superhuman wisdom, goodness and knowledge, seen alike in the
institutions it embraces and the truths it inculcates.

These _inspired_ Apostles left a _written record of this divine
institution_, of the church with its ordinances, as well as of the
doctrines and duties to be inculcated by its teachers. They also
pronounce this record to be _complete_, and threaten to blot out from
the book of life, the names of those who add to or subtract from it.
Hence it is evident, that the church of this record is not as Romanists
and Puseyites imagine, a mere seminal principle or germ, to which
equally binding additions may be made by the church of every generation;
but on the contrary, that the _church of the New Testament_ is the
church in its most perfect and faultless form, _is the model church for
all ages_, which in its development and adaptation to different
countries and generations, must ever remain faithful to its primitive
and inspired lineaments. This church, whilst administered by inspired
men during the first century, must also have been more pure, than in
its subsequent periods, when placed under uninspired and fallible
teachers, and in corrupting contact with Pagan philosophy, as well as
in debasing union with civil governments.

Now, in this apostolic age, this golden era of the church, we hear of
no other creed than the word of God itself, which was regarded as
sufficient. And certainly, if as Romanists, after the report of
_Rufinus_, believed the Apostles had either written or employed this
creed, the piety of that age would have enrolled it in the Scripture
canon, and the early church have guarded it with special care. But
there is not a word in the Old or New Testament authorizing or
commanding the church of any future age to frame a creed in addition to
the Bible, as a rule for admission into the church, or exclusion from