DON'T STAGNATE IN CREEDS.
THE Christian Union of Oct. 1, 1879, utters the following noble words concerning the duty of bringing all doctrines to the test of the Bible, and deciding by that:— There was one Robinson, a somewhat famous man in church history, who lamented the state of Protestant churches in his time, that they could not or would not study the word of God for further light, but stopped at Calvin. There was one Luther, who, being cited before his church for teaching error, demanded that it re-examine its creed, declaring, “I neither can nor dare retract unless convinced by reason and Scripture.” There was one Calvin, who was not accustomed to mince his words, and who declared the “dependence of its (the Bible’s) authority on the judgment of the church an impious fiction.” There were some learned divines that met in Westminster Abbey in the seventeenth century, who have had some reputation among Protestant Christians for both piety and learning, who declared that “the infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself;” and that “in all controversies of religion the church is finally to appeal unto them.” Finally, there was one Jesus of Nazareth, whom the Christian Union regards as an authority in all matters of faith and practice, who, in his day, was regarded as a heretic; and who, being called to account by the theological doctors for disregarding the creed and ritual of the church, repudiated the “tradition of the elders” with some warmth, appealing from it to Scripture, and declaring that by substituting ecclesiastical rules and creeds for the Scripture, men did “reject the commandments of God,” “teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” The Christian Union stands now and always on the platform of the Westminster divines, and Robinson, and Calvin, and Luther, and Jesus Christ;—on the right of every man accused of teaching false doctrines to appeal to the Scripture, and be tried by the Scripture; and on the duty of every church which recognizes the Scripture as the only final authority in matters of religious doctrine to test all teaching by the Scripture, and be always ready to defend its historic faith from Scripture, and abandon whatever in that faith it cannot so defend.