CREED. 



517 



adopted at the council of Nice, A.D. 325, held to 

 oppose the Arian heresy. It therefore contains an 

 explanation of the article of the Apostles' Creed 

 " I believe in Jesus Christ, the only Son," &c., which 

 is as follows : " The only Son of God, begotten by 

 the Father, that is to say, of the substance of the 

 Father, God of God, light of light, very God of very 

 God, begotten and not made, consubstantial with the 

 Father, through whom everything has been made in 

 heaven and on earth." Macedonius, bishop of Con- 

 stantinople, having denied the divinity of the Holy 

 Ghost, it became necessary to settle this point, which 

 was done by the council of Constantinople, A. D. 

 381, who added the words which follow " I believe 

 in the Holy Ghost ;" viz. " the Lord and Giver of 

 life, who proceedethfrom the Father (' and the Son ' 

 was afterward inserted by the Spanish bishops), who, 

 with the Father and the Son together, is worshipped 

 and glorified, who spake by the prophets." The in- 

 sertion of the words " and the Son" was finally sanc- 

 tioned by the Roman church in 883, but has never 

 been received by the Greek church. 



III. The Athanasian Creed is now acknowledged 

 not to have been the work of Athanasius, whose name 

 it bears. It was probably written in Latin, in the sixth 

 century. In the tenth century, it was generally re- 

 ceived in the Western church, and, at the reforma- 

 tion, was adopted by the Protestants. It consists of 

 an introduction and two positions, with their proofs, 

 deductions, and conclusions. The introduction de- 

 clares, that " whosoever will be saved must hold the 

 Catholic faith. " The first position then states, ' ' The 

 Catholic faith is this that we worship one God in 

 Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding 

 the persons, nor dividing the substance." For (to 

 give briefly the remainder of this position) there are 

 three persons, but one Godhead. The Father, Son, 

 and Holy Ghost, are uncreate, incomprehensible, 

 eternal, almighty, God, Lord ; yet there are not 

 three Lords, Gods, almighty, eternal, incomprehensi- 

 ble, uncreated, but one. The father is neither made, 

 created, nor begotten : the Son is of the Father alone, 

 not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy 

 Ghost is of the Father and the Son, neither made, 

 nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding ; and in 

 tliis Trinity none is afore or after another ; none is 

 greater or less than another. He, therefore, that 

 will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. The 

 second position establishes the doctrine of Christ's in- 

 carnation. It is necessary to everlasting salvation, 

 that we believe rightly in the incarnation of our Lord 

 Jesus Christ. The right faith is, that he is the Son 

 of God, God and man ; perfect God and perfect man ; 

 yet not two, but one Christ ; one, not by conversion 

 of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the man- 

 hood into God ; one altogether, not by confusion of 

 substance, but by unity of person. This is the Ca- 

 tholic faith, which except a man believe he cannot, 

 according to it, be saved. 



Besides these creeds, there are numerous Confes- 

 sions of Fait/i, which have been adopted by different 

 churches, as standards to which the ministers in the 

 respective communions are required to conform. 



I. The Greek church presented the Confession of 

 the true and sincere Faith to Mohammed II. in 1453 ; 

 but in 1643, the Orthodox Confession of the Catholic 

 and Apostolic Greek Church, composed by Mogila, 

 metropolitan of Kiow, was approved with great 

 solemnity by the patriarchs of Constantinople, Alex- 

 andria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and for a long time 

 was the standard of the principles of the Russian 

 Greek Church : it has been superseded by the Sum- 

 mary of Cliristian Divinity, composed in 1765, by the 

 metropolitan of Moscow (translated into English, 

 Edinburgh, 1814). 



II. The church of Rome has always received the 

 Apostles', the Nicene, and the Athanasian Creeds ; 

 but a public authoritative symbol was first fixed by 

 the council of Trent. A summary of the doctrines 

 contained in the canons of that council is given in 

 the creed published by Pius IV. (1564), in the form of 

 a bull. It is introduced by the Nicene Creed, to 

 which it adds twelve articles, containing those doc- 

 trines which the church of Rome finally adopted af- 

 ter her controversies with reformers. 



III. The Lutherans call their standard books of 

 faith and discipline Labri Symbolici Ecclesiee Evan- 

 gelicce. They contain the three creeds above men- 

 tioned, the Augsburg Confession, the Apology for 

 that confession by Melancthon, the Articles ofSmal- 

 calden, drawn up by Luther, the Catechisms of 

 Luther, and, in many churches, the Form of Concord 

 or Book of Torgau. The best edition is by Tittmann 

 (Leipsic, 1817). The Saxon (composed by Melanc- 

 thon), Wuertemberg, Suabian, Pomeranian, Mans- 

 feldtian. and Copenhagen Confessions, agree in gene- 

 ral with the symbolical books of the Lutherans, but 

 are of authority only in the countries, from which 

 they are respectively called. 



IV. The confessions of the Calvinistic churches are 

 numerous. The following are the principal: 1. The 

 Helvetic Confessions are three that of Basle (1530) ; 

 the Summary and Confession of Faith of the Helvetic 

 churches (Basle, 1536) ; and the Expositio simplex, 

 &c., (1566), attributed to Bullinger. 2. The Tetra- 

 politan Confession (Strasburg, 1531), which derives 

 its name from the four cities of Strasburg, Constance, 

 Memmingen, and Lindau, by the deputies of which it 

 was signed, is attributed to Bucer. It differs from 

 the symbolical books of the Lutherans in the doctrine 

 of the sacraments, and especially in its exposition of 

 the eucharist. 3. The Palatine or Heidelberg Confes- 

 sion was framed at Heidelberg by order of the elec- 

 tor palatine, John Casimir (1575). 4. The Confes- 

 sion of the Gallic Churches was accepted at the first 

 synod held by the reformed at Paris, in 1559. In 

 the following year, it was presented to Francis II., 

 and, in 1561, it was presented by Beza to Charles 

 IX. 5. The Confession of the Reformed Churches 

 in Belgium was drawn up in 1559, and approved in 

 1561. 6. The Confession of Faith of the Kirk of 

 Scotland. The ecclesiastical discipline and doctrine 

 of the church of Geneva were adopted in Scotland, 

 from the beginning of the reformation there. In 

 1581, the Scottish nation subscribed a General Confes- 

 sion, together with a Solemn League and Covenant, 

 to defend the Protestant religion and Presbyterian 

 government. The Scottish covenanters afterwards 

 adopted the Westminster Confession, in the compila- 

 tion of which some delegates from their general as 

 sembly had assisted. In 1688, that confession was 

 received as the standard of the national faith, which 

 all ministers, and the officers of the Scottish universi- 

 ties, are required to subscribe. With this are gene- 

 rally connected the catechisms of their assembly. 7. 

 Confession of Faith of the Anglican Church. In the 

 beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, she gave 

 her assent to thirty-nine articles agreed upon in the 

 convocation held at London in 1552, They were 

 drawn up in Latin ; but, in 1571, they were revised 

 and subscribed both in Latin and English. They 

 were adopted by the Episcopal church in the United 

 States of America in 1801, with some alterations, 

 and the rejection of the Athanasian Creed. The first 

 five contain the doctrines of the Anglican church con- 

 cerning the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; in the 

 sixth, seventh, and eighth, the rule of faith is esta- 

 blished ; the next ten .relate to Christians as indivi- 

 duals, and the remaining twenty-one relate to them 

 as members of a religious society. (See Corpus et 



