Bible Truths Illustrated by J. C. Ferdinand Pittman

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BIBLE TRUTHS ILLUSTRATED
equivocal terms, complain of authors, that every one may make
his own party triumph ; while we cannot agree, while we
anathematise one another, there is hardly one that adheres to
Jesus Christ. What change was there not in the creed last
year? . . . We make creeds every year; nay, every moon we
repent of what we have done; we defend those that repent of
what we have done ; we defend those that repent ; we anathematise
those that we defended. So we condemn either the doctrine
of others in ourselves, or our own in that of others ; and,
reciprocally tearing one another to pieces, we have been the
cause of each
other's ruin."
240. Human creeds are unnecessary, for we have the Bible,
which all acknowledge to be the fountain from which all those
little streams (creeds) have been drawn off. Who would leave
the fountain and drink at the little stream far below? We
suppose no one who understands the superiority of the former
over the latter would be guilty of such an inconsistency, and
yet this is just what the supporters of human creeds are doing!
. . . Human creeds are unnecessary, because the church of Jesus
Christ had no such thing until three hundred years of peace and
unparalleled prosperity had rolled away. These were the golden
days of the church. Then there was "one Lord, and His name
one." On the broad basis of the word of God alone, the disciples
of the Lord stood firmly united, and the truth went forth
"conquering and to conquer," until Rome was revolutionised, the
thrones of the Caesars invaded, and Rome's proud emperor
bowed to the authority of Him who was born in a stable.—/. B.
Ferguson.
241. The New Testament teaches, with unmistakable explicitness,
that the true creed of a Christian is not a propositional
manifesto, but a personal life—the life of Christ. Dr. Thomas.
242. "I shape my creed every week," was the confession of
one to me. Whereunto shall I liken such unsettled ones? Are
they not like those birds which frequent the Golden Horn,
and are to be seen from Constantinople, of which it is said
that they are always on the wing, and never rest? No one
ever saw them alight on the water or on the land ; they are
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