One is, that a righteous God, who requires all men to deal justly with each other, and who, at Sinai, forbade this very people to steal, and even to covet "anything that is thy neighbors," did command the Israelites to enter Canaan and take possession of it, by the use of all necessary force. This proves, if he was not most grossly inconsistent with himself, that taking possession of Canaan by the Israelites was not stealing, and that their desire to possess the lands then occupied by the Canaanites was not coveting anything that of right belonged to their neighbors and not to themselves. The history of the Israelites and of the Canaanites in relation to that land must have been such as justified the Israelites in desiring it and taking possession of it as their own. The facts which we have quoted from the Scriptures must have been a part of that history; and the other parts of it must have been in harmony with these, and must have been morally equivalent to those which we have inferred.

The second is, that in all these transactions, God had regard to his great and holy name. One of his objects, often expressly declared, was, to manifest himself to all right-minded men, not only as an almighty sovereign, but also as a holy and righteous God. He could not, consistently with that design, exhibit himself as the patron and instigator of robbery and murder, by individuals or by nations. There must, then, have been facts, public facts, then known in that part of the world, in view of which the invasion and conquest of Canaan by the Israelites was an honest transaction. The known history of the Israelites and the Canaanites, and of their relations to that land, must have been such that, in view of them, God, in commanding and enabling the Israelites to conquer and possess the land, gave a favorable exhibition of his own moral character. The Israelites must have had well-known rights in the country, and the Canaanites must have been well-known wrongdoers, who deserved to be dispossessed and driven out. The history, as we have given it, consisting partly of recorded facts and partly of facts inferred, meets this requirement; and this is a strong confirmation of its substantial truth.

This last consideration applies the more forcibly, if the struggle which ended in the expulsion of the Israelites from Canaan

continued many years, and could be remembered by old men at the time of the exodus; and this our chronology very well permits, and even renders probable. One of the last places to be relinquished by the Hebrews would be the pass of Bethhoron, which covered their retreat into Egypt. Elishama, the venerable head of the Ephraimites at the exodus, might well remember when they held that pass, and may even have witnessed the capture and demolition of his cousin Sherah's Fort. As a prominent young man of the tribe to which that region belonged, he may have been the last captain of an hundred, or of fifty, who attempted the defence of Uzzen-Sherah.

ARTICLE VI.

CREEDS.

THE communion and friendly coöperation of Christians of every type for practical Christian ends must be regarded as important and conducive to the credit and advancement of Christianity in the world. There can be no question, that it is the will of our Master that all his disciples should be "one," for their own good and for the sake of their influence upon "the world"; a brotherhood, bound together, not by complete uniformity of administration and ceremonial, but by unity of spirit and mutual good-will. This is to be desired and earnestly labored for; to some extent, it is realized. The great conflict in our day, as well as in past ages, is not between one and another of the different sections of the Christian world; it is a contest between those who believe in the Gospel, and those who do not believe in it. The course of providential events, in recent times, has given fresh impulse to the desire of union, and has exercised a reconciling influence on the Christian sects. We rejoice in it; we want a progressive Church, steadily contemplating the glory of the Lord Jesus, and so "changed into the same image" by the agency of the Spirit of God.

There is danger, however, that the earnest effort for hearty Christian union, which is generally encouraged, may be attended by an indifference to Gospel truth, ignoring many of its essential doctrines, and suppressing the distinct utterance of those doctrines in some quarters, where they are not expressly denied. "Not doctrine, but life," is the cry of many. In some instances, the creed is diluted, and fundamental doctrines are carefully eliminated in a well-meant, but misguided effort to fashion "a Christianity large enough to hold all Christians,' and to find the truth, which shall make all forms of, truth comparatively insignificant. In other instances, the prominent doctrines, set forth in the Calvinistic confessions of the churches, are spoken of in disparaging and contemptuous terms by ministers, or passed over in preaching with cautious and significant silence. In other instances, to evade the opprobrium of being called dogmatist and bigot, there is a practical sacrifice of doctrines of the creed to a show of visible ceremonial uniformity, offering an easy and unquestioning recognition of the Christian name for all who claim it. There are conflicts of opinion among the different sects of the Christian world, and various shades of theological thought among those who fraternize in the same communion. It is not likely that the wisdom of the intellect will soon fuse them into beautiful unity. They will exist for the present, whether they stand out or not in any formal symbol. The questioning of our times is free and searching; it reaches down to the very foundations of things; it relates to the essential attributes and government of God and the everlasting destiny of the human soul. And it is a poor conceit to deprecate religious discussions as distracting and divisive, or to turn away from detailed articles of faith in churches, as unwarranted or injurious.

Our churches favor the use of creeds. With few exceptions, they have a brief summary of the leading doctrines of Christian faith, which is the exponent of their faith, the bond of their organic union, and the test of church-membership. It must necessarily be brief and synoptical. All readily see the importance of comprehensiveness in standards of faith; but all do not so easily perceive the importance of their being sound, distinct, and complete.

The use of Creeds. We shall reach the safest and most satisfactory conclusions by examining first the origin of creeds, and their proper relation to the church, and then considering their utility.

Our first question is, What is the origin of creeds? In the apostolic churches, it was the avowal of faith in Christ which entitled any one to baptism and the fellowship of the church. The formula of the confession, however brief it might be, had reference, not to the life, but to the faith, assuming that the life would be Christian, if the faith were real. The notion is becoming extremely popular in our day, that a respectable life in place of any discriminating regard to doctrinal correctness, is to be the panacea for our ecclesiastical ills. "Modify your creeds," is the cry. "Remove the offensive definiteness; sub

stitute a consideration of individual character instead of the acknowledgment of the truths of Christianity; make the life, not doctrine, the test of church-membership." Now there may be, connected with this proposal in some minds, an earnest desire, which we honor, for a deep piety and a thorough Christian life. But we have to object to this scheme, that it wholly reverses the method of the New Testament, and therefore gives poor promise of securing the desired fruit of a holy life. It is true that the Epistles of the New Testament direct attention to the conduct, showing that "the grace of God teacheth" us to deny "ungodliness and worldly lusts," and to live "soberly, righteously, and godly," in the world. It should be remembered that the Epistles were addressed to those already in the church, and, therefore, supposed to have accepted the scheme of doctrinal points, so emphatically and prominently enforced by the Epistles of Paul. After pronouncing that anathema upon him who preached any other doctrine than he had delivered, what would he have said to any one who might have sought admission into the church with an avowed rejection of any material portion of Christian doctrine? The simple declaration of belief in Christ, which was required in order to baptism in apostolic days, was brief, but it admitted of no ambiguity. And if it was as little ambiguous now as it was then, the brevity of the formula and the essential comprehensive confession then employed might still suffice.

In subsequent periods of the Church, creeds were formed to meet the exigencies which arose, and give an expression to the conclusions of Christians on important or contested points of religious truth. Minorities might, and did, frame creeds to express their convictions, as well as majorities. Many of them. have perished. Others have been preserved, and some of them have been treasured up in the heart of the Church, and transmitted down through the centuries as the common confession of Christian faith on the points at issue, which they define. There is extant a brief summary of Christian doctrines called the Apostles' Creed, which, though it was not composed in a council of apostles, yet appears to have been the general creed of the Christian church, from at least the close of the second century, down to the Reformation serving as a test of Christian orthodoxy, and as a guide in training and instructing "catechumens" in the principles of Christianity. In the form in which it has been adopted by most Protestant churches, it reads thus :

"I believe in God, the Father, Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried, he descended into hell, the third day he rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost, in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting."

This is a most valuable monument of the Church, as showing what in the early ages were considered the great, the peculiar, and the essential doctrines of the Gospel, namely, the facts here recounted.

New errors, at later periods, sprung up in succession. To testify against the heresy of Arius, the Nicene Creed was adopted, A. D. 325, in the celebrated council of three hundred eighteen members held at Nice, in Bithynia, and became the standard declaration of the Christian world down to the Reformation, on the doctrine of the Deity of Christ, -"God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made; of the