that

summary of faith, which was a sufficient declaration of all necessary faith, and a competent reproof of all heresies that should arise.

82. But then that, after all this, any one should obtrude new propositions, not deducible from the articles of the creed, not in the bowels of any article, neither actually expressed nor potentially included, and to impose these under pain of damnation, if this be not xuY TYS TIσTEWS, which St. Paul said he had no power to do, "to have dominion or lordship over the faith," and xaтaxuρIEUELY TWν xλnewY, " to lord it over God's heritage," which St. Peter forbade any man to do, I confess I do not understand the words, nor yet saw or ever read any man that did. I conclude this with those excellent words of Justinian which are in the code, part of the imperial law by which almost all the world was long governed : Ορθὴ καὶ ἀμώμητος πίστις, ήνπερ κηρύττει ἡ ἁγία τοῦ Θεοῦ καθολικὴ καὶ ἀποστολικὴ ἐκκλησία, κατ ̓ οὐδένα τρόπον καινισμὸν δεξαμένη, “ This right and irreprehensible faith (speaking of the apostolical creed, part of which he there recites) which the holy catholic and apostolic church of God does preach, can by no means receive any innovation or change."

83. I conclude therefore this question; in our inquiries of faith, no man's conscience can be pressed with an authority but of Christ enjoining, and the apostles declaring, what is necessary. I add also, that the apostles have declared it in this form of words, which they have often set down in their writings, and which they more largely described in their Symbol of Faith. For since, as Sixtus Senensis f says, "omnes orthodoxi patres affirmant symbolum ab ipsis apostolis conditum," that "all the orthodox fathers affirm the creed to be made by the apostles," and they all say this is a sufficient rule of faith for all Christians; here we ought to rest our heads and our hearts, and not to intricate our faith by more questions. For as Tertullian s said well " Hæc regula à Christo, ut probabitur, instituta nullas habet apud nos quæstiones nisi quas hæreses inferunt, et quæ hæreticos

c 2 Cor. i. 24.

d 1 Pct. v. 3.

e Cod. lib. 1. de Sum. Trinit. sect. Cum recta.

f Lib. 2. Biblioth. 5.

* Lib. 1. advers. Hæret. cap. 13.

faciunt;""Heretics make disputes, and disputes make heretics, but faith makes none."-For if upon the faith of this creed all the church of God went to heaven, all I mean that lived good lives,-I am sure Christ only hath the keys of hell and heaven; and no man can open or shut either, but according to his word and his law: so that to him that will make his way harder by putting more conditions to his salvation, and more articles to his creed, I may use the words of St. Gregory Nazienzen: "Tu quid salute majus quæris? gloriam nempe quæ illic est et splendorem: mihi vero maximum est ut salver, et futura effugiam tormenta. Tu per viam incedis minime tritam et incessu difficilem: ego vero per regiam, et quæ multos salvavit :"-" What dost thou seek greater than salvation?" (meaning by nice inquiries and disputes of articles beyond the simple and plain faith of the Apostles' creed)" It may be, thou lookest for glory and splendour here. It is enough for me, yea the greatest thing in the world, that I be saved and escape the torments that shall be hereafter. Thou goest a hard and an untrodden path: I go the king's highway, and that in which many have been saved."

RULE XV.

In the Law of Christ there is no Precept, that wholly ministers to the Law of Moses; but for a Time only, and less principally.

1. THIS rule I received from St. Irenæus; and they are his words as near as I could translate them. "In lege Christi, non est ullum præceptum veteri tantum legi inserviens, nisi ad horam et minus principaliter." For our blessed Saviour descended like rain upon a fleece of wool, and made no violent changes, but retained all the morality that he found amongst his countrymen; he made use of their propositions, spake their proverbs, united their ejaculations into a collect of his own, for almost every word of the Lord's prayer was taken from the writings of the pious men of their nation; he changed their rites into sacraments; their customs into mysteries; their washings he made our baptism; their pas

h See Liberty of Prophesying, sect. 1.

Deo, conversantes in omni justitia, castitate et sapientia;' "They who believe this faith, are most wise in their sentence and custom, and conversation through faith; and they please God, living in all justice, chastity, and wisdom."

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69. Here were almost two ages spent by this time, in which the most pestilent heresies, that ever did trouble the church, did arise; in which some of the questions were talked of and disputed, and which afterward, by the zeal of some that overvalued their own forms of speaking, passed into a faction; and yet in all this time, and during all that necessity, there was no more added to the Christian creed, no more articles for the condemnation of any new heresy: whatsoever was against this, was against the faith; but any thing else they reproved, if it were false, but did not put any more into their creed, and indeed they ought not. Regula quidem fidei una omnino est, sola immobilis et irreformabilis, Credendi scilicet in unum Deum," &c. saith Tertullian; The rule of faith is altogether one, and immovable, and unalterable. This law of faith remaining, other things may be enlarged according as the grace of God multiplies upon us."-But for the faith itself, here consigned and summed up, the epistle of Celestine to Nestorius is very affirmative and clear, Ἡ πίστις παραδοθεῖσα παρὰ τῶν ἀποστό λων, οὔτε προσήκην, οὔτε μείωσιν ἀπαιτεῖ, “ The faith or creed delivered by the apostles, requires neither addition nor defalcation:""Neque enim ulla extitit hæresis, quæ non hoc symbolo damnari potuit;" "There was never any heresy but. this creed was sufficient for its condemnation," said the catechism of the archbishop of Triers.

70. This faith, passing into all the world, was preserved with great sacredness and great simplicity, no church varying from it at all: some indeed put some great things into it, which were appendages to the former; but the fullest and most perfect were the creeds of Jerusalem and Rome, that is, the same which the Greek and Latin church use at this day. The first and the most simple forms were sufficient; but these fuller forms, being compiled by the apostles themselves, or apostolical men, and that from the words of Scripture, made no great alteration, the first were not too little, and these were not too much. The first was the thing cap. 1.

k De Veland. Virgin,

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itself, which was of a declared sufficiency; but when the apostles were to frame an instrument of confession TV. διδαχῆς, didas, "a form of doctrine," by way of art and method, they put in all that they, directed by the Holy Spirit of God, knew to contain the whole faith of a Christian. Now of this. form, so described, so delivered, so received, the fathers of the church affirm that it is entire and sufficient, and nothing is to be added to it. "Ergo et cunctis credentibus, quæ continentur in præfato symbolo, salus animarum et vita perpetua bonis actibus præparatur," said the author of the epistle to St. James attributed to St. Clement; "To all, that believe those things contained in the foresaid symbol or creed, and do good deeds, salvation of their souls, and eternal life, is prepared."

71. And therefore this summary of faith was called τύπος διδακῆς, ὁκανῶν, ὑποτύπωσις υγιαινόντων λόγων, ἀναλογία πίστεως, γαλακτώδης εἰσαγωγὴ, παρακαταθήκη, στοιχεῖα τῆς ἀρχῆς τῶν λογίων τοῦ Θεοῦ, παραδοθεῖσα πίστις, “ regula fidei,depositum,-breve evangelium,-the form or exemplar of doctrine, the canon,-a description of sound words, the proportion or measure of faith, the milky way, or the introduction of novices,-the elements of the beginning of the oracles of God, the repository of faith,-the faith that was delivered to the saints,-the rule of faith, that which was intrusted to the church,—a short gospel." These and divers other appellatives of the creed were used by the ancient doctors, most of them taken out of Scripture. For what the Scriptures did affirm of the whole faith, that the fathers did apply to this creed, as believing it to contain all that was necessary. And as a grain of mustard-seed in little contains in it many branches, so also this faith, in a few words, involves all the knowledge-the necessary knowledge of the Old and New Testament, saith St. Cyril'; and therefore he calls this creed, "traditionem sanctæ et apostolicæ fidei," "the tradition of the holy and apostolic faith.” "Cordis signaculum, et nostræ militiæ sacramentum," so St. Ambrose m calls it, "the seal of our heart, and the sacrament of our warfare." St. Jerome " yet more fully: "The symbol of our faith and of our hope; which, being delivered by the in Lib. 3. de Veland. Virgin. n Epist. ad Pammach.

1 Catech. 5.

chal supper he converted into the holy eucharist: and still because he would be understood by them, he retained the Mosaic words, when he delivered a Christian precept; for he knew his Father would send his Holy Spirit to be an interpreter; and when the types of Moses passed into the substance of Christ, then the typical words also would be expounded in the senses of evangelical duties.

2. For indeed it is not reasonable to suppose, that our blessed Saviour,-who came to fulfil the law in his own person, and to abolish it in his disciples, to change the customs of Moses, and to be an eternal lawgiver in the instances of moral and essential natural rectitudes,-would give a new commandment to confirm an old precept which himself intended to extinguish. No man puts a piece of new cloth to an old garment, nor a new injunction to an abrogated law; that is, no wise master-builder holds up with one hand, what he intends to pull down with both: it must therefore follow, that whatever Christ did preach, and affirm, and exhort, was, although expressed in the words of the law, yet wholly relative to the duty and signification of the gospel. For that which St. Hilaryi said of all the words of Scripture, is particularly true in the sense now delivered of the sermons of Christ: "Sermo enim divinus secundum intelligentiæ nostræ consuetudinem naturamque se temperat, communibus rerum vocabulis ad significationem doctrinæ suæ et institutionis aptatis. Nobis enim, non sibi, loquitur: atque ideo nostris utitur in loquendo:" "God speaks to us, and not to himself; and therefore he uses words fitting to our understandings;"-by common and usual expressions and such as were understood, he expressed precepts and mysteries which otherwise were not to be understood.

3. Thus when our blessed Saviour delivers the precept of charity and forgiveness, he uses this expression, “When thou bringest thy gift unto the altar, and there rememberest that thou hast any thing against thy brother, leave thy gift at the altar, go and be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." If Christ had said, "When thou comest to the Lord's supper, and hast any thing against thy brother," &c. he had not been understood: but because we know this is an eternal precept, part of a moral and eternal

i In Psal. cxxvi.