It seems a strange confounding
[Greek: heteron geneon] to answer, "True; but the latter only happens to
be the fact!"--just as if we were speaking of the number of persons in
the Privy Council.
Ib. p. 28.
'Notes'. By keeping this faith 'whole and undefiled', must be meant
that a man should believe and profess it without adding to it or
taking from it. * * * First, for adding. What if an honest plain man,
because he is a Christian and a Protestant, should think it necessary
to add this article to the Athanasian Creed;--'I believe the Holy
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be a divine, infallible and
complete rule both for faith and manners'. I hope no Protestant would
think a man damned for such addition; and if so, then this Creed of
Athanasius is at least an unnecessary rule of faith.
'Answer'. That is to say, it is an addition to the Catholic Faith to
own the Scriptures to be the rule of faith; as if it were an addition
to the laws of England to own the original records of them in the
Tower.
This Notary manages his cause most weakly, and Sherlock 'fibs' him like
a scientific pugilist. But he himself exposes weak parts, as in p. 27.
The objection to the Athanasian Creed urged by better men than the
Notary, yea, by divines not less orthodox than Sherlock himself, is
this: not that this Creed adds to the Scriptures, but that it adds to
the original 'Symbolum Fidei', the 'Regula', the 'Canon', by which,
according to the greater number of the 'ante'-Nicene Fathers, the books
of the New Testament were themselves tried and determined to be
Scripture.
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