find the Creed twice repeated, in the same words, no, not by one and the same Father." Now even admitting that these were authoritative rules, which the very statement given of them proves they were not, their framers must have been very untutored in the science of ecclesiastical legislation; for surely they ought to have been careful to express the Creed, if there was an authoritative one, in uniform language; seeing there is nothing about which theologians differ, more than they do about words. The council of Nice was riven by such a dispute.

The fourth fact is, that in the early ages, bishops or presbyters appear to have been modest-men. When synods and councils were formed, they handled ecclesiastical matters with a great deal of diffidence: and, on their first appearance in these meetings, declared "that they were no more than the delegates of their respective churches, and that they acted in the name, and by the appointment of the people." They had not yet ventured to proclaim a lordship over the human conscience. The present incumbents were not prepared for that glorious distinction.

The fifth fact is, that the approach to dominion was very gradual and imperceptible; and that synods and councils proceeded onward, after having once commenced, until they "changed the whole face of the church; gave it a new form; and at length openly asserted, that Christ had empowered them to prescribe to his people authoritative rules of faith and manners.'

We presume we have now furnished facts enough to prove, that these early Creeds were very far from being those ecclesiastical instruments, with which we are concerned in these remarks: That if that age could do without such instruments, we can do without them too; confusion and disaster, doctrinal carelessness and heretical wanderings, are not the consequences of living and acting, preaching and praying, under the dominion of the Bible, when sectarian Creeds and Confessions are heaved, like the idols of those who had departed from the only living and true God, "to the moles and the bats:" And that the origin of these aspiring and despotic ordinances, must be referred to the council of Nice, assembled by the order of a civil ruler, whose character was as equivocal as the wisdom of his ecclesiastical vassals.

But perhaps the reader would wish to see some of these early Creeds, as they are considered to form the connecting link between the council of Nice and the apostolic age. We shall furnish him with two of them, that he may judge for himself. The first of them is from the pen of Irenaeus, to whom Dr. Miller refers in his lecture, and is as follows:-"The church, although scattered over the whole world, even to the extremities of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples, the FAITH, viz. on one God the FATHER, Almighty, that made the heaven and the earth, and the seas, and all things therein and on one CHRIST JESUS, the son of God, who became incarnate for our salva

tion-and on the HOLY SPIRIT, who, by the prophets, preached the dispensations, and the advents, and the generation from a virgin, and the suffering, and the resurrection from the dead, and the assumption, in flesh, into heaven, of our beloved Lord Jesus Christ; and his coming again from the heavens in the glory of the Father, to sum up all things, and raise all flesh of all mankind; that to Christ Jesus, our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King, according to the good pleasure of his Father, who is invisible, every knee may bow, of beings in heaven, in earth, and under the earth; and every tongue may confess to him; and that he may exercise righteous judgment upon all; may send spiritual wickednesses, and transgressing and apostate angels, and ungodly, and unjust, and lawless, and blasphemous men, into eternal fire. But on the righteous and holy-on those who have kept his commandments, and continued in his love, whether from the beginning, or after repentance, may, with the gift of life, bestow incorruption, and put them in possession of eternal glory.

29*

Now the intelligent reader may very readily suppose, that all this could have been written by one of the early fathers, without any intention, on his part, of declaring any thing more than those essential principles of the gospel, which, like the sun, "shine every where, and enlighten all men who are willing to come to the knowledge of truth," which accordingly he expresses

*Mason's Plea, p. p. 39, 40.

in his further remarks on the faith, received from the apostles and their disciples. Irenaeus declares the articles of belief which belonged to the FAITH, that the church, dispersed throughout the world, had professed, and that without any of those ecclesiastical combinations, which we would imagine to be indispensable to such an uniformity. And when Dr. Mason, from whose pages we have made the extract, and who had been referring to the "early Creeds," or as they were called, symbols of faith, undertakes to speak of the character of this Creed, he remarks; "It is clear that this venerable father did not mean to give the very words of any formula of faith; but to state, substantially, those high and leading truths in which all the churches of Christ over the whole world harmonized; and which formed the doctrinal bond of their union." So we think. And so we imagine, the reader too must think. For in those days Creeds were not expressed, not even by the very same Father, in the same words. This Creed then, from the writings of Irenæus, was not an authoritative rule in the house of God. And if it was, and could be transferred to our day, it would effect a wonderful change in our orthodox, or heterodox, age.

The second example of an early Creed, which we shall furnish, is from the closet of Gregory Thaumaturgus, as quoted by Dr. Miller, in his letters on Unitarianism, from Cave's Lives of the Fathers, and to which Dr. Mosheim refers, as "a brief summary of the Christian religion." It is as follows:-"There is one God, the Father

of the living word, of the subsisting wisdom and power, and of him who is his eternal image; the perfect begetter of him that is perfect, the Father of the only begotten Son. There is one Lord, the Only, of the Only, God of God, the character and image of the Godhead; the powerful Word, the comprehensive Wisdom, by which all things were made, and the power that gave being to the whole creation: the true Son of the true Father, the Invisible of the Invisible, the Incorruptible of the Incorruptible, the Immortal of the Immortal, and the Eternal of Him that is eternal. There is one Holy Ghost, having its subsistence of God, which appeared through the Son to mankind, the perfect Image of the perfect Son; the life-giving Life; the holy Fountain; the Sanctity, and the Author of sanctification; by whom God the Father is made manifest; who is over all, and in all; and Gop THE SON, who is through all. A PERFECT TRINITY, which neither in glory, eternity, or wisdom, is divided or separated from itself."*

This document, Dr. M. has been pleased to terin, The celebrated Confession of Faith of Gregory Thaumaturgus, who flourished about A. D. 235. Its celebrity may be great, and may continue to be great, for any thing that we know, for really we do not understand it. It is something very different from what Irenæus has written, and looks very much like those unintelligible matters which were introduced, for the conside* Let, on Un. p. p. 144—5.