nem, but as a specimen of a general principle. Surely it might be asked, with just as much, and just as little reason, whether belief in a Revelation be a fundamental of faith; whereas the fact of its being granted is properly a truth prior to the fundamentals, for without a revelation there would be nothing to believe in at all. Now what is the Bible, if it is worth while to pursue the argu+ ment, but the permanent voice of God, the embodied and continuous sound, or at least the specimen and symbol of the message once supernaturally delivered? By necessary faith, is not meant all that must be believed, but all that must be immediately believed, what must be professed on coming for admittance into the Church, what must be proclaimed as the condition of salvation; it is quite another question whether there be certain necessary antecedents, and of what nature. It is im possible, for instance, to accept the Creed, or to come for Baptism, without belief in a Moral Governor, yet there is not a word on the subject in the Creed, nor is it to be looked for there. Again, the candidate for Baptism must feel the needs and misery of his nature, the guilt of disobedience, his own actual demerits and danger, and the power, purity, and justice of God, if Baptism is to be profitable to him; yet these convictions are preparatives, not parts of Baptismal faith; not parts of that act of the mind by which the candidate realizes things invisible, surveys the Gospel

Economy, embraces it, submits to it, appropriates

Faith is of many kinds,

it, and is led to confess it. and these have their respective objects. Repentance involves faith; yet is always considered distinct from justifying faith notwithstanding. No one can come to God without believing "that He is, and is the rewarder of them that diligently seek Him," but, we know, Calvinists and others consider that the faith that justifies is the mere looking to Christ's Atonement; so that they at least will understand the distinction here insisted on. I say, belief in the Scriptures may be requisite for a Christian, but still as little be included in the Baptismal faith, as the faith which "cometh to God," or the faith implied in repentance.

But I will go further, and venture to deny that belief in the Scriptures, is, abstractedly, necessary to Church communion and salvation. It does not follow from this that any one, to whom they are actually offered, may without mortal sin reject them; but in the same way a man is bound to believe all truth which is brought home to him, not the Creed only. Still it may be true that faith in Scripture is not one of the conditions which the Church necessarily exacts of candidates for Baptism; and that it is not, is, I suppose, sufficiently clear. Heathen nations have commonly been converted, not by the Bible, but by Missionaries. If we insist that formal belief in the Canon of Scripture, as the inspired Word of God, has been

U

a necessary condition of salvation, we exclude from salvation, as far as our words go, (which happily is, not at all,) multitudes even in the earliest ages of the Gospel, to say nothing of later times. A wellknown passage of St. Irenæus is in point, in which he says; "Had the Apostles left us no Scriptures, doubtless it had been a duty to follow the course of Tradition, which they gave to those whom they put in trust with the Churches. This procedure is observed in many barbarous nations, such as believe in Christ, without written memorial, having salvation impressed through the Spirit in their hearts, and diligently preserving the Old Tradition 1."

199

The Creed, indeed, can be proved from Scripture, which in this sense is its foundation, but it does not therefore follow that it must be so proved by every one who receives it. Scripture is the foundation of the Creed; but belief in Scripture is not the foundation of belief in the Creed. It is not so in matter of fact, even at this day, in spite of the extended circulation of the Scriptures. It is not true in fact, and never will be, that the mass of serious Christians derive their faith for themselves from the Scriptures. No; they derive it from Tradition, whether true or corrupt; and they are intended by Divine Providence to derive it from the true, viz., that which the Church Catholic has ever furnished; but how

Hær. iii. 4.

they derive it, whether from Scripture or Tradition, is in no case a necessary point of faith to be asked and answered before their admittance into the Church. Suffice that they believe in the blessed doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and the other parts of the Gospel, however they have learned them; as to Scripture, they either do already believe it to be God's word, if they have been properly catechized, or they shortly will, but its divinity, though a necessary and all-important, is only a collateral truth.

But, if this be so, how very extravagant is the opposite notion, now so common, that belief in the Bible is the sole or main condition for a man being considered a Christian! how very unchristian the title by which many men delight to designate themselves, turning good words into bad, as BibleChristians! We are all of us Bible-Christians in one sense; but the term as actually used is unchristian, for the following reason.-Directly it is assumed that the main condition of communion is the acceptance of the Bible as the word of God, doctrines of whatever sort become of but secondary importance. They will practically become matters of mere opinion, the deductions of Private Judgment from that which alone is divine. This principle then, of popular Protestantism, is simply Latitudinarian; and tends by no very intricate process to the recognition of Socinians and Pelagians as Christians.

Men who hold it and yet

attempt to hold definite essentials of faith, are in a false position, which they cannot ultimately retain; as the history of the last three centuries abundantly shows. They must either give up their maxim about the Bible and the Bible only, or they must give up the Nicene formulary. The Bible does not carry with it its own interpretation. When pressed to say why they maintain fundamentals of faith, they will have no good reason to give, supposing they do not receive the Creed also as a first principle. Why, it is asked them, should those who equally with themselves believe in the Bible, be denied the name of Christians, because they do not happen to discern the doctrine of the Trinity therein? If they answer that Scripture itself singles out certain doctrines as necessary to salvation, and that the Trinity is one of them, this, indeed, is most true, but avails not to persons committed to so untrue a theory. It is urged against them, that, though the texts referred to may imply the Catholic doctrine, yet they need not; that they are consistent with any one out of several theories; or, at any rate, that other persons think so; that these others have as much right to their opinion as the party called orthodox to theirs; that human interpreters have no warrant to force upon them one view in particular; that Private Judgment must be left unmolested; that man must not close, what God has left open; that Unitarians (as they are called) believe in a Trinity, only not in the