And after that, these Prayers following, all devoutly kneeling; the Minister first pronouncing with a loud voice,

you.

The Lord be with
Answer. And with thy spirit.
Minister. Let us pray.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.

Then the Minister, Clerks, and people, shall say the Lord's Prayer with a loud voice.

UR Father, which art in hea

OUR Oven,

ven, Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, As it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; But deliver us from evil. Amen.

Then the Priest standing up shall say,

O Lord, shew thy mercy upon us; Answer. And grant us thy salvation.

Priest. O Lord, save the King. Answer. And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.

Priest. Endue thy Ministers with righteousness.

Answer. And make thy chosen people joyful.

-the second for Peace; the third for Aid &c.] Though the words of these Collects be different from those of the second and third Collects for morning prayer, yet the subject is the same: only the former are suited to the morning and these to the evening. They are of ancient use in the Western Church. Dean Comber.

The second Collect at Evening Prayer.] Peace is so desirable a blessing, we cannot ask it too often; and since there are two kinds of peace, external and internal peace, we beg outward peace in the morning to secure us against the troubles of the world, in which the business of the day engageth us; and inward peace in the evening to comfort and quiet our minds when we are to take our rest. Dean Comber.

The former of the two Collects, peculiar to evening

prayers, is taken from a Latin form, at least 1100 years old. It begs for the greatest of blessings here below, that joyful peace of mind, which our Saviour promised his disciples: "Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you, John xiv. 27. And since it cannot be obtained, but by "holy desires, good" and prudent "counsels" for the execution of them, " and just actions," done in consequence of both; so we petition him, "from whóm all” these "proceed," to grant it us by means of them; that "our hearts being set" by his grace "to keep his commandments," and our ways "defended" by his providence "from the fear of our enemies," we may find "the work of righteousness, peace; and its effect, quietness and assurance for ever," Is. xxxii. 17. Abp. Secker.

Lord our heavenly Father, high and mighty, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only Ruler of princes, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee with thy favour to behold our most gracious Sovereign Lord, Lord, King GEORGE; and so replenish him with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that he may alway incline to thy will, and walk in thy way: Endue him plenteously with heavenly gifts; grant him in health and wealth long to live; strengthen him that he may vanquish and overcome all his enemies; and finally, after this life, he may attain everlasting joy and feli

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The third Collect, for Aid against all Perils.] This is peculiar to and proper for the evening. We are always indeed environed with danger; but none are more dismal, sudden, and unavoidable, than those of the night, when darkness adds to the terror, and sleep deprives us of all possibility of foresight or defence; so that he must be an atheist, and worse than heathen, who doth not then by a special prayer commit himself to God's providence, the knowledge of which doth enlighten our minds, and makes us full of inward peace and comfort when we are in the darkest shades of night; therefore we pray with David, "Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord," Psal. xviii. 28. Light signifies, in Scripture, knowledge and comfort, and under this metaphor we pray for both, namely, that our understandings may be enlightened with the knowledge of his providence,

and our hearts cheered with the assurance of his protection. Dean Comber.

This latter Collect, taken in part from an office of the Greek Church, prays more particularly for the safety of the ensuing night: that God's power may shine upon us, and "lighten our darkness;" that is, protect us, while we are unable to help ourselves, or even to know our danger. The same phrase is twice used in the book of Psalms. "Unto the godly there ariseth up light in darkness," Ps. cxii. 4. And again, "The Lord shall make my darkness to be light," Ps. xviii. 28. Abp. Secker. This Collect is particularly seasonable at nights for, being then in danger of the terrors of darkness, we by this form commend ourselves into the hands of that God, who "neither slumbers nor sleeps, and with whom darkness and light are both alike." Ps. cxxi. 3; cxxxix. 12. Wheatly.

Upon these Feasts; Christmas-day, &c.] The Creed, commonly called the Creed of St. Athanasius, is appointed to be said upon the days named in the rubrick, for these reasons: partly, because those days, many of them, are most proper for this confession of the faith, which of all others is the most express concerning the Trinity, because the matter of them much concerns the manifestation of the Trinity, as Christmas, Epiphany, Easter-day, Ascension-day, Whitsunday, Trinity - Sunday, and St. John Baptist's day, at the highest of whose acts, the baptizing of our Lord, was made a kind of sensible manifestation of the Trinity; partly, that so it might be said once a month at least, and therefore on St. James, and St. Bartholomew's days; and withal at convenient distance from each time, and therefore on St. Matthew, Matthias, Simon and Jude, and St. Andrew's. Bp. Sparrow.

"this Confession of our Christian Faith, commonly called, &c.] The doctrines of Arius, which were first proposed at Alexandria, found a native of the same city to oppose them, and this was Athanasius. The integrity of Athanasius, his courage in opposition, his fortitude under persecution, his constancy, and his purity of life, have extorted praises from those who contemn his principles, and ridicule his doctrines.

At the Council of Nice, he was a deacon attending on the patriarch of Alexandria, and the great maintainer of the catholick doctrine against the novelties of Arius; he soon after was elected patriarch of Alexandria himself; and passed the remainder of his life in a succession of expulsions and restorations, according to the prevailing opinions of the different emperors at Constantinople; and in every variety of fortune continued steady in his principles, and unshaken in his constancy.

His writings are come down to our times, and in them we find all the doctrines, and most of the identical expressions, which are now in the Creed that bears his name; but the Creed itself is generally allowed by the learned, not to be of his composition.

The Creed, as it now stands in our Liturgy, is supposed to have been framed from the writings of Athanasius; to have been acknowledged by the Western church in France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, as early as the sixth century; and to have been received into the Liturgy in the eighth. The general testimony of the learned supposes Vigilius, an African bishop in the sixth century, to be the author; but Dr. Waterland, a divine in our own church of great erudition, after proving that the Creed itself is mentioned before the sixth century, offers an opinion of his own, that it was composed in France, as early as the year 450, by Hilary bishop of Arles. It was not however admitted into the offices of the Roman Church, at the earliest, till the year 930; in which it has continued ever since, and was received into our Liturgy at the time of the Reformation.

I mention these particulars, in order to shew, that a Creed, which is 1300 years old, and which has been generally received into the Church for 900 years, ought not to be treated lightly, or irreverently, as has been the case in our own country of late; or to be neglected, without considering its merit. Dean Vincent.

The design of the author, whoever he was, in compiling it, was to furnish the Church with a plain and clear account of the grand doctrines of the ever-blessed Trinity, and the incarnation of Christ; in opposition to the gross errors and heresies, which had been maintained and propagated, with great zeal and industry, by the enemies of the true faith. For, as the apostles had long before foretold, "false teachers crept" into the church, and "privily brought in damnable heresies, denying the Lord that bought them, even the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ," 2 Pet. ii. 1, and Jude 4. As these spread their poison, it became necessary to provide an antidote; for which purpose it was wisely ordered that creeds or summaries of the Christian faith, should be drawn up, and published for general use, to guard and defend the Articles of Religion against the arts and malice of the enemy, who lay in wait to deceive, and employed every stratagem to undermine them. And, to oppose these hereticks the more effectually, it was found expedient to be more full and particular in stating and explaining the doctrines they attacked, than had been usual or necessary in the earlier and purer ages of Christianity. Hence creeds became more numerous and enlarged, and some terms were introduced not perhaps strictly scriptural, in order to illustrate the doctrines of Scripture, and to obviate the false glosses and perverse interpretations of hereticks. Of these creeds, none has been more generally, and deservedly received and esteemed, than that which bears the title of St. Athanasius's; which our Church has adopted into her Liturgy, as a standard of the true faith, which all her members may have recourse to, and which they are all directed publickly to repeat on particular festivals: an injunction, which surely we ought to comply with; since it is an acknowledgment and declaration of our holding fast that faith, into which we were baptized. Waldo.

As to the matter of it, it doth very fully and particularly condemn all the heresies that were of old in the time of this great bulwark of the catholick faith; forbidding us to confound the Persons of the Trinity with Sabellius, or to divide the substance with Arius and Eunomius: it shews us against Arius and Macedonius, that both the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God: it confesses Christ to be God, of the substance of his Father, against Samosatenus and Photinus, and man of the substance of his mother, against Apollinaris; yet he is not, as Nestorius dreamed, two, but one Christ, not by confusion of substance, as Eutyches held, but by unity of Person: so that this Creed is the quintessence

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of ancient orthodox divinity, and the means to extirpate all those accursed heresies, some of which our age hath seen revived, and therefore we have more need to hold and repeat this useful Creed. Dean Comber.

That this Creed is not Athanasius's is certainly true: but our Church receives it not upon the authority of its compiler, nor determines any thing about its age or author: but we receive it, because the truth of the doctrines contained in it "may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture," as is expressly said in our eighth Article. I may add, that the early and general reception of this Creed by Greeks and Latins, by all the Western churches, not only before but since the Reformation, must needs give it a much greater authority and weight than the name of Athanasius could do, were it ever so justly to be set to it. Athanasius has left some creeds and confessions, undoubtedly his, which yet never have obtained the esteem and reputation, that this hath done because none of them are really of the same intrinsick value, nor capable of doing the like service in the Christian churches. The use of it is, to be a standing fence and preservative against the wiles and equivocations of most kinds of hereticks. This was well understood by Luther, when he called it, "a bulwark to the Apostles' Creed;" and it was this and the like considerations that have all along made it to be of such high esteem among all the reformed churches, from the days of their great leader. Dr. Waterland.

The doctrine of the Trinity, as it is here proposed, has been the doctrine of the Gospel; the doctrine of the primitive church; the doctrine of almost every thing that can be called a church in all ages: in the Greek and Roman Church, it survived in the midst of all the corruptions that arose: upon the Reformation there was not a Protestant Church, but what received it in its fullest extent: Luther, Calvin, Beza, and all the wisest and best reformers, acknowledged the Athanasian Creed, and made it their profession of faith: the Puritans in our own country, the parent stock of all our modern dissenters, embraced it as readily as the Church of England herself: and, if many of these reject it now, despise, contemn, and deride it, they are neither true Calvinists nor Presbyterians, but shelter themselves under the general name of Independents, among whom it is said at present that every man's private opinion is his church.

I do not know that this is fact, nor do I wish to deal in misrepresentation; but I have no scruple to say that "Scripture is not of private interpretation;" that whenever we go contrary to a stream, which has run in one channel for seventeen centuries, we ought to doubt our own opinions, and at least treat the general and concurring testimony of mankind with respect; that the reason of individuals is not true reason, but opinion; and that the standard of true reason is the well-weighed decision of learned and good men, brought to a centre, and comprehending all the wisdom that their united abilities could collect.

If therefore any one has his doubts on the intricacies of this question, let him first search the Scriptures, and

settle his principles from thence; if he afterwards wishes. to pursue his researches, let him not recur to the crude and hasty publications of the present day, in which assertions are rashly made without foundation in Scripture, antiquity, or the principles of any church; but to those learned writers who managed this controversy fifty years ago in our own country; or, if he has learning and leisure sufficient, to the primitive fathers themselves. Dean Vincent.

Many have argued against the use of this Creed; and some, with strange vehemence: partly from the doctrines, which it teaches; but chiefly from the condemnation, which it pronounces on all, who disbelieve them. Now the doctrines are undeniably the same with those, that are contained in the Articles of our Church, in the beginning of our Litany, in the conclusions of many of our Collects, in the Nicene Creed, and, as we conceive, in that of the Apostles, in the Doxology, in the form of Baptism, in numerous passages of both Testaments; only here they are somewhat more distinctly set forth, to prevent equivocations. Any one, who examines into the matter, will easily see it to be so. Accordingly our dis senting brethren, after they had long objected to other parts of our Liturgy, consented readily to subscribe to this Creed; the Articles of which are the common faith of the catholick Church, or, by immediate consequence, deducible from it; and little or nothing more. There are indeed several things in them, beyond our comprehension, as to the manner; but the Scripture hath the same. There are expressions, which may seem liable to exception; but it must be for want of understanding them, or admitting fair interpretations of them. The assertion that "there is one Father, not three Fathers," and so on, may appear to the ignorant, needless and trifling: but was levelled against heresies, then in being, which took away all distinction between the three PerThat " none is before or after other" means, (as the following words, "but the whole three Persons are coeternal" prove,) that none is so in point of time, not that none is so in the order of our conceptions; for the Scripture directs us to consider the Father, as first. That "none is greater or less than another" is reconciled to our Saviour's assertion, "The Father is greater than I," (John xiv. 28.) by what follows in the Creed, “Equal as touching his Godhead, inferior, as touching his manhood." That he is "one, altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by Unity of Person" means, (for so the next words explain it) that as each of us is one man, not at all by blending the soul and body into one substance, for they are still distinct, but "altogether," by a mysterious union of the two; so he is one Christ, not at all by blending the divine and human nature into one substance, but "altogether," intirely and solely, by an union of them, yet more mysterious than the former is.

sons.

The condemnation, contained in two or three clauses of this Creed, belongs, (as the most zealous defenders of our faith in the holy Trinity agree, and as every one, who reads it considerately, will soon perceive) not to all, who cannot understand, or cannot approve, every ex