Remarks on a Book Intitled, Christianity as Old as the Creation, with Regard to Ecclesiastical Antiquity

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Printed at the University-Press for C. Crownfield, and J. Crownfield, London, 1732 - 104 pages

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Page 13 - And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews : to them that are under the law...
Page 13 - But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.
Page 37 - Christians, instead of flying as the gospel directs, not only ran voluntarily to execution, but provoked their judges to do them that favor. Under Trajan, all the Christians in a city of Asia came in a body to the proconsul, and offered themselves to the slaughter, which made him cry, " O ! ye unhappy people, if ye have a mind to die, have ye not halters and precipices enough to end your lives, but ye must come here for executioners.
Page 14 - But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter, before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of the Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?
Page 73 - ... their own, which would beft exprefs thofe Opinions, on which MenS Salvation depended, in the Room of others, which were apt to lead them into fatal Errors ; fince by thus changing of Sounds, they might fave Millions of Souls; who, they were confident, wou'd otherwife everlaftingly perifh.
Page 53 - Creeds were originally intended; being first used only in the office of baptism, and but by degrees taken in. to make a part of the common and daily Liturgies of the Church h. From hence we see the reason why Creeds were no larger, nor more explicit ; being but a kind of recapitulation of what the catechumens had been taught more at large, the main heads whereof were committed to memory, and publicly recited, and so became a Creed.
Page 9 - FOR this caufe, I Paul, the prifoner of Jefus Chrift for you Gentiles ; if ye have heard of the difpenfation of the grace of God, which is given me to you-ward...
Page 52 - VOL. II. O form itself, and wanted as much explaining and paraphrasing, in order to be rightly and distinctly understood, as any other words or forms could do. Hence it was that the catechumens were to be instructed in the Creed, previously to baptism, for many days together. Jerome says, for forty daysf; and particularly mentions the doctrine of the Trinity as the subject-matter of instruction for all that time. §The author of the Apostolical Constitutions gives us a summary of what the catechumens...
Page 52 - It is a mistake to imagine that Creeds were, at first, intended to teach, in full and explicit terms, all that should be necessary to be believed by Christians. They were designed rather for hints and minutes of the main credenda, to be recited by catechumens before baptism : and they were purposely contrived short, that they might be the more easily retained in memory, and take up the less time in reciting. Creeds, very probably, at first, were so far from being paraphrases or explications of the...
Page 59 - I take it to have come thus. Upon the revival of the Arian controversy in Gaul, under the influence of the Burgundian kings, it was obvious to call one side Athanasians, and the other side Arians ; and so also to name the orthodox faith the Athanasian Faith, as the other Arian. This Creed therefore, being a summary of the orthodox and Catholic Faith, might in process of time acquire the name of the Athanasian Faith, or Fides Athanasii...

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