adopted, but very God, the only-begotten Son of God: God begotten of God, as light, without detracting any thing of its splendour, is kindled of light, not diminishing his Father's substance, who is and continues for ever very God: God, not made as creatures were in time, being of one substance with the Father, who by him, as the Apostles John and Paul concur in declaring, created all things. "All things," saith St. John, "were made by him, and without him was not any thing made that was made."* "All things," saith St. Paul, "were created by him and for him, and he is before all things, and by him all things consist." To the statement which in common with the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed makes of his miraculous birth, his sufferings, his death, his glorious resurrection, and ascension, it prefixes the motive and the object of his submitting to the degradations, that it was "for us men and for our salvation he came down from Heaven," and concludes the paragraph with a declaration of the eternity of his kingdom, as maintained by the Scriptural text, where unto the Son the Almighty said, "thy Throne, O God, is for ever and ever."‡

The third paragraph adds to the belief in the Holy Ghost, (as pronounced in the Apostles' Creed,) his description as, "the Lord and * John i. 2. † Col. i. 16. Hebrews i. 8.

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giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the Prophets." These particulars are enumerated, in opposition to various heretical opinions, which had arisen at the time when this Creed was composed, respecting the nature, offices and powers of the Holy Ghost; and each has its support in Scriptural authority. St. Paul tells us that "the Spirit giveth life,' "* and elsewhere that "if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And St. Peter, speaking of Prophecy, expressly tells us, that "Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." The proceeding of the Holy Ghost from the Father and the Son is a Scriptural phrase, used by our Lord in his remarkable discourse to the Disciples recorded by St. John "When the Comforter," the Holy Ghost, "is come whom I will send❞—(and thus we say he proceedeth from the Son)-"whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me." Into our hearts he is sent, to perform the offices in the economy of grace, which our Lord and his Apostles specify as his, stirring up by spiritual motions the minds of Christian believers, help

* 2 Corinthians iii. 6. † Romans viii. 13. 2 Peter i. 21. || John xv. 26.

from

ing their infirmities, drawing them away the corruptions of the flesh, releasing them from the bondage of sin, and by the Spirit of adoption, exalting them to the glorious liberty of the children of God.

The Athanasian Creed has its name, as containing the doctrines of Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, collected from his writings and speeches against the Arian and other heretical opinions, which in the fourth century were broached against the Christian Church. The Apostles' Creed by the simple assertion of its truth, stands in opposition to all erroneous opinions; but any one who looks into the Ecclesiastical History of those days will at once perceive the heresies which Athanasius disavowed, and will know to whom they are to be ascribed. The first part of this Creed, which relates to the Trinity, commands to worship the Trinity in Unity and the Unity in Trinity; subjoining, that we neither with the Sabellians, confound the persons, nor, with the Arians, divide the substance; but apply, as is warranted by Scripture, to each person of the Holy Trinity the attributes of God, in a declared freedom from all restrictions of space and time and connected existence, each person in himself being uncreate, incomprehensible, (which here means not under restriction-or limitation) eternal, Almighty, Lord, and God. In the se

cond part, that which relates to the right belief in the Incarnation, this Creed declares Christ to be, not two persons, as the Nestorians held, but God and Man united. God of the substance of his Father, in contradiction to one heretical doctrine, and man of the substance of his mother, in contradiction to another heretical doctrine, by an union, of which the union of the soul and body in man is considered a natural and familiar emblem.

Against this Creed much objection has been raised. Yet on the Reformation every Protestant Church received it as the profession of the true faith, Calvin admitted the truth of its doctrines, and Luther calls it the bulwark of the Apostles' Creed. How frivolous after this to call for its rejection, because the words Trinity and Unity are not words to be found in Scripture as here applied, and because the terms Substance and Person are obscure and undefined. Is there any worshipper, any who has ideas of three and one, ignorant at this day of the meaning of the terms, Trinity and Unity? Who can substitute in their place, or in the place of the other terms complained of, words less objectionable? But can we persuade ourselves that in what relates to the most sublime of all mysteries, the nature of the Divine essence, all should be clear to the comprehension of every man? How many difficulties are there to

perplex the sophist and the sceptic, in the union of our own souls and bodies, which yet to ordinary apprehensions cause no embarassment on the subject: and if the assertions and the negations in the Athanasian Creed can be proved from Holy Writ, they are entitled to acceptance in the Church which looks there for its articles of belief. There we find, in the words of our Lord to those whom he sent into all the world to preach the Gospel to every creature, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." The ablest of the interpreters of our Church have in their explanations, confined the damnatory clauses of the Athanasian Creed to that disbelief to which our Lord thus attaches damnationour Lord who knows the heart of man-who can temper severity with mercy-who can weigh actions, and make allowance for ignorance that is involuntary-he it is who declares that, the unbeliever shall be damned. That is the Catholic faith, and he who does not believe it, the author of the Creed pronounces shall perish everlastingly. Then follows the author's explanation, contradicting the doctrine of the heresies, and in the twentyseventh verse he recurs to that which he had recited in the third verse, and of which he had given explanation in the parenthesis intervening. "So that in all things as is afore