CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS are the names given to the authorized expressions of the doctrine of the church at large, or of the several main sections into which it is divided. Such statements of doctrine sprang up naturally in the course of the church's progress. As the simple truths taught. by Christ in an unreflective and mostly concrete form became the subjects of thought, of argument, of controversy, they could not fail to receive a more defined intellectual expression, and to be drawn out into more pre cise dogmatic statements. Men's minds could not be exercised on subjects of such vast importance to them without this result; and the great creeds, as they rise in succession before us, and mark the climax of successive controversial epochs in the church, are nothing else than the varying expressions of the Christian consciousness and reason, in their efforts more completely to realize, comprehend, and express the originally simple elements of truth as they are recorded in Scripture. The study of the creeds would be nothing else than the study 'of theology in its highest historical devel opment—in its reflex settlements after the great agitations of Christian thought had run their course.
Corresponding to this view, we find that the creeds of Christendom grow in com plexity, in elaborate analysis and inventiveness of doctrinal statement, as they succeed one another. The first are comparatively brief and simple in sense and form; the last are prolix and largely didactic. From the apostles' creed to the decrees of the council of Trent, or the chapters of the Westminster confession of faith, there is a wide change, during which the Christian consciousness has grown from a childlike faith to a critical opinionativeness.
What has been called the apostles' creed is the earliest form of Christian creed that exists, unless we give the precedence to the baptismal formula at the close of St. Mat thew's gospel, out of which many suppose the apostles' creed to have grown. There were in the early church differing forms of this primitive creed: that which is received and repeated in the service of the church of England, has come to us through the Latin church; and in several of its clauses, as, for instance, "He descended into hell," and again, " The communion of saints," is supposed to have been interpolated according to later notions. A great variety of opinions has been held as to the origin of this creed. The Roman Catholic church has not only attributed it to the apostles directly, but pro fesses to settle, on the authority of a spurious sermon of St. Augustine, the clauses
respectively contributed by the several apostles: " Petrus dixit, Credo in Deum Patrem oninipotentem. Joanncs dixit, Creatorem cceli et term. Jacobus dixit," etc. The earliest account of its origin we have from Rufinus, a historical compiler and tradition alist of the 4th century. His statement is, that the apostles, when about to separate to preach the truth to different nations, agreed upon a "form of sound words" which should express the sum of their common teaching. "When met together, and filled with the Holy Ghost, they composed this compend of what they were to preach, each one contributing his share to the one composition, which they resolved to give as a rule of faith to those who should believe." No great weight belongs to this testimony; Rufinus is nd historical authority. It is not improbable in itself, however, that even in the age of the apostles some formula of belief existed. The exact form of the present creed cannot pretend to be so ancient by 400 years, but a form not much different from it was in use long before. Irenwus, the scholar of Polycarp, the disciple of St. John, when he repeats a creed not much unlike to the present, assures us that "the church dispersed throughout the whole world had received this faith from the apostles and their disciples;" and Tertullian also affirms that a similar creed had been "prevalent as a rule of faith in the church from the beginning of the gospel." The same thing is proved by the creeds administered to the candidates for baptism in the 2d and 3d centuries. They correspond, with slight variations, to the apostles' creed. The true view of this formula of church belief, therefore, seems to be that which regards it as the Roman or Latin form of the creed which prevailed in all the early churches. It is not strictly apostolic —certainly not in the order of words derived through the Latin church, in which it is now received and repeated; but it is substantially apostolic—fairly representative of the different elements of Christian faith as handed down from the apostles, and well claim therefore, the credence of the universal Christian church. Since the reformation in England, it has been the usage to exhibit the apostles' creed and Ten Commandments in legible'eharacters on boards near the communion-table in churches, in order that they might be seen and repeated by the common people, who were unprovided with books.