cended into the heavens, and will come to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Spirit. But those who say there was a time when he was not, and that he was not before he was begotten, and that he was made out of nothing, or affirm that he is of any other substance or essence, or that the Son of God is created, and mutable, or changeable, the Catholic Church doth pronounce accursed."

Lastly, the Athanasian Creed received in the ninth or tenth century. "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith. Which faith, except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic faith is this, That we worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity. Neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate, and the Holy Ghost uncreate. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Ghost eternal; And yet there are not three eternals, but one eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles nor three uncreated; but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible. So

likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty; And yet they are not three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; And yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord; And yet not three Lords, but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity, to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; So are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, there be three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone, not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son; neither made nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts. And in this trinity none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another; But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together, and co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity. Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation, that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right faith is, that we believe and confess, That our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man; God of the substance of the

Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man of the substance of his mother, born in the world; Perfect God, and perfect man, of a reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting; Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood. Who although he be God and man, yet he is not two, but one Christ; One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the manhood into God; One altogether; not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ; Who suffered for our salvation, descended into Hell, rose again the third day from the dead; He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty; from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good, shall go into life everlasting; and they that have done evil, into everlasting fire. This is the Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved."

To this I subjoin the modern doctrine of the Trinity. "There are three Persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. These three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory."

These Creeds, you perceive, when compared with each other exhibit most clearly the gradual

formation of the Trinity, or rather its interpolation with Christianity. In the doctrine of Jesus and his apostles, in the form of baptism as interpreted by its own elements, by Justin Martyr, and in the Apostles' Creed, we have the same pure doctrine of one God the Father Almighty, and the miraculous character and divine mission of Christ, but no intimation nor allusion to the Personality much less the separate Deity of the Holy Spirit. In the Nicene Creed we have an approximation to the deification of Christ by identifying him with the Platonic Logos. But still no more is made of the Holy Spirit than in the form of baptism, or in the Apostles' Creed. In the Athanasian Creed, eight hundred years after Christ, we have Christ and the Spirit exalted to full Deity, with the slight exception of derivation, which was no objection in those days.

In the same doctrine in modern days this faint vestige of Platonism disappears, the scaffolding falls away, and we have the Trinity complete, three equal persons in one God.

As to the Athanasian Creed, though it was enacted by no council, it is a fair specimen of Theological speculations of the age in which it originated. It bears marks on the very face of it of being the production of some idle monk of the dark ages, who had nothing better to do than to exercise his scholastic ingenuity in stringing together a chain of monstrous and startling paradoxes on the received doctrine of the Trinity, which ap

pearing to assert the most astounding propositions really assert nothing but what depends upon a fictitious and quibbling distinction between created and begotten, which when applied to God with those who have any just idea of the spirituality and unchangeableness of the Divine Nature, can have no meaning; and between begotten and proceeding, a distinction quite as trifling and ridiculous.

The awkward figure which derived Divinity makes in these enlightened days may be sufficiently learned in the attempts to connect the modern Theology with that of the schools. "The Father," says one, "by generation communicated his whole and perfect essence to the Son, and retained the whole of it to himself, because it is infinite."

I have now I hope redeemed the pledges I gave at the commencement of this discourse, to show by the history and progress of Creeds the origin and formation of the doctrine of the Trinity, the elements from which it sprung, and the steps of its advancement, and its final completion. And are these the things, it may be indignantly asked, which still hold their place in the nineteenth century as the infallible interpretation of the word of God? Are these the fetters which are fastened upon the mind of this age? Can it be a fact that any one can impose, or any one submit to such a mingled mass of Paganism and Christianity? Can it be possible that one of the most enlightened nations