fession of faith which he made, and with which Philip was satisfied, was, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God:" Acts viii. 37. And this sheweth, that this was all the belief that was necessary to qualify for baptism in the apostles' days.

Baptism by the Apostles in the Name of Christ only.

And that no such stress was laid on this form of words as we seem to have laid on it, and that the apostles did not think themselves so tied up to it, but that baptism might be complete without it, appears from many instances in the Acts of the Apostles, and St. Paul's Epistles. For Acts ii. 38, Peter says, "be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ." And x. 48, "He commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord." xix. 5, " When they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus." Romans vi. 3, Romans vi. 3, "Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into his death?" Gal. iii. 27,"For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ."*

After the Nicene council had pronounced baptism to be invalid that was not performed in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, flatly contrary to what appears to have been sometimes

* Gataker-Adversaria, p. 29.

the practice of the apostles themselves, we find the advocates of that council much perplexed how to save its credit in making such an unfortunate determination. But they soon found out this curious solution of the difficulty: the nameChrist, they said, i. e. the Anointed, was itself a declaration of the whole Trinity, as it implied God the Father by whom the Son was anointed, the Son himself who was anointed, and the Spirit by which he was anointed according to Acts x. 38: "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost."

And thus indeed they made it out, that baptizing in the name of Christ might imply a declaration of the whole Trinity, as they called it; but not of such a Trinity as they contended for, nor did they thereby clear the Nicene fathers of setting up their wisdom against that of the apostles.

But it is argued, that the Son and Holy Ghost being thus named together with the Father, and baptism being commanded to be celebrated alike in the name of all the three, the strict equality of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to each other, may be thence inferred, and that therefore they are each of them equally God, and equally to be worshiped.

The weakness of this inference is obvious from many parallel passages in the Scriptures. 1 Tim.

* Whitby, Strict. Patrum in Act. Apostol, pp. 231, 232.

v. 21, "I charge thee, saith the apostle, before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things." The angels being here named along with God and Christ, shews, that when God is joined with other beings in the most solemn manner, no equality can be inferred from such a conjunction. So Sam. xii. 18," All the people feared greatly the Lord and Samuel." 1 Chron. xxix. 20, "And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and See also worshiped the Lord and the king.” Exod. xiv. 31, Judges vii. 18, 20, 2 Chron. xx,

20.

And 1 Cor. i. 15, with other like places, shews, that baptizing into or in the name of any one does not itself imply any divinity in the person in whose name baptism is made.

In short, nothing can be concluded from the Son and Holy Ghost being here joined with the Father, more than what the Scriptures elsewhere teach us concerning them; and in accord with what those Scriptures teach us, we cannot better express the full meaning of baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, than in the paraphrase of Dr. Clarke, that it is "receiving to a profession of the belief, and an obligation to the practice, of that religion, which God the Father has revealed and taught by the Son, and confirmed by the Holy Ghost."

This interpretation of the baptismal form is confirmed by those summaries of Christian faith drawn up in the first ages after Christ, particularly that called the Apostles' Creed; which, although not composed by them, is acknowledged, the greatest part of it, to be of very early times.

The Apostles' Creed censured by some as an Arian or Photinian Creed.

Well had it been for our common Christianity, if these models, left us by the first believers, had been copied by those that came after them; and we had been content in our creeds and liturgies to speak of God, of Christ and the Holy Ghost, with that modest reserve and regard for holy scripture, of which the compilers of those creeds and abstracts of our holy faith have set us the example. This Creed of the Apostles, however, did not escape censure in after times, but has been aspersed in most outrageous sort, as favouring the Photinian, or what is now called the Socinian heresy. And it must be owned, it does not favour the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity, and approaches too near the holy scriptures to content those who are not satisfied to express their faith in scripture language.

Alphonsus de Vargas, a Spaniard, has given us at large the angry criticism, which some English and Spanish Jesuits passed upon this creed, and

made public. As the book is rare, and the piece very curious in its way, I shall produce a few sentences from the conclusion, and give the original in the margin.

"I believe in the Holy Ghost."*

* Credo in Spiritum Sanctum.

Hæc propositio malignè proposita est, et ex affectata brevitate merito suspecta haberi potest. Subdole enim Spiritûs Sancti divinitatem, ejusque à Patre et Filio processionem tacet. Proinde Arianam hæresin redolet, schismati Græcorum oblique favet, individuamque Trinitatem dissolvit.

Itemque tota explicatio divinæ atque individuæ Trinitatis, octo istis articulis comprehensa, manca et periculosa est, avertitque fidelem populum à cultu et reverentiâ tribus divinis personis indivise atque inseparabiliter debita, et sub prætextu brevitatis et non necessaria explicationis subdole totum Trinitatis mysterium evertit, cum tamen perfecta ejus et explicata fides medium sit ad salutem necessarium. Vixque tota hæc doctrina excusari potest à dolo, quod nullam de Filii aut Spiritûs Sancti divinitate, aut etiam æternitate mentionem faciat, sed contrarium de Filio in articulo tertio insinuet. Alphonsi de Vargas, Toletani, Relatio de Stratagematis Jesuitarum, pp. 148, 149. 1642.

But these Jesuits were modest men compared with a brother of theirs, Father Harduin, almost in our own times. For he, by one bold, crafty blow, annihilates at once the original Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and all the authors and records of Pagan and Christian antiquity, six authors excepted, viz. Plautus, Pliny the elder, Virgil's nine Eclogues and Georgics, Horace's Satires and Epistles, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and the nine books of Herodotus; and reduces all faith and knowledge to the Vulgate Latin