The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

“Gentlemen," replies the independent investigator, "the theories of those
astronomers are human systems--man-made theories. I go out every night
on the hills, and look at the stars, as God made them, through a hole in my
blanket, with my own good eyes, not with a man-made telescope, or
fettered by a man-made theory; and I believe in the stars and in what they
teach me: but if I were to say, or write what they teach, that would be a
human creed--and I am opposed to all creeds." “Very well," reply the
examiners, "we wish you joy in the possession of a good pair of eyes, and
feel it unnecessary to go any further. If you are unwilling to confess your
faith, we will not tax your conscience with the inconsistency of teaching
that faith, nor tax our own with the hazard of authorizing you to set forth in
the name of the stars your own ignorant assumptions about them."
What is more clear than that, as the Rule of Faith is first, it must, by
necessity of its being, when rightly used, generate a true faith? But the man
who has true faith desires to have it known, and is bound to confess his
faith. The Rule cannot really generate two conflicting beliefs; yet men who
alike profess to accept the Rule, do have conflicting beliefs; and when
beliefs conflict, if the one is formed by the Rule, the other must be formed
in the face of it. Fidelity to the Rule of Faith, therefore, fidelity to the faith
it teaches, demands that there shall be a Confession of the faith. The
firmest friend of the Word is the firmest friend of the Creed. First, the Rule
of Faith, next the Faith of the Rule, and then the Confession of Faith.
What shall be our confession?
What shall be our Confession? Are we originating a Church, and
must we utter our testimony to a world, in which our faith is a novelty?
The reply is easy. As we are not the first who have used, with honest hearts
and fervent prayers, the Rule, so are we not the first who have been guided
by the Holy Ghost in it to its faith. As men long ago reached its faith, so
long ago they confessed it. They confessed it from the beginning. The first
adult baptism was based upon a "human creed," that is, upon a confession
of faith, which was the utterance of a belief which was based