APPENDIX II.

Passages of Scripture which have been alleged to prove the former Existence of an apostolical Creed, explained.

MANY of my readers will require no apology for a rather long quotation from the CONFESSIONAL of Archdeacon Blackburne; a book which is now seldom in the hands of theological students, though the ability and learning it displays against the abuse of ecclesiastical power will, at all times, deserve the praise of every lover of spiritual freedom. I shall take also the liberty of inserting the paragraph which leads to the subject of this Appendix.

"I cannot leave this view of the connexion between these two prelates Tillotson and Burnet, without a short reflection on these trimming methods in matters of religion. When were they ever known to succeed? And where were they ever known to conciliate the mind of any one of those unreasonable zealots to whose humour they were accommodated? We of this generation* have lived to see how greatly Archbishop Tillotson was mistaken, in thinking to win over the high churchmen of those days by his healing expedients. His gentle, lenitive spirit was to their bigotry what oil is to the fire. Bishop Burnet's friendship for the Archbishop carried him into these measures, contrary to his natural bent, and in mere complaisance to the Archbishop's apprehensions of a storm, which he dreaded above all other things. And I remember to have heard some old men rejoice, that Burnet was kept down by Tillotson's influence from pushing the reformation of the church to an extremity that might have endangered the government itself. Some of these men, however, might have remembered, that, when the Archbishop was no longer at hand to temper Burnet's impetuosity, the latter had prudence sufficient to balance his courage, and to keep him from attempting what he had sense enough to perceive was impracticable.

"* I believe the edition of the Confessional I am using (1766) is the earliest.

But, after all, what has been the consequence of Tillotson's gentleness and Burnet's complaisance for the times? Even this; these two eminent lights of the English Church could not have been more opposed while they lived, or more abused and vilified since they died, had they firmly and vigorously promoted, at all adventures, the reformation in the Church of England, which they were both of them deeply conscious she very much wanted. But, after all, if what Bishop Burnet has offered under all these disadvantages will not justify the Church of England in requiring subscription to the 39 Articles, we may venture to conclude, without any just imputation of temerity, that this service will hardly be more effectually performed by men of another stamp, who may probably engage in it with more alacrity and less circumspection. What the good Bishop has said on this behalf. (on Subscription) we now proceed to consider.

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His Lordship begins with stating the seeming impropriety 'of making such a collection of tenets the standard of the doctrine of a Church that (according to his Lordship) is deservedly valued. by reason of her moderation. This (says the Bishop) seems to be a departing from the simplicity of the first ages, which yet we set up for a pattern*.'

"This objected impropriety (which, by the way, his Lordship. exceedingly strengthens and illustrates by an induction of parti-. culars) he rather endeavours to palliate and excuse, or, as he terms it, explain, than to deny or confute. He gives us an historical recital of the practice of former times, to shew that our Church acts after a precedent of long standing. To this no other answer is necessary, than that this was the practice of times which were not remarkable either for their moderation or simplicity, and of whose example the Church of England cannot avail herself, consistently with her pretensions to these two amiable qualities+.

* Introduction, p. 1.

+ To illustrate this truth, Dr. Mosheim's Compendious View of Ecclesiastical History may be consulted, from the time of Constantine downwards; and with greater advantage, in Dr. Maclaine's English translation lately published.-Note in the "Confessional."

"But it seems this practice was originally the practice of the Apostles; a consideration which will not only authorize our imitation, but strongly imply the utility and edification of the thing itself.

"There was a form (says his Lordship) settled very early in most churches. This St. Paul, in one place, calls The form of doctrine that was delivered; in another place, The form of sound words, which those, who were fixed by the Apostles in particular churches, had received from them. These words of his do import a standard or fixed formulary, by which all doctrines were to be examined*.'

"The passages here referred to are Rom. vi, 17; 1st Tim. iv, 6, to which are added, in the margin, 1st Tim. vi, 3; 2d Tim. i, 13; and the Greek words in these several passages, which are supposed to signify this standard or fixed formulary, run thus :— Τυπος διδαχης-Υποτύπωσις ύγιαινοντων λογων-Λογοι πιστεως, και καλής διδασκαλιας - Υγιαινοντες λογοι, οἱ του Κυρίου ήμων Ιησου Χριστου, και η κατ ευσεβειαν διδασκαλια.

Nor is it at all should be de

"Now, when a capable and unprejudiced reader considers the variety of expression in these several passages, he will probably be inclined to think, that a fixed formulary of doctrine is the last thing a plain man would look for in them. A fixed formulary, one would think, should have a fixed title. probable, that one and the same form of words scribed in terms which may denote an hundred different forms. "To enter into a just criticism on these expressions would be tedious and unnecessary. Suffice it to observe, after very competent judges, that τυπος διδαχης and ὑποτυπωσις ύγιαινοντων Aoywv, appear to refer rather to the exemplification of the Christian doctrine in the practice of pious believers than to any form of words. The doctrine is one thing, and the type of the doctrine another. The doctrine is and must be expressed by, and consequently contained in, some form of words. But the type of that form must be something different from the form itself; and the general acceptation of the word TUTOS points out the practical exemplification of the doctrine to be the thing here intended. The text, Rom. vi, 17, is, it must be owned, obscure * Introduction, p. 2.

and difficult; but without giving this sense to the words TUTOS Sidaxns, it is absolutely unintelligible*. And whatever is the signification of τυπος here, must be the meaning of ὑποτυωσις, 2d Tim. i, 13†.

"Again, the literal English of vYiZIVOVTEC λoyo, is healing or salutary words; that is, the words of salvation or eternal life. Our translators have rendered the Greek participle by the equivocal words sound and wholesome, which signified, I suppose, in their ideas, the same as orthodox.

"If you ask where these healing words are to be found, I answer in the Scriptures; sometimes, perhaps, abridged and comprehended in some short summaries, which occur in Paul's epistles to Timothy and Titus. But these are evidently not the fixed formularies his Lordship means, as the certain consequence of that must have been, that no man or body of men whatsoever could have had the least authority to add to them, or enlarge them in any future time.

"And if any other standard or formulary is meant, it then comes to our turn to ask the question, Where is it to be found? What is become of it? For that it should be lost, or drop into utter oblivion, if it once had a real existence, is wholly incredible.

"In answer to this demand, the Bishop gives us to understand, ‘that, by a fixed formulary, he does not mean one precise and invariable form of words, which he thinks improbable

* "See Grotius and Bengelius's Gnomon upon the place. Turs. Typus, vestigium, figura, exemplar, forma. Hen. Stephens. Acts xxiii, 25, TUTOC is the literal copy of Lysias's epistle to Felix, not the sum or abridgment of it."-Note in the "Confessional."

"The word is but once more to be found in the New Testament, viz. 1st Tim. i, 16. Where the Apostle says, he found mercy-gos ÚT.TUTNOW THY MEXλOVTOV BLOTEVELY, &c., for a pattern; which is the same thing as an example of the doctrine of pardon and mercy, through Christ. In what sense the word TT was afterwards used, may be seen in Mills's translation of Bruys's History of the Popes, vol. i, p. 428; where an instrument or edict of the Emperor Constans, for the pacification of the disputes concerning the two wills of Christ, is called the type; which instrument contained no formulary of doctrine, but only enjoined that the parties at variance should abide by the Scriptures, the five œcumenical councils, and the plain and simple passages of the fathers."-Note in the " Confessional."

I

the Apostles should leave behind them. For his Lordship observes, that the first apologists for Christianity, when they deliver a short abstract of the Christian faith, do all vary from one another, both as to the order and as to the words themselves. Whence he thinks it more probable, that they received these short abstracts from the Apostles themselves with some variation.

"But, surely, the moment you admit of variations, not only the idea of a fixed formulary, but even the use of any formulary, as a standard or test of all doctrines, immediately vanishes away. There must be left in such varying formularies room for doubtful and precarious judgments; and the Scriptures alone, in such cases, must be the dernier resort. And if so, why might they not as well have been admitted to decide in the first instance?"-The Confessional, p. 66, et seq. The sequel of this passage, indeed the whole work, should be particularly studied in the present times.