cannot acquiesce in anything. True religion, on the contrary, by setting forth a future world to be evolved out of men's moral and spiritual exertions and experiences here creates that spirit of divine patience, self-sacrifice, and above all, self-control, which can die at least as bravely as the other, and leave with its parting breath, and in its abiding moral influences, a blessing and not a curse behind it. And as the belief in immortality confronts the revolutionary spirit with the power of patience, so does it breathe hope into the spirit of despair. What turns some natures to madness causes others to retire heart-broken from all conflicts and labours that have humanity for their object, and produces the feeling that in Pagan times found its last and most mournful expression in self-destruction. Suicide, then too often the last and applauded action of noble minds, has become in Christian days the meanest and most despised resource of the weak and feeble, and this contrast measures the extent of the practical good that religion has done for morality in setting forth a life to come. Napoleon's final reason for not committing suicide after his abdication is a curious illustration of this-" Moreover," he said, "I am not altogether destitute of religious sentiment." If humanity, and each man that comprises it, is to be developed through many stages, then the work of each stage becomes inexpressibly important, and to abandon it is to abandon the future as well. But if all ends here, and failure here means failure absolute and perpetual, then I know not what should prevent a man who has clearly realized what failure is from saying with Brutus, at Philippi, “Certainly, we must fly, but with our hands, and not with our feet."

It is necessary to make one more remark, or rather to repeat one already made, before I close. The case for immortality may have seemed so strong as to suggest the possibility of dispensing with positive evidence, as though the Resurrection could not make it much more certain than it is. Now this is a state of mind with which it is incumbent upon science to wage incessant warfare. Wherever the positive evidence is nil, that is, where no instance of the conclusion desired can be adduced, then the more vehement, universal, and what is called "natural," the desire is, the more certain is it that men are the victims of their own delusions, the more likely they are to allow themselves to form erroneous conceptions of life and work, the more imperatively it becomes the duty of positive thought to warn them against the evil results of believing what they wish to believe. If a thing be true, there must have been some instance sufficient to establish it as a fact throughout the course of ages; failing this, immortality sinks to the level of the elixir of life or the philosopher's stone, a thing much desired, but having no existence in the solid ground of fact, and a fruitful source of mis

leading errors and misdirected labours. Or at best, it might be admitted to be possibly true, if it were debarred from exercising any vital influence upon human conduct. I am, of course, well aware that the same remark in an altered form may be applied to the evidence afforded by Christianity, and the assertion that men believe the Resurrection only because they wish to believe it is one that may be fairly made and must be honestly met. But then there

upon the solid

is no reason why it should not be met; we are here ground of events and evidence; we can discover for ourselves who are the witnesses, what they say, and whether they are dressing up a tale to satisfy their own desires for a future life. To believe a fact for which there is not a scintilla of positive evidence, because we desire it, is one thing; to believe the evidence for a fact, because we desire it, is another and very different thing. The former must be scientifically wrong; the latter may or may not be right; and time is the only ultimate arbiter in the contest. I may, however, possibly take an opportunity of recurring to the relations of Christianity with the hope of a life to come.

I have now brought to a close this rapid, and I fear I must add, perfunctory survey of the conditions and circumstances of human life as they bear upon man's desire for immortality. I have taken the best pains I could to draw my conclusions from indubitable facts of human experience and consciousness by a process of reasoning which would satisfy the demands of the logic of science. What I think I have proved is this: that it is in accordance with man's natural instincts, and with the necessities of morality, that he should desire a life to come; and that, this being so, he will welcome, in spite of its indispensable supernatural element, the evidence of historical fact which purports to prove it, and so attempts to rescue humanity from a maimed, unnatural, and lifeless condition. Much that has been said may appear trite enough, but it has been placed, I hope, under a new light, and been read under the influences of those mental conceptions and that theory of the universe which the doctrine of evolution has made familiar to the minds of men. In such cases details are everything, and to work out the details may afford labour and satisfaction to the science of religion for years to come. But this will be impossible so long as religion and science. remain apart in a defiant and disdainful attitude, more anxious to spy out defects than to combine the truths special to each in one harmonious perfection. Any attempt, therefore, to apply the methods of science to the subject-matter of religion, and thus to bridge the gulf between the two, will be, I feel certain, candidly judged, if seen to have been candidly made.

T. W. FOWLE.

THE EIGHTH ARTICLE.

Τ

IT is not our intention on this occasion to re-enter on the general

question of the Athanasian Creed.* Other opportunities will occur for this.

But there is one episode in the controversy which may be conveniently cleared away, and it is the more important to do so, because it involves the revival of a larger question which, it was to be hoped, had become practically extinct. We refer to the use occasionally made by some eager disputants of the language of the Eighth Article, "On the Three Creeds."

The whole of the English Episcopate (by implication) have echoed the voice of the vast majority of the clergy and people of England, that the Athanasian Creed contains passages

* I have neither time nor inclination to engage in the personalities which have formed a chief part of the arguments that have been used in this matter. There is one honourable exception, to which I gladly refer the essay, as courteous in tone as it was interesting in substance, by Mr. Garden in the pages of this Review," On the Word Person." Without at present entering on this particular question, I will here content myself with saying, that so far as the main drift of my argument is concerned, it is enough to find it admitted on all sides that "the term 'Person' cannot be employed to denote the distinctions in the Godhead without considerable intellectual caution." On the general question I have nothing to change or modify, except so far as the Carlovingian date and composite character of the present form of the Creed— established by the researches of Mr. Ffoulkes and Professor Swainson-have released us from the necessity of discussing the various hypotheses of earlier authorships.

which in their plain and literal sense no one at the present day believes. The Cambridge Professors of Divinity have confirmed this declaration by their recommendation that these passages should be removed from the Creed. The Oxford Professors have confirmed it (less directly but not less powerfully) by recommending that a note should be added to the Creed, explaining that these passages either do not mean what they are commonly supposed to mean, or else mean nothing at all.

In the face of these various movements, it has been alleged that the English Clergy are estopped against expressing any dissent from any part of the Creed by the Article which declares that "The Three Creeds, Nicene Creed, Athanasius's Creed, and that which is commonly called the Apostles' Creed, ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture." Whether the words of the Article, strictly speaking, may not, as an eminent Prelate has observed, admit of another interpretation, we do not pretend to inquire. We will assume here, for argument's sake, that they express the most complete adhesion to every word of the Creed that its most ardent admirers would demand. But in that case, we remark that if the principle is to be adopted of thus enforcing every expression of this and the other Articles, a new yoke is imposed on the Clergy, which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear, and which a few years ago we believed had been for ever shaken off.

Let us look at the facts of the case.

It is alleged that no clergyman is at liberty to contradict any part of this Article. Such a statement when expresed in detail amounts to this: No clergyman is entitled to contradict the assertion of the Article that the Creed is what the Article calls it, in the most emphatic manner, "Athanasius's Creed." Dr. Waterland, Mr. Harvey, Mr. Ffoulkes, are all alike silenced; for the Eighth Article, while it allows that the Apostles' Creed is not the work of the Apostles, declares that this is "Athanasius's;" and therefore to ascribe it to Hilary, Victricius, or Paulinus is alike inadmissible. No clergyman is entitled to say that the Creed contains, as Bishop Jeremy Taylor and many others have held, "opinions speculative, curiosities of interpretation, and minute particularities, things which ought never to have been made articles of faith." The Article (if it be intended to enforce on the English clergy the absolute truth of every part of the Creed) unquestionably asserts the everlasting perdition of the whole Eastern Church, which denies the Procession "from the Son;' and of Bishop Bull and Bishop Pearson, who denied that "in this Trinity none is afore or after other; none is greater or less than another;" and of those who have re-translated the 19th

clause because they think, with Professor Swainson, that it "savours of heresy." All these things the Article, on this theory of its obligation, binds for ever on the consciences of the English clergy.

We repeat that into the truth or falsehood of these statements of the Article,-into the question, for example, whether it is right in asserting that Bull and Pearson "shall without doubt perish everlastingly," we do not here inquire. We merely repeat the argument of those who maintain that all the assertions of the Article must be literally and fully received by every clergyman.

If this be so, then all the freedom which used to be tacitly assumed, and in the Clerical Subscription Act was solemnly guaranteed by the Legislature, is to be extinguished.

I. In the old times, before the beginning of this century, it was generally argued, as the defence of the existing system, that the subscription was to be taken in a liberal sense, and that the Articles were Articles of Peace. When, in 1792, they were first imposed on the Episcopal Church of Scotland,—

"The Primus answered to the English Bishops that he believed the Scottish clergy had no objections to the general doctrine of the Articles, although they might not approve of some particular expressions; but he objected to their being required to subscribe them as the 'Articles of the Church of England.' It was said, in reply, that it was only the general doctrine of the Articles to which subscription was required even in England; and that they might be subscribed by the Scottish clergy, in proof of their wish to be considered in communion with the English Church."

"Certain expressions in the Thirty-nine Articles were objected to by some of the Scottish clergy as admitting an interpretation opposed to the teaching of the Church. The Primus himself was of opinion that some explanations were proper, to show that the Scottish Church rejected the Calvinistic interpretation of the Seventeenth and Twenty-fifth Articles, and to mark in what sense she was willing to receive the Thirty-fifth, Thirtysixth, and Thirty-seventh." *

On this general understanding only they were adopted by the Scottish Episcopalians, as on this general understanding only they had been continued in the Church of England. Such a contradiction between the actual usage and the stringent forms of the subscription may have been highly inexpedient and misleading, and many attempts (bappily at last successful) were made to remove it; but meanwhile it was the only condition on which the usage could be maintained at all.

II. When again in later days, Tract XC. was published as an expression of the sense in which alone the subscription of the High Church Clergy could be made, the same latitude was claimed for the interpretation or rather negation of some of the most

* Grub, Eccles. History of Scotland, iv. 108, 116.