^mS\ Ki^ ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED ^^ t 9 @)peecf) BY I THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN UPPER HOUSE OF CONVOCATION, FEB. 8, 1872 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST RIVINGTONS ILonlJon, ©xforU, aitti (Cambringt WILLIAMSON ilincoln 1872 Frice One Penny PREFATORY NOTE. BrsHOP Burnet, one of the Eoyal Commissioners on Kitual in 1689 — a critical time, not unlike the present, in the annals of the Chnrch of England — has made a remark in the " History of his own Time" (Vol. iv. p. 158,) which may be submitted to the consideration of those who have any part to perform in the settlement of the grave question which is the subject of the following speech. The Bishop and his brother Commissioners did not recommend that the Athanasian Creed should be removed to a place among the Articles of the Church of England, nor that its so-called " damnatory clauses " should be expunged, nor that the recital of it should be left to the option of the minister. They maintained its public use in the Liturgy of the Church. But they recommended some other less important changes in our Eitual, and they were very desirous that those changes should be adopted. However the Lower House of Convocation was of a different opinion; and none of the proposed alterations has ever yet been made. It might perhaps be supposed, that Bishop Burnet and his brother Commissioners would be much dis- appointed by this failure of their endeavours, and hj this frustration of their hopes. But no : quite the reverse. They rejoiced in their own defeat. Bishop Burnet's words are: "There was a very hajDpy direction of the providence of God observed in this matter. For by all the judgments we could afterward make, if we had carried a majority in the Convocation for alterations, they would have done us more hurt than good." The reason of this remark is this; many of the clergy, whom he calls " the Jacobite clergy," and who clung to the old Book of Common Prayer, " would have pretended," as he says, " that they still stuck to the ancient Church of England in 4 ON THE ATHANASIAN CREI D. .ipposition to those who were for altering it, and setting up new models ;" and, " if we had made alterations in the Rubric and other parts of the (Jommon Prayer, they would have claimed to be the true, ancient, catholic, Chiirch of England, and have alleged that we were schismatics." Bishop Burnet therefore was much pleased by his own discomfiture. He ascribes it " to a wise Pro- vidence that watches over human affairs and directs them, chiefly those that relate to religion." Let me leave the application of this history to those who may be inclined to venture on a step which JUshop Burnet and the " Royal Commissioners on Ritual " in his day did not venture to take, namely, that of silencing, suppressing, or mutilating a Creed which has been received in the Church of England for a thousand years, and which she affirms in one of her Articles, subscribed by their own hands (Art, VIII. ), " ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for it maybe proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scrip- ture." The Athanasian Creed is in possession. All the Clergy of the Church of England have not only subscribed the Article which declares that it " ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for it may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scrip- ture ;" but they have also pledged themselves to conform to the Liturgy which prescribes its use in the Church. No one, therefore, has a right to com- plain that it is retained. But there are thousands of the Clergy who would consider themselves and their peojile to be grievously wronged, if it were suppressed, mutilated or silenced. Any one of these courses would cause them the deepest distress ; and it is impossible to foresee what the consequence would be. If we cannot all be united in veneration and love for the Creed, let us, at least, be joined together as brethren in a hearty endeavour to avert a schism in the Church. RiSEHOLME, Lincoln. J^^^ March 10, 1872. UIUC ** % J SPEECH, &c. My lords, the question before us is one of grave importance, and one on which momentous issues hang. Assertions have been lately put forth with regard to the Athanasian Creed which have made a deep impression on the public mind, and which, unless carefully examined, will be likely to sway our deliberations and to affect legislation upon it. Great caution and circumspection, as well as dili- gent investigation, are required in dealing with this subject. Let me illustrate this statement by an example. A learned and able writer, to whom the Church of England is much indebted, the Kev. Edmund Ffoulkes, has recently published a very interesting volume, in which he does not hesitate to affirm that the Athanasian Creed was composed by Paulinus, Patriarch of Aquileia, and was put forth at the end of the eighth century by him under the name of Athanasius ; and that this counterfeit was issued with the connivance of one of the brightest ornaments of England, Alcuin, in immediate succession to the venerable Bede, and that it was adopted, if not devised, as an instru- ment of State policy, as well as of spiritual ag- grandisment, by Charlemagne, against the Eastern Empire and the Eastern Church. The name of Athanasius, the great doctor of the East, we are told, was prefixed to it in order to impart the sanction of that illustrious confessor of the faith to one of the doctrines which it contains — namely, that of the Procession of the Holy Ghost from the 6 ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED. Son as well as from the Father, and in order to confound the Easterns by the weight of his authority. Such allegations as these, made by a person of high character, demand careful attention. I have felt it an imperative duty, my lords, to examine them, and have risen from the inquiry with the conviction that they have no foundation in fact. First, it is not easy to believe, that Paulinus, the venerable Patriarch of Aquileia, one of the most learned men of his age, would be guilty of committing a forgery, and that Alcuin, one of our greatest theologians, would be an accomplice to the imposture. And for what purpose? To support Charlemagne in his imperial enterprises against the Throne and Church of the East. This is scarcely credible. And next, the Athanasian Creed would not have been well suited to promote that design. If the Athanasian Creed had been composed with such an intention, it would certainly have brought out, in far greater prominence than it does, the crucial dogma of the double procession of the Hoty Spirit. It is observ- able that the Athanasian Creed does not say that the Holy Spirit proceeds " ex Filio," but " a Filio ;" which is a very different thing, and is a proposition which any Eastern Christian, acknowledging, as all Easterns do, the mission of the Spirit from the Son, might not be unwilling to concede. Let me here advert, in passing, to a popular fallacy. It is boldly said by many that the Greek Church knows nothing of the Athanasian Creed. Now, my lords, if any one will take the trouble to examine the collection of the Symbolical Books of the Eastern Church, published by Kimmel (Jena, 1843, p. 67), he will see that in the Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church, put forth in the seventeenth century by the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Ah- tioch, and eJerusalem, the Athanasian Creed is treated with deep reverence, aud is ascribed to Athanasius ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 7 himself; and it is inserted as such in the Horo- logium of the Eastern Church (p. 494, ed. Venet., 1868), where it is also ascribed to Athanasius, and is spoken of with much veneration, — and is stated to have been copied from ancient Greek manuscripts in the Library of St. Mark at Venice. I have been informed, in a private letter from Venice, that there are MSS. of the Creed in that Library of the twelfth century. The copies of the Creed in the Horo- logium contain what are called "the damnatory clauses;" and this Creed is in numerous books of devotion now circulated in Greece. Let me add, that a learned Eussian ecclesiastic. Dr. Popofl*, whom I had the pleasure of meeting last night in your Grace's palace at Lambeth, informed me that the Creed is contained in the Eussian books of devotion. But to return. There are other cogent arguments against the ingenious hypothesis of Mr. Ffoulkes. He quotes an Epistle of Alcuin to Paulinus, in which Alcuin compliments him on having composed a perfect confession of faith, — which Mr. Ffoulkes imagines to have been no other than the Athanasian Creed. The Epistle was written near the close of the eighth century. It may be seen in p. 146 of Alcuin's Works, Vol. 1, ed. 1777. Its date is not certain ; but ,it is clear that the Athanasian Creed existed, and had been already widely diffused, be- fore that time. I will not dwell, my lords, on the commentary upon it, attributed by Waterland to Venantius Fortunatus, and assigned by him to the year 570; nor on the Canon of the Council of Autun, which Waterland supposes to have been held in 670, and which prescribes the use of that Creed ; nor on the manuscript of it at Vienna, which Charlemagne is said to have presented to Pope Adrian I. in 772. In the 33rd Canon of the Council of Frankfort, held in 7^4, the Athanasian Creed is mentioned as a well- known formulary, and is required to be professed and delivered to all (Concil. Labbe, vii., 1062j. 8 ON THE ATHANASIAN CRERD. The words are — " Ut fides Catholica Sanctae Trini- tatis, et Oratio Dominica, atque Symbolum Fidei, omnibus prsedicetur atque tradatnr." The Atha- nasian Creed is here called " Fides Catholica Sanctas Trinitatis," and is coupled, as a distinct thing, with the " Symbolum Fidei," which was probably the Apostles' Creed ; and the term " Fides Catholica," used in this connection is, as Mr. Ffoulkes allows (p. 235), a common title of the Athanasian Creed. Besides, my lords, the Athanasian Creed was well known and received even in England at the time assigned by him to its composition. There is a profession of faith still extant, which was made about the year 798 by a Bishop of Worcester to one of your Grace's predecessors, and which was pub- lished last year at Oxford in that valuable work, which reflects so much credit on its learned editors, Mr. Haddan and Professor Stubbs, " The Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents of Great Britain ;" and in that profession of faith the Bishop of Wor- cester declares his own belief in the words of the Athanasian Creed. He refers to it as a well-known document. " Scriptum est," he says, " Quicunque vult salvus esse, ante omnia opus est illi ut teneat Catholicam Fidem." He then cites verbatim nine verses of the Athanasian Creed (see " Councils," &c., published by Haddan and Stubbs, Oxford, 1867, vol. iii., 526). The Athanasian Creed must have been received in England some years before that time, or it never could have attained to that dignity which is assigned to it in that Episcopal confession of faith. But what is most important of all, Alcuin himself, in another work, that on the Procession of the Holy Spirit, distinctly asserts that the Atha- nasian Creed was an exposition of the Catholic faith made " by the blessed Athanasius himself, the most reverend Bishop of the city of Alexandria, and re- ceived by the universal Church " (see Alcuin's works in Migne's '* Patrologia," vol. cv., p. 71). This was ox THE ATHANASIAN CREED. 9 written before a.d. 804, when Alcuin died. Could an honest man, as surely Alcuin was, have ever used such words as these if he had known the Athanasian Creed to have been composed by his own contem- porary, Paulinus ? It is distinctly called " The Catholic Faith of St. Athanasius," by the Fathers of the Council of Aix in 802. But what, it may be asked, was that theological dogmatic work of Paulinus to which Alcuin refers in his letter to him in terms of such high commenda- tion, if it was not the Athanasian Creed ? I would venture to propose modestly a conjecture in answer to this inquiry. Look, my lords, at that letter of Alcuin to Paulinus quoted by Mr. Ffoulkes (p. 226). Alcuin calls that dogmatic work of Paulinus a *' Libellus ;" and he there describes that " Libellus " as " adorned with all the spotlessness of Catholic peace, eloquent and attractive in style to the highest degree," and he says that he sees in it " the golden outpourings of spiritual ideas commingling abun- dantly with the gems of scholastic polish " (" Alcuin Epist.," p. 146, ed. 1777— Ffoulkes, p. 217). Is this description applicable to the Athanasian Creed ? I think not. Whatever may be its merits, eloquence of style is not one. It lays no claim to rhetorical graces. In the same letter, Alcuin represents the document in question as containing a profession of faith " plain in meaning and lucid in phrase, such as could be committed to memory." And now, let me ask, is there not some extant work of Paulinus to which these words of Alcuin apply ? I answer, there is. Look, my lords, at the Acts of the Council of Frankfort, held in 794, under Charlemagne, in which Paulinus had a principal share. There we find a document composed by Paulinus (as the docu- ment itself declares), and adopted by the Bishops of that Council, and sent by them to all the Bishops of Spain (Concil. Labbe, vol. vii., p. 1022). This docu- ment corresponds exactly to the description given of 10 ON THE ATH AN ASIAN CRKED. the work of Paulinus by Alcuin, wlio had probably seen and approved it before it was presented to that Council. It is " eloquent and attractive in style," and in it are " the outpourings of spiritual ideas commingling with the gems of scholastic polish." It also contains a short profession of the Catholic faith (see lb., p. 1027), and, what is more, it bears in two places in its forefront the title "Libellus" (p. 1022, it.) "catholico salubriter editus stylo;" and " Libellus " is the very name which Alcuin gives ) to the dogmatic work of Paulinus; and it is so called by Alcuin in another Epistle (" Ad Arnonem Epist." 92, p. 136, ed. 1777^), and where it is described in precisely similar terms of encomium ; and also by Charlemagne in the Acts of that Council. But yet, it may be said, if the Athanasian Creed was generally known at that time (as it is clear it was from Alcuin's mention of it), how was it that Alcuin complimented Paulinus on having supplied a desi- deratum in the Church by composing a " Libellus " containing another profession of faith ? This ques- tion is easily answered. The Athanasian Creed did not fully meet the peculiar exigencies of the Church at that time. The West was then distracted by the heresy of Adoptionism — a new and strange phrase of Nestorianism. The Athanasian Creed did not supply an adequate antidote to it ; but the " Libellus " com- posed by Paulinus for that very purpose did what it was intended to do, and accordingly was adopted by the Council of Frankfort, which was summoned to * Alcuin's words to Arnon concerning this "Libellus" of Paulinus are remarkable : " Si tibi causa eveniat Paulinum Patrarcham videudi, saluta eum mille millies." Libellum verd catJwlicse Jidei quern Domino Kegi direxit,' and which was adopted by Charlemagne at the Council of Frankfort, " perlege- bam, et satis mihi placuit in eloquentia sua et floribus dic- tionum, et in Jidei rati one, et in testimoniorum auctoritate, ila ut nihil his addi in qusestionibus {i.e., on Adoptionism) nuper habitis inter nos et partes Felicianas opus esse arbitrabar. Et felix est Eeclesia populusque Christianus quamdiu unum talem habet defensorem fidei catholicse." ox THE ATHANASIAX CREED. 11 suppress that heresy ; it completely effected its de- signs ; and the heresy soon became extinct. And I may here take occasion to add that, if the Athanasian Creed had been composed by Paulinus (as Mr. Ffoulkes supposes), or by another theologian of the West, at that time, it could not have failed to refer to Adoptionism, and to utter a protest against it. And now, my lords, having endeavoured to clear the Athanasian Creed from the grave charge of being a forgery put forth by a venerable patriarch, Paulinus, and abetted by a learned theologian of our own, Alcuin, in order to promote the designs of the imperial ambition of Charlemagne, I may still be asked, what was then the origin, what is the date, and who was the author, of the Athanasian Creed ? If I reply, I do not know, I shall only say what we must all confess with regard to the pro- fession of faith which we made at our Baptism — viz., the Apostles' Creed. We do not know who wrote it, and I will go further and say that it matters little by whom or when it was written. The Thirty-nine Articles of our Church were not drawn up till the sixteenth century, and we know not precisely who penned them. Are we, therefore, going to abandon them ? I hope not. But is there not something like imposture in calling the Athana- sian Creed the Creed of St. Athanasius ? No, surely not. Not more than in calling our Baptismal Creed the Creed of the Apostles. Perhaps the true solu- tion of the question has already been given by Gieseler in his Church History (3rd Period, 2nd Part, 3rd Chapter, Section 12), who supposes that the Athanasian Creed was composed in Spain, and was the complete development and final settle- ment of the theological discussions in the Councils of Toledo, no less than seventeen in number, espe- cially on the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarna- tion ; and inasmuch as in Spain the Arian Heresy, which lingered on in that country, was called the 12 ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED. " Creed of Arius," so the profession of the Catholic faith, which was the strongest bulwark against it, was called with perfect honesty and propriety " the Creed of Athanasius," his great opponent. But I do not speak confidently as to its origin. We are at present not sufficiently informed as to the critical history of the Athanasian Creed ; and we are in- competent to legislate upon it till we have made more researches into libraries and depositories of ancient manuscripts of the Creed. What, for ex- ample, is the age and authority of those ancient Greek manuscripts of the Creed in St. Mark's library at Venice ? Let me now crave permission, my lords, to touch very briefly on one or two other allegations with regard to this Creed. It is urged by some, that to receive any other Creed except the Nicene is to contravene a canon of the Fourth General Council, that of Chalcedon (Concil. Labbe, iv., 368). But if this were the case, then we must suppose that not only the Latin Church, but even the Greek, which recognises the Athanasian Creed, has misunderstood or violated that canon, which is not likely. And not only so, but we must part with our Baptismal Creed, the Apostles' Creed, and limit ourselves to the Nicene. But the fact is, the canon of the Council of Chalcedon was not speaking of another Creed, but of a different and contrary one. Next, it is said by others that we ought to part with what are called, improperly, " the damnatory clauses " in the Athanasian Creed ; and in support of this statement it is said that the Church has omitted the damnatory clauses which once stood at the end of the Nicene Creed. But the cases are not similar. The Nicene Creed ended originally with the words, " The Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematises those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not," or who make any other erroneous assertions which it specifies (Concil. ox THE ATHANASIAX CREED. 13 Labbe, ii. 27). But there are no anathemas in the Athanasian Creed. Its language is not de- nunciatory, but admonitory; it is declaratory of the necessity of a right faith and of the danger of unbelief. Besides, it must be remembered that the anathemas of the Kicene Creed were withdrawn by the authority of the Church Universal in a subse- quent General Council — the Council of Constan- tinople (Concil. Labbe, ii. 953.) But we, my lords, form only a small portion of the Church Universal, and have no right to tamper with those venerable formularies, such as the Athanasian Creed, which are not our property, but are part of the sacred heritage of the whole Church. If we laid our hands on any of these formularies, we should be charge- able with schism. - The question, my lords, resolves itself into this — Does the Athanasian Creed teach sound doctrine, or does it not ? Each of us, my lords, has already given an answer in the affirmative to that question, in subscribing the Articles of our Church, in one of which it is said (Art. VIII.) that " the three Creeds," one of which is the Athanasian, " ought thoroughly to be received and believed, for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture." Are we prepared to surrender, or to suppress in our Liturgy, a profession of faith which we have as- serted ought thoroughly to be received and believed, inasmuch as it may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Writ, and which has been re- ceived in the Church of England for more than a thousand years ? Are we prepared to give up the public recitation of a Creed which Martin Luther - The unhappy consequences which have followed from an alteration made by a Protestant Church iti the " Te Deum," are well known to those who have had intercourse with foreiga Roman Catholic theologians, who thence take occasion to charge us with irreverence, and with uncatholic and schismatical innovations. How would Romanists rejoice and triumph over us, if we tampered with the Athanasian Creed ! 14 ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED. affirmed to be the strongest bulwark of the Apostles' Creed, and which Eichard Hooker declared to be our best preservative again Arianism and Socinian- ism : and which Eichard Baxter described as the clearest exposition of the doctrine of the Trinity he ever read? I hope not. The surrender, or the silencing of the Athanasian Creed, will be regarded by many as equivalent to a renunciation of the doctrines which are taught in it. The silencing of a Creed is a contradiction in terms, a theological solecism. The Athanasian Creed is a " Confession of our Christian Faith," it is so called in our Liturgy. A " Confession of faith " is a thing to be publicly uttered with the mouth, not to be kept secret in a book. The silencing of a Creed is virtually a denial of it. Some among us might perhaps re- joice in such a surrender ; but they who would most exult in it are the libertines and unbelievers. And, my lords, is the present time a fit opportunity for giving additional encouragement and stimulus to licentiousness and infidelity, and to remove with our own hands any of our safeguards against them ? Let me utter here a voice of warning. Your bitter- est enemies would exult, your best friends would mourn, over such a sacrifice as that. The greatest and wisest theologians among us, such men as those in the University of Oxford and others who sub- scribed their names in the address to your Grace in behalf of the Athanasian Creed,^ would deplore the act, and would lose all confidence in us. And then, it is much to be feared that if the Athanasian Creed is surrendered or silenced in our churches, the Church of England herself will be rent asunder by a schism. The question, therefore, before us is not simply as to the retention of a Creed, but it is a 3 See p. 159 of Fourth Keport of the Eitual Commissioners. The distinguished names appended to that Memorial are very significant of the consequences which would arise from either of the two courses noticed above. ON THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED. lo question also concerning the maintenance of the unity of the Church of England. And now, my lords, let me say something in con- clusion with regard to what are called the "damnatory clauses " in the Athanasian Creed. It is the duty of the Church to declare the necessity of a right faith, and to warn the unbeliever of his danger, and thus to save him from perdition. If the Church were to neglect to do this, she would be treacherous to her divine Lord, and be cruel to the souls committed to her charge ; and the blood of her erring children would be upon her own head (Ezek. xxxiii. 6 ; Acts XX. 26). In the Athanasian Creed the Church dis- charges this duty, and in so doing she adopts the language of Christ Himself, who said — " He that believeth not shall be damned " (Mark xvi. 16) ; and of the Apostle, who declares that " without faith it is impossible to please God " (Heb. xi. 6) ; and of St. John, the beloved disciple, and Apostle of love, who says that " the unbeliever will have his part in the lake of fire " (Eev. xxi. 8). In that Creed she says — " Whosoever willeth to be in a state of salvation (Quicunque vult salvus esse), before all things it is needful (opus est) that he should hold the Catholic faith : which faith, unless a man shall have kept whole and inviolate {integram inviolatamque servaverit), without doubt he shall perish for ever. 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." All that follows in the Creed after this proposition is intro- duced parenthetically by way of argument and illustration, and not as obligatory. Next follows a declaration of the necessity of believing the doctrine of Incarnation, which is succeeded by another similar parenthesis. I fully concur in the judgment of Wheatly, in his excellent work on the Athanasian Creed (London, 1787), that what is propounded as obligatory in this Creed is the great doctrine of the 16 ON THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED. Trinity ; the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ ; His Passion, Resurrection, Ascension, and future coming to Judgment ; and the universal resurrection and eternal recompense of quick and dead ; and I should be quite prepared to leave the Creed to stand as it does, without any word of comment, and, as far as I myself am concerned, should prefer to do so. But we are bound to consider the scruples of others ; and I should, therefore, be willing to concur in the addition of an explanatory rubric to the Creed, stating that the declarations in the Creed, as to the necessity of a right faith and the danger of unbelief, are to be understood as referring only to those fun- damental Articles of Christian doctrine which I have specified. And I incline to this course the rather because it was recommended by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in the year 1689, men distinguished not only by wisdom and learning, but by Christian charity and moderation, such as two of your Grace's predecessors, Tilhjtson and Tenison, and Bishops Stillingfleet, Patrick, Beveridge, and Burnet. Those distinguished persons, who will not, I am sure, be charged with intolerance, having been appointed to consider the question of the revision of the Liturgy, came to the conclusion that the Athanasian Creed- ought to be retained in the public service of the Church. And, my lords, let me ask, is the Church of England in 1872, to sink to a lower level of theology and catholicity than that to which it had, unhappily, declined at that time ? The Bishops and Ecclesiastical Commissioners of the age of the Revo- lution of 1 688, retained the public use of the Atha- nasian Creed in the Liturgy ? And shall we expel it or silence it ? I hope not. But they recommended that an explanatory rubric should be appended to it as follows : " That the articles of it ought to be re- ceived and believed, as being agreeable to the Holy Scriptures ; and the condemning clauses are to be understood as relating only to those who obstinately ON THE ATHANASJAN CREED. 17 deny the substance of the Christian faith." I know, my lords, that it may be said, that if a Creed needs a rubric to explain it, the Creed itself ought not to be retained. I cannot concur in an allegation like that, which seems to ignore the primary principle of Christian charity. The Apostle St. Paul did not argue thus. He took Timothy and circumcised him (Acts xvi. 8), not because circumcision was neces- sary — on the contrary, he resisted those who would have enforced it as buch (Gal. ii. 3) — but because charity is necessary; he did it in charitable con- descension to others. I rejoice that this spirit of charitable condescension has ever characterised the Church of England. She was actuated by it to affix an explanatory rubric to her Office of Public Baptism, in order to remove the scruples of those who objected to the use of the sign of the cross in administering it, and to justify herself in retaining it. She was induced by the same spirit to append an explanatory rubric to her Office for administering the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, in order to remove the scruples of those who excepted against the act of kneeling which she requires of her communicants, and to declare the reason wh}^ she prescribes it. In the exercise of the highest Christian virtue and grace — that of charity — the Church of England has appended an explanatory rubric in her Prayer-book to her Offices for the administration of both Sac la- ments. And there seem to be good reasons wh}^ she hhould pursue a similar course with regard to the Athanasian Creed. And, let me add, I should much rejoice^ if she would think fit to follow it also with respect to the clause " Filioque " in the Xicene Creed, * The note of the Ecclesiastical Commissionerd of 1689 (among whom were tlie eminent men mentiontd above), to tlie Niceiie Creed was, " It is humbly submitted to tlie Convocation whet 1 1 er a Note ou^ht not here to be added with relation to the Greek Church in order to our maintaining Catholic Communion." Anyone who carefully conbiders the es.^ent.al diHereuce between 18 ON THE ATHANASIAN CRKED. as the Commissioners in 1689 also recommended to be done. I must now crave your lordships' pardon for having detained you so long. I trust that the im- portance of the subject may be pleaded as mj excuse ; and I will now only submit for consideration a form of explanatory rubric which I venture to think might be added to the Athanasian Creed, as follows: — " Note. — That no clauses in this Creed are to be regarded as words of private persons pronouncing any judgment on others ; but in it the Church of God discharges the duty, solemnly laid upon it by Him, of publicly warning those of their danger, who wil- fully reject the fundamental articles of the Christian faith which are rehearsed herein, and which, as the Church of England testifies in her Eighth Article, ought thoroughly to be received and believed ; for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture." the -words, eKTropeuo^ej/of, used by the Greeks in the Nicene Creed, and the Latin '" procedens," will, I think, be of opinion that there is no substantial discrepancy between the Greek Chnrch and ns who are Westerns, in tliat article of the Faitli. Why should not the breach be healed,— or at least an attempt made to heal it ? r^ :-^J. mm'^mm^^^ -'-iLr^-