came to revise the Liturgy, they had a perfect right to consider this Creed, and, if they thought well, to alter these clauses just as they did change the Office of the Mass into what they believed the more Scriptural and true Office of Holy Communion. But when we come to this ancient Creed, which is received throughout the greater part of the Western Church, and in some part of the Eastern Church, (although in the latter not authoritatively,) it is a solemn thing to alter a form of a thousand years' standing; and I feel strongly we ought to do nothing with this Creed without consulting other Churches. The American Church has, I believe, omitted the Creed, but we ought to communicate with them on the subject; with the Irish Church certainly: with the Colonial Churches, and others lying further apart from us. The resolution of Canon Swainson, therefore, appears to me to be rather too strongly expressed. I commend much the assertion of the liberty of the Church, but I think we ought to speak more precisely on this point of Church order.

And now we come to the facts of history, from which we may gain help and guidance. We all remember that after the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the Northern nations, the three Western Churches of Africa, Spain, and Gaul were greatly troubled by Arianism; and the Arian kings of the Vandals and Visigoths persecuted the Catholic Christians, by mutilation, by banishment to Sardinia and Corsica, and by death. Bishops, priests, and people, all suffered. The tragic story of the recovery of Spain to the Catholic faith is familiar to us in the pages of Gibbon and Milman; how Hermenegild, the elder son of the Arian king, was put to death by his father (his Catholic wife, the beautiful Ingunda, having been cruelly slain before); and how the second son, Recared, who also held the Catholic

faith, with more prudence waited for his father's death, and then succeeded in bringing on the whole country to the primitive faith. It was just after these terrible times of persecution that the Council of Toledo (A.D. 589) added to the Nicene Creed the clause, "and the Son" (et Filio); and about the same time the Creed called Athanasian was adopted by the Western Churches. It was very natural that after such severe sufferings very stringent words, such as appear in these Damnatory Clauses, should be adopted, to prevent a future lapse into Arianism. Great excuse may be made for those who inserted these clauses, and from them they have come down to us. But the question now before us is "Shall we retain these clauses?" We, who have not suffered from Arian persecution? Is it wise, or charitable, or prudent, to attach these strong words of condemnation to a Creed so full of subtle definitions and nice distinctions? May we not take to ourselves the warning, addressed by the Divine Master to His disciples when they wished to call down fire from Heaven on those who did not receive him-" Ye know not what spirit ye are of"? and that other word-"It was said by them of old time, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth; but I say unto you that ye resist not evil"? May it not be asked of a Church, as of a single person-Do you grow milder and better as you grow older?-lenior et melior fis?-trusting not to hard words, but to simple declarations of Gospel truth, to beat down heresy and false doctrine? The late Sir Thomas Acland was wont to have the Psalms chanted in his family prayers; and once when a Bishop was staying with him, the last verse of Psalm cxxxvii. being omitted-"Blessed be he that taketh thy children and throweth them against the stones," the Bishop took him to task; but Sir Thomas replied, that in his own house he was not

bound by the public rule of the Church, and he felt that such words belonged to an older and sterner dispensation: we are under the milder spirit of the Gospel. I therefore support Canon Swainson's resolution in its main purpose; and am strongly against the original motion to keep the Creed as it is, with these condemning clauses unchanged.

May I read a few lines from the unpublished works of the late Rev. F. Myers, a very thoughtful man, whose writings have since his death been reprinted for private circulation?

Every orthodox member of the Church of England will readily and thankfully acknowledge that the Creed, commonly called Athanasian, contains a valuable body of Christian doctrine; that it states with singular force doctrines which are involved in the essence of the Christian faith; and that it magnifies the Lord Jesus Christ in such a way as to be peculiarly accordant with the views of him who believes that the characteristic of Christianity is the worship of God in Christ. If merely held up as one ancient and admirable view of that portion of theology which deals with the theoretic exposition of the Divine nature, it might command the respect of all; but when exhibited as so exclusively the true one, its reception so essential to the salvation of all the baptized—that whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he thus think of the Godhead;—then it may not unreasonably receive the dissent of many. So long as our Church retains the custom of reading this Creed in her public worship with the express declaration that except every one do keep it whole and undefiled without doubt he shall perish everlastingly (and may thus be deemed to implicate the consent of all its members in these Evangelical expressions), this will certainly be the case.

I agree entirely with these words. The Church has been compelled, by errors and heresies, to put the Catholic faith into this controversial form; to place, so to speak, this rough hedge around the garden of God, filled with His flowers and fruits for our good and enjoy

ment: we should have been glad to gather them as they are presented to us in Holy Scripture: “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost," and in fifty other places I have noted, which shed dews of grace upon the soul by the united name of FATHER, SON, and HOLY GHOST. But if we must have this defence against heresy, let us have it in the simple strength of truth drawn from Scripture, without these words of condemnation.

We come now to the great subject of Catholic unity. This was touched upon by the mover of the resolution. Every one, I suppose, agrees that it is most lamentable that there should still exist division between the Anglican and the Eastern Church, one of whose most distinguished men we had amongst us not long ago; and all will agree that these expressions in the Creeds touching the double procession of the Holy Spirit arise from the passages in St John's Gospel, in which our Lord speaks of Himself and the Comforter. When we look to those passages in the fourteenth chapter, where we hear the Saviour

"I will pray the Father and he shall give you another Comforter,” and further on (verse 26)—

"Whom the Father will send in My name;"

and again in chapter xv., verse 26—

"Whom I will send unto you from the Father; even the Spirit of Truth, which proceedeth from the Father;"

and also the way in which St Peter speaks (Acts ii. 33)—

"Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father

the promise of the Holy Ghost"—

the promise mentioned in our Lord's own words (Acts i. 4)

"Wait for the promise of the Father which ye have heard of me ”— when we look at these passages, must we not say that the natural expression was that adopted by the Constantinopolitan Council, and held by the Greek Church-viz., "which proceedeth from the Father"? I have seen quoted from one of the later Greek Fathers, much esteemed by the Eastern Church for his work on the Orthodox faith (Joannes Damascenus), this statement:-"The Holy Spirit, the power of the Father, which proceedeth from the Father by the Son." I ask, then, is it not possible that the Greek Church may be quite as near the truth as we? Nay, may not their form of Creed be a shade nearer the truth than ours? and is not this a nice point on which to speak so confidently, and keep open a schism and severance? It is quite clear to my mind that whether it was Augustine, or any one else who suggested the addition of the words "and the Son" to the Creed, it was a development (as some say nowadays) of the truth.

Pearson says, that although the language of the Creed is not expressly contained in the Scripture, the substance of the same truth is to be found there; but he acknowledges that the language objected to by the Greek Church is not contained in the Scriptures. And then we find that, although received in the Gallic Church, the Church of Rome did not at first receive this addition to the ancient Creed; that Leo III. held the Constantinopolitan Creed so strongly that he caused it to be inscribed on silver tablets in Latin and Greek, that it might never be changed; and it was not until the time of another Pope-Nicolaus I.-that the word Filioque was received in the Roman Church. Ought we then, I ask again, to say on a 1 See above, p. 15.