I very much doubt this, and rather believe that our present Apostles' Creed was no more than the first instruction of the catechumens prior to baptism; and (as I conclude from Eusebius) that at baptism they professed a more mysterious faith; — the one being the milk, the other the strong meat. Where is the proof that Tertullian was speaking of this Creed? Eusebius speaks in as high terms of the
Symbolum Fidei
, and, defending himself against charges of heresy, says, "Did I not at my baptism, in the
Symbolum Fidei
, declare my belief in Christ as God and the co-eternal Word?" The true Creed it was impiety to write down; but such was never the case with the present or initiating Creed. Strange, too, that Jeremy Taylor, who has in this very work written so divinely of tradition, should assume as a certainty that this Creed was in a proper sense Apostolic. Is then the Creed of greater authority than the inspired Scriptures? And can words in the Creed be more express than those of St. Paul to the Colossians, speaking of Christ as the creative mind of his Father, before all worlds,
begotten before all things created?
Ib.
s. x. p. 449.
This paragraph is indeed a complexion, as Taylor might call it, of sophisms. Thus; — unbelief from want of information or capacity, though with the disposition of faith, is confounded with disbelief. The question is not, whether it may not be safe for a man to believe simply that Christ is his Saviour, but whether it be safe for a man to disbelieve the article in any sense which supposes an essential supra-humanity in Christ, — any sense that would not have been equally applicable to John, had God chosen to raise him instead of his cousin?
Ib.