Apology _First_. “It is not necessary to make such an incessant war
upon our creed; it is just like the Bible; it is all scriptural.” In
this case admitting, for the sake of argument, what is not true of
any human creed, that it is “just like the Bible,” we reply, that is
useless, and will do no better than the Bible itself. If it is just
like the Bible it will accomplish nothing more than the Bible, and
be just as deficient. Nothing can be gained by it; nothing can be
accomplished by it which the Bible itself could not accomplish, so that
it must be utterly useless. In that case there can be no excuse for
having it—not only so, but the person holding on to and contending for
such a creed, is inexcusable on another account. To give up a creed
just like the Bible, and take the Bible itself as a rule of faith and
practice, a man would lose nothing, for he would find all his creed
in the Bible. We insist, therefore, that one of the most inexcusable,
unreasonable and unjustifiable positions a man can occupy, is to hold
on to, contend for and insist that he can not do without a creed which
he insists is just like the Bible, though he can have the Bible itself!
The Bible will certainly accomplish all that any creed just like it can.
_Apology Second._ “It is useless to be contending against our creed. It
contains nothing that is not in the Bible. It is simply an abstract,
epitome or abridgment of Bible doctrine, so arranged as to be convenient
and show at a glance what we hold.” This is quite a specious apology,
and has succeeded in deluding and deceiving many persons, and silencing
their consciences, and is, therefore, more especially deserving of
attention. This apology is dangerous because it acknowledges that the
creed contains and sets forth what the party believes—its faith.
Now, we assert, without hesitation, that any man who believes no more
than is set forth in any human creed on earth, and will do no more
than any human creed requires, has neither faith nor obedience enough
to be acceptable with God. There is not a human creed on earth, that
contains the _whole Christian faith_. Their faith is too narrow. We
have no confidence in epitomes, abstracts, or abridgments of the
faith. Nothing less than the faith, the whole faith of Christ, is
sufficient to meet the divine approbation. No man’s faith not as broad
as the Bible is broad enough for us. His faith must contain Moses
and Jesus, the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of the
New. There must be no abstracting, no epitomizing, no abridging. The
man not willing to receive Christ, and the whole Christian faith, as
God has set him and the faith forth, in the Holy Scriptures, is not a
christian, and had better make no pretence to christianity. We do not
wish a man to come describing how he _views every point of doctrine_.
We do not desire him to come declaring that he receives Christ as a
Trinitarian or Unitarian, a Calvinist or an Arminian, but to come with
a contrite spirit, avowing it as the desire of the heart, and his
full determination, to receive Christ with all his heart, as God has
revealed him in the prophecies of the Old Testament and the apostolic
preaching of the New.
The advocate of a human creed says, he wants his creed to “show at a
glance what we hold!” Look over your creed, then, right carefully, and
see _what you hold_, and look over the New Testament with the same
care, and see what an amount it contains that _you do not hold_, or
that is not in your creed, and you will see that your creed is not a
respectable skeleton—that it not only lacks the flesh, blood, muscles,
arteries, veins, etc., of the body, but it lacks many of the bones
and, what is vastly more, it lacks the life, the soul, the spirit.
If it contains _what you hold_, much as precious as any part of the
Christian faith, and as binding as any thing God has revealed, clearly
and as explicitly laid down in the New Testament, is not contained in
what you hold at all. Much of as precious truth as is contained in
the Bible, a vast amount as clear to the children of God as anything
contained in the Christian faith, an immense deal as consoling to the
dying saint as any thing in the word of God, as any man who has ever
looked must admit, is not found in any human creed. We say again, and
can prove at almost any length, that there is not a human creed in the
world that is a respectable skeleton, that is even a perceptible shadow
of the Christian faith. Indeed, no creed appears to have been intended
simply to set forth the _Christian faith_. It does not appear to be
the object of any human creed to set forth the simple faith of Christ
or Christianity. None of the creeds claim to be the _Christian faith_,
_the Christian confession_, _Christian discipline or Christian system_,
but one is “The Philadelphia Confession,” another “The Westminster
Confession,” and a third “The Methodist Discipline.” The object of
these books, and all of the same kind, appears to be more to set forth
the views their authors had of certain points of doctrine, or their
notions of these points, than to set forth the whole Christian faith
itself. Their object is much more to show how the parties adopting them
held certain points of doctrine, and to distinguish their views from
some others, than to set forth the Christian faith. The creeds, then,
are but little more than epitomes of men’s views of certain points of
Christian doctrine, their abridged understanding of these points. Now,
the belief and reception of _men’s views_ of the Christian faith will
not save any man, much less the belief and reception of _their views
of a few points_ of doctrine; but to be saved, a man must believe and
receive the Christian faith—_the whole Christian faith itself_.