The rule of faith, or, An exposition of the Apostles Creed so handled as…

All men grant the Creed to be the Apostles: but yet all agree not about the sense, How the Creed may be said to be the Apostles: for some think it is the Apostles Creed, because the Apostles made it and compiled it in the form as it now is. Others think it is the Apostles Creed because it contains the substance of their Doctrine, though it were not made by them.¹

All men grant the Creed to bee the Apostles: but yet all agree not about the sense, How the Creed may bee said to be the Apostles: for some thinke it is the Apostles Creed, because the Apostles made it and compiled it in the forme as it now is. Others thinke it is the Apostles Creed because it containes the substance of their Doctrine, though it were not made by them.¹

1. 12. Opinions.

The first sort conceive thus: That the Apostles after Pentecost when they had received the holy Ghost, met together in Jerusalem, and considering that they were to depart one from the other into divers parts of the world, they agreed upon the substance of all that doctrine which they would teach all abroad the world, and accordingly digested it into this form, that thereby it might appear that their doctrine every where ¹did agree; and that so, false Teachers might be discovered, ⟨p. 12⟩when they should in any place under pretence of preaching Christ, oppose or conceal any part of the necessary Christian faith. Of this opinion were some of the Fathers: Some of the Schoolmen afterwards went so far, as to name which part of the Creed was made by each of the Apostles, as That ²Peter should say, I believe in God the Father Almighty; and John should say, Creator of Heaven and Earth; and James should say, I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; and so the rest of the Apostles cast in each one a part, till by them all the whole Creed was finished.