The Prayer Book Explained Part 17

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CHAPTER XII.

EXCURSUS ON THE CONFESSION OF OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH, COMMONLY CALLED THE CREED OF SAINT ATHANASIUS.

A learned Professor once attacked the use of Creeds in Wors.h.i.+p with the bitter words, that "they combine the maximum of offence with the minimum of wors.h.i.+p." This utterance might be discussed by comparing the use of a Creed in the wors.h.i.+p of G.o.d, with the statement of the merits and action of a great man.

I have often heard people praise the Professor whose words we have just quoted. Suppose that a number of people were a.s.sembled together, and one in the name of the rest were to speak to the Professor of his great talents, his immense usefulness, his upright life, his loveable character, his services to education, we should not be offended, even if we were not fully aware of all that he had done for humanity. We should not say that there was any minimum of praise, nor any maximum of offence. It would not be an act chargeable with these faults, unless we did it in the midst of those who disputed his eminence.

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The House of G.o.d is a place where we ought to a.s.sume that the revelation of G.o.d is the foundation of wors.h.i.+p. Hence a Creed which recites the substance of that revelation should fairly be a.s.sumed to express the convictions of all present.

The two Creeds, known to us as _The Apostles' Creed_ and _The Nicene Creed_, are evidently free from the charge of offence or lack of wors.h.i.+p. They take so little account of matters of opinion,--they deal so entirely with the facts of Revelation, that it is hard to conceive any other kind of words so free from the kind of charge which the Professor brought against Creeds in Wors.h.i.+p.

But it will be necessary to examine more at length the position of the Creed which is called Athanasian, and to enquire what defence may fairly be made, if it is the form against which the Professor really brought this charge. For it must be acknowledged that many thoughtful men do stumble at this Creed. To them it is an offence, because it is often a.s.sumed that it is the expression of opinion about those who do not accept the doctrines which it contains.

1. Now in reciting the Athanasian Creed, a congregation is not attempting to deliver its opinion: we are reciting the a.s.sertions which are implied in the Bible, concerning the Being of G.o.d, and the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

Let us emphasize this point. The Athanasian Creed has a different form from the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. You could not fairly describe it as "a loving outburst of a loyal heart," as Bp Harvey Goodwin described the Apostles' Creed. _Gloria {117} Patri_ is indeed added at the close, thereby marking it as a Psalm or Hymn in its use in Church[1].

We think that in its form, fairly considered, it is the reflective utterance of a Christian, who is meditating on the Being and Personal Nature of the G.o.dhead. As I read or say it, I am, as it were, balancing the statements which limit my conception of the truth. On this side I may go so far, and no further; on that side I am limited to that expression. Between these two--including these truths--the fact of G.o.dhead is to be considered, and my wors.h.i.+p is to be directed.

Hence we can see that, like the other Creeds, it deals with the _revealed facts of G.o.d's existence_.

2. Notice that in the Creed it is the existence of G.o.d which is defined. Faith does, in other forms, enter upon a consideration of doctrines which introduce _Man_ to our view.

Predestination and Election, Justification by Faith alone, Sanctification, a.s.surance and Perseverance, Original Sin, Sacramental Grace, Sin after Baptism,

{118} and other facts and truths, on which Revelation has thrown the only true light, are dealt with, for instance, in the Articles and Homilies. And the Bible is the Court of Appeal in all such perplexities. But it is no disparagement to the importance of those truths, if we acknowledge that they do not appear in our Creeds.

The Creeds are the respectful reply of the Christian to G.o.d's disclosure of Himself to His children. One (the Apostles' Creed) is the reply of the Christian as such. Another (the Nicene) is the reply of the Christian after careful self-examination. And this Third is the reply of the Christian Student, as he meditates upon the furthest extent of our knowledge of G.o.d.

3. But it will be said, "The Nicene Creed partly, and the Athanasian Creed altogether, are not, in their origin, utterances of peaceful meditation, but, rather, of polemical controversy. Heated contentions and bitter strife are called to our minds by their terms, and not the atmosphere of the heaven of heavens."

It may help us to a right use of the Creeds in wors.h.i.+p, if we think of these controversies as the meditations of a very large family. When a deliberation can be held in a room, we can quietly put forward a suggestion, quietly find out what fault there is in it, and as quietly subst.i.tute a better statement than the first, guarded from the error into which we were likely to fall. But when the family which deliberates is distributed around such a s.p.a.ce as the Mediterranean Sea, the voices are apt to become loud and harsh: instead of tentative suggestions, diffidently put forward, we are likely to hear dogmatic a.s.sertions, made with {119} all the energy of the human lungs. The voices which arose from the members of that Parliament of the Faith present a greater variety of languages than the tongues at Pentecost.

In the Church's Meditation on the Being of G.o.d, and on the Person of Jesus, we hear the Spaniard, the Gaul, the Welshman, Italian, Greek, Syrian, Armenian, Alexandrian; there are voices from Arles, and from Carthage, as well as from Samosata on the Euphrates, and Jerusalem on its holy hill, and Caesarea on the sea-sh.o.r.e. We have to regard the Mediterranean Sea as the Council Table, with chairs at the back for such as could not find places on its sh.o.r.es. Three continents faced one another at an oval table, 13,000 miles in circ.u.mference. Even in thoughtful meditation, a voice must be raised to be heard in such a conference. This will to some extent explain how it happened that men, whom we account orthodox, are occasionally found uttering what we will call _suggestions_, unorthodox in character.

I. _About G.o.d's Being_.

1. _The Jew_. There is but One G.o.d.

2. _The Ebionite_. Then Christ is but a Man divinely endowed--the only man so divinely endowed.

3. _St John_. No! He is the Word. By Him all things were made; the Word was G.o.d and was made flesh.

4. _The Sabellian_. Then perhaps,--G.o.d being One and being made flesh,--the Word, and the Holy Ghost, are but manifestations of G.o.d.

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5. _The Catholick Church_. No! They are Persons. A Father and a Son are different persons.

6. _The Arian_. Then, if the Father is a real father, and the Son a real son, perhaps the Father was before the Son, and the Son was made.

7. The Catholick Church. This will not do; because the Sons.h.i.+p would not be real sons.h.i.+p unless the G.o.dhead were equal. The G.o.dhead of the Son must be the same G.o.dhead as that of the Father.

8. _Macedonius_. But at any rate the Holy Ghost may be a creature, or a manifestation of G.o.d the Father.

9. _The Catholick Church_. That will not do either; for His Personal Being and G.o.dhead are implied by some verses; and in various pa.s.sages He is ranked with the Father and the Son.

10. _The Semi-Arian_. Then you really say that there is an actual equality of the Three Persons, and yet that there is but one G.o.d?

11. _The Catholick Church_. Yes! That is the Catholick Faith.

Of course this is but a rough specimen of the dialogue which was conducted by the Church with the various guessers at great Truths, who debated, disputed, and dogmatized, during the early centuries. I have left out all the other controversies, and some parts of this, in order to present a fairly clear view. But you will observe that the order followed in History has a good deal of the natural course of argument and meditation: and that it is not a very foreign idea that these heresies are the loud thinking {121} of a mighty host, as it outgrows its childhood, and comes to years of discretion.

I will yet more briefly indicate the course of Historical meditation on deep things, by treating similarly one of the other great controversies, viz. that concerning the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

II. _About the Two Natures of our Lord_.

1. _The Jew_. We bear witness that Jesus of Nazareth died at Jerusalem.

2. _The Catholick Church_. And we aver that He rose again from the dead, and was the Christ, the Son of the Living G.o.d.

3. _The Gnostic_. Probably He was one of the Aeons of whom our forefathers have told us--the leading emanation from the Most High.

4. _The Catholick Church_. He is no Aeon, Manifestation, nor Creature.

He is G.o.d as truly as He is man.

5. _The Manichaean_. Then, of course, if He was G.o.d, He could have nothing really material about Him. Matter is evil.

6. _The Catholick Church_. On the contrary He had a body like ours.

7. _The Docetae_. No! That was only in appearance. You must leave out all about His Baptism, Circ.u.mcision, and Crucifixion. They were only pretence.

8. _The Catholick Church_. Not pretence at all, but real. He derived Very Manhood from the Blessed Virgin Mary, as truly as He derived Very G.o.dhead from G.o.d the Father.

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9. _The Arians_. Perhaps He took a human body, but not a human soul.

"The Divine Word was in the place of the soul."

10. _Nestorius_. Perhaps if these things be so--since He derived the Person of G.o.d from G.o.d, and the Person of man from Mary--then we must not say that He was one Person, but two.

11. _The Catholick Church_. These ideas are contrary to the Truth: for (Council of Ephesus 431) Christ was but one Person, in whom two natures are intimately united, but not confounded.