of conduct.  Some sects of Christians reject formal creeds and profess to find the Scriptures sufficient for all purposes that creeds are meant to serve.  The Christian religion rests on Christ, and the final appeal on any question of doctrine must be to the Scriptures which testify of Him:  but it is found that very different conclusions are often reached by those who profess to ground their beliefs upon the same passages of the Word of God.  Almost every heresy that has disturbed the unity of the Church has been advocated by men who appealed to Scripture in confirmation of the doctrines they taught.  The true teaching of the Word of God is gathered from careful and continuous searching of the Scriptures, and there is danger of fatal error when conclusions are drawn from isolated passages interpreted in accordance with preconceived opinions.  It has been found not only expedient but needful that the Christian Churches should set forth in creeds and confessions the doctrines which they believe the Scriptures affirm.  They are bound not only to accept Scripture as the rule of faith, but to make known the sense in which they understand it.  As unlearned and unstable men wrest and subvert the Sacred Writings, it is fitting that those who are learned and not unstable should publish sound expositions of their contents.  In the light of creeds, converts are enabled to test their own position, and to put to proof the claims of those who profess to be teachers of Christian doctrine.

One of the most widely accepted of these forms is the Apostles’ Creed, so called, not because it was drawn up by, or in the time of, the Apostles—­although there is a tradition to the effect that each of them contributed a clause—­but because it is in accordance with the sum of Apostolic teaching.  The history of this Creed is not easily traced.  The care with which it was guarded excluded it from the writings of the early fathers, and it is impossible, therefore, to assign to their proper dates, with certainty, some of the articles of which it is composed.  This, however, is evident, that it came gradually into existence, clauses being added from time to time to guard the faithful against false doctrine, or to enable them to defend the orthodox belief.  It appears to have been the general creed of the Christian Church, in a form very similar to that which it now bears, from the close of the second century.[008] At that time and afterwards it served not only as a test of Christian doctrine, but was also used by catechists in training and instructing candidates for admission to the Church.

It is sometimes urged as an objection to this Creed that it is not a sufficiently comprehensive summary of Christian doctrine.  Those who object to it on this ground should consider the purpose of creeds.  They were not meant to cover the whole field of Christian faith, but to fortify believers against the teaching of heretics.  The Apostles’ Creed was not intended, and does not profess, to state all the things that Christians ought to believe.  There is no reference in it to Scripture, to Inspiration, to Prayer, or to the Sacraments.  It sets forth in a few words, distinct and easily remembered, the existence and relations to men of the three Persons of the Godhead—­those facts and truths on which all doctrine and duty rest, and from which they find development.