XI.

THE CREEDS.

"The NICENE Creed, and that which is commonly called the APOSTLES' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture."-The Eighth Article of Religion.

APPROACHING with reverence these august Symbols

of our Faith, there is evident, after the first note of personal responsibility, the thought of worship, the ineradicable instinct of every soul in connection with religious belief; the very word "worship" is used in the Athanasian. To proceed with the analysis of each of their twelve clauses separately:

(1) I believe-i. e., with the assent of reason and will. In one God—the assertion of religion as such, and of One uncreated, self-existent Jehovah. The Fatherof His uncreated but only-begotten Son, and of ourselves. both by creation and redemption. Almighty,-an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent Providence. Makerof all original matter, and its Disposer in whatever manner He wills. Such a belief is by no means inconsistent with the theory of Evolution, which is an even greater evidence of the work of that Creator who is the Power and Potency of all reproduction and development. Of heaven -all that has originally occupied space beyond the earth, And earth,-everything organic and inorganic in this

world. And of all things visible and invisible:-denoting spiritual as well as physical existences.

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are,

(2) And in one Lord-of all by nature, of the Church by redemption. Jesus-i. e., the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua; His human Name, meaning Saviour. Christ,i. e, Anointed; the Messiah, the anointed Prophet, Priest and King. The only-begotten Son of God;-thus there is but one Sonship. Begotten of his Father before all worlds,—or rather "ages"; the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father. God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; i. e., Light "out of" or "coming from " Light, true God "out of" true God, etc. Begotten, not made; the mode is inexplicable, and the phraseology adapted to finite understandings. Being of one substance with the Father; the words "of one substance in the Greek language in which the Nicene Creed was written, "homo-ousios." Arius, the heretic, would have had it "homoi-ousios," meaning "of like substance," and the. greatest controversy of the First General Council, in which Athanasius was the champion of the true Faith, raged around the casting out of the little Greek vowel "iota,” which made all the difference between truth and error; a controversy which still afflicts some parts of the Christian world, in the denial of the Divinity of Our Lord. By whom all things were made: imperfectly and reverently speaking, as though the Father were the Architect, working through the Son who is the Builder, and both in absolute unity of act. Expressions in the first chapter of Genesis reveal this Oneness, which is further expanded in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews.

For the sake of clearness in bringing together the Persons of the Holy Trinity, we now pass to the third general division of the Creed, in which we say: (3) And I believe in the Holy Chost,-the third Person in the Godhead, the Paraclete, the Comforter, through Whom Christ rules in the Church, and by Whom is dispensed the grace which He has purchased with His own blood. The Lord, and Giver of Life, i. e., the Lord, and the Life-giver, Whose influence quickens and vivifies; not the Lord of Life, who is Jesus Christ, the Conqueror of Death. Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,—a Person, not an influence; not begotten, but proceeding, a present and perpetual act. This doctrine, inexplicable to mortal comprehension, is called the Procession of the Holy Ghost. The words "and the Son," or "Filioque" in the Latin, form no part of the original Nicene Creed. They were inserted by the Western or Latin Church in the time of Charlemagne, and have never to this day been accepted in this formulary by the Greek Church. It is an ancient and irreconcilable point of divergence. The truth itself is not challenged; Christ Himself says, "I will send him unto you." But the denial is made of the right of any, short of a General Council, to formally insert a clause in the established Symbol. Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;-His special acknowledgment as a member of the Holy Trinity. Who spake by the Prophets :-i. e., either of the Old or New Testaments, and whether truth comes through men or angel messengers. Inspiration is the direct work of the Holy Ghost, even in this present time; and the office of foretelling future events was but one branch of the pro

phetic office, which in these latter days is limited to the functions of preaching and proclaiming the Word.

The Athanasian Creed attempts no undue explanation of the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, but carefully guards it by saying, "Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance." It also with great minuteness names the general qualities of the Godhead, common to them all, as Infinity, Eternity, Omnipotence, Deity and Lordship; and then assigns to the Three their distinct and differing attributes, and the order in which they are to be approached in our finite thoughts, thus: "The Father is made of none; the Son is of the Father alone: the Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son." Either may properly be addressed in prayer or thanksgiving, and the work of our salvation is the joint operation of the Blessed Three.

Having now considered the Mystery of the Holy Trinity and those truths which are exterior to man, we return to complete the second section, which proceeds with the Mysteries of the Incarnation and of Redemption. We come next to the exposition of the Two Natures of Our Lord, and of His special redemptive work for mankind. Man had sinned, and of his own free will forfeited his first estate of innocence; and in love for fallen man, God, in the fulness of time, sent His Son, Jesus Christ, (4) Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,—of His own will. And was incarnate by the Holy Chost-a mysterious and unintelligible operation, miraculously superseding the law of nature. Of the Virgin Mary, a holy maiden and pure virgin, not a wife. Jesus was thus free from the taint of our mortal nature, derived from one common origin, and transmitted by course of heredity from father to son.

And was made man:-i. e., was incarnate, "in the flesh." He was (not merely "a man," but) "Man," in its fullest sense. His Divinity assumed and bore our human nature, yet without sin, through infancy, childhood and manhood to maturity, for one complete generation of three and thirty years; and that self-same nature He still retains. Having confessed that He is perfect God, co-equal with the Father, we now confess that He is also perfect Man, with a human body and a human soul. Neither of these two Natures of the God-man absorbs the other; yet not as the bodily and spiritual natures co-exist in each individual man. The Third General Council, that of Ephesus, defined that the human nature was taken up into the Divine, and so remains; the inferior nature existing with the superior. As summed up very fully in the Athanasian, and admirably condensed in one of its clauses, “God and man is one Christ." This is the basal doctrine of the Christian religion, anterior to the Atonement, and inclusive of it. It is perpetuated in the Church through the Sacraments of Christian birth and sustenance, which are an extension of the Incarnation." A fuller treatment of this latter truth is reserved for the consideration of the Sacraments themselves.

(5) And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered-No particulars are cited of His Divine life, His miraculous Baptism, His Miracles, His Passion these are all embraced in the word "suffered," and summed up, in the Apostles' Creed, in the culminating phrase of His agonizing Death. The name of the Roman Governor of Judea and Jerusalem (a sorrowful notoriety) is thus sent down to the end of time, to establish unmistak