he may, by God's grace, repent efficaciously before his death. When S. Paul therefore enumerates and denounces "works of the flesh" (Gal. v. 19-21), declaring that "those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God," a Catholic theologian understands this statement with a threefold qualification, as regards any individual act of which the "materia is "gravis." The act, however in its own nature detestable, does not exclude from the kingdom of Heaven, if (1) it were done without full deliberation; or (2) under invincible ignorance or inadvertence of its evil character; or (3) if it be duly repented before death. Suppose the theologian were asked what he means precisely by "invincible" ignorance or inadvertence, this would lead him into a very long and intricate discussion. Such a discussion however-even if it could possibly be admitted into such a paper as this-would not be strictly germane to our theme; because in this respect there is no distinction, between the precept of faith and precepts of the moral law.

Here again Mr. MacColl impresses us, as having pursued the unhappy mean; he has said enough to suggest difficulties, without saying enough to solve them. Indeed, if we rightly understand him, he speaks inconsistently with himself. In p. 52, the natural sense of his words is unduly strict. "By a deliberate rejection" of Catholic Truth, he says,-i. e. (as the context explains) such a rejection as involves mortal sin"I mean a rejection, which might have been avoided if the man had made use of his opportunities." Surely my ignorance does not become mortally culpable, by the mere fact of my not having "made" all possible "use of my opportunities" it is not thus culpable even "in causâ," unless I have failed to take some definite step, which was cognisable by me as of grave obligation. On the other hand, in p. 43 Mr. MacColl seems to say, that eternal ruin is not certainly entailed by any one sin-however advertently and deliberately committed and however unrepented-but only by a course of sin. Here is the passage; and if we have failed rightly to understand it, the fault really lies in its obscurity. We italicize a few words.

Man is a complex being, and we cannot be sure that any specific offence against faith or morals is a true index to his character as a whole. It is the key in which the thoughts habitually move that determine the condition of man as a responsible moral agent; and God alone, Who sees the heart, can know for certain what that key is. The sum total of man's capacities for everlasting life are not necessarily exhausted by the few gross acts incident to social relations or open to human valuation; but it is on such acts alone that human judgments can be passed, as well in the sphere of faith as in that of morals. (p. 43.)

So much as to what is meant by saying, that such or such a precept is binding under mortal sin: and now as to the particular precept declared in the Athanasian Creed. The Catholic explanation of this, as we understand the matter, proceeds on the following basis. God has revealed a certain definite doctrine on the Trinity and the Incarnation; and the statements of the Athanasian Creed, so far as they go, give the one true analysis of the doctrine. As Mr. MacColl admirably observes

There is not a single proposition in the Athanasian Creed, of which the rejection does not involve the rejection of Christianity. I make that assertion without the least hesitation, and I challenge all the gainsayers of the Creed to disprove it. Of course a person may from prejudice, or ignorance, or confusion of thought, or some other cause, be unable to embrace some of the propositions of the Creed, and yet remain all the while a good Christian. It is none the less true, however, that all the propositions of the Creed hang together, and that the rejection of any one of them would strike Christianity to the heart. (pp. 169, 170.)

In other words, no one can possibly hold in substance the revealed dogmata of the Trinity and Incarnation, while he rejects one single particle of the Athanasian exposition-except through intellectual inconsistency and inconsecutiveness. These dogmata may be apprehended by different Christians with a greater or less amount of definiteness and explicitness, according to the circumstances of each man's individual case: but they remain the same dogmata nevertheless. The rudest peasant either holds (truly however imperfectly) the very doctrine set forth in the Athanasian Creed, or does not hold at all the revealed dogmata of the Trinity and the Incarnation. God has imposed on every Christian (not here to speak of other men) the grave precept, of holding faithfully these two dogmata. He has commanded every Christian-affirmatively, to accept them, and from time to time elicit acts of faith in them;-negatively, never on any account to accept any tenet inconsistent with them.

One or two little explanations remain to be added. The Athanasian Creed (it seems to us) does not primarily speak of any except Catholics. Its direct purpose is, to be chanted in Catholic worship; and its true purport will therefore best be understood perhaps, by adding the word "nostrûm" after "quicunque.' "Whoever" of us "wills to be saved, before all things," i. e. as the foundation of all else, "he must hold," retain, cleave to, "the Catholic Faith: which Faith unless each one" of us "shall have preserved, &c., &c." We have here implied our second explanation. "Ante omnia" is not

equivalent to " præ omnibus":* the Creed does not express any judgment one way or other, on the comparative importance of faith and morals respectively; it does but declare, that the former is the first step towards salvation, and the foundation on which the latter is built. Lastly the Creed by no meaus either declares or implies, that belief in the Trinity and Incarnation is required "necessitate medii" (to use theological language), as well as "necessitate præcepti." The large majority, we think, of modern Catholic theologians consider, that faith in "Deus unus et remunerator" may lead to justification, where there is invincible ignorance of the Trinity and Incarnation: and those who think this, certainly find no difficulty on that account in the Athanasian Creed.

So much on what a Catholic theologian would understand by these "damnatory clauses"; and such, we take it, is substantially the doctrine, for which Mr. MacColl and Dr. Pusey are contending. The vast majority of Anglicans on the contrary reject that doctrine; and we will proceed to recount some of the different classes, into which these objectors may be divided.

The first class was more numerous some thirty years ago, than it is now; though it is still very widely extended. It consists of those who draw an emphatic distinction, between the substance itself of the two dogmata on one hand, and what they would call the scholastic and unscriptural subtleties of the Creed on the other. We doubt if any man of vigorous and clear mind adheres now to this most shallow view. As Mr. MacColl points out in a passage we have quoted,—to reject any one of these "subtleties," is virtually to reject the dogmata themselves. And in fact those who adopt this view do not in general really accept the revealed doctrine on the Trinity and Incarnation.

A second class of objectors will admit, that those who believe in the Trinity and the Incarnation, enjoy therein an inappreciable blessing. Nevertheless they demur to the "damnatory clauses." "The doctrinal precept imposed by God," such a thinker will say, "is to accept and study the Scripture. Those who cannot find these two dogmata in Scripture, are (I hold) gravely mistaken; just as there is many an interpretation of Thucydides such, that those who reject it are without doubt gravely mistaken. But if any man has studied Scripture, he has obeyed God's precept; and I

This remark did not originate with ourselves, but we have not before seen it in print.

"Fides est humanæ salutis initium, fundamentum et radix omnis justificationis."-Conc. Trid.

VOL. XIX.—NO. XXXVIII. [Now Series.]

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cannot imply the reverse," We think this is the only view of the matter which can reasonably be accepted, by those who regard Scripture as the sole Rule of Faith. Or in other words, -as the Tractarian writers often pointed out in days of old,-to accept the Athanasian Creed, is by necessary consequence to deny that Scripture is the sole Rule of Faith.

A third class of objectors were comparatively few in the Establishment thirty years back, but now swarm through it like locusts in every direction. They deny that any one doctrine on the Trinity and Incarnation is really the doctrine of Scripture. Scripture, they say, was intended to be interpreted diversely by divers readers, according to the spiritual tastes and needs of each individual. These men of course detest the Athanasian Creed, with a hatred at once bitter and contemptuous; and among those who profess in any sense to accept Christianity, this is the only form of liberalism (we think) which possesses intellectual life. It is really important that Catholics shall from time to time contemplate and grapple with this subtle and most deadly error; while as to high-church Anglicanism on one side or other phases of Protestantism on the other, they may almost be left to sink under their own weight.*

We have recited then the chief doctrinal views prevalent among Anglicans, which in different ways contradict the Athanasian Creed; and we need hardly say that we wish Mr. MacColl and Dr. Pusey every possible success, in opposing those views. As to the character of the Creed, we cannot do better than avail ourselves of F. Newman's expressive language. "It is a psalm or hymn" he says "of praise and of confession and of profound self-prostrating homage, parallel to the canticles of the elect in the Apocalypse. It appeals to the imagination quite as much as to the intellect. It is the war-song of faith, with which we warn first ourselves, then each other, then all those who are within its hearing and the hearing of the Truth, who our God is, and how we must worship Him, and how vast our responsibility will be, if we know what to believe and yet believe not."+ All this is beautifully and truly said: though few Catholics perhaps would go F. Newman's length-certainly we should notin accounting the Athanasian Creed a Creed a more "devotional formulary," even than the Veni Creator' and the 'Te

Deum.'

66

When we say that high-churchism may almost be left to sink under its own weight, we refer of course to its characteristic tenets, not to the dogmata which it holds in common with the Catholic Church.

+ Grammar of Assent, p. 129.

A further observation is very important. Those who are invincibly ignorant of the two Christian dogmata set forth in the Creed, though they will not of course be punished for such ignorance-yet therein suffer a great calamity; and lose a help of unspeakable importance, towards growth in the love of God. Mr. MacColl has some very valuable and thoughtful remarks, from p. 90 to p. 124, on the intimate connection between faith and morals: though here also if the subject were to be treated at all-we desiderate more expansion. The following paragraph impresses us as singularly complete and true. The author had set forth the hideous wickedness of even the most cultivated and intellectual heathenism: he then thus proceeds.

But if mere intellectual cultivation could not recall men to the 66 ways of pleasantness" and the paths of peace, what else could? Speaking in the rough, it may be said that three things were necessary: a right object of love; a revelation of God's will and of the true relations between man and his Maker, with a teacher having authority to enforce it; and spiritual power to enable man to "work out his own salvation." These three desiderata Christianity professes to have supplied. (p. 97.)

Still more complete is Mr. MacColl's reply to Dean Stanley, on a very momentous Scriptural question. "Both our Lord Himself," he says, " and the inspired writers of the New Testament, insist on the necessity of a right faith, as strongly as they do on the necessity of moral rectitude" (p. 162). (p. 162). He thus quotes the Dean's words, denying this; and proceeds as follows. The vital importance of the question is our excuse for the length of our quotation. We italicize one or two

sentences.

"This is life eternal," says our Lord, "that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Again; when the Jews asked Him, "What shall we do that we may work the works of God?" Jesus answered and said unto them, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." And when He warns evil-doers of the doom that awaits them He tells them that "He will appoint them their portion with the unbelievers." Here our loving Saviour Himself puts immoral living and pertinacious unbelief on the same level, and He even seems to intimate that unbelief is the more dangerous of the two. The first condition of "doing the works of God" is a right belief as to the doctrine of the Incarnation : "This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent." Hold that faith in sincerity, and "the works of God" will follow as a natural consequence. Reject it with your eyes open, and you place yourself outside the pale of salvation. For "God so loved the world that He gave His only

*

* This phrase is liable to be misunderstood.-ED. D. R.