LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
MR. MACCOLL ON THE ATHANASIAN CREED.
[TO Tas Eorros or ma "Srsoraxoun you kindly allow me to make my meaning somewhat 'snore clear on some of the points to which you have taken exception in your able and kindly review of my little book on the Athanasian 'Creed ?
You are in error in supposing that I "threaten to abandon the National Church" if the use of the Athanasian Creed is made optional. It would indeed ill become one so insignificant as my- self to utter any threat of that kind, and I trust that I am not so conceited as to think that anybody, except myself, would be affected by my retirement from the National Church. I have, however, no intention of retiring from the National Church. But if the use of the Athanasian Creed were made optional, I should certainly feel constrained to retire from the ministry. Are .you not a little too hard upon me when you characterise this 'resolution of mine as "unreasonable and intolerant"? You lave done full justice to the intensity of my convictions on this subject. While I hold these convictions I could not become a party to the policy of proclaiming to the world that the doctrines contained in the Athanasian Creed are a matter of individual option. Those who advocate that policy have de- nounced the Athanasian Creed as "uncharitable," "barbarous," "untrue," and even "heretical." To meet that challenge by making the use of the Creed optional, is simply to label those who may still continue its use as "uncharitable, "barbarous," indifferent to truth, and "heretical." I decline to be placed in such a position.
But further, consider the practical results of such policy. You think me "unreasonable and intolerant " for saying that I would rather lay down my commission than be a party to the optional we of the Athanasian Creed. Suppose, however, that you were a parishioner of mine. Would you be more reconciled to the use of the Creed when it was imposed upon you by the whim of my private judgment, than you are when it is imposed by the collective authority of the Church? As matters now stand, the clergy of the Church of England are allowed considerable latitude in the pulpit ; but they are not at liberty to impose a single article of faith on their flocks. Allow the use of the Athanasian Creed to
be optional, and you simply make every pariah priest in England a little Pope in his own parish. The laity are to receive from him, and not from the Church, the articles of their belief. In one pariah, where the laity are all in favour of the Athanaaian Creed, the parson will refuse to use it. In another, where perhaps a majority of the laity are against the Creed, the parson will insist on its use. Would not such a scheme be certain to bring "not peace, but a sword?" And is it, after all, "unreasonable and intolerant" to decline to be placed in an intolerable position? It seems to me, in fact, that the intolerance is the other way. At present, not a single layman is obliged to recite the Athanasian Creed. Yet a portion of the laity are agitating in favour of a law to deprive the vast majority of the use of a creed which has been familiar to them from childhood, and which they have found edifying. Is this reasonable?
I feel very grateful to you for dealing so leniently with my book. It was written very hurriedly, and sent off to the printer by instalments, so that I had no opportunity of reading it as a whole till it was published. This is my excuse for its many im- perfections. When I said, for instance, that "I would rather see a people in possession of the true faith and given over to immorality, than in possession of a false faith or of no faith at all and living morally," what I had in my mind was this,—I contemplated the possibility of a people in possession of the true faith apostatising. It is conceivable that the morality which a true faith had given them might live for some time after the faith itself had perished. But it would not survive long ; and when it vanished, there would be no means of reviving it except by the restoration of the faith. On the other hand, a people in possession of the true faith, but living in violation of its precepts, have the remedy at hand, and are therefore in a more hopeful condition than those who have abandoned the faith. As Mr. J. S. Mill has observed, in the striking passage which I have quoted, "When this forgetful- ness has reached its height, and begins to produce obvious con- sequences, minds arise which, from the contemplation of the formulas, rediscover the truth which was contained in them, and announce it again to mankind, not as a discovery, but as the meaning of that which they have been taught, and still profess to believe."
I will not trespass longer on your space at present. But let me express a hope that admiration for the Athanasian Creed is not an exclusive mark of "a High Churchman." Mr. Maurice and Dr. Donaldson are instances to the contrary, and I know several Low Churchmen and some Nonconformists who feel as strongly in favour of the Creed as I do myself.
I ought to have apologised for criticising so freely the opinions of some eminent persons who are superior to me both as scholars and as Christians. I have done it under a constraining sense of duty, and I hope they will forgive me.—I am, Sir, &c.,
MALCOLM MACCOLL.
[It seems to us a very eccentric view to assert that to make the use of the Athanasian Creed optional labels those who value it, and who continue to use it, with the epithets applied to it by the Creed's opponents. That is like the reasoning of those who say that when it was decided by the Privy Council that either the High-Church or the Low-Church interpretation of the baptismal service is admissible, all those who had held the High-Church view were branded with the scornful epithets previously applied to them by the Low. The optional use of the Creed would mean simply this,—that the Church does not regard any article in the Creed as false, but thinks the question of its fitness for use in public worship one that should be decided by the individual judgments of the clergy of individual parishes. We regret our error as to Mr. MaccolPs intended course in case the option should be granted.— ED. Spectator.]
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