sition of Faith in God through Christ, with a
reference to the Holy Spirit: {96} but especially concerning the Being
of Christ, who is declared to be

_v._ 15. The Son fully and perfectly.

_v._ 16. By whom all things were made.

_v._ 17. Before all things.

_v._ 18. Begotten before all worlds.

_v._ 19. In whom by the will of the Father all the fulness dwelleth.

_v._ 20-22. Who died for our Redemption and Reconciliation.

1 Cor. xv. 3-8. References by a preacher to what he has taught to any
whole congregation must, almost of necessity, be references to what he
was in the habit of teaching. The articles _mentioned_ here are part
of S. Paul's Creed, viz. the articles which he is about to use as the
basis of an argument about Resurrection.

Acts xix. 2, 3. The ignorance about the Holy Spirit displayed by the
12 men at Ephesus revealed to S. Paul that they had not been baptized
as Christians; for (S. Matth. xxviii. 19) that would have involved
Teaching about the Holy Trinity.

Acts viii. 37. This verse, though not now believed to be part of the
original text, was so believed by Irenaeus (A.D. 170).

It therefore shows us that a confession of faith at Baptism was (1)
expected in Irenaeus' time, (2) expected by someone much earlier, who
being accustomed to it, wrote it in the margin, or between the lines of
a copy of the Acts.

2 Tim. i. 13, 14. The form of sound words was a good deposit which
Timothy was to hold fast.

{97}

There are other passages which contain references to the Holy Trinity:
suggesting that the earliest Christians, when thinking of the Godhead,
were prone to include the Three Persons, as we by reason of our Creeds
are also disposed to do. Thus our investigation leads us to suppose
that a Creed was early used as a Basis of Teaching, and as a Password
at Baptism: that it soon settled down into a form very like the
Apostles' Creed: that in A.D. 325 the controversy about our Lord's
Divine Nature led to the expansion of those Articles which referred to
Him.

To these we may add that in 381 the Council of Chalcedon expanded the
Article _I believe in the Holy Ghost_, or formally adopted an expansion
which had become usual: and so gave to the Nicene Creed the form which
it now has.

It is difficult to say exactly where the Apostles' Creed is most likely
to have come as a link in the historic chain.

A comparison may be usefully made between:

THE APOSTLES' CREED AND THE CREED OF