CONTENTS. xi O sing unto the LORD a new song; for He hath done marvellous things. With His own right SERMON I. THE (1.) OBJECT, (II.) HISTORY, AND 2 TIM. i. 13. Hold fast the form of sound words which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. I. EVERY person coming to holy Baptism vows that he will believe the whole Christian Faith. Accordingly when a Christian child is directed, in the Catechism, to rehearse the articles of his belief, the answer given is the Apostles' Creed, containing twelve articles, i. e. little sentences, or as the word means literally, "little joints." As the hand (for instance) is made up of small joints, so that if one be wanting or unsound the whole hand is crippled and spoilt by it, so it is with the Creed: if one of these articles be rejected or B 2 Objective Truth of the Creed. believed in a wrong sense by any person, he will be a man of unsound faith before GOD. Many a man who has begun by disbelieving one article has ended by making shipwreck of the faith; the whole Creed hangs together like a piece of knitted work; if one thread be broken it will all unravel. We must remember that what the Creed contains is not a mere matter of opinion; something which may be true or may not; something which seems true now, but in the progress of science and enlightenment may turn out to have been only fancy after all. It is no such thing: it is simply the statement of those things which are certainly true, whether men believe in them or not; those things of which we shall all feel the truth after we are dead; those things which the devils believe and tremble at; those things in which the Church or family of God has always believed, with joy and peace in believing. We are to be constant in our belief of the Creed, not because in our own private opinion (which may be mistaken) it seems true, but because it is true: we are to bring our whole lives and consciences up to it; we are to look upon it as the truth, and thank GOD that we have been taught it from our cradles. "Take thou," it was said 1500 years ago The Creed the Summary of the Bible. 3 by S. Cyril of Jerusalem", "take thou and hold that faith only as a learner and in profession, which is by the Church delivered to thee, and is established from all Scripture. For" (he continues, and his words are very remarkable), "since all cannot read the Scripture, but some as being unlearned, others by business, are hindered from the knowledge of them; in order that the soul may not perish for lack of instruction, in the articles which are few we comprehend the whole doctrine of the Faith." He speaks of it as a summary of holy Scripture: exactly in the same way, only more forcibly, it is spoken of in the Baptismal Office. In that the Minister tells the God-parents that the child must by their mouth promise that he will "constantly believe God's holy Word." "I demand therefore," he says, "dost thou believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;" and so on through the Apostles' Creed. So then we have received it and hold it as a statement of that eternal truth which our LORD revealed, which the Apostles, being taught by the HOLY GHOST, who brought all things which JESUS had said to their remembrance, preached throughout the world, and a Catech. Lect. v. § 12. Oxf. Tr. b S. John xiv. 26. |