lished work of the late John Taylor, of Northampton, on "European Confessions of Faith." In the case of the English Confessions whose original editions could be found the effort has been made to reproduce the text as nearly as possible exactly, in all its inconsistencies of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc. The desire has been to let the reader see the Confession as it first appeared to the world. It would be vain to hope that the work is wholly without mistakes where the reproduction of such a mass of details is involved; but no labor has been spared in an effort to make it as accurate as possible. The translations, except that from the Swedish, are by the author. SOUTHERN BAPTIST THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Louisville, Ky., October, 1910. W. J. MCGLOTHLIN. Peter Riedemann's Rechenschaft.. .....13-18 Appeal to the Lords of Lichtenstein..... 18-23 THE ENGLISH BAPTISTS... ........ People Living at Amsterdam...... 'A Declaration of Faith of English Peo- gregations .... The Standard Confession of 1660......109-122 95-109 vii INTRODUCTION PRIMITIVE Christianity drew up no Confessions of Faith. Its interests and efforts were religious, ethical, and practical rather than theological. Repentance toward God, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and right living were the requirements of early days. As time passed the intellectual aspects of Christianity came into more and more prominence as a result of its contact with Greek philosophy and the various religions of the Greek and Roman world. As a consequence of the struggle with this thought without and within the church the first great group of creeds was produced in the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. The earliest is the so-called Apostles' Creed, which is not the product of any ecclesiastical council, but grew up in the daily needs of practical Christian work. Traces of this creed can be found as early as 'A. D. 200, and it reached substantially its present form in the fourth century. It is almost wholly a Confession of concrete facts rather than of doctrines. The next creed was drawn up by the first world council of Christians, held at the call of the Emperor Constantine at Nicaea in Asia Minor in A. D. 325. It defined the doctrine of the Trinity, the internal relations of the Godhead, in that form which has been called orthodox by all parties to this day. The third important creed was formulated by the Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon in Asia Minor in A. D. 451. It defines the interrelation of the human and divine natures in the person of Jesus Christ in that form which, ix with some variations, has been regarded as the orthodox doctrine of the person of Christ to the present time. The so-called Athanasian Creed is a sort of epigrammatic expansion of that of Nicæa, and was widely influential. Its origin is obscure, but it was probably formulated in the sixth century. These are the important creeds of the patristic period. They are all Oriental and Asiatic in origin. They are brief, dealing with only one phase of doctrine, making no attempt to present a complete system of theological truth. They are the product of the Greek mind, written in the Greek language; but at the time of their production they expressed the convictions of the great majority of Christians in the then known world. They were the proclamation of the great church, excluding heathendom, Judaism, and the smaller Christian parties. They have commanded the assent of the great majority of Christians throughout the centuries. Creed-making now ceased for nearly a thousand years, till the beginning of the theological controversies aroused by the Reformation. Beginning with the Augsburg Confession in 1530, the next century and a half saw the formulation of most of the important modern Confessions. This group differs widely from the former. They are almost without exception of European origin, written in Latin or modern languages. They are long, presenting a more or less complete system of doctrine; they are all sectarian, representing the views of only a party of Christians, and intended to differentiate that party from the rest of Christendom and to justify its existence. The Catholic creeds of this period, both Greek and Roman, were drawn to meet Protestantism. Protestant creeds were drawn to meet the Roman Catholics and also other Protestant parties. |