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He insists upon it that the churches keep in their confessions of faith statements which they do not believe, and that it is notorious that they are afraid to meddle with them. The Anglo-American church has dropped the Athanasian Creed from its service; the English mother church is afraid to.
A preaching soldier, he was eloquent in the pulpit, valiant in the field. His theology was simple: "There is but one God." The effeminate Syrian, lost in Monothelite and Monophysite mysteries; the Athanasian and Arian, destined to disappear before his breath, might readily anticipate what he meant.
Yet it came distinctly home to me, that, whatever the depth of the mystery, if we lay down anything about it at all, we ought to understand our own words; and I presently augured that Tillotson had been right in "wishing our Church well rid" of the Athanasian Creed; which seemed a mere offensive blurting out of intellectual difficulties.
In the hands of a Swift even so trivial an incident might be made to point a moral on the facility with which alike in theology and politics from Athanasian Creed to Cincinnati or Philadelphia Platform men comfortably interpret to their own diverse likings some doctrine that "begins with an R and ends with an e," and swallow it with great unanimity and enthusiasm. Possibly the death of Mr.
The Council of Trent embraced a large field of doctrine certainly; but I should apply to its canons a remark contained in that University Sermon of mine, which has been so ignorantly criticised in the pamphlet which has led to my writing; I there have said that the various verses of the Athanasian Creed are only repetitions in various shapes of one and the same idea; and in like manner, the Tridentine decrees are not isolated from each other, but are occupied in bringing out in detail, by a number of separate declarations, as if into bodily form, a few necessary truths.
We think I do not say this profanely but seriously of that water of life as a series of propositions like the Athanasian Creed! Christ meant something very different by the water of life. He meant that the soul that was athirst could receive a draught of a spring of cool refreshment and living joy.
But this will not be effected without a struggle, for your orthodox people are very tenacious in their dogmatism, and they will apply to themselves a certain quantity of Athanasian varnish which will close their eyes and ears. Yes, I should much like to be there!
The Athanasian Creed was not necessarily true because the fire would not light or the sword would not cut, nor, excuse me, were all your old beliefs wrong because your prayer was unanswered. It is an ancient story, that we cannot tell whether the answering of our petitions will be good or ill for us.
He taught a hypostatic union totally devoid of confusion or loss or commutation of the elements of the two natures. To illustrate his meaning he used the simile supplied by the "Athanasian" creed, "as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and Man is one Christ." This position is a vast improvement on that of the original monophysites.
His old allies affirmed that he had incurred all the fearful penalties denounced in the Athanasian Creed against those who divide the substance. Bulky quartos were written to prove that he held the existence of three distinct Deities; and some facetious malecontents, who troubled themselves very little about the Catholic verity, amused the town by lampoons in English and Latin on his heterodoxy.
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