THE IRISH CHURCH. AND ATHANASIUS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPEOTATOR.1
SIR,—Permit me to correct a slight error in your statement of the results of the recent Synodical debates on the Creed or Confession attributed to Athanasius.
The resolution passed by majorities of four-fifths of the clergy and laity, and allowed by a majority of four against three in the House of Bishops, is provisional only, and will not bind the Irish Church, unless again passed in the form of a statute at a subsequent session. There is a probability of a different result in a fuller House of Bishops, unless in the interval the Pan-Anglican assembly of Bishops approves of some such solution of a great difficulty.
The omission of the damnatory clauses, assuming the change to be ratified in 1875, will not be optional with the clergy, who have manifested no desire to have an option left to them on any such point. They will all be bound by the whole Creed, as a standard of faith ; but they will all be directed to omit the damnatory clauses in recitation on the three chief festivals of the year, when the Creed, so shortened, will be substituted for the Apostles' Creed in the morning service. This will generally content the laity, who, for the most part, dislike the Creed ; and the clergy avowedly submitted to it, as a compromise.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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