MR. BREWER ON THE ATIIA.NA.SIAN CREED.

MR. J. S. BREWER, Honorary Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, Preacher at the Rolls, one of the ablest of the professors of King's College, London, learned historian, ardent and pertinacious apologist for the departed Protestant Establishment in Ireland, and finally, for the present day at least, a bitter contro- versialist, has come forward with a learned and very sharp-tempered essay in answer to Dean Stanley's attack on the Athanasian Creed, and in enthusiastic sympathy with that not very popular symbol. Indeed, it is one of Mr. Brewer's merits or defects, or both, as the case may be, that he is seldom quite happy unless he is defending what is unpopular and inveighing against what is popular, and that even then, if we may judge by his style, his happiness is of that somewhat severe kind which the electric eel may be supposed to feel when emitting an overwhelming shock,—supposing the electric eel to be able to justify its practice on strictly Athanasian principles and to persuade itself that in this degenerate age the inflic- tion of pain is the truest benevolence. Professor Brewer certainly seems to us to treat Dean Stanley with a discourtesy of manner and phrase which is as utterly unjustified by anything in his opponent's style of controversy as it is in itself unseemly and unwise. It disposes his readers to undervalue the learning and ability of an extremely learned and decidedly able composition ; it sets the whole current of their feeliegs against him from the very be- ginning, and leads them to exaggerate the deficiencies and logical fallacies of an essay which is, nevertheless, certainly worthy of respectful reflection and discriminating appreciation. Mr. Brewer says indeed in one place that he does not mean to "speak offensively," " for I entertain for Dean Stanley the highest respect, even when he speaks without due consideration, as on the present occasion ;" but whatever he means, if what is contemptuous is also offensive, he does speak exceedingly offensively of the Dean almost throughout his essay. For instance, if this sort of criticism be not abundantly offensive, we hardly know what, that is not deli- berate insult, can be so :—"But after all, this historical disquisition of the Dean's on the literary history of the Creed is only a kind of velitatio,—a sort of careless and graceful rattling of the keys with which a consummate musician displays the agility of his hands and the diamond-ring on his finger before he throws up his head and settles seriously to work." This is unworthy in every way of Mr. Bresver,—and very justly prejudicial to the effect of a dis- quisition in which he assures us,—we do not doubt most truly,— that he is speaking from the depth of his own personal obligations to a symbol wherein he has found, or at all events believed that he has found, the most valuable help and light. It is not, however, the tone of something very like literary scorn, in which he speaks of so learned and courteous nu antagonist as the Dean of West- minster, which will best convince the world that he is writing from the depth of a profound personal faith.

In what we have to say of Mr. Brewer's apology for the Creed called the Athanasian, we certainly shall not attempt to dispute with him in any degree the ground of patristic and ecclesiastical criticism, on which he is evidently very strong. On many points of this class he seems to us to make a good, and on most of them at the very least a plausible and arguable case. But these are not the points in which plain men will take any real and living interest. Whether the theology of this Creed can or cannot be justified out of the Fathers is hardly a very real question, except to those who believe that the Fathers lived more within the true light of revelation than any of their successors, and were incomparably better able to judge of the meaning of the Gospel than we are now. And there are, we suspect, very few Pro- , testant laymen who do hold that opinion. The points to which we should like to get Professor Brewer to turn his attention more closely,—and on these points Dean Stanley seems to us to understand the general moral aversion excited, whether justly or not, by the Athanasian Creed, far better than his bitter antago- nist,—are the following, (of any clear consideration of which we End no trace at all iu his learned but declamatory pamphlet) :—

First, as to the theology of the Athanasian Creed, is there auy doubt that the eternal subordination of the second Person,—the Eternal Word and Son,—to the first, is insisted on and reiterated in Scripture in a manner perfectly conformable to the Nicene symbol, but utterly inconsistent with that called after St. Athanasius? Next, as to its morality,—is there any doubt that the eternal health or salvation of man is referred far more exclusively to the accurate apprehension of intellectual dog- mas,—even if assumed to be true,—in the Athanasian Creed, than to any act of personal trust or moral faith, such as is habitu- ally regarded in Scripture as the spring of new life to the soul,— in other words, that its whole drift substitutes for the old living trust in God and Christ, trust in a correct opinion about God and Christ? Will Professor Brewer lay aside for a moment his keen theological bitterness against the Dean of Westminster, and con- sider these points with the earnestness and ability of which all his writings show him to be in very rich measure possessed ?

In the course of his pamphlet, Professor Brewer says that he strongly objects to the habit men have at the present day of substituting " their own conceptions of God's nature and his dealings with men for the knowledge we have of both as revealed in Scripture,—the only knowledge of him we can have,"—a remark which surprised us for two reasons,—ono, that it seems to deny all possible knowledge of God to the natural conscience of man, whereas we have been accustomed to suppose that Scripture itself could not reveal God without some divine light upon its meaning within the soul; —and secondly, because the very great importance Professor Brewer seems to attach to the opinions of " the Fathers " would certainly have suggested to us that he holds, with the Roman Catholics, that a stream of oral tradition has always existed with- in the Church to supplement the imperfections, and guide the • interpretation, of Scripture itself. But those who may be willing to take him at his own word, and regard the historical records of Christ's life, and that of his apostles, as at least infinitely the most important authority we can have as to the nature of God's revelation of himself to man, have surely a right to ask him whether Oar Lord's own words and those of his followers are not full of the assertion of the subordination of the eternal Son to the Father in a sense far different from that in which Mr. Brewer himself and according to him, Bishop Ball, will alone admit it. Neither the Apostles' Creed, nor the Nicene Creed, nor any single passage of which we know in the New Testament asserts the equality of the Father and the Son in the sense of the Athanasian Creed,—for the saying that "the Father hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father : he that honoureth not the Son, honeureth not the Father which hath sent him," is really one of the strongest of the state- ments of that conception of the complete subordination of the Son to the Father which runs through the whole Gospel of John. On the other hand, positive assertions of that subordination abound. " I can of mine own self do noticing; as I hear I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which bath sent me." " Of that day and that hour knoweth no man ; no, not the angels in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father only," and there are a whole host of passages to the same effect with which, as Professor Brewer well knows, we could fill half a column. Now, we assert that neither the Apostles' nor the Nicene Creed contains anything contradictory to this teaching of the absolute filial subordination of the Son to the Father, and his perfectly dependent because perfectly derived essence ; but that the statement of the Athanasian Creed,—" And in this Trinity none is afore or after other, none is greater or less

than another, but the whole three Persons are

does run expressly counter to the whole drift of apostolic teaching, and would have startled St. John as the express denial of the main teaching of his gospel. Compare such a statement with the words of our Lord himself, "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice because I said I go unto the Father, for my Father is greater than I ;" or with the words of St. Paul, " Aud when all things are subdued Unto him then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all," and is it deniable that to plain men,—especially if they should hold, with Professor Brewer—what we confess goes beyond our apprehension— that the knowledge of God as revealed in Scripture is the only know- ledge of him we can have, —the Athanasian Creed seems to contra- dict explicitly the general drift of Christ's own most express teaching, as well as of that of his apostles ?

But whatever be the true theological conclusion on this matter, the second point on which the Athanasian Creed goes far beyond any earlier formula of the sort, is the stress it lays on accurate theo- logical opinions as the source and spring of all divine life. Professor Brewer tries to evade this, and takes no notice at all of the most startling phrase which the Creed uses 44 Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

And the Catholick Faith is this," 84c. Can there be a more ex- plicit statement that right opinion on the subjects considered in

'the Creed is the very source and starting-point of spiritual health ?

What is the teaching of the New Testament, and of Christ himself, but that the first step towards salvation is repentance for sin,

and that true faith comes of doing God's will, not true holiness

of knowing it. Well, but, Professor Brewer replies, is not the earnest search for truth of the very essence of the will of God?

Of course it is, but is even such a search the deepest or most cen- tral and radical spring of goodness in ninety-nine men out of a hundred? Is not the intellectual life one of the last regions in

which the holiness of ordinary men and women shows itself ? And then there is the widest difference between the search for, and the attainment of, truth. Where is there a trace in Scrip- ture of the conception that the first and most important condition .of salvation is a correct conception of the true relation of the leather to the Son, and of both to the Holy Spirit ? Yet the Athanasian Creed affirms that this is the first and most important -condition of salvation. " Whosoever will be saved, before all things Nit is necessary that he hold " that, inter alia " in this Trinity none is afore or after other, none is greater or less than another." Make the very most of the desire for theological truth, and after all it is but one, and often the least developed of all those -elements of the " holiness without which no man shall see the Lord." Profestor Brewer says, " whether we say 6 this is the Catholic faith, without which no man shall see the Lord,' or whether we say, Holiness without which every man shall perish everlastingly,' the expressions are in sense the same." They are just about as much the same as these would be :—" A love of beauty without which no man can become graceful," and "A love -of beautiful sounds without which no man cau become graceful." holiness is of far larger scope and has infinitely more modes of manifestation than the thirst for even religious truth. And, even granting that the yearning for religious truth and its attainment were the same,—which is absurd,—to say that no man can be saved without holiness, and no man without what is often 'the latest developed element of holiness, is by no means the same thing. But as a matter of fact, the Athauasian Creed places the very fops et origo of salvation not in desire for truth, not in personal trust in God, but in the correct concep- tion of truth. The first condition of salvation is, according to dt, correct theology. It comes before all other moral and spiritual conditions. It is the sine qua non of holiness, though it is not even -a part of holiness, for Professor Brewer will hardly deny that very wicked men have held the Athanasian formula with the clearest -and most lucid apprehension.

But Professor Brewer has recourse to the theory that the Athanasian Creed is only " a warning,"—iudeed he urges the old 44 precipice " argument, which was, we hoped, by this time -abandoned :— "If I were to see a man walking on the odge of a precipice or in any Toth I was firmly convinced would load to his destruction, I should be 'bound in charity to warn him against his danger, and none could accuse me in so doing of condemning him to destruction. I may be wrong in .my judgment, I may be needlessly solioitous for his safety. A happy Aceidont, or the providence of God, or wiser and better thoughts, .unknown to me, may intervene to save him from the peril I anticipated. But my warning is not the loss valid, true, and charitable on that account; it is not the less dictate of the highest duty, and the right -exercise of that knowledge which God has given me."

Well, but would you in warning a man that he was going too -near the edge of a precipice dream of saying, " Whoever walks there, will without doubt lose his life," " Except you leave that lath you cannot be saved?" Professor Brewer himself admits he would not ; that he would only warn him of his danger, and tell him that " only a happy accident," or " the providence of God," -could save him. But the Athauasian Creed says nothing of the kind. It says that a man not accepting this,—and if we are to understand its later clauses, which put the final judgment imme- -diately after the Resurrection, in their natural sense, not accept- ing it before his death,—will" without doubt perish everlastingly." The simple gist of the whole Creed is this,—that, not the third for truth, not the trust in Christ, not holiness, not obedience, not faith, in the Scripture sense, but correct theological apprehension, is the first condition, and the condition sine qua non, of eternal life and healtb,—that from it, as from the only possible germ, that life must spring, or not at all. " Whoever will be saved, before all things he must hold" the Athauasian formula. As far as we can see, that is simply contrary to all that we know of the spiritual laws of the world, in startling contradiction to the Gospel of Christ, and only capable of acceptance even by Professor Brewer, when he has explained away its natural significance.