Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

376 THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOMChrist crucified-a simple fact, concrete if ever factwas-carried in its bosom all these consequences.And one of the first acts of the Church was to embodythem all in a short document which was taught byheart, and so given to each disciple as the symbol ofhis faith. It was in the main a simple statement ofa number of facts concerning a Person, His birth,His life, His death, and His resurrection. The powerof a document like the Creed, summing up the chiefheads of a perfectly concordant and harmonious doctrine,was very great. It was also new, and nothinglike it had been known in the heathen world. Itsounded in the disciples' ears like a trumpet to battlein the ears of the soldier. Indelibly impressed onthe memory, repeated morning and night, it remindedthe disciple with every day's coming and departurewhose he was and in what power he stood. Thus itwas that the Creed formed Christ in the Christian, andin so forming fixed in him the belief in the Living Godthe Creator of man, who was at the same time theGod and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.Moreover, this teaching was only one touch of atriple instrument. These same doctrines of the Redemption,the Incarnation, and the Godhead wereapplied to the disciple by the whole hierarchy of theChurch, that is, the perpetual daily action of the priest,or the bishop, or the Primate, in continual exercises ofauthority, all of which had their reason of existencein the Person of Christ alone, and without Him weresenseless and profitless. All the sacraments utteredthose doctrines vocally and expressed them in a concreteform. Baptism itself made the Christian in the nameof the Triune God; the Eucharist supported him withthe llesh of Christ crucified; Penance remitted his