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CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS. 5S6 CREEKS. 1854 and 1870, are the fixed authoritative sym- bol or confession of faith of the Churcli of Rome. 0( the Protestant churches, the most notable confessions of faith are the Lutheran; the Con- tinental Calvinistic or Reformed; the Anglican, or Tliirty-nine Articles of the Church of England; and the' Puritan, or Westminster Confession of Faith. The Lutherans call their standard books of faith and discipline Libri Symholici Ecclesiw EDangelicw, and reckon among them, besides the three Catholic creeds, the Augsburg Confes- sion, 1530 (q.v.), the Apology for that confes- sion by Mclanchthon, the Articles of Smalkald drawn u]) by Luther, 1537, Luther's catechisms, 1529 ; and in some churches, the Formula of Concord, 157G, or the Book of Torgau. Of the Continental Calvinistic or Reformed churches, there are numerous confessions, the principal of which are: (1) The Helvetic Con- fessions, that of Basel, 1530, and Bullinger's Ex- positio Simplex, 1560; (2) The Tetrapolitan Confession, 1531: (3) The Gallic Confession, 1559; (4) The Palatine or Heidelberg Confession, 1575; (5) The Belgie Confession, 1559. The Thirty-itine Articles of the Church of Eng- land have been already described. (See Articles, The Thirty-nine.) They were originally forty- two, and are supposed to have been chiefly com- posed by Cranmer. In 1571 the_v were revised and approved by Convocation and Parliament. The Lambetli Articles, 1595. andthe Irish Articles. 1615, became of great importance as alTecting essentially the contents of the next great creed, the Westminster Confession of Faith. This was the product of the great Puritan agitation of the seventeenth century. As soon as the Long Parlia- ment assembled in 1040, it set itself to consider the question of the reformation of religion. It carried resolution after resolution directed against the existing government of the Church of England ; and at length, on the 23d of November, 1641, it passed the famous remonstrance, in which it proposed that, "in order the better to effect the reformation in the Church, there should be a general svnod of grave, pious, learned, and judi- cious divines, who should consider all things necessary for the peace and good government of the Church." Out of this proposal sprang the Westminster Assembly, although the Parliamen- tary ordinance actually summoning the Assem- bly was not issued until a year and a half later, viz., June 12, 1643. According to this ordinance, the Assembly was to consist of 121 clergymen, assisted by ten lords and twenty commoners as lay assessors. Many of these appointed members, however, never took their seat in the Assembly. The bishops were prevented from doing so by a counter ordinance of the King. Among the most notable divines who did assemble were Burgess, Calamy, Gataker, and Reynolds, and Gillespie, Henderson, Baillie, and Samuel Rutherford, the commissioners from Scot- land, of the Presb'V'terian party : Goodwin, Nye, and Burroughs, of the Independent party: and Lightfoot and Coleman, with Selden, of the Eras- tians. The Presbyterians greatly predominated, and the acts of the Assembly bear throughout the stamp of Calvinistic Presbyterianism. It began its sittings in the autunm of 1643, and sat till February 22, 1649, having lasted upward of five years and a half. During this period it had met 1163 times. The most important labors which it achieved were the directory of public worship and the Con- fession of Faith. This later document was com- pleted in the third year of its existence (1646), and laid before Parliament in the same year. It was approved by the General Assembl}' of the Church of .Scotland in 1647, and again in 1690, on the renewed establishment of Presbyterianism after the revolution. The Confession of Faith is the latest of the great Protestant creeds, and the creed of the Presbyterian churches throughout the world. It is also one of the most elaborate of all creeds. It extends to thirtj'-three chapters, beginning with Holy Hicripture, and ending with The Last Judgment. Of its thirty-three chapters, twenty- one may be said to be distinctly doctrinal — the first nineteen and the last two. The others con- cern such subjects as Christian Liberty, Religious Worsltip, Oaths and Yoics, the Civil Magistrate, the Church, the Sacraments, Synods and Councils. Tue tone of the doctrinal chapters is that of the later and formal Calvinism which spread from Holland among the English Puritans. The ecclesi- astical spirit is Puritan-Pi-esbyterian. "God alone" is declared to be "Lord of the conscience"; yet the "publishing of opinions contrary to the light of nature, or to the known principles of Christianity," is at the same time declared to be matter of censure by the Church, and of punish- ment by the civil magistrate. In composition, the Confession is an able and comprehensive sum- mary of theological truth, showing great logical skill in the deduction of particular doctrines from certain main principles. The third chapter, 0/ God's Eternal Decree, may be said to lie the key-note from which its most characteristic doctrines follow in immediate sequence and har- mony. It is not only a remarkable monument of Christian learning, but the most representative expression ef a great spiritual movement which has deeply tinged the national tliought of Great Britain, and modified the course of its historj'. See Covenants. The work of forming creeds did not, however, cease with Westminster, but many creeds of less importance have been produced since, and will continue to be produced in consequence of the changing conditions in which the Church labors. Thus, the great "Methodist revival in the eigh- teenth century led to a revision of the Articles of the Cliurch of England for the use of the newly arisen body ; the Unitarian controversy in New England at the beginning of the nineteenth, to the formation of many more or less elaborate Church and Seminar}' creeds. The Congrega- tionalists of America put forth a new creed in 1883, the Presbyterians of England one in 1900, and the Northern Presbyterian Church of the United States in the General Assembly of 1902 adopted the revision of certain articles of the Confession of F.aith and a declarative statement of sixteen articles, which was substantially a new creed. The best work on the subject is: Schaff, Creeds nf Christendom (New York, 1877-78) , his- tory and texts. CREEK CHUB. The horned dace. See Dace. CREEKS (so called from the numerous creeks running through their land), or MuscoGEE, mris-kr/je (Algonquin mashoki, creeks). An Indian confederacy, formerly holding the greater portions of Alabama and Georgia, and second in importance among the Gulf tribes only to the