To what, then, does this sweeping denunciation of creeds amount? May not much of it be of very questionable utility and soundness? We know that good and wise men talk thus. But are good and great men, even, always sure of being right in their statements and conclusions? One of our distinguished public men, Mr. Wendell Phillips, said in his discourse on "Christianity a battle, not a Dream," that the New Testament was nothing but the New Testament, and that "nothing like a creed could be tortured out of it,—nothing like Universalism, Catholicism, or Unitarianism." We have as little faith in the torturing process as he; but we utterly deny that a Universalist creed cannot be clearly and undeniably found in the New Testament. We have already stated a part of it. If the Fatherhood of God, the Brotherhood of the race, the unceasing obligation of man to love God and his fellow-creatures, the lordship and mission of Christ the Saviour of the world, the immortality of all mankind, are not positive doctrines of the New Testament, then no doctrines, no precepts, no principles can be proved from it. This is the very question at issue between Universalists and those who deny that their faith has its foundations in the New Testament. We are ready to stand on this issue with all who will meet us there as honest inquirers after truth.
A gifted and highly honored member of the fraternity of Friends took occasion some time since to speak lightly of an attempt on their part to "tinker a creed" for themselves. And why might they not do it? If not satisfied with their present statement of faith they have a right to search for that which will enable them to make a better one. Tinkering! What are we all doing in our investigations and conclusions but just this? Rather poor workmen, most of us; but here, in this great workshop God has given us, we have a right to keep hammering and welding away,—a right and a duty to see how perfect a piece of work we may show as the result of our patient and persistent labor. Newton deemed himself but a picker-up of pebbles, while the great ocean of truth lay all unexplored before him. Our best searching will only give us indications of that truth which is infinite. Yet this is no reason why we should not be looking for it, and stating it when we think we have found it. God will accept even our homeliest work, when honestly done.
"When done beneath his laws,
Even servile labors shine."
So, in reason's name, do not let us be afraid of "tinkering" on creeds, any more than we should be ashamed to be diggers, hammerers, furnace-workers and explorers in the fields of science. Truth will come of it all; truth that shall be worked into a good creed at last.
Universalists have a creed. Its articles, we believe, are reasonable and uncontradictory, commending themselves to the clearest intellect and to the holiest affections of mankind. Their principal creed or "Confession" is a short one, yet remarkably comprehensive. It can be and is enlarged, and in this form adopted in many of the churches. The world asks what Universalists believe. They have been in existence as a sect long enough to tell them; and ought to be in readiness to do this. Yea, anxious to do it, because of their convictions of the need of this truth in the understandings and hearts of men. Our Unitarian neighbors have been much troubled with the fact that many of their own people, especially their younger ones, have not known what Unitarians believed,—what were the articles or doctrinal statements of their creed. Just one thing, surely, that they and others ought to know. If Universalists have had any defect of this kind, it should cease to be with them, especially if they have definite convictions of Christian doctrines such as the Divine Paternity, the Brotherhood of Man, Christ, the Holy Spirit, Regeneration, Retribution, Forgiveness, Atonement, Salvation, Immortality. If they have not definite convictions respecting them, let them say so, honestly, as in the hearing of all men. Otherwise, let them have a positive creed to state and defend.
A positive creed, we say. For, to have a creed made up of statements that are questionable in the minds of its defenders, is to have anything but a New Testament—a truly Christian creed. The Apostles had no such creed. Their creed reads thus: "To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we by Him.—Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.—Now is Christ risen, and become the first fruits of them that slept.—God will have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth. God shall be all in all." With them these were not questions open for self-settlement in their minds, but truths of which they were thoroughly convinced, and in the promulgation of which they were most thoroughly in earnest. This is the Christian ministry now needed, not a ministry made up of inquirers and sceptics mainly, who are "ever learning and never able to come to a knowledge of the truth," but of those who have settled convictions of what the truth of God is, and who are in readiness to state and maintain a creed which they believe to be every way in accordance with reason, with the Scriptures, and in answer to the most earnest and anxious inquiries of the human soul.
"But creeds are binding," says one. Of course they are if we believe them to be the truth, and are truthful ourselves in the acceptance and use of them. But how are creeds binding? Erroneous, evil creeds bring the souls who hold them into bondage. We understand this. But what about true and good creeds? It appears to us that these give liberty, aye, the largest liberty. Jesus says, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Who says, in the light of this statement, that the truth of Christ adopted in a creed tends to bondage? God's truth, dear reader, is binding on you, and on us all, according to our convictions of it. What freedom do you desire? That which will give you indulgence in perpetual scepticism, unsettlement in regard to anything? Call you this liberty? We regard it as about the worst of bondage; because we are thus in uncertainty; we have no permanent habitation in God's love and life. We have, indeed, the poor liberty of an outcast, but not that of "a child at home." This last is a liberty which a creed embracing Christian truth will allow us. We want no greater. It will help us in all our interpretations of God and His works and ways in the universe which is open before us.
Two considerations, then, we may bear in mind; one is, that of the reasonableness and propriety of Christian creeds. This indiscriminate denunciation of them is not wise. It is one of the flurries of the present age, but will not endure the long run of theological investigation. Creeds may not all be written, but they will exist, even with those who denounce them. The logic of fact and human experience effectually settles this, so that a further superfluity of breath on this subject does not seem to be really needed. A faith in the unseen that is most in accordance with nature, human intuitions, sound philosophy, and the Word of God, is the one after which all souls may rightfully seek.
Next, of the Universalist creed, let us understand that it is not only a theological affirmation, but a constant teacher of the most thorough virtue,—a call to the purest, highest, and most heavenly life. The Universalist Church needs nothing so much as to be vitalized by its spirit; the world needs nothing more than this vitality for its present salvation.