The Bible, the Bible is the creed of Protestants.-Chillingworth.

All the framers of these Articles contemplated was to raise up a standard of Scripture truth, and to send forth a protest against the fatal errors and corruptions of Rome.J. A. Jimison, “Notes on the Articles of Religion" (1868).

With respect to the moral universe, which we know to be the final cause of all divine activity and whose interest must forever be supreme, we know that its great principles and laws are immutable, and the same for all worlds, however the components may vary.-Bishop Randolph S. Foster, "Theology."

This also shows the tyranny of that Church which has imposed the belief of every one of her doctrines on the consciences of her votaries under the highest pains of anathemas, and as articles of faith. But the Church of England very carefully avoided the laying that weight upon even those doctrines which she receives as true; and therefore she drew up a large form of doctrine, yet to all her lay sons this is only a standard of what she teaches.-Bishop Burnet.

CHAPTER III.

AUTHORITY AND USE.

THE Twenty-Five Articles are an authoritative declaratory standard of those doctrines and teachings of Christianity which have been the chief subjects of historic controversies. This characterization is to be so extended as to include the affirmation that the doctrines so treated are still in controversy. For instance, the materialism, pantheism, and Unitarianism of today, if not historical survivals of the heresies against which the first Articles of the Confession (derived from early symbols) are aimed, are at least recrudescences of their spirit and teachings. The folly that mocks at sin and that makes light of the mystery of iniquity renews its youth like the vulture of the sham

As to the persistence of those abuses and false doctrines cried against in the anti-Romish tenets, there can be neither denial nor doubt. The asseverations and protests find their justifying objectives alive and in active habit.

We have already seen that the contents of the Twenty-Five Articles are not peculiar to Methodist theology, but are of the letter and substance of catholic orthodoxy and Protestantism. The Articles came to Methodism as an inheritance, being itself Anglican in spirit and history. But it is Anglican only in the sense that it fulfills the law that each new generation

normally embodies the best of its antecedents and gathers to itself the higher fruitage of ideals borne by its own time. It is in the likeness of the past; it is also in the likeness of the present. It is therefore of the past, and yet not of it. This is Methodism with reference to its doctrinal inheritance from the Church of England. Its canons of authority are venerable, but its experience is fresh with the breath and sunlight of to-day.

The peculiar doctrines of Methodism-those which have been found potent in spreading scriptural holiness over the lands-are found in its official books or standards. These are also authoritative to a peculiar degree. Of this authority there has never been any strict definition. The doctrines have survived through fitness rather than ecclesiastical indorsement. In their unformulated shape they have been far more effective than if they had been put into the scholastic terms of a regulation statement. They have the advantage of a homiletical and argumentative setting, thus most nearly approximating the narrative and epistolatory lines within which their originals are found in the New Testament. This was unquestionably the medium of doctrinal statement in the Church of the Fathers. Ante-Nicene literature is seen to be a vast arena in which there was much freedom, much effort, and in which the first great formulary of the Church was wrought out in spirit before it was set down in words. The Church of the future must give itself to the same liberty of interpretation if it would profit by the light which comes to it from both history and prophecy. The text-book which asks no authority

other than that which appeals to the truth of its contents and the soundness of its methods is to be the book of the law to future man. But the books of, Methodism are not without ecclesiastical indorsement, and that indorsement is expressed in canonical terms.

Notwithstanding the particular and practical value of our doctrinal books, the Twenty-Five Articles, by reason of their Wesleyan recension and their adoption by the body of the elders, have become the permanent symbol of Methodism. So certain has been the Church of their value and inherited authority that it has built about them the defenses of its organic law, which forbids its lawmaking body to "revoke, alter, or change" them. The preponderant Methodist body in America has made the Articles a part of its Constitution, and also requires candidates for Church membership to avow belief in them. We do not say anything here of the wisdom or logical correctness of this subscription requirement, or even as to whether the Articles are a proper content of the Church Constitution; but this free and studied action of the greatest Methodist body in the world shows the measure of authority which these Articles have gathered into themselves.

The Articles are not only a doctrinal guide and inspiration to the ministry and laity of the Church-an indicatory statement of the essentials of belief and teaching, so far as they have been historically in question-but they are a catalogue of the chief divisive issues of Christendom, and issues still divisive and persistent. It may be difficult to define the exact relations which the Articles bear to the Church. It may

be even difficult to determine the extent of the author

ity secured to them; but the relation is vital and the authority is genuine. The disseminating of doctrines contrary to them, or willfully and seriously deviating from them in teaching, constitutes an offense for the punishment of which there are established penalties. The justice of this provision rests in the conviction. that the Church's doctrines are as important as its ethics. But as the Church does not undertake to write indeed could not healthily write-a rule for every detail of ethical conduct, so it does not undertake every detail of doctrinal interpretation. In both doctrine and ethics it consistently indicates the main truths or teachings, in both negative and positive statements, and refers the responsible judgment of the individual believer to the source of enlightenment in the divine Word.

The main argument for an extended dogmatic statement of doctrines is, whether expressed or not, a doubt of the ability of the individual Christian to correctly interpret Scripture. This assumes that modern speech terms have a facility and expressiveness not possessed by the ancient, and that the direct effect of the Scriptures on the mind is something less than definite. This was the assumption on which Rome early departed, to bring up with her dogma of an infallible Church and a catena of infallible traditions. The authority and enduring value of any theological formula is to be sought in its conservatism. Radical efforts at comprehensiveness of content and detail of statement look toward a dwarfed and hampered private interpretation. The effect is hierarchical at bottom, though the agency were the lowest Low-Churchism.