Excerpt from The North American Review, 1883, Vol. 136 A brief glance at the history of creeds is sufficient to indi cate the working of some law of growth, and, to some extent, of revision, in Christian theology, and to justify the inference that further statements and restatements of faith must follow in their own time. The significant fact should not be overlooked, that this process of renewal and rejuvenescence of creeds is no accidental matter; it is the first law of Christian creeds, for they contain within themselves the principle of their own revision. The Protestant Confessions, in particular, distinctly assume the possibility of their own improvement, for they uniformly subject themselves to the Word of God as their supreme law. Whoever subscribes to these creeds is bound in honor to hold them always in subordination to his study of the Scriptures. He violates, not merely their letter, but their life, if he does not so hold them. This principle of the supremacy of Scripture is a formative prin ciple of Protestant creeds, and it involves in it the admission, and at times the obligation, of their revision. Consequently, honesty in subscription may require more than a stalwart adher ence to their terms; it may sometimes lay upon such as are able to bear it, the duty of criticism, and the burden of restating their truths; as fidelity to a trust may sometimes require careful reinvestment of funds, while refusal or negligence to save a property by timely reinvestment might satisfy the letter, and break the intention, of a deed. It needs to be insisted that loyalty to the real mission of historic creeds, as well as obedience to their higher law of the Scriptures, which is acknowledged in the very act of subscription, may bring to honest men the duty of their preservation by their revision. The practical question, then, is not whether creeds may be reinvested in better forms of statement by theologians who hold them in trust, but whether the work of revision is timely; whether, in any particular age, the time is fully come, and the necessity apparent, for a fresh readaptation of Christian doc trine to the thoughts and lives of men. Does this work lie now before the door of the Protestant Church? About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.