The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

Subject of the last Chapter continued—Results of the earliest and most prevalent Heresies.

During the first age after the apostles, the Scripture doctrines respecting the Trinity, and the Person and work of the Mediator, appear to have prevailed in the Church generally; afterwards a change of phraseology among the leaders and teachers of the Church took place, and the work of creation came to be ascribed, not to the Son, but to the Father.

Tertullian, about the close of the second century, in his answer to Praxeas, who founded the sect of Monarchians, expressed himself in scriptural terms respecting the Trinity and the Person of Christ; and describes the faith which he held in that respect, as that which had obtained from the beginning of the gospel; i. e., among those admitted to be orthodox. He soon after separated from the Catholic Church. About fifty years later, the Bishop of Carthage procured the excommunication of the Reformer Novatian, founder of the Cathari, or Puritans of that day, who, following his example, formed numerous seceding churches all over the empire, which flourished during the two succeeding centuries, and a succession of them down to the Reformation. “He was,” says Mosheim, “a man of uncommon learning and eloquence.” He wrote a work upon the subject of the Trinity, of which the first eight sections relate to the Father; the next twenty to Christ: the Old Testament prophecies concerning him—their actual accomplishment—his nature—how the Scriptures prove his divinity—confutes the Sabellians—shows that it was Christ who appeared to the patriarchs, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, &c.

From the character ascribed to Novatian by ecclesiastical historians; from the censures cast upon him by the Popish writers, who represent him as the first antipope, author of the heresy of Puritanism, and parent of an innumerable multitude of seceding Puritan congregations all over the empire; from his work above alluded to, written in 257, six years after his separation from the dominant Church; and from the known character of the Cathari, he is doubtless to be regarded as an eminent example of primitive scriptural faith, and a distinguished leader of those who, driven into the wilderness by persecution, perpetuated that faith essentially and in most particulars down to the era of Luther.

The Paulicians, whose rise is dated in the seventh century, appear to have been of similar character. To these succeeded the Waldenses, Albigenses, and other true worshippers in the valleys of Piedmont.

The Waldenses, in their creed of 1120, adopt all the articles of the so-called Apostles’ Creed. They distinctly express their faith in the Trinity and in the canonical books of Scripture, which, they say, “teach us that there is one God, almighty, unbounded in wisdom and infinite in goodness, and who in his goodness has made all things.” In another Confession, dated 1544, they say: “We believe that there is but one God, who is a spirit—the Creator of all things—the Father of all, who is above all,” &c.

The Confessions of the Waldenses were approved by Luther and the other Reformers. Luther published them in 1533, with a preface.

But the Creed called the Apostles’, which the Waldenses in their first article adopt, expressly ascribes the work of creation to the Father: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord.” Probably this formula should not be dated so early as the first, or even the second century. The Creed called the Nicene, which was in 325 adopted by the Council of Nice in opposition to the Gnostics, the Judaizers, and the heresy of Arius, comprises various terms explanatory of the views then held concerning the Son, while it speaks of the Father as the maker of all things. “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only begotten: begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father. God of God; Light of Light; true God of true God; begotten, not made; consubstantial with the Father,” &c.

The Second General Council, which was held at Constantinople in 383, determined that the Nicene Creed should be the standard of orthodoxy.

This creed continued to be held by the Roman Catholic Church, and was adopted and still continues in use by the Protestant Episcopal Churches both of Great Britain and this country.