prove, that no creed will be permanent. If the most ancient of creeds, commonly called the Apostles', be named in answer to the last remark, let it be remembered that the first version of this formulary given by Irenæus, and the subsequent ones by Tertullian, Cyril of Alexandria, and others, were as widely different from those now in use as from each other. Widely different versions of this creed are used in the Catholic Church and the Church of England; and those who subscribe to the same form of words understand those words variously. The permanence of this most ancient of creeds is in name only; and the name itself is a false assumption.

Creeds cannot be permanent and universal, unless the language of which they consist is also permanent and universal; which no language has ever been. There is no test by which it can be proved that any two minds affix precisely the same meaning to the commonest terms; while we have abundant evidence that very abstract terms (such as abound in creeds) convey very different notions to different minds. Thus, if the terms of a language were absolutely immutable, and if one language prevailed over the whole earth, there would

still be room for a variety of interpretations of anything expressed in that language. But the mutations which time occasions in every tongue, and the necessity of translation and re-translation, increase a thousandfold the chances of such a variety, and indeed render it absolutely unavoidable.

It is well, therefore, that the truths of religious doctrine cannot be made one with the language in which any age or nation chooses to clothe them, as that language is necessarily mutable. And it would be well if believers were henceforth and for ever to desist from the attempt to connect what is mutable with what is immutable, that which is perishable with that which is immortal, by requiring the present age to adopt the language of the past, and providing for a similar adoption by the future. If they wish the spiritual conceptions of former ages to be perpetuated, this may best be done by changing the terms as their meanings become modified, and not by retaining them the more pertinaciously, the more varied are the conceptions they originate. If the Gospel itself had been inseparably connected with any form of language, or embodied in anything but facts, it would ere now have passed away, or have been so far transformed

as to be a different religion. It would have been untranslateable; it would have been untransferrable to any country beyond that in which it originated; it would have been unintelligible to succeeding generations of even native inhabitants of that country. It is only in so far as Christianity is disencumbered of formularies of faith, and emancipated from the guardianship of Councils, that it becomes the religion of mankind. The metaphysical clauses of the Apostles' Creed, and the canons of the Council of Trent, may contain the belief of a few, a very few, speculative minds. The declaration that God sent Christ Jesus into the world to save sinners, contains the substantial belief of Christendom, which will be the faith of the whole world,-because it is Christianity.

It is as impossible for a man to prescribe to himself the faith of his future years, as for one age to prescribe the faith of a succeeding age: and for the same reasons. He may in his youth state an opinion in unambiguous terms, and with perfect sincerity, which, if he still hold, he cannot state in the same terms ten years after. The opinion may be substantially the same, and yet have such a bearing upon

some other opinion, or may be so modified by some other opinion that the same form of words may not express it fully, or perhaps correctly. It is yet more probable that the conceptions which are now attached to the terms are enlarged by his improved experience; so that, if he would declare the same truth, he must change his terms; or if he can conscientiously retain the terms, he must have modified his opinion. What enlightened, reflecting Christian understands exactly the same by any one parable, any one axiom, any one fact of Scripture that he did when he first admitted its truth? He believed it then; he believes it now; but how differently since science has brought new evidence to light, since philosophy has developed its origin and tendencies, since experience has tested its truth, and faith invested it with a hallowed interest and an indestructible beauty! How, therefore, is it possible for any one faithfully to engage that his views even of eternal truth shall never be modified! Witnessing, as every reflecting man does, the gradual evolution of truth from the vicissitudes of human experience, and from the successive dispensations and the progressive course of Providence, he may with safety declare that Gospel

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truth is immutable and divine; but he will avoid the presumption of supposing that all her riches are already shed into his bosom, that her brightest light is poured upon his feeble eye. He will rather hope that his apprehension will continually become clearer, his powers invigorated, and his capacities enlarged, till his views of religious truth become as unlike what they were when first admitted, as the fair face of nature appears to the new-born infant and to the mighty poet. He will reject, as an infringement of his inalienable rights, every attempt to bind him down to engagements which it may not be in his power to fulfil. He will refuse to promise that his intellect shall remain stationary; and to permit that any individual, any council, or any church, shall usurp that spiritual influence which he trusts shall be immediately dispensed from the fountain of grace and truth. Desiring wisdom, he asks of God; not profaning and annulling his prayer by engaging to receive it only in certain measure; and if any church on earth interfere to prescribe the measure, he rejects the interference as unauthorized by the letter of the Gospel and condemned by its spirit.

Christian liberty comprehends an entire free