a just abhorrence of it: and it is the more necessary, because ordinarily men are not so apprehensive of the heinousness of this sin, as they are of the iniquity of treason, or felony, or gross immoralities. I have now finished what I intended as to the argumentative part: but it remains still to confirm the main thing by the judgment and practice of the ancients, who may be properly called in, and will be found to be of considerable weight in the controversy: if the Scripture be plain to us now, in all things necessary, the same Scripture was undoubtedly plain to them, and to them more especially and therefore, their judgment or practice cannot but be of use to us, if it be only to render plain things still plainer, as there are degrees of plainness. After I had finished this chapter, I had the pleasure of reading Mr. Ball's little treatise of 33 octavo pages, in answer to most of the same objections b which I have been considering. If I may be allowed to give my judgment of it, it is written with great strength and solidity, without colouring or disguises, and is extremely well suited to common capacities. One shall not easily find more good sense and close argument in so short a compass. The Sober and Charitable Disquisition, as I apprehend, was intended by way of reply to that pamphlet of Mr. Ball's. But every discerning reader who shall compare the two performances together, will easily perceive the difference between artificial logic and natural, between laboured subtilties and plain naked truth. CHAP. VI. A summary View of the Judgment and Practice of the primitive Churches, in Relation to the Necessity of believing the Doctrine of the Trinity. THE very judicious and learned Bp. Bull has repre An Answer to some common Objections made against those Ministers in the West, who have appeared in Defence of the Doctrine of the ever blessed Trinity and its Importance. Written with all plainness, for the use of private Christians, by John Ball. Exon: printed by A. Brice, &c. A. D. 1727. sented this matter in the fullest and clearest light, in a set treatise, professedly written by way of reply to Episcopius, as I have before hinted in the entrance. To him therefore I refer such readers as will be at the pains to look thoroughly into the subject of this chapter; while I `content myself with giving a summary view of the main things, interspersing here and there a few slight observations, which may be, as it were, supplemental to that great work. There are three ways of coming at the sentiments of the primitive Church, as to the necessity or importance of believing any doctrine: 1. By consulting the ancient Creeds, conceived to take in the most important articles of faith, when rightly understood. 2. By observing what doctrines were all along condemned as impious and heretical. 3. By collecting the testimonies of Fathers declaring their own sentiments, or the Church's, or both, as to what doctrines are important, or what opinions pernicious and dangerous. I. I shall begin with Creeds. Here it is observable, that the doctrine of the Trinity, implicit or express, always made an article in the ancient Creeds: nay, several learned men have conceived, that in the earliest times it made up the whole. Episcopius himself was of opinion that the ancient baptismal Creed was no more than this: "I be"lieve in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost"." He designed, by the observation, to serve his own hypothesis, viz. that the divine eternal generation of the Son was not inserted in the Creeds from the beginning. But he did not consider how much at the same time he disserved his own cause another way, by making the doctrine of the Trinity so important, as to have been the sole article, (if I may so speak,) or entire matter of the first Creeds. Bull. Judic. Eccl. Cathol. cap. iii. s. 3. p. 308. cap. vi. s. 80. p.331. Wall, Hist. of Inf. Baptism, part ii. cap. 9. sect. 11. p. 491. & Antiquissimum, quodque in prima baptismi administratione jam inde ab ipsis apostolorum temporibus usitabatur, hoc erat: Credo in Deum Patrem, Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum; nempe ad præscriptam ab ipso Jesu formulam. Episcop. Institut. lib. iv. c. 34. 340. Nothing can be stronger for that doctrine, than that the ancient Creeds should be comprised in these few words: "I believe in God, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost;" since it is declaring the sacred Three to be the one Gode, and recommending that faith as the prime thing, or the one thing necessary, without which no man could be a Christian. Bp. Bull very justly observes, that the short Creed now mentioned expressed the doctrine of the Trinity in a clearer, closer, and stronger manner than some of the more enlarged Creeds afterwards did. For the inserting of additional articles, time after time, carried the words Son and Holy Ghost so far off from the word God, that it might look as if that high title, which belonged indifferently to all three, was there applied to the Father only: though the compilers of those larger Creeds really designed the same common application of the name God, as before f. From hence therefore it appears, that allowing Episcopius the supposition which he goes upon, in relation to the short concise form of the first baptismal Creed, yet it is so far from favouring his cause, that it makes against him; since that form so worded carries in it a confession of the three divine Persons being the one true God of Christians: and if the Creed in the first age • Perspicuum est in hac formula, Credo in Deum, Patrem Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, vocem Deum árò nov ad omnes tres, nempe Patrem, Filium et Spiritum Sanctum referri. Quod Græci adhuc clarius exprimunt; Πισεύω εἰς τὸν Θεὸν, τὸν Πατέρα, τὸν Υἱὸν, καὶ τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα. Ita sane hanc brevem confessionem veteres intellexere. Hinc Tertullianus (adv. Prax. cap. 13.) communem Christianorum de Patre, Filio, et Spiritu Sancto fidem exponens, ait: et Pater Deus, et Filius Deus, et Spiritus Sanctus Deus, et Deus unusquisque. Cyprianus itidem, &c. Bull. Judic. cap. iv. sect. 3. p. 308. Mihi sane videtur in his paucis verbis: Credo in Deum, Patrem, Filium, et Spiritum Sanctum, magnam illam veritatem, nempe Filium et Spiritum Sanctum, unum esse cum Patre Deum, aliquatenus clarius exprimi quam in fusioribus quibusdam symbolis quæ subsecuta sunt. Nam per additamenta illa post verba, Credo in Deum Patrem, et adjectiones post mentionem Filii, non repetita voce Deum in articulis de Filio, et Spiritu Sancto, videri potest, et nonnullis visum est, Dei appellatio ad solum Patrem pertinere; plane contra mentem ac sententiam eorum qui latiora illa symbola condiderunt. Bull. ibid. p. 309. contained no more, then that very doctrine must have been looked upon, from the beginning, as the sum and substance of Christianity. As to the question about the length of the apostolical Creeds, or the number of articles they contained, learned men may offer their conjectures, and have done it 8: but perhaps, after all, we have not sufficient light to determine any thing with certainty. What I at present apprehend of that matter, I shall express distinctly, in the particulars here following. 1. It appears to me not improbable, that the earliest Creeds, as they took their rise from the form of baptism, contained little or nothing beyond it. There is a short Creed of that kind still extant in Cyrilh, comprehending but one single article, besides the article of the Trinity. And I may observe, that the shorter form of the Roman Creed, (called the Apostles',) published by Usheri, seems to carry some marks of its having been formerly shorter, by its bringing in the article of the Holy Ghost in this abrupt manner, "and in "the Holy Ghost:" words which came in very aptly in the primitive form, when they immediately followed "and "in the Son;" but which would appear abrupt, after several new insertions made between the two articles. Wherefore to salve that appearing abruptness, the Church afterwards striking out and, inserted I believe in that place, making the article run, as it does at this day, “I "believe in the Holy Ghost, &c." This observable circumstance relating to that Creed is a confirmation of the opinion, that the first Creeds (in some places at least) were of such a kind as Episcopius mentions. 2. It appears to me farther probable, that when the Creeds ran g See Critical History of the Creed, p. 33, &c. Grabe in Annotatis ad Bulli Judic. cap. 4, 5, 6. Bingham, Eccles. Antiq. lib. x. cap. 3. sect. 7. Rogers's Review &c. p. 261-271. Berriman's Historical Account &c. p. 21, &c. Buddei Isagoge, vol. i. p. 441, &c. * Πισεύω εἰς τὸν Πατέρα, καὶ εἰς τὸν Υἱὸν, καὶ εἰς τὸ ἅγιον Πνεῦμα, κ εἰς ἓν βάπτισμα MsTavías. Catech. Mystag. i. n. 6. i Usher de Symbolis, p. 6, 9. in that short concise form, yet the interrogatories to and answers of the catechumens at baptism were fuller and more explicit. Tertullian takes notice, that the responses in baptism were then somewhat larger than the model. laid down by Christ k, meaning, than the form of baptism : and he refers the enlargement of the responses to immemorial custom or tradition. Firmilian of the third century speaks of the 'Symbol, or Creed of the Trinity, and of the prescribed ecclesiastical interrogation, and seems to make them distinct, supposing that the Symbol of the Trinity contained less than the other. But if the whole ran under the name of the Creed of the Trinity, even that shows what was looked upon as the principal thing in the Creed, giving denomination to the whole and it affords a probable argument, that, at first, the whole was comprised in it. 3. It is not unlikely that some of the additional articles might have been inserted into the Creeds, in the very age of the Apostles, in opposition to the heresies then breaking out. This hypothesis appears to me much more probable, than that such articles should be inserted in opposition to Paganism or Judaism. It was needless to caution the new converts against Paganism or Judaism, which they had formally renounced: but it might be necessary to guard them against false Christians, who pretended to follow the same rule of faith, and to admit the same Scriptures. This supposition much better accounts for the article of "Maker of heaven and "earth," being so long omitted in the Roman Creed, (perhaps for six or seven centuries,) though it was inserted in other Creeds, where heresies gave occasion for itm. And this also best accounts for the observable variety in the additional articles to the ancient Creeds: because the several churches adopted those articles which suited their k Dehinc ter mergitamur, amplius aliquid respondentes quam Dominus in Evangelio determinavit. Tertull. de Coron. c. iii. p. 102. 1 Cui nec Symbolum Trinitatis, nec interrogatio legitima et ecclesiastica defuit. Cyprian. Opp. Ep. lxxv. p. 223. See Critical History of the Apostles' Creed, p. 96-106. |