Tained in the Apostles Creed. The Ninth Sermon
LET us call to our Father in heaven, through our Lord Jesus Christ, that he will vouchsafe to pour his grace into us, that we may to our no small profit dispatch and expound the last part of the articles of christian belief.
The ninth article of faith is this: “The holy catholic church, the communion of saints.” After the confession of our belief in the holy Trinity, and in the mystery of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and lastly in the Holy Ghost, the sanctifier and restorer of all; now, in the fourth part, is reckoned up the fruit and power, the effect and end, of faith, and what doth come to, and is bestowed on, the faithful, There cometh to them communion of God and all saints, sanc-
[3 condolere nobis, Lat. ] [ expiatorio, Lat.] [δ securitas, Lat. ]]
tification, remission of sins, the resurrection of the flesh, and life everlasting. Of which I will speak in order as they lie, so far forth as the bountiful Lord shall give me ability.
Now then here we have to rehearse out of the eighth article this word, “1 believe:” we must (I mean) say, “I benot lieve the holy catholic church.” Some unlearned there are, which hold opinion, that in this point of our confession we ghould say, “1 believe in the holy church.” The reason that leads them so to think is this; because they find written in the Constantinopolitan Creed, “And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord that giveth life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who together with the Father and the Son is to be worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets in one catholic and apostolic church?” For these words they do so distinguish, that, as they do repeat out of the premisses these words, “1 believe,” and make this the sense, I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord;” even so here again they do repeat these words, “1 believe,” making this to be the sense, “1 believe in one catholic and apostolic church?” But this is more than needeth, yea, and against all godliness do they wrest these words of the Creed: for this, “In one catholic and apostolic church,” is not referred to the verb, “1 believe,” but to the Holy Ghost, because he spake by the prophets in one catholic and apostolic church. For our meaning is, and we confess, that one and the same Spirit did all things in both Testaments, contrary to the opinion of them which imagined, that there were two spirits contrary the one to the other.
Moreover St Cyprian, in his exposition of the Apostles’ Creed, saith: He said not, In the holy church, nor, In the remission of sins, nor, In the resurrection of the body. For if he had added the preposition in,” then had the force of those clauses been all one with the force of that that went before. For in those words wherein our belief touching the Godhead is set down, we say, In God the Father, in Jesus Christ his Son, and in the Holy Ghost: but in the rest, where the
[1 repetendum est, Lat.] [2 locutus est per prophetas in unam catholicam, &c., Lat. ] [3 All this is comprised in that principle, I believe the catholic]
[church. And therefore the council of Nice said, I believe in the]
[church (πιστεύω εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν), that is, I believe and trust the]
[same in all things.—Annot. of Rhiems Test. in 1 Tim. iii. 15.]]
speech is not of the Godhead, but touching the creatures or mysteries, the preposition in is not added, that we may say, In the holy church but that the holy church is to be believed, not as we believe in God, but as a congregation gathered together to God; and that the forgiveness of sins is to be believed, not that we ought to believe in the forgiveness of sins; and that the resurrection of the flesh is to be believed, not that we ought to believe in the resurrection of the flesh. So then, by this syllable in the Creator is discerned from the creatures, and that that is God’s from that that is man’s4.” This saith Cyprian.
St Augustine, in his book de Fide et Symbolo, hath: “I believe the holy church,” not, “I believe in the holy church5.” There are alleged also his words in his epistle ad Neophytos, touching consecration, Distinct. 4, cap. 1: “We said not, that ye had to believe in the church, as in God; but understand how we said, that ye, being conversant in the holy catholic church, should believe in God.”
Much more evidently doth Paschasius, in the first chapter of his first book de Spiritu Sancto, say: “We believe the church, as the mother of regeneration; we do not believe in the church, as the author of salvation. He that believeth in
[[ Non dixit, in sanctam ecclesiam, nec in remissionem pecca-]
[torum, nec in carnis resurrectionem. Si enim addidisset IN preeposi-]