public worship as often as we could; all this shortly summed up; "He therefore that would be saved: must thus do his duty towards God."

Furthermore," the service might go on, "it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also love his neighbour as himself."

After this, suppose some solemn sentences pointing out how rebellion, and disloyalty, and disrespect to one's elders, suicide and duelling, unchastity of every kind, gluttony and drunkenness, and gambling, with perhaps some less obvious matters, were all forbidden, by implication or otherwise in this "royal law ;" and then to close it. "This is a Christian's duty towards his neighbour which except a man keep faithfully, he cannot be saved."

:

Now, I say, if it was ever thought necessary to have such a service in Church, you could not say that it was uncharitable. And why? Because it would merely be asserting just what Scripture asserts, because we have our Saviour's own word to warrant us; "If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments;" with the assurance on the other hand against wilful transgressors, that they "have no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." You would rightly take for granted that only wilful of

pa

fenders were meant. If any one had never been taught better, or had never had any opportunities of knowing God's commandments, if he had been trained up to crime by his rents from his childhood, or lived in a heathen country where some of these offences are counted no sins at all, but merits rather, if a man was to fall into them by mistake and recover himself when his duty was fairly put before him, or go on offending to the last through ignorance all along, all such cases, you would understand at once, were beyond the scope of the service, or at least of the awful sentence it pronounced. It would leave such persons in God's hands, to be mercifully dealt with according to their light. The denunciations, you would see at once, were directed against wilful offenders, against men who knew what was right and did what was wrong, and persisted in it to the last. And you would think it true Christian charity, and not unkindness, to speak out plainly God's own sentence, that " they who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."

Now just apply all this, F- to the Athanasian Creed, and you ought to have as little scruple about it. What is there that is over-harsh in it? Why think it uncharitable to condemn here

tical belief, any more than a vicious life? Holy Scripture is as express for one as for the other. You could not well have more awful language than it employs respecting unbelief, or misbelief. St. Peter speaks of "damnable heresies," and adds of those teachers who privily brought them in, that their "judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." (2 Pet. ii. 1, 3.) And St. Paul, when warning the Thessalonians of the false doctrines of antichrist, has the words, "that all they might be damned that believed not the truth." (2 Thess. ii. 12.) And our gracious Saviour Himself, His last words according to St. Mark, "He that believeth not shall be damned." (St. Mark xvi. 16.) It makes one tremble to go over such texts. It is like touching the edge of God's sword. But when men would have that in matters of faith He beareth the sword in vain; it is only a necessary vindication of His hand, if we enter His armoury and point to His weapons hanging up. There they are, these texts. Holy Scripture has its "damnatory clauses, as much as St. Athanasius' Creed."

And then observe, F, what the doctrines are which it protects in this solemn manner. Just those very two, which are the prominent

ones in the Creed: the doctrines namely, of the Holy Trinity and of the Incarnation of our blessed Lord. For to take again our Saviour's words, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but He that believeth not shall be damned." What belief He meant to secure by this solemn sentence is plain: a belief undoubtedly in that Trinity, in Whose name we are baptized. "Go ye into all the world," was His

command at the same time, "and teach all nations, baptizing them in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." (St. Matt. xxviii. 19.) A more exact warrant then for what are called the anathemas of the first part of the Athanasian Creed could not well be found, and from His mouth too, who was very truth and love.

And as for its other great doctrine, the Incarnation, that is guarded by Holy Scripture in the same emphatic way. "He that believeth not the Son," were that Son's own words, " shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John iii. 36.) And the beloved disciple who records this sentence of his Master's, adds also his own; "Who is a liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."

(1 John ii. 22, 23.) And again, in his second very short Epistle; "Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Whosoever transgresseth and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any man unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed, for he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." (2 John v. 7, &c.) And there is an anecdote recorded of St. John in ecclesiastical history, which shews that he acted as he wrote. For one time, it is said, as he was entering a public bath-house at Ephesus, he was told that Cerinthus, a noted leader of the heretics, one that denied Christ was come in the flesh, was within; and that he left the place, hastily crying out to his company to "be gone, lest the roof should fall in upon such an enemy of the truth."

Surely the very spirit of the Athanasian Creed runs through this incident, as also through the verses I have quoted from the Epistle, and a startling thing it is, coming from the disciple whom Jesus loved, himself the Apostle of love.