teen centuries, we ought to doubt our own
opinions, and at least treat tlie general and
concuiTing testimony of mankind with re-
spect. If any one has his doubts on the
intricacies of this question, let him first
search the Scripture, and settle his princi-
ples from thence ; if he afterwards wishes
to i)ursue his researches, let him not recur
to the crude and hasty publications of the
present day, in which asseriions are rashly
made, without foundation in Scripture,
antiquity, or the principles of any Church,
but to those learned writers who managed
this controversy fifty years ago in our own
country ; or, if he has learning and leisure
sufficient, to the primitive fathers them-
selves. — Dean Vincent.
AVhoever wrote this Creed, he meant
nothing more than to collect things said in
various Catholic writers, against the vari-
ous heresies subsisting, and to simplify and
arrange the expressions, so as to form a
confession of faith the most concise, order-
ly, and comprehensive, possible. Not with
any view of ex])laining any mysterious
truths, but with the sole design of reject-
ing hurtful or heretical errors. And it
may have been adopted on account of its
excellence, in bringing the errors which
were to be shunned into a small compass,
in exposing them in a kind of poetic num-
bers, which strike and possess the ear ; and
may have been called " Athanasian," only
on account of its containing doctrines
which have been defended with peculiar
force and brilliancy by the great prelate of
Alexandria. — Ileifs Lectures.
The Athanasian Creed only tells us what
we must believe, if we believe a Trinity in
unity, three persons and one GoD : and I
challenge any man, who sincerely professes
this faith, to tell me, what he can leave
out of this exposition, without destroying
the Divinity of some of the throe persons,
or the unity of the Godhead. If each per-
son must be God and Lord, must not each
person be uncreated, incomprehensible,
eternal, almighty? If there be but one
God, and one Lord, can there be three
separated, uncreated, incomprehensible,
eternal, almighty Gods; Avhich must of
necessity be three Gods, and three Lords !
This Creed does not pretend to explain
hoiv there are three persons, each of which
is God, and yet but one God, but only as-
serts the thing, that thus it is, and thus it
64
THANASIAN CREED.
must be, if we believe a Trinity in unity ;
which sliould make all men, who would
be thou«;ht neither Arians nor Socinians,
more cautious how they ex])ress the least
dislike of it. — Sherlock on the Tn'nifi/.
Every Divine perfection and substantial
attribute of ])eity is common to the three :
what is i)eculiar applies only to their rela-
tions, order, or office ; paternity, filiation,
procession — first, second, tliird persons —
creation. redem])tion, sanctilication. The
Athanasian Creed is altofi:ether illustrative
of this economy; and if it be carefully
consiilered under this point of view, I am
persuaded it will appear to be exceedingly
reasonable and judicious. There is some-
thing in the mere sound of the clauses
which I doubt not beguiles it of its just
praise. Some have forgotten, perhaps, and
some have never known, its proper history.
Tlie numerous sects whose different appre-
hensions of the precise nature of the holy
Trinity led men in those distant days into
one, at least, of the two great errors, either
that of '' confounding the persons " or
*' dividing tlie substance," are now perhaps
no more. They may indeed subsist under
other names ; but men have long since
ceased to talk of the Sabellians, Noetians,
Patripassians, Praxeans, Eunomians, Apol-
linarians, Photinians, Cerinthians, and even
Arians, Nestorians, and Eutychians ; for
these latter are the sects chiefly opposed
in the Athanasian Creed. But there is not
one clause of this ancient formulary that
is not directed, in the simplest manner
possible, against the different errors of all
these several sects; their wild and dis-
cordant notions are all met by the con-
stant reiteration of that one great truth,
that though the Christian verity compels
us to acknowledge every person of the
holy Trinity to be God and Lord, yet the
Catholic religion equally forbids us to say
there be three Gods, 'or three Lords;
though, therefore, each is uncreate, each
eternal, each almighty, each God, and each
Lord, yet these attributes, as the exclusive
attributes of Deity, are common to the
three ; the omnipotence, the eternity, the
Divinity, the power and dominion, the'glory
and majesty, is one ; " such as the Father
is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy
Ghost." — Xares on the Creeds.
Whilst the Apostles' Creed compendi-
ously sums up and declares the main arti-
cles of our Christian faith, and the Nicene
Creed explains more fullv the articles re-
lating to the Son and the Holy Ghost,
the Athanasian Creed stands as an excel-
lent giiard and defence against the subtle-
ties of most kmds of heretics, who, were
it once removed, would soon find means
to enervate and evade the shorter Creeds,
where the Christian faith is more simply
declared. — IVheath/.
The intention of the Creed, as -well as
of our Lord in the Gospel, is only to say,
that whoever rejects the doctrine of it,
from presumptuous self- opinion, or wilful
negligence, the case of such an one is des-
perate. But though we pass judgment on
his errors Avithout reserve, and, in general,
on all who maintain them, yet personally
and singly we presume not to judge of his
condition in the next world. — Archbishop
Seeker.
The use of it is, to be a standing fence
and preservative against the wiles and
equivocations of most kinds of heretics.
This was w^ell understood by Luther when
he called it "a bulwark to the Apostles'
Creed ; " much to the same purpose wdth
what is cited of Ludolphus Saxo ("tria
sunt symbola ; primum Apostolicum, se-
cundum Nicenum, tertium Athanasii ; pri-
mum factum est ad fidei instructionem,
secundum ad fidei explanationem, tertium
ad fidei defensionem "). And it w^as this and
the like considerations that have all along
made it to be of such high esteem among
all the Reformed Churches, from the days
of their great leader. — Waterland.
The Church of England proposes no
Creeds to be believed upon their own au-
thority, but because they are agreeable to
the word of GoD. The articles of the
Creed indeed are proposed as articles of
faith. But they are only collections of
some important truths to which that testi-
mony is given. They are, at the highest,
but extracts which are to be believed be-
cause there contained ; and so to be be-
lieved as there delivered. Whatever doc-
trines are consonant to the Scriptures, she
recommends to our faith ; but what are
contrary to the word of GoD, she pro-
nounces not lawful for the Church to or-
dain. She expects her members to believe
nothing as of Divine revelation, but what
the records of that revelation plainly con-
tain. Nor of the truths there discovered,
does she impose the belief of any as a ne-
cessary term of communion, but what she
apprehends the sacred oracles themselves
to represent as a necessary term of salva-
tion. These w^ere the creeds of the West-
ern Church before the Reformation ; and
because, at the Reformation, she withdi-ew
from nothing but what was corrupt, there-
fore, these being catholic and sound, she
still retains X\\Qm.^Wheathj .
Why, it is often said, are w^e so zealous
in enforcing doctrines merely speculative ?
ATHANASIAN CREED.
6&
The answer is, we believe them to be in-
culcated in Scripture, essential to the
Christian relio:ion, and not merely specu-
lative. The Son and the HoLY GilosT
are each of them said to be sent by the
Father, each of them contributes to the
great work of our salvation. To refuse
them Divine honour, is unquestionably to
deny their Divine power. "We do not
presume to fix limits to Divine mercy ; but
surely we endang-er our title to it, when
we reject the conditions upon which it is
granted. The humble Christian hopes
for no benefit from the gospel covenant,
but from a firm reliance on the merits of
his Saviour, and the aid of the Holy
Spirit. — Croft.
In the sacred Scripture there is no men-
tion but of two sorts of men, whereof some
believe, so that they are saved ; some
believe not, and they are damned. (Mark
xvi. 16; John iii. fS.) But neither the
Church, nor the individual rehearsing the
creed, is responsible for these denuncia-
tions. It is a formulary which happens to
express suitably and well the exact opini-
ons of the Church of England, in regard
to the two great mysteries of the Trinity
and incarnation, as far as they can be
understood. True it is, indeed, that in
her eighth Article she asserts, that the three
creeds, Nicene, Athanasian, and that which
is commonly called the Apostles' Creed,
" ought thoroughly to be received and be-
lieved, for they may be proved by most
certain warrants of Holy Scripture." And
has the Church of England no right to
make this declaration ? Is she to be the
only society of Christians that shall not
have permission to assert that her faith is
the right faith ? What dissenter from the
Church of England would hesitate to as-
sume this liberty ? Who is there that
scruples to speak thus exclusively of his-
own mode of thinking ? Can anything be
more candidly or unexceptionably stated,
than her confidence that these creeds ought
to be believed, because they may be proved
by warrants of holy writ? In saying this,
does she preclude any man from examin-
ation ? Does she lock up the vohmie of
holy writ? She appeals solely to Scrip-
ture for the truth of her doctrine, leaving
all who oppose her to the mercies of GoD.
She does not presume to say with those,
whose cause has lately been strangely po-
pular, and whose language in a sister king-
dom is such to this day, that whoever
presumes to separate from her, "eo ipso
illis nulla est speranda salus ! " She does
not even venture to assert, with the cele-
brated reformer Calvin, whose famous In-
stitutes were written on the model of the
Apostles' Creed, and who must, no doul)t,
have had a view, in saying it, to his own
peculiar Church, " extra ccclesia; gremium,"
^-c. ; " out of the bosom of the Church
there is no hope whatever of salvation, or
remission of sins." AVe may surely be
permitted to admire that strange course of
things, and confusion of circumstances,
that have lately conspired to render those
])opular Avhose principles are truly exclusive
and intolerant; and the Church in some
respects unpopular, which is as truly toler-
ant. Her language is constantly the same,
and perfectly apostolic : " Search the Scrip-
tures." " Prove all things ; hold fast that
which is good." — Naves on the Creeds.
Let the gates of our communion be
opened as wide as is consistent with the
gospel of Christ ; yet surely those will
stand excluded, v/ho hold errors expressly
condemned in that gospel, and which that
gospel was particularly and purposely
wrote to guard against. — Randolph on the
Trinity.
The commissioners in 1688, thirty emi-
nent divines, appointed to review and cor-
rect the liturgy, close the inibric they
had prepared in the following words, —
" And the condemning clauses (viz. in
the Athanasian Creed) are to be under-
stood as relating only to those who obstin-
ately deny the substance of the Christian
faith."
It is no hard matter for witty men to
put very perverse senses on Scripture to
favour their heretical doctrines, and to
defend them with sucli sophistry as shall
easily impose upon unlearned and unthink-
ing men ; and the best way in this case is,
to have recourse to the ancient faith of
the Christian Church, to learn from thence
how these articles were understood and
professed by them; for we cannot but
think, that those who conversed with the
apostles, and did not only receive the
Scriptures, but the sense and interpret-
ation of them, from the apostles, or apos-
tolical men, understood the true Christian
faith much better than those at a farther
remove ; and therefore, as long as we can
reasonably suppose this tradition to be
preserved in the Church, their authority
is very venerable. — Sherlock on the Trinity.
These contentions were cause of much
evil, yet some good the Church hath
rea])ed by them, in tliat they occasioned
the learned and sound in failh to explain
such things as heresy went about to de-
prave. And in this respect the Creed of
Athanasius, concerning that truth which
Arianism so mightily did impugn, was
GO
ATHANASIAN CREED.
both in the East and West Churches ac-
cepted as a treasure of inestimable price,
by as many as had not <riven up even the
very gliost of belief. Tliat Avhich heresy
did'bV sinister interi)retations go about to
pervert in the first and most ancient apos-
tolical creed, tlie same being by singular
dexterity and plainness cleared from those
heretical corrujitions, partly by this creed
of Athanasius. These catholic declarations
of our belief, delivered by them who ^vere
so much nearer than Ave are unto the first
pid)lication thereof, and continuing need-
ful for all men at all times to know, these
confessions, as testimonies of our con-
tinuance in the same faith to this present
day, we rather use than any other gloss or
paraphrase devised by ourselves, which,
though it were to the same effect, notAvith-
standing could not be of the like authority
and credit. — Hooker.
The doctrinal part of the creed has been
called a "bulwark;" and if it be main-
tained, it should be maintained as a fortifi-
cation. In time of peace, the inconvenience
of keeping up fortifications occasions their
being sometimes neglected, but when war
breaks out afresh, every one is clamorous
in blaming the imprudence of such neg-
lect. If we are at peace now with the
powers which would attack us where our
creed would be our defence, we are always
liable to be at war with them again. We
have seen how naturally all the heresies
condemned in the creed' arise, when men
once become eager in solving the diffi-
culties of the Trinity and the incarnation ;
and such eagerness might at any time
arise, or any revolution, or great disturb-
ance, or confusion ; and in case of renewed
attacks, our present creed would be a
much better defence than any new one
that would be made at the time it was
wanted. — Jlei/^s Lectures.
AVhat the consequence may be, should
we part with our creed, may easily be in-
ferred from what followed upon the drop-
ping a single word (co/tsuhstantial, or, as
expressed in our English creed, "being of
one substance with the Father") out
of the [Nicene] creed at the Council of
Ariminura. The Catholics, being deceived
by the great and earnest importunity of
the Arians for unity and peace, were at
last prevailed upon. The word consxih-
stantial was left out ; and the Arians
boasted over all the world, that the Ni-
cene faith was condemned and Arianism
established in a general council. It is
candour, when good Catholics are divided
abou^ words, to bring them to a right
understanding of one another, which will
get them at peace and unity again. But
it is tameness to give up the main bul-
warks of the faith to fallacious adversaries
and designing men, whose arts and aims,
however disguised, are always knoAvn to
strike at the foundation of religion. —
Binf/ham and Wheatly.
To the sceptic, the Arian, and the Soci-
nian, we do not expect to find such a creed
acceptable, because it was designed to re-
strain the fantastic and pernicious opinions
started on their part upon the subjects
contained in it. But every firm and steady
believer may still, and indeed ought to,
hold high the value of the only creed deli-
vered to us from antiquity, wliich states
that first and great principle of Christian
revelation, the importance and necessity of
a just faith. Upon us, the ministers of the
Church, especially, it is incumbent, as oc-
casions off"er, to explain and illustrate its
design and uses to the more unlearned, as
Avell as to obviate the crude exceptions
made against its doctrines or language, to
derive its due weight of authority from the
venerable antiquity of its origin, and to
draw^ an argument of its merits from the
universal approbation with which it has
been received. AVho would not tremble
at the proposal of laying waste a fence,
which in any degree hath afforded pro-
tection to w^hat was obtained for us at so
inestimable a price ; and of inviting, by a
voluntary surrender of our present secur-
ity, renewed instances of insult, in repeat-
ed and incessant attacks to be made upon
the temis and obligations of our Christian
covenant ? — ^^:». Cleaver.
There are no kinds of heretics but hope
to make the vulgar understand their tenets
respectively, and to draw them aside from
the received faith of the Church: and,
therefore, it behoves the pastors of the
Church to have a standing form to guard
the people against any such attempts.
The Christian Churches throughout the
world, ever since the multiplication of
heresies, have thought it necessary to
guard their people by some such forms as
these in standing use amongst them. And
they are not so much afraid of puzzling
and perplexing the vulgar by doing it, as
they are of betraying and exposing them
to the attempts of seducers, should they
not do it. The common people will be in
no danger of running either into Sabel-
lianism, or tritheism, if they attend to the
Creed itself, (which fully obviates and con-
futes both those heresies,) instead of listen-
ing to those who fh'st industriously labour
to deceive them into a false construction
of the Creed, and then complain of the
ATHANASIAN CREED.
ATONEMENT.
67
common people's being too apt to misun-
derstand it. — Waterhind.
Those in authority should be very cau-
tious how they give in to such schemes as,
under the plausible pretence of pruning
our vine, and reforming things in their
OAvn nature indifferent and alterable, "would
by degrees overturn our -whole establish-
ment. — Randolph on the Trinihf.
We may, perhaps, be reminded, that
some of our own most sanguine friends
have wished to expunge it. But one of
them lived to retract his opinion, and a
friend of truth is not to be overawed by
authority, however respectable, nor si-
lenced by popular clamour. — Croft.
So long as there shall be any men left
to oppose the doctrines w'liich this Creed
contains, so long will it be expedient, and
even necessary, to continue the use of it,
in order to preserve the rest ; and, I sup-
pose, when Ave have none remaining to
find fault with the doctrines, there will be
none to object against the use of the Creed,
or so much as to wish to have it laid aside.
— JVaterland, Ath. Creed.
"\Miatever may be pretended, this is not
a controversy about some metaphysical
abstract notions of personality, subsistence,
or moral distinctions in the Divine nature ;
in these there will be always room left for
different speculations and sentiments. It
is not a controversy about forms, but it is
a controversy about the very object of re-
ligious worship. Should there be a falling
away from this profession, should there be
a denpng of the Lord that bought us, or
of the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier and
Comforter, disowning them to be truly
and properly by nature God, of the same
essence and eternity as the Father, and
with him the one God, not three Gods,
with too much reason it might be said, the
glory is departed from us, whether dis-
senters or of the Established Church, that
hath been counted the head and great sup-
port of the Protestant Churches. Should
we, or they, thus fall, those Protestants,
whose confessions we have mentioned, yea,
and all Christians abroad, must, upon their
professed principles, renounce us as not
holding the head. — London Minister^ Cases,
Trinity.
The Creed of Athanasius, and that sacred
hymn of glory, than which nothing doth
sound more heavenly in the ears of faithful
men, are now reckoned as superfluities
which we must in any case pare av/ay, lest
we cloy God with too much service. Yet
cause sufficient there is why both should
remain in use ; the one as a most divine
explication of the chiefest articles of our
F 2
Christian belief, the other as an heavenly
acclamation of joyful applause to his praises
in whom we believe. Neither the one nor
the other unworthy to be heard sounding,
as they are, in the Church of Christ, whe-
ther Arianism live or die. — Hooker. For
a detailed justification of the Athanasian
Creed, see Redcliffe on the Athanasian
Creed.
It is appointed to be said in the Church
of England on the gi'eat festivals, and on
certain holidays, in place of the Apostles*
Creed, at Morning Prayer. So that it
may be said once a month at least. —
Sparrow. Whcathf.
This Creed is called in the Iloman offices
the Psalm, Quicunque vult, and was printed
for antiphonal chanting, as it is now re-
cited in our choirs ; being alternated, like
the Psalms between minister and people
in parish churches. The right notion that
a creed is also a song of thanksgiving is
thus significantly cherished. It has been
objected to the Church of England, that
she has disingenuously attributed this Creed
to St. Athanasius : whereas in fact she has
not decided the question. It is called in-
deed the Creed of St. Athanasius in the
rubric before the Apostles' Creed ; but
that is plainly an abbreviated term for the
full designation prefixed to the Creed
itself, "this confession of our Christian
faith, commonly called the Creed of Saint
Athanasius.'" And even the running head-
ing does not so designate it. The words
" the Creed of Saint Athaimsiiis" was de-
liberately altered by the correctors of the
sealed books for "at Morning Prayer,"
the present heading, in which, as in all
other corrections, the authentic copy was
followed. See the fac-simile of the cor-
rected sealed books in Stephens's Book of
Common Prayer with notes. The same
remark may apply to the designation in
the 8th Article, Athanasius's Creed.
ATHEIST. (From a and eioc, without
God.) One who denies the being and
moral government of God. There have
been but few atheists in the strict sense of
the word, under any system, and at any
time. Some few perhaps still remain, and
adopt the system of Spinosa, which sup-
poses the universe to be one vast substance,
impelled to all its movements by some in-
ternal force, which operates by a blind and
irresistible necessity.
The heathen, who vied with heretics in
giving names of op])robrium to true Chris-
tians, called the primitive Christians Athe-
ists, because they did not worship their
gods.
ATONEMENT. (See Propitiation, Co-
68
ATONEMENT.
tenant of Redemption, Sacrifice, and Jesus
Christ.) The word atonement signifies
the satisfvinf? of Divine justice, as men-
tioned in' the Article on the Covenant of
liedemi)tion. The etvmolofjy of the word
conveys the idea of two parties, previously
at variance, ])eing set at uue aj^ain, and
hence at-oue-ment, from originally signify-
ing reconciliation, comes, by a natural me-
tonvmv, to denote that by -svhich the re-
conciliation is effected. The doctrine of
the atonement is thus stated by the Church :
" The Sox, which is the Word of the Fa-
ther, begotten from everlasting of the
Father, the very and eternal God, and of
one substance with the Father, took
man's nature in the womb of the blessed
Virgin, of her substance; so that two
whole and jjerfect natures, that is to say,
the Godhead and Manhood, were joined
together in one person, never to be divided,
whereof is one Christ, very God andvery
Man ; who truly suffered, was crucified,
dead and buried]! to reconcile his Father
to us, and to be a sacrifice, not only for
original guilt, but also for actual sins of
mew:'— Article 2.
That our blessed Lord suffered is suffi-
ciently clear from Scripture, and that it
was not for himself, but for us, that this
GoD-man lived so sorrowfully, and died
60 painfully, the Scripture is full and clear :
and not only in general, that it was for
our sakes he did it ; but, in particular, it
was for the reconciling his Father to us,
and to purchase the pardon of our sins for
us, — expressly telling us, that "he hath
reconciled both (Jew and Gentile) unto
God, in one body, by the cross, having
slain the enmity thereby." (Eph. ii. 16.)
♦' Yea, when we were enemies, we were
reconciled to God by the death of his Son."