learning, and by the use of such helps as minister to the knowledge of the same. In its conception of the Bible the Anglican Church differs from the unreformed churches, Greek and Roman, in not placing tradition or the creeds above the Bible, or in valuing the Bible chiefly as the bulwark of the creeds, in accordance with which its interpretation must be confined. Hence there is no sensitiveness, no fear about the Bible, as with those who subordinate it to the creeds. The Anglican Church has made no effort to guard the Bible by theory, definition, or dogma. Not even its infallibility is asserted. It is Romanism or Puritanism which asserts the inspiration of all and every part of Scripture.1 Theories about the Bible devised in the seventeenth century, and chiefly by divines of the Puritan school or by Lutheran theologians, are very often attributed to the Anglican Church, and fastened upon her, by a preponderating sentiment from without her pale, which it is sometimes hard to resist. But the most careful search of Anglican standards reveals no trace of them. It must be remembered in this connection, that in the age of the Reformation, while the Bible was held in love and reverence, yet

1 Cf. "Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent," Session IV, "Westminster Confession," Ch. 1.

there was also greater freedom in its interpretation than in the age which followed. Luther's Biblical criticism to a later age would appear like the destructive attack of modern rationalism. He thought it a matter of indifference whether or not Moses wrote the Pentateuch. He compared the books of Scripture with each other and assigned them a relative importance according to their subject-matter or their mode of treatment. To the Gospel of St. John he gave the preference above the Synoptics, and thought the Epistles of St. Paul of greater authority than the gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, or St. Luke. If one had St. John's Gospel and St. Paul's Epistles, he had all that it was necessary to know. He found no inspiration in the Epistles of James or Jude, or in the Book of Revelation. The test with Luther was the appreciation of the Person and work of Christ. Our view has changed about the relative value of the books of Scripture; but what it is important to recognize here, is that opinions, such as those of Luther, were well known in England at the time when our formularies were issued, and may be responsible for the somewhat cautious and moderate language used in defining Scripture, as the "Word of God, containing all things necessary to salvation." Cranmer, who is re

sponsible for the phrase, was familiar with the new learning of his time; he was a scholar also, and had the moderation of one who looked at a subject in its different aspects. To his mind the unity of Scripture lay in the presentation of Christ, by anticipation in the Old Testament and by its fulfilment in the New. "Both in the old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and man, being both God and Man" (Article VII).

On this point, Dr. Creighton, the late bishop of London, has remarked:

"The Church of England stands in a remarkably free attitude toward the progress of human learning. It has nothing to conceal and shrinks from no inquiry. No religious organization attaches a higher importance to Holy Scripture or venerates more highly its authority; but it has never committed itself to any theory concerning the mode in which Scripture was written or the weight to be attached to it for any other purpose than that of ascertaining all that is necessary to salvation. That the Scriptures contain God's revelation to man, there must be no doubt; but the Church

of England has never erected any artificial barrier against inquiry into the mode in which that revelation was made, into the method and degree in which God's spirit made use of human instruments, into the way in which national records were penetrated with a sense of the divine purpose. It is true that assumptions have been made on these points and others. Men have always asked questions and have given themselves answers to the best of their capacity. Such answers are of the nature of hypotheses, founded on the best knowledge available, but capable of extension or alteration as knowledge ad

The fear and the disquiet caused by Biblical criticism are overcome when we concentrate attention on the essence of the Christian faith as consisting in the Person of the Christ, who is the "Way, the Truth, and the Life." The Bible is the divinely ordered record of that Person. We read the Bible that it may show us Christ, and that by prayer and study and meditation Christ may grow in our hearts by faith.

1 "The Church and the Nation," pp. 78, 79.

CHAPTER II

HISTORICAL VARIATIONS IN THE INTERPRETATION OF THE CREED

I

1. THE creed commonly called the Apostles' Creed took its origin in Rome about the middle of the second century, and may in a general way be regarded as a summary of those convictions regarding the Christian faith in the strength of which the rising Catholic Church overcame the heathenism of the Roman Empire in the West. Viewed from this point, it is seen to include two unique statements which never gained formal entrance into Eastern creeds, but were for the Western Church embodiments of profound and influential conviction. These two statements, so difficult for the modern mind to receive, but of the highest significance in the ancient Church, are the "descent into hell" (descendit ad inferos), and the "resurrection of the body" (resurrectionem carnis). In their origin and in their

1 The translation, "the resurrection of the body," is found in the "Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for any Christian Man,"

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