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of Europe dispenses not only ecclesiastical but civil honours and emoluments to those only who will subscribe to these relics of the dark ages? Is there any enlightened Christian who does not perceive that it is equally in violation of the express commands of Christ to form as to assent to a Creed?

By what right can any body of men impose a Creed? By none other than that of a majority. And is a majority the infallible seal of truth? And can a Protestant resort to such an authority as this? If in one class of Christians the majority have a right to enact a Creed for the minority, then the majority of the whole Christian name have an equal right to enact a Creed for the church universal. And who does not know that were the whole church represented according to numbers, the Protestants would be found in a minority, and be compelled inevitably on these principles to surrender all the glorious achievements of the Reformation and return to the Mother Church? Who does not perceive that there is not and never can be uniformity of opinion? Subscription, therefore, if it be meant to be literal and exact, must be in a majority of cases insincere and dishonest. If it allow latitude, who is to prescribe the bounds of that latitude? And if they are not prescribed, the Creed is a mockery, and ought to be abandoned. When honour and station are attached to it, who does not see that it operates as a privilege to the insincere, and a bar only to the conscientious.

Is truth the exclusive discovery of one age? Is it rational or tolerable for one age to dictate opinions to its successors forever? Where then is the sense of Christian ministers repeating to their congregations the decision of a council of the fourth. century upon a point of heathen philosophy, the merits of which neither they nor their hearers comprehend? Is reasonable faith promoted by repeating a form of words, without any increase of evidence, or without any evidence at all? But such is the force of custom that it binds together by its continuous and lengthening chain the most distant ages in the reception of the same errors and abuses, as well as the same truths. Creeds, whenever formed and fastened on the mind, especially when incorporated with ecclesiastical and civil organization, cramp its faculties, discourage inquiry, and produce indifference to truth; and nothing short of some great convulsion in society has power to throw them off. Resting as they do on the imaginary authority of many, no one has the moral courage to assume the responsibility of abandoning them, or calling them in question. Even if the conviction arises in the mind of any that it ought to be done, there is a disposition to delay, so day glides on after day, till ages are numbered, and nothing is done. In many weak and timid minds there seems to be an apprehension, most derogatory to truth and the Scriptures, as if they rested on Creeds for their support, and that if Creeds were swept away, all is over with the cause

394 ORIGIN, NATURE, AND TENDENCY OF CREEDS.

of religion. It is not safe to trust the human mind with itself and the Bible. It is difficult to say whether this idea is most dishonourable to man, reproachful to God, disparaging to the Bible, or inconsistent with itself. Must man take God's revelation at second hand? Must God's revelation be revised by man before it is either safe or effectual? Are not those who make Creeds, fallible men too, as well as those who receive them? Are not the men of this age as capable of drawing truth from the Bible as their predecessors, an enlightened age as one comparatively dark and ignorant?

The reign of Creeds, however, is gone by. Their chief support has been the connection of church and state, which has prevailed more or less since the time of Constantine in the fourth century. As one great truth after another rises in our firmament, and pours on our world a broad and general light, Creeds are destined to wane, and fade, and disappear.

THE END.

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