THE

CREED OF CHRISTENDOM;

ITS

FOUNDATIONS AND SUPERSTRUCTURE.

BY

WILLIAM RATHBONE GREG.

"THE PRAYER OF AJAX WAS FOR LIGHT."

LONDON:

JOHN CHAPMAN, 142, STRAND.

MDCCCLI.

101.6.159.

"I should, perhaps, be a happier, at all events a more useful, man, if my mind were otherwise constituted. But so it is: and even with regard to Christianity itself, like certain plants, I creep towards the light, even though it draw me away from the more nourishing warmth. Yea, I should do so, even if the light made its way through a rent in the wall of the Temple."COLERIDGE.

"Perplexed in faith, but pure in deeds,

At last he beat his music out;

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

"He fought his doubts and gathered strength;
He would not make his judgment blind;

He faced the spectres of the mind,
And laid them: thus he came at length

"To find a stronger faith his own;

And Power was with him in the night,

Which makes the darkness and the light,

And dwells not in the light alone,

"But in the darkness and the cloud.'

TENNYSON.

"No inquirer can fix a direct and clear-sighted gaze towards Truth, who is casting side glances all the while on the prospects of his Soul."-MARTINEAU.

PREFACE.

THIS work was commenced in the year 1845, and was finished

two years ago. Thus much it is necessary to state, that I may not be supposed to have borrowed without acknowledgment from works which have preceded mine in order of publication.

It is now given to the world after long hesitation, with much diffidence, and with some misgiving. For some time I was in doubt as to the propriety of publishing a work which, if it might correct and elevate the views of some, might also unsettle and destroy the faith of many. But three considerations have finally decided me.

First. I reflected that, if I were right in believing that I had discerned some fragments or gleams of truth which had been missed by others, I should be acting a criminal and selfish part if I allowed personal considerations to withhold me from promulging them;—that I was not entitled to take upon myself the privilege of judging what amount of new light the world could bear, nor what would be the effect of that light upon individual minds;-that sound views are formed and established by the contribution, generation after generation, of widows' mites; that if my small quota were of any value it would spread and fructify, and if worthless, would come to naught.

Secondly. Much observation of the conversation and controversy of the religious world had wrought the conviction that the evil resulting from the received notions as to Scriptural authority has been immensely under-estimated. I was compelled to see that there is scarcely a low and dishonouring conception of