tained in these Scriptures could never be the teaching of the Church, but merely the doctrine-well or illfounded-of certain of her members. Hence from the first the axiom was accepted, Ecclesia docet; probat Scriptura. The Church teaches, Scripture proves. The fact that the Church has existed from the time of the Apostles is as capable of proof as any other fact of history.1 The fact that "inspiration," in the strict sense of the word, ceased at the death of the Apostles and those associated with them in the foundation of the Church, is gathered from the tradition of the Church, and witnessed to by the close of the Canon of Scripture at the time of their death. The successors of the Apostles never attempted to add their writings to those of the canonical Scriptures; neither did they claim the power to add new articles to the Faith "once delivered unto the saints." The post-apostolic Church was to witness to the deposit she had received from the inspired Apostles. The Apostles themselves had been instructed by their Lord, and on the day of Pentecost they received a miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit for the very purpose that they might recall to mind all that they had been taught, and understand its full significance and its application to the needs of the souls. of men. Those who, like St. Paul, had not been disciples of Jesus Christ were called by God Himself to

1 The fact that Jesus Christ lived and was crucified we know from Pagan as well as Christian sources.

2 St. Jude 3.

share in the founding of the Church, and the fact of their having this call was witnessed to by the evidence of miraculous power and by the consent of the apostolic college. The gift of personal inspiration ceased at the death of the Apostles, with other gifts that had been granted for the purpose of founding the Church. Inspiration, in the technical sense of the word, was no longer needful when, the whole cycle of the faith had been declared. Miracles were superseded by the witness of the enduring force that enabled the apparent weakness of the Church to triumph over the opposing power and wisdom of imperial Rome. Men might not know whence this mysterious force came or whither it tended, but they were compelled to recognise its presence, for the signs of it were constantly before their eyes. The Apostles knew that this power came to them from their crucified, risen, and ascended Lord. It had come upon them suddenly, accompanied by "a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind."1 The hearts of men were bowed as this all-subduing breath of God swept over them and filled them with a new life. The words of the Master were verified before their eyes: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth:

1 Acts ii. 2.

so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Thus, as time went on, the new life of the children of the kingdom of God became its own witness to a divine force that just at the first had proclaimed its presence by those wonders that men call "miracle."

The Church, then, is not an oracle to which men may seek for an answer to every curious question they wish to ask. What she has had to declare is the old Faith, to which she can add nothing because nothing new has been revealed to her. A new revelation would require the witness of fresh miraculous power, as well as the witness of the effect of the new truth upon the life of the Church. In theory, therefore, it is confessed by every portion of the Church that nothing can be added to the original deposit of truth. But, from the first, the Church has reckoned some doctrines as of far greater moment than others. The entire Church declared at the Council of Ephesus in the year A.D. 431 that, “No person shall be allowed to bring forward, or to write, or to compose any other Creed besides that which was settled by the holy Fathers who were assembled in the city of Nicæa, with the Holy Spirit. But those who shall dare to compose any other Creed, or to exhibit or to produce any such to those who wish to turn to the acknowledgment of the truth, whether from heathenism or from Judaism, or any other heresy whatsoever, if they are bishops or clergymen, they shall be deposed, the bishops from their episcopal office, and the clergymen from the clergy, and if they be of the laity they

1 St. John iii. 6-8.

shall be anathematised." This decree of the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus was reaffirmed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451. The dogmatic decrees of the undoubted Ecumenical Councils-held before the separation of East and West-are binding upon the whole Church, and have been repeatedly referred to as authoritative by the post-reformation Anglican Episcopate. They are, moreover, recognised by the statute law of England where it is written: "Provided always and it be enacted by the authority aforesaid, that such persons . . . shall not in any wise have authority or power to order, determine, or adjudge any matter or cause to be heresy but only such as heretofore have been determined, ordered, or adjudged to be heresy by the authority of the canonical Scriptures, or by the first four General Councils or any of them, or by any other General Council wherein the same was declared heresy by the express and plain words of the said

1 In this decree there is a point of some importance that is lost sight of in the English version, but is clearly marked in the original Greek. In the sentence "those who dare to compose any other creed" the word used for "other" is érépos not äλλos. The word érépos means "other" in the sense of unlike, opposite, not "other" (aXXos) in the sense of a duplicate creed, i.e. one expressing the same truths in other words. Hence the Athanasian Creed does not transgress the decree of the Council, since it adds nothing new to the Nicene Creed; it is not "another" in the sense of being opposite to or unlike the Nicene; it merely develops and explains the truths of the Nicene Creed. See Galatians i. 6, 7, where the two words are used: "I marvel that ye unto another (ËTEрov)

gospel which is not another" (äλλo), i.e. “there cannot be two Gospels, and as it is not the same it is no Gospel at all," as Lightfoot explains. See Dr. Lightfoot's comment on the passage in his Epistles of St. Paul to the Galatians.

canonical Scriptures . . ."1 At the Lambeth Conference in 1867 the authority of the Councils was referred to in these words: "We, Bishops of Christ's Holy Catholic Church . . . do here solemnly record our conviction that unity will be most effectually promoted by maintaining the faith in its purity and integrity—as taught in the Holy Scriptures, held by the Primitive Church, summed up in the Creeds, and affirmed by the undisputed General Councils. . . ." It is, therefore, no assertion of private judgment that leads us to reject new dogmas.2 The divisions of Christendom hinder the meeting of a General Council, and consequently the "definition" of any new dogma - however plainly it may be taught in Holy Scripture-is impossible. The "one Faith," as far as it has been explicitly "defined" by the whole Church, is therefore contained in the Creeds. The articles of the Creed are few in number but of supreme importance, since they guard the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, and the Incarnation. Our Lord Himself taught the need of faith in these fundamental truths when He said, "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ Whom Thou hast sent." But beside this body of what we may well call essential truth, there are many doctrines capable of proof from the holy Scriptures and witnessed to by the unbroken tradition of

1 I Eliz. i. 36.

2 A truth contained in the Creed is in modern theological phraseology said to be de fide definita—a defined dogma.