think I had overlooked it. But it is faith in its outward aspect which claims our attention now. We judge no one. We condemn no one. But we must set forth in its terrors as in its most blessed promises, the truth of God. The whole question of excuses, palliations, and the like, I leave for future discussion. It can never be thoroughly resolved but before the Judge's throne. Let us grasp with our whole heart Christ in His offices as the Mediator whom God has chosen, and through evil report and good report, hold fast even to the end that "Catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved."

LECTURE II.

The Athanasian Doctrine of the Trinity.

I COR. ii. 7.-"But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery."

HESE words, written by S. Paul

about the Incarnation of the Son

of God may with fitness be applied to our subject for this evening, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as expounded in the Athanasian Creed. This is indeed a mystery

-a fearful, awful subject: and yet belief in the truth of this doctrine, if, as I shall hope to show, it be a doctrine revealed in Scripture, is necessary to everlasting salvation. Let us approach it with deepest reverence,

and pray to be preserved from sin in handling it. Certain preliminary cautions should be stated first: cautions useful for two purposes-first, to solemnise our hearts; and secondly, to assist our belief.

i. Let our first caution be this:-We cannot hope to understand, and human language cannot hope to express, anything approaching to the whole truth about the nature of that God whom we worship. It is not merely that such words as 'Person' and 'Substance' puzzle us-or 'Trinity,' or 'Coeternal,' or 'Incomprehensible.' The simple terms 'Father' and 'Son' altogether fail to express that sublime relation in which God the Father and Jesus Christ have stood to one another through all eternity. We see this the moment we proceed to argue upon them. For it is a part of our very idea of parentage that the son should be younger than his father. But with God we know this

is not so. The fact about God's nature is this. The words used in Holy Scripture and in the Creeds to describe it, are the nearest to the truth which can be set before us. They are true as far as they go, and they are the highest truth which we are able to receive.

ii. Our second caution follows naturally. As we cannot understand God's nature and mode of being, and yet are required to believe, we must be careful not to make our understanding at all a measure of our belief. We must accept the Almighty as He is pleased to reveal Himself. We can never argue His nature any more than His character, from what we should expect it to be, seeing that to the limit of our own intelligence, yea and far beyond it, He has told us what it is. For instance. You cannot say that God being perfectly just and merciful is inconsistent with the hereditary trans

mission of guilt among the sons of men. That transmission is a plain fact, attested at once by Scripture and by experience: and yet God is just, and God is merciful. In like manner, we may not say that if God be essentially One, there cannot be in that one essence Three Persons, if He has distinctly taught us that there are such Three Persons. The whole question is matter of revelation, not of reasoning: to be grasped by belief, not by understanding.

iii. My third caution has reference specially to the detailed statements of the Athanasian Creed. They are not to be taken, as people persistently misinterpret them, for so much positive truth, every word of which must be apprehended and accepted by every one, however unskilled and illiterate, on pain of everlasting damnation. The great doctrines to be accepted are those of the Trinity and the Incarnation. These detailed clauses are