That the Roman Catholic Church should propound a formulary of her faith, enlarge this formulary from time to time, as further interpretation is wanted, and enforce acquiscence in it by spiritual censures, is consistent with her principles.  Whether such a pretension can be avowed, without inconsistency, by any Protestant Church, has been a subject of much discussion.  In point of fact, however, no Protestant Church is without her formulary, or abstains from enforcing it by temporal provisions and spiritual censures.  To enforce their formularies by civil penalties, is inconsistent with the principles, of every christian church.  All churches howsoever have so enforced, and have blamed the others, for so enforcing them.

Such formularies, from the circumstance of their collecting into one instrument, several articles, of religious belief, are generally known on the Continent, by the appellation of SYMBOLIC BOOKS.

I. The symbolic books, received by ALL TRINITARIAN CHRISTIAN CHURCHES,—­are,

    1. The Symbol of the Apostles; and

    2. The Nicene Symbol.

II.  The symbolic books, received by the ROMAN CATHOLIC Church,—­are,

    1.  The General Councils;

    2.  Among these,—­the Council of Trent,—­as immediately applying
    to the controversies between the Catholic and Protestant Churches,
    is particularly regarded;

    3. The Symbol of Pope Pius IV.;

    4. The Catechism of the Council of Trent.

III.  The symbolic books of the GREEK CHURCH,—­are,

    1. The Confession, of her true and sincere faith, which, on the
    taking of Constantinople, by Mahomet II, in 1453, Gennadius, its
    patriarch, presented to the conqueror;

    2. The Orthodox Confession, of the Catholic and Apostolic Greek
    Church, published in 1642, by Mogilow, the Metropolitan of Kiow.

IV.  The symbolic books of the LUTHERAN CHURCHES, are

    1. The Confession of Augsburgh;

    2. The Apology of the Confession of Augsburgh;

    3. The Articles of Smalcald;

    4. And, (in the opinion of some Lutheran Churches),—­The Form of
    Concord;

5. The Saxon, Wirtenburgian, Suabian, Pomeranian, Mansfeldian, Antwerpensian, and Copenhagen Confessions, possess, in particular places, the authority of Symbolic books:—­the two first are particularly respected.

V. The symbolic books of the REFORMED CHURCHES.  The reformed Church, in the largest extent of that expression, comprises all the religious communities, which have separated from the Church of Rome.  In this sense, it is often used by English writers:  but, having, soon after the Reformation, been used by the French Protestants to describe their church, which was Calvinistic, it became, insensibly, the appellation of all Calvinistic churches on the Continent.  The principal symbolic books of these churches,—­are,