Finding no trace of the Apostles' Creed among all the sacred books, he will inquire into its origin, and discover that it was not composed by the Apostles,[A] and that when, in an evil hour, it was proposed for general adoption, its main purpose was to exclude the Gnostics, who would have mixed up their false philosophy and vain deceits with the simple faith in Christ which then, as now, constituted a man a Christian. Having gone thus far, the disciple begins to doubt whether he has hitherto possessed and exercised the spiritual liberty which is his birthright. If he pursue the inquiry he will, undoubtedly cast off the restraints which man's wisdom has imposed on his faculties, and interpret, judge, and believe for himself. If he look back to his promise to admit the sense of Scripture only as the Church declares it, and renews that promise, he must lay aside every hope of purifying and strengthening his faith by his scriptural studies. Henceforth it will indeed be, as Fenelon declares, the same thing to him to read the words of Christ, and to hear an explanation of them from his pastor. Not for this were the Beræans cited as an example by Paul; not by these means was Timothy prepared for his extensive labors; not thus did Apollos learn how to apply his vigorous talents to the service of the infant churches. All these men searched the Scriptures, knew the Scriptures from their youth up, were learned in the Scriptures, from which they ascertained for themselves the promise of Christ's coming, and themselves applied the tests which proved that Jesus of Nazareth was this Christ.
[A] See Lord King's 'Critical History of the Apostles' Creed.'
Every man has a natural right, not only to form his opinions for himself, but to change them as frequently as he shall believe himself led to do so. This natural right is not only sanctioned, but its exercise is approved, by the Gospel. As long as the opinions of men are not absolutely right, as long as they fall short of the truth as it will be perceived in heaven, there is room and occasion for a change; and such a change, wherever recorded in the New Testament, is recorded with approbation. Where was there ever a more extensive change of opinion than in Apollos on his conversion? Yet in his youth, Apollos was as orthodox, as undoubtedly correct in his religious opinions before the introduction of Christianity, as any Christian who now subscribes all the creeds of the Catholic Church. But what would have been the consequence if he had engaged never to 'take and interpret the Scriptures otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the' Rabbis; or if he had promised, vowed, and sworn most constantly to profess his present faith whole and entire, with God's assistance, to the end of his life? It is true that no revelation is likely to supersede the faith of Christians; but it is, at the same time, as little probable that no developement of the principles of Christianity should cause gradual changes of opinion in the course of a lifetime, as it then was that Judaism should not be expanded into the fuller revelation of the Gospel. If, like Apollos, we believe rightly now, it is impossible to answer for no change of opinion being necessary to enable us to believe rightly twenty years hence. The view which we have already taken of the expansive tendency of the eternal principles of Christianity authorizes our declaring that a gradual enlargement of views, i. e. change of opinions, is a necessary consequence of the correct apprehension of religious truth.
Creeds are intended to be permanent and universal professions of faith; and are the instrument by which a uniformity of faith is to be secured, if such a thing be yet possible. But creeds never have fulfilled, and never can fulfil, any one of these purposes. No uniformity of faith has existed since the first creed was framed; no one formulary has been universally received among Christians; and experience already indicates, what the lapse of time will prove,—that no creed will be permanent. If the most ancient of creeds, commonly called the Apostles', be named in answer to the last remark, let it be remembered that the first version of this formulary given by Irenæus, and the subsequent ones by Tertullian, Cyril of Alexandria, and others, were as widely different from those now in use as from each other. Widely different versions of this creed are used in the Catholic Church and the Church of England; and those who subscribe to the same form of words understand those words variously. The permanence of this most ancient of creeds is in name only; and the name itself is a false assumption.
Creeds cannot be permanent and universal, unless the language of which they consist is also permanent and universal; which no language has ever been. There is no test by which it can be proved that any two minds affix precisely the same meaning to the commonest terms; while we have abundant evidence that very abstract terms (such as abound in creeds) convey very different notions to different minds. Thus, if the terms of a language were absolutely immutable, and if one language prevailed over the whole earth, there would still be room for a variety of interpretations of anything expressed in that language. But the mutations which time occasions in every tongue, and the necessity of translation and re-translation, increase a thousandfold the chances of such a variety, and indeed render it absolutely unavoidable.
It is well, therefore, that the truths of religious doctrine cannot be made one with the language in which any age or nation chooses to clothe them, as that language is necessarily mutable. And it would be well if believers were henceforth and for ever to desist from the attempt to connect what is mutable with what is immutable, that which is perishable with that which is immortal, by requiring the present age to adopt the language of the past, and providing for a similar adoption by the future. If they wish the spiritual conceptions of former ages to be perpetuated, this may best be done by changing the terms as their meanings become modified, and not by retaining them the more pertinaciously, the more varied are the conceptions they originate. If the Gospel itself had been inseparably connected with any form of language, or embodied in anything but facts, it would ere now have passed away, or have been so far transformed as to be a different religion. It would have been untranslateable; it would have been untransferrable to any country beyond that in which it originated; it would have been unintelligible to succeeding generations of even native inhabitants of that country. It is only in so far as Christianity is disencumbered of formularies of faith, and emancipated from the guardianship of Councils, that it becomes the religion of mankind. The metaphysical clauses of the Apostles' Creed, and the canons of the Council of Trent, may contain the belief of a few, a very few, speculative minds. The declaration that God sent Christ Jesus into the world to save sinners, contains the substantial belief of Christendom, which will be the faith of the whole world,—because it is Christianity.
It is as impossible for a man to prescribe to himself the faith of his future years, as for one age to prescribe the faith of a succeeding age: and for the same reasons. He may in his youth state an opinion in unambiguous terms, and with perfect sincerity, which, if he still hold, he cannot state in the same terms ten years after. The opinion may be substantially the same, and yet have such a bearing upon some other opinion, or may be so modified by some other opinion that the same form of words may not express it fully, or perhaps correctly. It is yet more probable that the conceptions which are now attached to the terms are enlarged by his improved experience; so that, if he would declare the same truth, he must change his terms; or if he can conscientiously retain the terms, he must have modified his opinion. What enlightened, reflecting Christian understands exactly the same by any one parable, any one axiom, any one fact of Scripture that he did when he first admitted its truth? He believed it then; he believes it now; but how differently since science has brought new evidence to light, since philosophy has developed its origin and tendencies, since experience has tested its truth, and faith invested it with a hallowed interest and an indestructible beauty! How, therefore, is it possible for any one faithfully to engage that his views even of eternal truth shall never be modified! Witnessing, as every reflecting man does, the gradual evolution of truth from the vicissitudes of human experience, and from the successive dispensations and the progressive course of Providence, he may with safety declare that Gospel truth is immutable and divine; but he will avoid the presumption of supposing that all her riches are already shed into his bosom, that her brightest light is poured upon his feeble eye. He will rather hope that his apprehension will continually become clearer, his powers invigorated, and his capacities enlarged, till his views of religious truth become as unlike what they were when first admitted, as the fair face of nature appears to the new-born infant and to the mighty poet. He will reject, as an infringement of his inalienable rights, every attempt to bind him down to engagements which it may not be in his power to fulfil. He will refuse to promise that his intellect shall remain stationary; and to permit that any individual, any council, or any church, shall usurp that spiritual influence which he trusts shall be immediately dispensed from the fountain of grace and truth. Desiring wisdom, he asks of God; not profaning and annulling his prayer by engaging to receive it only in certain measure; and if any church on earth interfere to prescribe the measure, he rejects the interference as unauthorized by the letter of the Gospel and condemned by its spirit.
Christian liberty comprehends an entire freedom from restraint in the publication of opinions. To his own master every man standeth or falleth, not only in the formation of his opinions, but in the use he makes of them when formed. According to his conscientiousness in seeking for truth, and not according to the accuracy of his judgment, will he be judged by God in forming his opinions; and when formed, he will be responsible, not for the rectitude of his influence, but for the rectitude of his intentions in exerting it. What a man believes to be the truth, it is his duty to declare in the method and degree which benevolence and prudence may point out to be the best. For what but this do we venerate the heroic Stephen, and every other martyr who bore witness to the truth in the early days of Christianity? Yet for what but this have Christians been led to the stake by Christians, age after age, under the pretended sanction of a religion of liberty and brotherly love? For what but this have Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in torturing in body and mind men whose conscience was omnipotent over the love of liberty and life, and who thus showed that, whether their intellects were or were not unfaithful, their souls were true to God? For what but this are the lovers of truth even yet too often punished, directly or indirectly, for inviting others to participate in the benefits which they believe they have gained. Stephen was stoned because he was a heretic; Paul worshiped the God of his fathers according to a way which was then called heresy, and for which he was persecuted through life and unto death. Peter and John were brought before the high priest and rulers for publishing their heresy, and punished for refusing to cease to publish it. Yet has this their heresy prevailed; and thus shall every new truth prevail, and its promulgators be honored, in despite of the wrath of man; while the more freely errors are canvassed, the sooner will they be exposed. What was once said with truth in relation to the Gospel of truth,—'If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it,'—may be said with equal wisdom of every other kind of truth and the test of investigation is a much surer one than that which is furnished by the prejudices and the passions of men. There is no natural, no Divine law which sanctions the infliction of pain for the exercise of the intellect, or for communicating the results of that exercise; and that any human law or custom should have existed by which injury of mind, body, or estate is made the consequence of the formation and publication of opinions, is a proof that the natural rights of man have not been understood, and that the spirit of Christian liberty has not pervaded Christian society. As long as reproach is attached to the act of promulgating opinions (independent of the manner,) as long as the holder of opinions is treated with the same reprobation as the opinions themselves, as long as he is prospectively consigned over to perdition as they are to detestation, as long as ideas of merit and demerit are associated with the convictions of the understanding, or blame is attached to the act of making those convictions known, not only will the subordinate principles of the Gospel remain in part unrecognized, but its essential principles will be violated; for it is clearly a duty of piety to reveal all that is believed to have been discovered of the works and ways of God;—and of benevolence to communicate what, being conceived to be truth, is conceived to be intended for the universal benefit of the race.
It may excite surprise that we have not here examined the claim of the Holy Catholic Church to spiritual supremacy: but it will better accord with our plan to take that claim into consideration while treating of the temporary institutions of Christianity.
From the essential principles of the Gospel we derive our belief that Christianity, is not designed for any union, permanent or temporary, with worldly power and grandeur; that it is incapable of such a connexion; being injured instead of confirmed by the support of temporal authority, and impaired instead of adorned by the adjuncts of worldly pomp. This principle is asserted in words by every Christian Church in existence; but violated, in fact, by almost as many. Christianity is acknowledged to be a religion of poverty of spirit, of self-denial, of looseness from the world and its possessions. If this principle were carried out into each individual case, it is plain that the pomp and ambition which have despoiled the Gospel of its purity could no longer exist. It is remarkable that this poverty and self-denial are most insisted on in those Churches where the temporal power and luxury are the most excessive. We hear of them above all from Catholics, whose popes, cardinals, and bishops have, in every age, exceeded all temporal princes in the enjoyment of splendor and luxury. We hear of them from the Church of England, whose superior officers revel in unbounded wealth, and especially prize the connexion with the State which their office occasions. While we Unitarians, who hold that Christianity is of a purely spiritual nature, and therefore dishonored by the pretended support of powers inferior to its own, insist much less earnestly than the Catholic Church on the duty of self-mortification and voluntary poverty. Our Church, were it as extensive as the Catholic, would contain no ecclesiastical princes, and no friars; no potentates clothed in purple and fine linen and faring sumptuously every day from the revenues of the Church, and no believers whose piety is testified by a vow of poverty. We believe that our religion ought to be exerted in controling the passions, exalting the desires, and equalizing the affections, not so much by regulating the external manifestations of those passions and desires, as by influencing the heart. Self-denial is taught much better by inspiring the love of our neighbor, than by the prohibition of innocent comforts and pleasures. Spirituality is much better taught by making spiritual things the objects of supreme desire, than by commanding an ostentatious avoidance of the enjoyments of life. But while the Gospel thus leaves men free to follow the bent of innocent desires,—to decide, each for himself, what is lawful and expedient,—it lays a powerful restraint on all the passions, and curbs all propensities which are inconsistent with its purity and spirituality. All worldly ambition, all selfish luxury are utterly incompatible with the faith of the Gospel, which disallows every claim founded on itself to distinctions of rank, to abundance of wealth, to power over the possessions of other men, to the indulgence of earthly desires. The Gospel affords no sanction to the accumulation of wealth, or to the assumption of authority. It affords examples, on the contrary, of submission to temporal authority, of the endurance of voluntary poverty in hardship, not because poverty and hardship are in themselves spiritually desirable, but because they were necessary to the attainment of some benevolent end. From the Gospel we learn that Jesus utterly disclaimed all pretensions to authority, except in those matters where his authority was supreme. 'Who made me a judge or a divider over you?' was his remonstrance with those who referred the disposal of an inheritance to him: and his reply respecting the lawfulness of paying tribute was such as ought to have obviated all doubt whether temporal and spiritual power could ever be properly united; 'Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's.' What could be meant by the declaration 'My kingdom is not of this world,' but that his authority was of a spiritual nature only? Why did he strenuously oppose every attempt to make him a king? Why did he send forth the seventy disciples without gold and silver and changes of raiment? Why did he recommend to the rich man to sell his possessions, if wealth and power can be made the means of serving the interests of the Gospel? Why was his indignation so perpetually roused by the spiritual assumptions of the Pharisees, but because religion was in them disgraced by its connexion with worldly greatness? Yet not a few Christians have loved the chief seats in public assemblies, and homage in the streets; not a few have made proclamation when they dispensed their alms, and prayed in the high ways; not a few have taken on themselves to appoint places in the Messiah's kingdom which the Messiah himself refused to promise, because such power belonged to God alone. While he declined all interference in matters of temporal concern, and rejected all support to his Gospel from magisterial authority, and all benefit from the resources of wealth, it is clear that such support must ever be needless and such resources unhallowed.