against error and heresy. They are, as it were, the bulwarks of our national Zion, and must therefore be maintained and defended, first and foremost, and at all hazards. If once we yield a single point of doctrine, contained in any one of them, the days of our Church, as a branch of the one true Universal and Apostolic Church, are numbered, and she will be removed from her present high and exalted position.

LECTURE VII.

A.

Maker of Heaven and Earth.

As there does not appear to be any further point connected with the creation of the world by God the Father, which requires explanation, I will fulfil my intention of saying something ahout the Athanasian Creed. And first, you are perhaps aware that the introduction of it into the Prayer Book has been a fruitful source of objection to the enemies of our Church. The Creed has been to them as a sort of mark, at which they have ever directed their poisoned arrows of malice, and bitterness, and calumny. It has been branded as being both unscriptural and uncharitable: and even where its several articles are admitted to be drawn from Scripture, I have known many good men object to the use of it, on account of the damnatory clauses as they are generally termed. It begins, you will remember, by asserting that, "Whosoever will be

The

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 then having stated, more fully and distinctly than either of the other two Creeds, the doctrines of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it concludes by again asserting, "This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved." Now these are the expressions in the Creed, which are most generally objected to, as being uncharitable, and as presuming to pass an unqualified sentence of final condemnation upon all who do not believe each and every article that it sets forth. language is undoubtedly strong, and but little suited to fall in with the notions of many in the present day, who consider it a matter of total indifference what creed a person adopts, so long as he be sincere in his belief, and diligent to live according to the rules of it. Many consider it to be a matter of no importance, whether they belong to this sect or that, whether they remain in communion with the Church of England, into which they were received by baptism, or separate themselves from her: they consider themselves at liberty to continue in the fellowship of the Church, or to join themselves to any other religious society, according to their several views and caprice; they say that we are all travelling to the same place, and ex

press a hope that, though we take different roads, we shall meet in the end. Now this is a common way of speaking, and appears to be tinctured with a savour of Christian charity and liberality: and to those persons who use it, the language of the Athanasian Creed will no doubt appear harsh and objectionable. But before we join in any such condemnation of it, let us well remember the circumstances which led to its compilation. Nearly three hundred years after our Saviour's ascension into heaven, (as I have before told you) there arose up men in the Church, who taught strange and ungodly doctrines, who asserted that our Saviour Jesus Christ was not equal to, and one with the Father, and that he was little more than an extraordinary preacher of righteousness. Now this was a fearful heresy: for if Jesus Christ were not only not the Son of God, but was not very and eternal God Himself, then the atonement that He made for the sins of the whole world, in the sacrifice of Himself upon the cross, could not be availing and sufficient to obtain the remission of our sins. For it was because He was God of God, God of the substance of His Father, that His death was received as a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, satisfaction and oblation for the sins of the whole world. But it had been foretold that there should be false teachers and prophets, who should privily bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.

The peace of the Church was thus disturbed by these appalling heresies: some believed one thing, and some another. And to restore an unanimity of doctrine, the old doctrine, which had been bequeathed to the Church by her Divine Founder and His Apostles, the Nicene Creed was first drawn up: and afterwards the Athanasian Creed was compiled, more especially to gainsay the then prevailing false doctrines, and to assert in full and positive language the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour, and the equality of the three Persons in the Trinity. For in the other two Creeds, no mention is made of the distinct personality of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Under these circumstances then, to set aside erroneous blasphemy and to uphold the doctrine of the Catholic Church in her earliest infancy, was the Athanasian Creed drawn up. It teaches nothing new, but only explains and enlarges upon what is expressly stated, or clearly implied, in the other two Creeds. It sets out by saying that a belief of the Catholic Faith, that faith which was once delivered to the saints, and is maintained by the Church of Christ throughout the world, is necessary to salvation; just as our own Church, in her Catechism, teaches that the two Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper are generally necessary to salvation. And we have not any reason for believing that Athanasius or whoever drew up the Creed that goes by his name, intended more than this.