The Bible Explained by the Creed.
By R. F. Cottrell
EACH Christian denomination professes to take the Bible as the true guide, but take it as explained by the creed. The creed, it is said, is founded on the Bible and is in perfect harmony with it; but it explains its doctrines so that we can understand them clearly. It seems, then, that the creed is the more important book of the two, since we could not understand our duty without it. Would it not be wisdom, then, to drop the Bible entirely and have no more contention about it? That book is the great bone of contention. Suppose we let it alone, and so have peace. It is a serious fact that all creeds and disciplines are virtually placed higher in authority than the Bible, since disputes concerning the understanding of the Bible must be settled by the creed. It was so with the Jews. What they were pleased to call the oral law, or the traditions of the elders, was preferred by them to the written law, because it explained the latter and supplied its deficiencies. But our Saviour told them that they made the word of God of none effect by their traditions. Is it not just so with creeds? Of the Jews, Prideaux says:— "For they own a twofold law—the first the written law, which is recorded in the holy Scriptures, and the second the oral law, which they have only by the tradition of the elders. And both these they say were given them by Moses from Mount Sinai, of which the former only was committed to writing, and the other delivered down to them from generation to generation by the tradition of the elders. And therefore holding them to be both of the same authority, as having both of them the same divine original, they think themselves to be bound as much by the latter as the former, or rather much more. For the written law is, they say, in many places obscure, scanty, and defective, and could be no perfect rule to them without the oral law, which, containing, according to them, a full, complete, and perfect interpretation of all that is written in the other, supplies all the defects, and solves all the difficulties of it. And therefore they observe the written law no otherwise than according as it is expounded and interpreted by the oral law." This is a good illustration of the various creeds of Christendom. All are guided by the Bible, as they understand it; and they understand it just as the creed or discipline explains it, though it be in direct contradiction to the word of God. The Jews transgressed the commandment of God and made it of none effect by their tradition. See Matt. 15 : 1-9. They contradicted and set aside the fifth commandment by their tradition. Almost every creed in existence contradicts the fourth commandment of the same law. The commandment says the seventh day is the Sabbath; the creed says the first day is the Sabbath. The creed is followed, and the word of God is made void. Tradition says that the Sabbath was changed, at the resurrection of Christ, from the seventh to the first day of the week. The Bible says nothing of this; but the commandment remains as first given, and consequently requires just what it always did. From the multitudinous contradictory creeds, all claiming to teach the doctrines of the Bible, has arisen the common saying that the Bible is like an old fiddle—you can play on it what tune you please. This is a slanderous imputation, though somewhat apt. It is by fingering the fiddle that it plays different tunes; and if men will keep their fingers off the Bible, it will tell a straight story. R. F. COTTRILL.