Now this 'Symbolum' was to bring together all that must be
believed, even by the babes in faith, or to what purpose was it made?
Now, say they, the Nicene Creed is really nothing more than a verbal
explication of the common Creed, but the clause in the Athanasian
('which faith', &c.), however fairly deduced from Scripture, is not
contained in the Creed, or selection of certain articles of Faith from
the Scriptures, or not at least from those preachings and narrations, of
which the New Testament Scriptures are the repository. Might not a
Papist plead equally in support of the Creed of Pope Pius: "The new
articles are deduced from Scripture; that is, in our opinion, and that
most expressly in our Lord's several and solemn addresses to St. Peter."
So again Sherlock's answer to this paragraph from the Notes is
evasive,--for it is very possible, nay, it is, and has been the case,
that a man may believe in the facts and doctrines contained in the New
Testament, and yet not believe the Holy Scripture to be either divine,
infallible, or complete.
Sect. IV. p. 50.
We know not what the substance of an infinite mind is, nor how such
substances as have no parts or extension can touch each other, or be
thus externally united; but we know the unity of a mind or spirit
reaches as far as its self-consciousness does, for that is one spirit,
which knows and feels itself, and its own thoughts and motions, and if
we mean this by 'circum-incession', three persons thus intimate to
each other are numerically one.
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