their earlier years by a constant "increase in the knowledge of God." But others are young and weak, and for them systematic statements and short and concise forms are as necessary as they were once for us. Creeds will put ideas within their grasp they would not obtain in any other way. Erroneous notions will be dissipated as they see the truth in its relations and harmonies. We shall never forget the advantage derived in early life from a perusal of the Christian Religion in its leading principles, by the Rev. Dan Taylor. The scaffolding is good for building the house, though unsightly when the house is completed. We fear the church is losing her hold upon the minds of the rising generation, and failing to guard from many evils her younger members because she underrates the value of definite doctrinal teaching.

Another function of creeds is to assist in the preservation of the truth of the gospel amongst men. Christianity has this distinguishing merit, that it has created the spirit

of testifying to individual convictions of truth; and the mode in which the churches have accomplished this task has been, to a large extent, by the promulgation of forms of faith as the basis of union and the rallying centre for warfare. We do not forget that the greatest mischiefs Christianity has been charged with are due to this use of creeds. It has been the parent of intolerance, impertinence, and pride; has fanned the flames of civil war, wielded the sword of persecution, and erected impassable barriers between children of the same family and denizens of the same eternal city. Still the world owes more, much more, than it is in the mood to acknowledge now to the selfdenying efforts of men on behalf of speculative opinions of the truth of God. Intellectual independence has been fostered by it; education stimulated, for men have been urged, like the Bereans, to search the Scriptures, and to search they had to learn to read; convictions have been preferred to interests, and this unbending adherence to personal convictions of the meaning of God's word will lead us ultimately to the goal of religious equality. As the flag borne aloft by the soldier is the symbol of the honour and liberties of his country, so the creed has been the banner of the truth-man's most precious possession; and thousands have fought even to death, not for the parchment scroll containing their credo, but for the divine gift of which it was the sign, and thus the truth of the gospel has remained with us.

It is from this point of view we contemplate the six doctrines avowed by our General Baptist fathers a hundred years ago. They had a two-fold purpose in formulating their religious convictions. They wished to express in definite and clearly accentuated form the difference between themselves and those from whom they separated, and at the

"The Six Articles."

same time to revive experimental religion or primitive Christianity. Their first work was to describe their position, the attitude they took with regard to the revelation of God's will; and their second was to secure such a definition of faith as would foster spiritual life, rather than hinder its growth, and promote the experience of the love of God more than check it. As to the first intention, their success was complete. These six articles form an admirable creed. It avoids dogmatism, though it is precise in its terms and firm in its tone. It registers facts without endeavouring to explain the insoluble. It speaks in the language of Scripture without intending thus to avoid an explicit declaration of belief. It is full without falling into excess, modest without being weak, and bold without being arrogant. It is beautiful in its brevity, strong in its simplicity, and effective in its practical spirit. It is intensely positive. Above all, it is full of God. Like the theology of Methodism (of which it is not a remote descendant), and like that of Calvinistic Puritanism, it really starts with God: not with man, not with the church, not with the state; but unlike the Calvinism of the Synod of Dort, it firmly refuses to limit the atonement, and to admit "eternal reprobation." Our fathers were real Puritans. They understood the vision of God. They lived in His presence, and felt a rapturous joy in the contemplation of His love. He was nigh at hand, and not afar off. He did not place himself behind impassable "decrees," but came out from the calm of His pavilion to speak with man face to face. The spirit of Puritanism, the intense and vivid realization of God, "penetrates and transfigures" our General Baptist creed. To those from whom they seceded the compilers said in effect, "We believe you have not interpreted in their full force the claims of the Lord Jesus

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to be one with the Father, to be free from sin and yet the Saviour of all sinners, to be Himself the end and object of all human activity, and therefore we can no longer associate with you, holding as we do 'that our Lord Jesus Christ was God and man united in one person, and that He suffered to make a full atonement for all the sins of all men." To their companions the signatories of this deed of union said, "Brethren, we are saved by grace through faith; but we firmly believe that no faith is the means of justification unless it produces good works." The creed was meant for work rather than talk, for living experimental religion more than theological debate, for the revival of godliness and the salvation of sinners, and not only for a barrier between two ranks of old friends. John Foster was once taken to see a place of worship belonging to the Unitarians by one of their ministers, a gentlemanly and erudite man; and as they walked away from the chapel door down an avenue of poplar trees, the minister remarked that they purposed cutting the trees down. By no means remove them," said Foster; "they are the only things alive about the place." In 1770 life was the one thing needful for the churches, and our fathers were earnestly bent on obtaining it. The new creed was not only to be the symbol of a "New Connexion of General Baptists," but the veins of truth along which the life of God should run. This is the key to our creed. Viewed apart from this purpose, it is inadequate, meagre, and unsatisfactory; but judged in reference to this end, it is exceedingly wise and far-sighted. There is not a better creed for a working church under heaven. Its expressed doctrines are few, but they all mean work for the salvation of men. It starts with the assertion that man is wrong, utterly wrong, and that by his own act and not by fixed fate. He has fallen. He is cursed. He

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He is

is a captive of the devil. doomed to "eternal punishment." The second article contains the law God bids this fallen man obey. Jehovah demands perfect love from every one of us at all times, in all places and parts of the world." But how are these high obligations to be discharged? The next three sections give the answer. Salvation is in Christ. He "being God and man united in one person," made "full atonement for all the sins of all men." We delight in these qualifying words. We could imagine them coming from the lips of Paul. They accumulate in this creed as they do in his writings. Hearts brimming over with the love of God revealed in His gospel must offer it to all men and invite them to receive it. Yes, to receive it. Salvation is wholly due to divine grace. Man does not earn it. He accepts it. It is of faith that it may be by grace. But it is a mere pretence for a man to say he has faith if he has no works. Faith worketh; worketh by love and purifieth the heart. The Holy Ghost also worketh through the word that is believed, and so regenerates the soul and produces holiness of life. The creed so intensely practical winds up with the declaration (from the second clause of which many of us now dissent)— "We believe that it is the indispensable duty of all who repent and believe the gospel to be baptized by immersion in water in order to be initiated into a church state; and that no person ought to be received into the church without submission to that ordinance."

At a glance one perceives that other articles than the six expressed are implied in this statement: and what they were it is not difficult to ascertain from the writings of Dan Taylor, the master-mind of the denomination at the time of its formation. The sufficiency and sole authority of the Scriptures in matters pertaining to the religious life

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are tenets clearly involved in this creed.; for no other witness is cited, and no other reason for faith assigned. The Bible is so inspired, says Taylor, as to be a full and sufficient revelation of God's will to mortals." A doctrine of the Trinity is at the basis of this avowal, though it is nowhere expressed. The language of the leader, in his "Confession," on this head is most instructive. "That God is one; yet there are Three represented by the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, who have communion in one Godhead, and have proper Deity ascribed to them all. But I cannot find that any man has yet learned from Scripture to describe how these three are united in one Godhead; nor the exact mode of their distinction. As I do not find them called in Scripture Three persons, I do not choose to call them so myself: but I neither wish to condemn nor to contend with those who think it proper to use this manner of speech." On Election our creed is silent; but in his Confession Mr. Taylor says, "That God has chosen or appointed from the beginning that believers should be saved, and that unbelievers should be damned. The Scripture does not say that the elect are chosen to faith, but through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." He also seems to have held the doctrine of our daya free church in a free state.

But we hasten to our last point. What has been the fate of this creed during this hundred years? It has been tested by time. With what results? Tennyson says—

"Our little systems have their day,

They have their day and cease to be." Has this ceased to be? Has further analysis frittered it away? No. Expounded again and again, it is still found to be based on the indestructible truths of the Scripture. Has it fallen from the shocks of the serried ranks of opponents? Contrariwise. It has a wider field and

The Centenary Fund.

a larger host of defenders than ever. In America its truths have so taken hold of the churches, that our brethren the Free-will Baptists consider they have gained their point on the matter of a free salvation, and have only to contend for free communion at the Lord's table. In our growing colonies it is openly acted upon. Even Scotland has been compelled to admit a sect holding the universal extent of the atonement, and the resistibility of the influences of the Holy Spirit. How Wesleyans in their various families have grown during the last century is matter of common observation; and scarcely less notorious is the pervasion of bodies avowedly opposed to us with the leading truths of these six articles of religion.

Still there is much land to be possessed. The errors against which we contend find a fertile soil in the corrupt heart. Fatalism is a pleasant delusion. Men like "decrees," and think by them to cast all the blame of their condition on God.

We

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must stand by our well tested creed. It is our safeguard from serious mistakes. Deny it, as in Unitarianism, and you have a cold and respectable morality, a comfortable intellectualism averse to all religious enthusiasm, and little fit for war with evil. Exceed it by positive statements about divine decrees and partial reasonings from foreknowledge, and you loosen the bonds of human responsibility and give scope for those fatalistic notions that thrive so fearfully in, and work such mischief to, fallen men.

Having, then, in substance the sound evangelical and aggressive doctrine of Methodism; the free polity of Congregationalism, but shielded from its isolation by our Associational bond; and the only Scriptural interpretation of New Testament baptism, we ought to "stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way and walk therein, and so shall we find rest" and work "for our souls." J. CLIFFORD.

THE CENTENARY FUND.

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of the Bazaar at Leicester, the collection at the Centenary meeting, and the grant from the Association Fund, the amount to be raised by the whole body of General Baptists to make up the £5,000 is exactly four shillings and fourpence each; or, one penny a week for each week of the Centenary year, and not quite twopence a week for each week

that remains till next June.

For the convenience of the churches a list has been issued showing what has been promised or paid to the Fund by each church; and what is the quota that each church should raise in order to contribute its full share of the £5,000. There ought to be no monopoly of privilege in this effort; every church should look to it that another does not take its crown. Twelve churches, however, are raising double, and seven of them more than double, their quota. Their proportion altogether would be a little more than £500: they promise

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