“Though there be a difference of times,” wrote Obadiah Sedgwick (1600–1658), there ought not to be a “difference of holy truths.” Indeed, for “...the stars do shine in the coldest night of winter, as well as in the calmest night of summer; [and so] truths must be held in the worst as well as in the best of days.” For the Puritans in seventeenth-century England, a century fraught with political uncertainty and theological controversy, Scripture was that light that dispelled the darkness of theological error and kindled piety and love for God. As William Bridge (1600–1670) once preached, “Scripture-light is that most excellent Light, the best, and most sure Light, [and so] take heed thereunto especially in dark times and places.”
On June 30, 1650, the Westminster divine, Anthony Tuckney (1599–1670), preached a sermon in St. Mary’s Church in the University of Cambridge. This was a time in the university when there were “tales in Taverns” that whispered of novel sectarian doctrine. From the suspended hewn pulpit, Tuckney implored the members of the university, as Paul did Timothy (2 Tim. 1:13), to hold fast to the “form of sound words.” Like his fellow Puritans, Tuckney rightly pointed to the Scripture as a “compass” of sacred truth by which one might find safe harbor during a time when “windes were loud, and seas went high,” when the risk of making shipwreck of one’s faith was significant. In such a time as this, not unlike the days of old, “The faithful soul will hold fast the faithful word.”
Yet, in Tuckney’s day, a sectarian group following the teaching of the Italian arch-heretic Faustus Socinus (1539–1604) was gaining influence in England. What made the Socinians so perilous, perhaps above all else, was their claim to follow Scripture more faithfully than the Christian interpreters who preceded them. The Socinians argued that many Christian dogmas had been unduly influenced by pagan philosophy, and so certain of the received creedal doctrines of the church were, in their analysis, “grievously mistaken.” It goes without saying that minor disputes about doctrine and biblical interpretation have been commonplace since Christian antiquity. Thomas Gataker (1574–1654), another significant Westminster divine, once quipped that clocks sometimes agree more frequently than do theologians. But the claim of the Socinians was not a mere quibble. It was a fundamental repudiation of the received creedal and conciliar traditions; a rejection of the faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). In their Racovian Catechism, a book which was banned and burned by the English Parliament on multiple occasions in the seventeenth century, one finds statements such as “in the Essence of God, there is only One Person.” In response to the question, “But hath not the Lord Jesus Christ, besides His human, a Divine nature also?” the catechism says, “No, by no means: For that is not only repugnant to sound Reason, but to the Holy Scriptures also.” These blasphemous errors recalled the shadows of Christian antiquity. Socinianism was ancient heresy redivivus under a new guise. The Puritans in seventeenth-century England sought a further reformation of the church in its doctrine, government, and worship by the rule of God’s word. But how does a Puritan combat such heresy, especially when its exponents venture the claim that they follow the Scriptures more faithfully?
Perhaps inspired by John Chrysostom’s (d. 407) homily on 2 Timothy 1:13, namely the phrase that Paul was an artist or painter (Ζωγράφων), Tuckney refers to the great Greek sculptor Polycletus (480–420 BC). Polycletus believed that certain mathematical principles captured the ideal human form and were to be abided by to generate true art. Just as Polycletus had his canon of symmetry, Paul, likewise, had supplied Timothy with a canon, a rule and model for truth and godliness to form the spiritual man. In the interest of silencing those “tales in Taverns,” Tuckney emphasizes that the great creeds and confessions of the church were also, “by good and strong consequence,” such a model, a ὺποτὐπωσις (cf. 2 Tim 1:13), for they gathered “divine truths scattered up and down in the Scripture.” When the creeds and confessions exhibit the sure design of Scripture, they become a “dam [to] stop and check the violent stream [when] it swells and murmurs.” The Socinians, however, did not endure such creedal and confessional boundaries, nor did the creeds and confessions uphold their “extravagant corruptions.” Socinianism, as Tuckney warned, was like a wild animal that “brayeth against such inclosures, and treades down all fences, because she meaneth to run wild in the wilderness.”
In breaching these safe enclosures, the Socinians were, in effect, casting aside Communionis Tessarae, or tokens of communion. This language of ‘token’ has prodigious precedent. Augustine, similar to the great historians and theologians Rufinus, Isidore of Sevil, and John Cassian, draws on militaristic and economic language prevalent in the Roman world. He describes the creed as a bond of trust (pacto fidei) that holds together the society of believers (societas). When we confess our faith by and in the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead and with whom we were sealed, we proclaim the truth for all times with the church throughout all times. And so, these tokens help nurture communion through the boundaries set forth in their truth and preserve the peace of the church through their public confession. In other words, they are a means by which the church might be “of the same mind and the same judgment” (1 Cor. 1:10).
Under the light of holy writ, our forefathers built safe enclosures to surround the church.
With a view to the church throughout all times, Tuckney wishes for his auditors in St. Mary’s Church to understand that tokens of communion are also memorials. The great creeds and confessions may be “as memorials to posterity of their forefathers’ faith,” and handed down “as depositums . . . to be kept as their legacies or inheritances.” This lineage of faith is to be transmitted from father to son, to their children’s children, as well as those who are yet to be born (ad natos natorum, & qui nascuntur). Just as Paul delivered unto Timothy, as a father to a son, a model for truth and godliness, our forefathers in the faith, by expressing those essential scriptural
truths in the great creeds and confessions, deliver unto us that which is to be believed and confessed in all times. In this way, under the light of holy writ, our forefathers
built safe enclosures to surround the church.
In classical antiquity, there was a well-known mythological story that captured this language of boundaries and the wise counsel of fathers. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Book 8, 138–259), we encounter the story of Daedalus and Icarus. Daedalus and his son Icarus had been imprisoned in the famed labyrinth on the island of Crete by King Minos. Daedalus’s escape from prison required that he make wings with feathers and wax. Preparing for their flight, Daedalus said to Icarus,
“My son, I caution you to keep
the middle way, for if your wings dip
too low the waters may impede your flight;
and if they soar too high the sun may scorch them.
Fly midway.”
After placing the wings on Icarus, Daedalus took flight, with Icarus following soon thereafter. They covered a great distance, passing by the islands of Samos, Delos,
and Paros. Because of this distance traveled, Icarus grew proud. Daedalus peered over his shoulder only to see Icarus soar to touch the skies and the sun scorch the wax, loosening the feathers of the wings. Without feathers to sustain his flight, Icarus plummeted to the sea and perished, having been tossed by the waves. “Hear, O sons, a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight…” (Prov. 4:1).
One lesson (among many) to glean from Tuckney’s sermon in St. Mary’s Church is that we are to be wary of so-called “new light” from those who have soared too high. The Socinians claimed to have such light that by it they were finally able to perceive the ‘holy truths’ of the Scriptures. Their light, however, was but great darkness, for it clouded the deity of the Sun of righteousness. We must, as William Bridge said, take heed unto the light of the Scripture, that most sure and excellent light that brilliantly displays the radiance of the glory of the Triune God. A good Puritan pastor was to be attentive to the doctrinal demands of the Christian tradition behind him and the immediate needs of the church before him. He was to warn his congregation of going, as it were, too high or too low, and instead lead by example down the middle way, treading the well-trodden paths of old divinity lit by the light of the infallible word of God. As Tuckney proclaimed, “it is firm ground that a wise man treads hard on,” and by “heaven’s shine that plants of righteousness grow, flourish, and bear fruit.”
Today, let us heed Tuckney’s voice, which resounded through St. Mary’s Church in a time of profound theological controversy, and see the merit and worth of the great doctrinal boundaries set by our forefathers and expressed in the creeds and confessions. These provide a bond of unity that spans all ages, for they express the truth for all times. Whether facing heresies old or new in a day not unlike those of old, let us heed our forefathers, and recognize the safe enclosures and abide well in the pasture of our Great Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ. As Augustine once said of the creed, “inscribe it in your heart” (in corde scribite), and wherever the Lord leads you this day, “arm yourself with your creed” (vestro Symbolo vos munite)