I dare not guess; but in this life
Of
error, ignorance, and strife,

Where nothing is, but all things seem,
And we the shadows of the dream,

It is a modest creed, and yet
Pleasant, if one considers it,
To own that death itself must be,
Like all the rest, a mockery.

That garden sweet, that lady fair,
And all sweet shapes and odours there,
In truth have never passed away;

'Tis we, 'tis ours, are changed! not they.

For love, and beauty, and delight,

There is no death nor change; their might
Exceeds our organs, which endure

No light, being themselves obscure."

C. H.

Periodical Literature.

DEAN STANLEY, in an article in the Nineteenth Century, entitled "The Creeds of the Early Christians," proposes to examine into the meaning of the sacred names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The Dean considers that in the Bible, and in the experience of thoughtful men, the name of The Father expresses to us in one word the whole faith of what we call Natural Religion. Creation, as anterior to and distinct from Revelation, contains evidence of the being and the fatherhood of God. "We look around the physical world; and we see indications of order, design, and goodwill towards the living creatures which animate it; and the impression left upon us is the sense of a Single, Wise, Beneficent Mind, the same now that it was ages before the appearance of man-the same in other parts of the universe as it is in our own. And in our own hearts and consciences we feel an instinct corresponding to this-a voice, a faculty, that seems to refer us to a Higher Power than ourselves, and that seems to point to some Invisible Sovereign Will, like to that which we see impressed on the natural world. And, further, the more we think of the Supreme, the more we try to imagine what His feelings are towards us, the more our idea of Him becomes fixed in the one simple, all-embracing word that He is Our Father. To be assured that there is one above us whose praise is above all human praise-who sees us as we really are-who has our welfare at heart in all the various dispensations that befall us-whose wide-embracing justice

...

and long-suffering and endurance we all may strive to obtain-this is the foundation with which everything in all subsequent religion must be made to agree. To strive to be perfect as our Father is perfect is the greatest effort which the human soul can place before itself. To repose upon His perfection in sorrow and weakness is the greatest support which it can have in making those efforts. This is the expression of Natural Religion. This is the revelation of God the Father."

It may be assumed that the Dean gives Nature credit for a good deal more than she is able to teach, or man, unassisted by revelation, is able to learn. There is, however, an inward as well as an outward revelation. And the inward revelation preceded the outward, and was, to uncorrupted human nature, all that Nature is supposed to be capable of teaching.

But the writer proceeds to consider what is meant by the name of the Son. "It has often happened," he says, "that the conception of Natural Religion becomes faint and dim." Quoting Dr. Newman, who has said that the being of a God is as certain to him as the certainty of his own existence; yet when he looks out of himself into the world of men, he sees a sight which fills him with unspeakable distress; he asks, "How is this difficulty to be met? How shall we regain in the world of men the idea which the world of Nature has suggested to us? How shall the dim remembrance of our Universal Father be so brought home to us as that we shall not forget or lose it? This is the object of the Second Sacred Name by which God is revealed to us. As in the name of the Father we have Natural Religion—the faith of natural conscience-so in the name of the Son we have Historical Religion, or the Faith of the Christian Church. As 'the Father' represents to us God in Nature, God in the heavenly, the ideal world—so the name of the Son represents to us God in History, God in the character of man, God, above all, in the Person of Jesus Christ.

The Mahometan rightly objects to the introduction of the paternal and filial relations into the idea of God, when they are interpreted in their gross and literal sense. But in the moral and spiritual sense it is true that the kindness, tenderness, and wisdom that we find in Jesus Christ is the reflection of the same kindness, tenderness, and wisdom that we recognise in the government of the universe. His life is the word, the speech that comes out of that eternal silence which surrounds the Unseen Divinity. If in Christ the highest virtues are exalted to their highest pitch, this is intended to tell us that in the Divine Nature the same virtues are still to be found, not less exalted. To believe in the name of Christ, in the name of the Son, is to believe that God is above all other qualities a Moral Being a Being not merely of power and wisdom, but a Being of tender compassion, of boundless charity, of discriminating tenderness. To believe in the name of Christ is to believe that no other approach to God exists except through those same qualities of justice, truth, and love which make up the mind of Christ.

"But there is yet a third manifestation of God. As the name of the Father represents to us God in Nature, as the name of the Son represents to us God in History, so the name of the Holy Ghost represents to us God in our own hearts and spirits and consciences. This is the still, small voice-stillest and smallest, yet loudest and strongest of all-which, even more than the wonders of Nature or the wonders of History, brings us into the nearest harmony with Him who is a Spirit—who, when His closest connection with man is described, can only be described as the Spirit pleading with, and dwelling in, our spirit."

Having given what he believes to be the significance of the three sacred names considered apart, the writer proceeds to consider what is to be learned from their being made the summary of religion. They express to us the comprehensiveness and diversity of the Divine Essence. To acknowledge this triple form of revelation, to acknowledge this complex aspect of the Deity, as it runs through the multitudinous expressions of the Bible-saves, as it were, the awe, the reverence due to the Almighty Ruler of the universe, tends to preserve the balance of truth from any partial or polemical bias, presents to us not a meagre, fragmentary view of only one part of the Divine Mind, but a wide, catholic summary of the whole, as far as nature, history, and experience permit.

In these three most sacred words there is yet, besides all the other meanings which we have found in them, the deepest and most sacred meaning of all—that which corresponds to them in the life of man. Wherever we are taught to know and understand the real nature of the world in which our lot is cast, there is a testimony, however humble, to the name of the Father; wherever we are taught to know and admire the highest and best of human excellences, there is a testimony to the name of the Son; wherever there is implanted in us a principle of freedom, purity, and love, there is a testimony to the name of the Holy Ghost.

The chief value of this article of Dean Stanley's is its raising the thoughts out of the gross conception of Tripersonality in regard to the Deity. He considers the sacred names of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to describe or represent the Divine Being, not as to any actual distinction in the Divine Nature, as it is in itself, but as it is in relation to us. There is, indeed, a sense in which the Father is the Creator, the Son is the Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit is the Regenerator; but this arises from a distinction in the Divine Being Himself—the Father being the Eternal Divinity, the Son the Divine Humanity, and the Holy Spirit the Divine Proceeding. This is a view of the Trinity which the Dean does not take, and will not, we suppose, admit. He remarks that the Trinity is never spoken of in the New Testament as a mystery; but he would regard any such distinction in God as implying a knowledge transcending the human understanding. He is strongly opposed to anthropomorphic notions of the Deity. He would not, therefore, favour the doctrine that God is very Man, and that the whole Godhead

dwells in the person of Jesus Christ. If his teaching does not directly inculcate this idea, it helps, at least, to lead the minds of his readers up to it, by drawing them away from the crude and material notions which most Christians entertain respecting the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as being three distinct persons in the Godhead, each singly and by himself God and Lord.

The British Quarterly is, if not unusually rich, at least unusually abundant in articles bearing on religion. First, there is an article on Father Cruei's new translation of the Gospels. The fact itself of this translation is a hopeful sign. There was already an Italian version of the Bible, but it had been left behind by the progress of the age. Father Cruei's is intended to supply a want which that progress has created. It seems too voluminous and expensive to be within the reach of the common people, but it would appear to be much wanted among the priesthood. His work is not a translation only, but a commentary also, and is intended for the clergy who teach, still more than for the laity who learn. Indifference to religion is the prevailing state of the Italian people, and this is in a great measure caused by the ignorance of the clergy. Here is the testimony of Father Cruei himself: "The New Testament is the book of all others the least studied and the least read among us. So much so that the bulk of the laity-even those who believe, they have been instructed, and profess religion-is not aware that such a book exists in the world; and the greater part of the clergy themselves scarcely know more of it than they are compelled to read in the Breviary and the Missal."

Religion and Morality is the subject of another article, in which it is maintained that religion expresses our relation to God, and morality our relation to man. The two are connected. They are placed together in the Decalogue, one table teaching our relation to God, the other our relation to man. The writer states, what Swedenborg asserts, that the moral laws of the Decalogue existed before they were delivered from Sinai, but he does not seem to see the reason of their promulgation as Divine laws-to give these human laws the sanction of Divine authority, and thus make their observance a matter of religious obligation.

An article on "Evolution, viewed in relation to Theology," is an attempt to reconcile evolution with religion. The principle of Evolution, as taught by Darwin, is admitted, but Darwin's explanation is denied. An attempt is made to explain evolution in the kingdom of nature by what is analogous to it in the kingdom of grace. Something of the principle of correspondence between the natural world and the spiritual is thus hinted at. As man becomes a new creature by receiving a new spirit-by the transforming power of the Holy Spirit-so new creatures are produced by the transforming power of Divine intelligence. But as the article in which this is advanced is a review, theory will be better considered in a notice of the book itself, which will be given in a future number. Meantime we quote the writer's remarks on the connection of science and religion :—

the

"We will not repeat the barren truism that science and religion ought not to be at variance. It is not a mere neutrality that we wish to see existing between them, but an alliance of the closest and the best. Enlightened theologians are aware how great is the importance, how pressing the duty, of conferring with devout inquirers into life and law. Faith derives new strength, and vastly higher range, when she equips herself with the clearest insight and the most accurate knowledge of the thinker and the observer. To seekers of that ampler and Divine truth which it is the privilege of some men to thirst after, faithful workers in the field are like Virgil in the immortal poet's dream. They lead upward and upward, guiding, elucidating, strengthening. A point comes where their human wisdom no longer suffices, but where the toiling souls whom they have led so long find themselves on the frontier of a new revelation; for at hand, coming to meet them, is that celestial wisdom, that summa theologia, which indeed comes down out of heaven from God-down to enlighten the humbled—but who blesses with special favour those who have sought her in her own higher places of moral victory or severest intellectual toil. They, indeed, in the foretaste of Divine joy, find the one true 'terrestrial paradise."

Correspondence.

To the Editor of the "Intellectual Repository."

THE BIRMINGHAM CREED.

WHAT is a creed? It is a summary of belief, and should therefore present in a comprehensive form the essentials of doctrine held by the members of the Church. Whilst it is desirable to avoid in a creed all doubtful questions, it is not desirable to make it a series of platitudes or a mere skeleton.

The elements of a creed are to be found in the fundamental or leading doctrines. These stated clearly and comprehensively are quite sufficient for the purposes of organization; for no creed can be so comprehensive as to prevent differences of opinion; and if it were, its utility would be questionable, for differences of opinion lead to intellectual activity and may be promotive of religious life.

There are many who think the present Creed too militant and dogmatic, but it has one recommendation-it is brief. I should have said brief and clear if the first clause had not included so much that only by a