St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-05-25
Dr.. Heber Newton Expresses
Some Rather Radical Views
of Christianity.
Professionalism, He Says, Is on
Fire With Many Burning
Questions.
Christ's Kingdom Torn and
Dismembeped Before
Our Eyes.
The Alternative to Throw
Over All Creeds or Sim
plify Them.

PAAAJ AASAAs
New YORK. May 24.-Rev. R. Heher
Newton, rector of All Souls Protestant
Episcopal church, who is charged with
holding heretical views and with preach
ing heretical doctrines, and especially
with denying the immaculate concep-
ton of the Savior, and the resurrection
OF His body after three days, took occa-
sion this morning to answer his accuSerS
IN sermon on the Nicene creed. A
congregation which crowded the church
to the doors heard the sermon, which
was III substance as follows:
calvin once said that the Nicene
creed was only fit to be sung. That is
its noblest eulogy. Rightly understood,
its utterances form hymn of thanks
giving. The creed is a poetic philoso-
ply, and therefore to be sung. Fancy
the Westminster confession being sung.
To what music could 1t be set?
II propose to speak of the Nicene
creed as the charter of the church's
liberty, securing to it, when rightly
understood, the conditions of compre-
hensiveness, and holding for Christianity
and for religion at large the secret of
conciliation in the controversies which
now agitate Christianity. 1t is an arti-
Gle of peace. The Nicene creed, with
the apostles creed, are commonly
spoken of as the Catholic creeds. They
are the two creeds which have been
handed down from antiquity as accepted
by the church at large. The Greek
church,
The Church of Rome.
the Church of England, and our own
Ncene creed is an amplification of the
apostles creed. The statements of the
apostles creed reappear in the Nicene
creed, with slight changes, but with
considerable development. The char
acterstic distinction between the two
creedS is that the Nicene creed is a
more philosophical statement of truths
affirmed in the apostles creed. Beyond
these two creeds our church recognizes
no other formal confession of faith. It
is true that our church accepted from
the Church of England the thirty-nine
articles. 1t did SO, however, only under
constraint. At first it deliberately
dropped them altogether, and subse-
quently resumed them as necessity of
procuring Episcopal cousecration from
England. The thirty-nine articles were
put forth in the Reformation era, not as
a substitute for the two great catholic
creeds, but as an interpretation of them
in the thought current at the time.
Other reform churches dropped the
great catholic creedS and substituted
confessions of faith, then for the
first time drawn up. The Church of
Lno i,fn 1nI
thirty-nine articles in any such position.
She never ordered them to be read or
sung in the churches. For use in wor-
ship the two great catholic creeds re-
mained the only forms ordained. By
general consent the articles have no
binding obligation upon our thought to-
day. Pressed as creed, they are self
destructive. They cover all schools Of
thought, and shield none. Every opin-
ion can find shelter beneath them. No
opinion can rest undisturbed within
them. They do not even
Exclude ROmanism.
as DR.. Newman showed. All schools of
opinion agree practically in this view of
the articles. They are a foreign sub
stance which has become encysted in
the church. This being the state of the
case, see how much is ruled out from
the essentials of faith in the Protestant
Episcopal church. The thirty-nine ar
ticles stand for that secondary body of
reformation theology popularity known
as Calvanism. which is the Irritating
cause of all the disturbances in the
church to-day. Accepted conscien-
tiously by large part of
the Protestant Christianity, the human
mind is in revolt against it, that
ever-leSsening number of men ex-
cepted whose solid comfort to-day is
that they are not to decalvaniZe the
Westminster confession. Accepted uu-
consciously by large part of our own
church, the opinions which it seems to
necessitate are in violent reaction
creeds ordain in our church. The
trouble with the good men who are in
tent on forcing on a conflict in our
church is simply that they mistake the
mass of thought which has grown up
within the church, around the great
creedS, for living parts of the creeds
themselves. The simple distinction
would clear the whole atmosphere
to-day. Nothing is demanded of a
clergyman in our church save loyalty
to the great catholic creeds. Orthodoxy
is to be tested by no other standard than
those found in the creeds. The
itself with any doctrine not embodied
in those creeds. What vast enancipa-
ton the recognition of this catholic
truth would work among US. Scarcely
doctrine which is in dispute in the
churches around us can furnish
proper ground for dispute in our
roomy church. The only affirmation in
The NIcene Greed
is the large. elastic declaration, Il be-
lieve in one catholic and apostolic
church, Nothing beyond this is to be
demanded of anybody as matter of
faith. We can thus judge of the cath
olicity which would rule out the fore
most man in the church because of his
opinion concerning the episcopate.
What must we believe concerning the
Bible? Nothing beyond that simple
declaration of the Nicene creed, who
spake by the prophets?' That is the
sum and substances of the church
official declaration on tbs question
of inspiration. You may hold to
the plenary inspiration of the
Scriptures and believe every
word dictated by the Almighty, or you
may hold that the large and reasonable
view which is spreading through our
church so rapidly, with equal loyalty to
ore only authority, the creed. What
does the church bid US believe concern
ing the story of creation? Nothing be-
Yond the simple declaration, i believe
in one GOD, the Father Almighty, maker
of heaven and earth, and Of all things
visible and invisible You are equally
free to read the story in Genesis as a
literal prosaic bit of history or as
a parable; equally free to believe
the world launched into being