Sermons on the Apostles' Creed

Preface

These sermons were delivered during the winter of 1897-8, in the ordinary course of pulpit ministrations, and were prepared under the pressures and duties attendant upon the care of a large parish. As they were delivered, so they are printed.

They were not designed as a critical or exhaustive treatment of the subjects considered, but as helps to the understanding and appreciation of the several articles of the Creed. Some who heard them thought that they would be useful to others, and urged their publication.

In presenting them in this form, it is hoped (v)

vi Preface

that they will prove helpful to those who shall read them, in quickening the spiritual life, and in strengthening allegiance to " the faith once for all delivered to the saints."

The Eectoey,

St. Anne's Church,

Contents

PAGE

I. INTRODUCTION 1

II. "I Believe in God" 14

I

rNTEODUCTION. 11 That they may be sound in the faith." Titus i. 13.

We have a Creed. More precisely, we have two Creeds. One is called the " Apostles' Creed," and is that which is used regularly in Morning and Evening Prayer. It is, also, sometimes called the " Creed of the Catechumens," or the "Baptismal Creed," because it was, in the early church, taught to those who were preparing for the Sacrament of Holy Baptism ; and indeed is now in the Baptismal Office of this Church, and all " sponsors" and " witnesses " assert their faith in it, as does the adult for himself when about to receive that Sacrament. The other is called the " Nicene Creed," or otherwise, the " Communion Creed," because properly belonging to the office for the Celebration of the Blessed Sacrament of the

Introduction

Body and Blood of our Saviour Jesus Christ. This Nicene Creed, however, is only a longer and more definite statement, for the most part, of the articles contained in the Apostles' Creed. In all essential particulars, the two Creeds are identical. This being so, I do not need to further particularize at this time, since it is not of the Nicene form — the form elaborated by the Council of Nicsea in A. D. 325 — that I desire especially to speak, but of that much more ancient form, that shorter form, which we know as the Apostles'. Not that we are to consider that this Creed was formulated by the Apostles themselves, which is not the case. It is only a tradition, whatever the foundation it may have, that the twelve Apostles composed it — each Apostle in turn, at a meeting for that purpose, pronouncing a definite paragraph or article. Nevertheless, it may be very properly accepted as, and called the Apostles' Creed, since it gathers together, and emphasizes in concrete form, the main features of Apostolic faith and teachings. In certain parts the very words used by

Introduction.

the Apostles in their writings are found embodied in the Creed — and every article may be gathered from, and clearly proved, by the Epistles of the New Testament, or the Gospels of our Blessed Lord as left to us by the Apostles, or by Evangelists instructed by His Apostles. From the very earliest days of the Church this Creed was, in substantial respects as now, in existence and use. In simpler form than at present, it may be, at first, but always substantially the same. We need trouble ourselves, therefore, not at all about the origin of this Creed. It is sufficient that we know that it dates from the earliest times, and that it embodies the " Faith once for all delivered to the saints, 9 ' which has always been the faith of the Church, as it is the faith of the Church to-day, and as it will be the faith of the church while the church shall continue to stand. The Church will stand until the "consummation of all things," for it is the promise of Him who cannot err, and who has "all power in heaven and earth," that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Let

Introduction.

it be carefully noted, at this point, that the Apostles' Creed is a statement of facts in relation to, and in connection with Christianity, of the facts which underlie Christianity, and without which it has, and can have, no existence. These facts cannot be eliminated from the New Testament without destroying the New Testament. Whenever they are eliminated, in whole or in part, Christianity is marred and disfigured in the exact proportion to the elimination. This, however, need not now be emphasized. But the statement is an important one, that the Creed is a summary of facts, a gathering together of the essential elements of the Christian Religion. It is a setting forth of what, according to the New Testament, and the teaching of the Church, is necessary for a Christian to know and believe to his soul's health and welfare. The Creed is not an elaboration of doctrines, or a setting forth of doctrinal opinions or theories. In other words, it is not a statement of what we think, or suppose, or guess, or speculate about the doctrines of our religion, but a declaration

Introduction.

of acceptance and belief in certain indisputable facts of Christianity as set forth in Holy Scripture. The word " Creed," as we know, is from the Latin, Credo, "to believe," or "I believe"; and these things which we believe are the facts appertaining to our holy religion. These facts are put in the tersest language, and in the shortest possible compass. The Creed thus is not a theological treatise. The difficulty often is, that religious bodies other than the Historic Church, often put forth theological confessions to which they attempt to compel implicit credence. Because these leave no free play to the human faculties, no real freedom of thought, no room for spiritual insight quickened by the Holy Ghost, no possibility of any progress in the knowledge of the truth revealed by God, there has been rebellion on the part of men. The complaint has been, not without a show of justification, that there has been thus a stifling of the intellect, resulting in a deterioration of all spiritual power, sometimes ending in the neglect, or even the denial of all Christian teaching.

Introduction.

This objection cannot be urged, with justice, against the Apostles' Creed. That leaves the widest possible scope for the exercise of the intellectual powers, and for the quickening and enlightening influences of God's Holy Spirit. Within the limitations of the facts stated, which are established verities, there is uttermost liberty to the children of God, who are invited, even commanded to judge what is right.

There are definite and permanent advantages in such a Creed as the Apostles'. As a matter of experience, every person, at least every person who lives a life that has any real force in it, good or bad, has a Creed. It may not be a Christian Creed, or in any sense a religious Creed, but the power by which his life is guided is the Creed which impels him. That which he believes, in which he believes, that shapes, moulds, controls his life, and he is more and more the kind of man that his Creed makes him. It does make a difference what a man believes, and believes in. He believes that money is the

Introduction.

chief good, and it becomes the main spring of all his efforts. He bends himself to its acquisition, body, and mind, and soul. He may gain the end sought, that in which he believes ; but, if that is all, it is, to say the least, unworthy of the spiritual and immortal nature. Or, a man's Creed may be pleasure, or education, or art, or merely secular advantage and attainment in whatever light viewed. He believes in this world, in this life, and in what these can yield ; and he is, and is more and more, the kind of man that his faith necessitates. He does not reach, as he cannot reach, any spiritual heights, or attain to a life that is really divinely noble. Some Creed a man has, and must have. It is certainly of importance what is his Creed, what is its character, what is that to which it tends, and to which it leads him. The Apostles' Creed reaches above what is of the earth earthy, it touches the spiritual and eternal, it unfolds and enforces the divine. Here is a calm statement of a Christian's belief, so quiet, so confident, so assuring as to steady and inspire the soul.

As a being alone in a universe so vast and so complicated, there is need for something to steady the bewildered and perplexed powers, and to make the soul strong for the life it lives, the duties it must discharge, and the trials, temptations, and sorrows it must meet. This faith is put into words. "I believe." I believe in God, in God the Unchanging, the Infinite, the Eternal. I am not alone, I am not helpless. I believe in God ! So with regard to the other articles of the Creed. Here is a power to a man's life, that cannot otherwise than mould, uphold, and transform. It takes him apart from, and separates him from, and makes him other than the temporal and transient — it allies him with everlasting spiritual verities.

Other purposes also are served by a Creed, which are both helpful and necessary. In the life of humanity there are centrifugal forces forever operating. Not only do nations divide themselves from nations, with the rivalries and jealousies and interests that are so rife, but the same is true of communities, of families and of individuals. It seems practically impossible to make men realize common interests— that men cannot live to themselves. Nations are concerned for themselves, and families for themselves, and individuals for themselves. Their interests often seem to be antagonistic. To save from their flying apart absolutely, some centripetal force is an essential; but this can only be found in religion, and only as that religion is expressed in words — in a Creed. A common religious formula can and does, certainly as nothing else can, or ever has done, bind men and nations together. They converge to this centre, and find that they all have common interests and common hopes. A common faith, and the impulse derived therefrom, unites individuals, and families, and communities — and serves to hasten the time when the universal Brotherhood of man in the common Fatherhood of God shall be recognized and acknowledged. Without a Creed that were impossible of realization. To that end we must not only believe in God, but in God as the Father Almighty — and this faith must needs be expressed in so many words.

In another direction also the Apostles' Creed is of the utmost value. Though it may not so have occurred to many, yet such a Creed is a necessary key to the understanding of God's Holy Word, and to the apprehension and appreciation of its promises with regard to man and his destiny. The Bible is a many-sided Book. Rather it is a series of book — of books, some of them written more than a thousand years apart, and having of course different authors. These authors often lived in places far removed the one from the other; and they wrote upon specific matters, and to serve specific purposes. The Bible as a whole, reveals God's progressive dealings with humanity, and His progressive unfolding of Himself to men's knowledge. It shows humanity in its pristine glory, in its fall, in its possible redemption. It converges steadily to Calvary ; and from Calvary is the flashing of the light that illumines all darkness and the shadow of death, and opens the gates of everlasting life and glory. The splendor and power of Inspiration rest upon the Bible. But, certainly to ordinary minds — and humanity is made up of ordinary minds — a key is needed to open the treasures of the sacred writings to the heart, and to insure that Christians may be sound in the faith. We have the key in the Apostles' Creed, the outcome of the teaching Church, of that Church to which Jesus Christ Himself promised the gift of the Holy Ghost to abide with it, and to lead it into all truth. This Creed, embracing the substantial historic features and facts of Christianity, becomes a guide. Without such a guide we may fail to read aright. With it, we cannot read amiss, since the Creed itself is definitely scriptural.

Much more might be said as to the value of such a Creed ; but sufficient, it may be, has been outlined to show that it is not without interest and importance to the Christian. This will be realized more fully, as the Creed itself, in its different articles, shall be presented for consideration. Meanwhile, its intense personality challenges our attention. It is the expression upon our part, as the disciples of Jesus Christ, of our personal individual faith. It is not, as we use it, what others believe, but what I believe — I, for myself, as though no other being existed except myself— I, as a living being, a spiritual being, traveling through this world into an eternal world, as destined to a life of immortality. " I believe

"In God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth :

"And in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord: Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary: Suffered under Pontius Pilate, Was crucified, dead, and buried : He descended into hell ; The third day He rose again from the dead : He ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty: From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

"I believe in the Holy Ghost: The Holy

Catholic Church: The Communion of Saints: The Forgiveness of Sins : The Resurrection of the body : And the Life everlasting. Amen"

II. "I BELIEVE m GOD."

"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come." Bev. iv. 8.

11 To us there is but one God, of whom are all things, and we in Him." 1 Cor. viii. 6.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." — Genesis i. 1.

The Apostles' Creed says, " I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth."

The Holy Scriptures and the Creed agree absolutely in the setting forth of God, of God as a Father, of God as Almighty (a Being of sovereign power), and of God as the maker of all things. Practically, the sacred writings are full of passages having a direct bearing to this end. To quote them would take all the time that can be devoted to a single discourse, and then they would not be exhausted. So far as the Bible is concerned, however, one passage of

"I Believe in God." 15

definite statement as to any truth is sufficient; and for our purpose to-day, the passages taken for a text affirm explicitly the declaration of faith contained in the Creed. As Christians we affirm — each one personally and as a single individual, — belief in "God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." The reticence of Holy Scripture is as wonderful as are its revelations. It is as remarkable for what it does not make known, as it is for what it declares to us. It reveals God — perhaps it may be more correctly said, it assumes God, as a self-existent Being', — but it enters into no argument for or concerning His existence, and it tells us nothing of the essential character or mode of His Being, It may be — no doubt it is, — because of the limitations of our humanity, which will not allow us now to comprehend all the deep things of God ; though it may be, that when these limitations shall be removed, as we believe that some day they will be, we shall come to know more and more, and as the eternities shall speed on, more fully apprehend

16 "I Believe in God."

-what God is, and enter more completely into the measureless depths of His glory. But only God, in any absolute way, can now or ever comprehend God. Only the Infinite can sound the abysses of the infinite. Only He who is " without beginning of days or end of years n — to whom eternity is a perpetual present, — can see and understand all the complexities and intertwinings that reach from the infinite past endlessly on and over into the infinite future. Man is finite, and because finite is " cabined, cribbed, confined," bounded by sense and time, limited in the operations and applications of his faculties. It is outside the province of man, therefore, outside of his powers, outside of wisdom and humility, to demand demonstrable mathematical proof of the being and existence of God. Corroborations of the fact of God is all he has a right to ask for, or to expect — and these may come from his own divinely implanted intuitions, if he will allow them to witness, and from the universe about him, if he will listen to its teaching. Beyond this, to

"/ Believe in God." 17

know God, if we shall know Him in any measure of fulness, to any adequate satisfaction to our nature, He must be known as He reveals Himself, or by His will and power is revealed to us by another. He has progressively revealed Himself to the world. In an important sense He progressively is revealed to, and is apprehended through revelation by the soul. The knowledge of God possessed by the little child, or the youth, is not the knowledge possessed by the mature Christian, who has learned to know him through stress of toil and trial and sorrow, through the manifold experiences of life. Certainly the careless, and indifferent, and sinful, cannot know God in any adequate way — cannot know Him in the way of obedience, of righteousness, of love and peace. But the child, and the youth, and the mature man or woman, if at all earnest, can say, with equal force and fervor, and the fulness of conviction, and to the help, and comfort, and stay of the heart, " I believe in God." The heart answers to the declaration that God is, and rests in the

18 "J Believe in God."

answer, and we express this assurance and confidence when we say, " I believe " — that is our faith — to us " the evidence of things not seen." We bow in the consciousness of one higher and mightier, more enduring, more eternal than ourselves; and in our conscious dependence thereupon, and our conscious need, we adore and worship, and hope and trust. He is to us the " Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come."

But the revelation of God is much more, and much nearer than mere existence or being. That God is a Living Personal Being, is, indeed, involved in the very idea of God — of any idea that has any adequate meaning to our souls, growing out of our sense of dependence upon a higher power. The personality of God is most clearly and definitely taught in the sacred Scriptures, and is emphasized by our Lord Jesus Christ. So far as the Scriptures are concerned, it is impossible to escape from this fact. Nor otherwise, would the idea of God, in any vital way, affect our souls, our lives, or our conduct.

"I Believe in God." 19

It is impossible to predicate any attributes, or powers, or affections, thought, feeling, purpose, knowledge — of an impersonality. Neither as toward an impersonality, could there be justified or conceded any claim of obligation or responsibility on the part of man. The foundations are taken away from any religion — call that religion by whatever name we will, — - when the personality of God is denied. We can ask nothing, we can expect nothing, we can receive nothing, except from a Person. We cannot escape then, from the thought of God as a Living Personal Being. As Christians this thought is essential and necessary, and cannot, without the inevitable ultimate rejection of Christianity, be ignored or denied. It is that which we confess in the creed, when we say that we " Believe in God the Father Almighty." There is no fatherhood without personality — nor is there any fatherhood without the attributes and qualities which belong to that relationship. This relationship, moreover, as it is attached to God, we can know and

20 "I Believe in God."

apprehend only as we know it in connection with ourselves. The name of Father would have no adequate meaning to us otherwise — and we are not mocked with words without meaning to our hearts or minds. That would be playing with the tenderest and deepest feelings of our nature — it would be the mockery of all our intuitive conceptions of what ought to be. We would be helpless in this strange, sad world, with nothing to lean upon, without a guide, and with no light beyond. But to us "there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him." He is " the Father of the spirits of all flesh." " God has made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth." We have a Father God — a God who is a Father in a true and absolute sense. " My heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God," was the expression wrung from the burdened heart of the Prophet and Psalmist of Israel in the olden days. "Shew us the Father and it sufficeth us," was the longing cry of the disciple to our Lord

U I Believe in God." 21

Jesus Christ. It is the cry of humanity in all the ages. God, the Living God, the Personal Father. This is the revelation of God that is made to us ; and this is the God in whom we believe, if we believe aright. That this God is, is the attestation in the Creed, enshrined as a fact therein forever. In the light of it we open the Scriptures, and all the fulness of their blessed teaching in this connection flash with more and more significance and splendor upon us, and our hearts respond to the revelation, and find rest and joy in believing. No otherwise would or could God be to us what He can be, and what He is. The sense of His power and glory only, would blight — so great, so vast, so fearful, so all overwhelming is it. We are as nothing before mere power, however glorious. It dismays and crushes. But before God as the Father Almighty — the all powerful sovereign Father — the heart is quiet, and throbs with the joy of confidence and hope. There is One who has an interest in us, and cares for us. He can do infinitely more and better for us

22 "I Believe in GodP

than we can ask or think. He can guide, sustain, and bless. He can draw us with the cord of His mighty love, can forgive, and can save. He can lighten our darkness, soothe our anguish, and make even our bitterest afflictions to redound to our welfare, whether for this world or for the world to come. It cannot be His fault, if fatherly love and blessing do not rest upon our heads and hearts — it must be the fault of our own blindness, our own neglect, our own rebellion and persistent sin. " I believe in God the Father Almighty."

What fulness of meaning, what height and length and depth of significance, what grounds of confidence and hope and trust, are brought to the mind and heart, by the further declaration that this God and Father is the " Maker of heaven and earth." All things are of His creation, all subsist by His will and power — and this, whether they be the things that are seen, or the things that are not seen. For " heaven and earth" is a comprehensive term. The things that are seen are but the reflection of

"1 Believe in God." 23

the things that are unseen. The universe that we look upon, though we see it only in its parts, is but the reflection of an unseen universe, whose glories are more transcendent. The visible creation is a manifestation of the mind of God — the material clothing of the spiritual conception of the eternal and infinite Maker. So the splendors that the works of God's hands flash all about us, are but shimmering hints of the splendors that lie back of all— of the splendors in which God Himself has His Being, and into the radiance of which His faithful children have the promise that they shall come at last. All things are of God the Father. We, also, are His offspring. This is the vision that breaks upon us, in this first clause of the Apostles' creed — this, and much more, infinitely more than we can now present or even suggest. To the fact thus presented, we are asked to conform our lives. Of His children God asks obedience, and service, and love ; and He is not, and cannot be satisfied otherwise. We should make then the words of

24 "/ Believe in God,"

the Creed our own, as having vital power over heart and soul. They must not be only a lip utterance. " I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth,"

III. " And In Jesus Chkist."

Jesus "Saith unto them, but whom say ye that I am? and Simon Peter answered, and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God." St. Matthew xvi. 15, 16.

" When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman." Galatians iv. 4.

"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of one only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." St. John i. 14.

In the Apostles' Creed, every worshipper declares, each one personally and individually, 44 1 believe in Jesus Christ His only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary."

As to the facts stated in this article of the Creed, it were easy to quote Holy Scripture in demonstration, to the full extent of this sermon. But this is not necessary, since no one at all familiar with the New Testament, can for a moment be in doubt as to the teachings therein contained, with regard to the generation and the birth of Jesus Christ, and what is claimed for Him, and what He claims for Himself. The passages taken as a text, serve, therefore, merely as suggestions for the line of this discourse, in the consideration of this affirmation of the Creed in its application to us. The opening sentence of the Creed, " I believe in God the Father Almighty/' emphasizes over and above and beyond what was unfolded to you last Sunday, the eternal, essential Fatherhood of God, and an eternal, essential Sonship. He who is without beginning of days or end of years, "the same yesterday, to-day and forever/' is revealed to us as a Father. If a Father, then there never was a time when He was not a Father, and there never can be a time when He will not be a Father — just as, since He is God, He was God always, and will be God forever. It is equally true, in parity of reasoning, that Jesus Christ, who is made known to us as the " One who was, and is, and is to come/' "the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," is the Eternal Son of God. That is to say, Jesus Christ was in the beginning, that is from everlasting, with God, His Only Son. He is the only begotten of the Father ; begotten before the world was made, Holy Scripture affirms.

In the same sense, no other was or is the Son of God. Always with the Father, He is partaker with Him of His essential Being, and power, and glory — even as He Himself declares, " I and My Father are one." To this end is that magnificent Proem of St. John, 41 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made." Holy Scripture declares, that God " created all things by His Son," whom He " hath made heir of all things," thus Lord of all things, thus our Lord. To Him is given preeminence, as the promised Messiah and Saviour of a fallen humanity, having the assurance that " to Him every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." God is, indeed, as has already been shown, the Father of the spirits of all flesh — the Father of the entire human race. But He was a Father before humanity was created. He is the Father of men, as their Creator. In an advanced, and more tender, and closer sense, He is the Father of all who are believers in Jesus Christ His only Son. They are his children by adoption — for they thus become the brethren of Jesus Christ in spiritual relations, and as such are with Him heirs of God, and joint heirs to the inheritance that is incorruptible, and undefiled, and that passeth not away, — the inheritance of heaven. But Jesus Christ remains His only Son, and our Lord, since He is with God from eternity, to be " revealed in the fulness of the times," that He might make known God to men, and open to them the gates of everlasting life and glory.