Ib. p. 65.
The reasons why I make no larger a profession necessary than the Creed
and Scriptures, are, because if we depart from this old sufficient
Catholic rule, we narrow the Church, and depart from the old
Catholicism.
Why then any Creed? This is the difficulty. If you put the Creed as in
fact, and not by courtesy, Apostolic, and on a parity with Scripture,
having, namely, its authority in itself, and a direct inspiration of the
framers, inspired 'ad id tempus et ad eam rem', on what ground is this
to be done, without admitting the binding power of tradition in the very
sense of the term in which the Church of Rome uses it, and the
Protestant Churches reject it? That it is the sum total made by
Apostolic contributions, each Apostle casting, as into a helmet, a
several article as his [Greek: symbolon], is the tradition; and this is
holden as a mere legendary tale by the great majority of learned
divines. That it is simply the Creed of the Western Church is affirmed
by many Protestant divines, and some of these divines of our Church. Its
comparative simplicity these divines explain by the freedom from
heresies enjoyed by the Western Church, when the Eastern Church had been
long troubled therewith. Others, again, and not unplausibly, contend
that it was the Creed of the Catechumens preparatory to the Baptismal
profession of faith, which other was a fuller comment on the union of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, into whose name (or power) they
were baptised.
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