Eleven hundred and fifty persons have petitioned the Arch- bishop
of Canterbury against any relaxation of the rubrics in relation to the Athanasian Creed. Dr. Pusey, Dr. Bright, Pro- fessor Stubbs, Canon Jell, Canon Liddon, Lord Devon, Lord Nelson, Dean Mansel, Dean Hook, and a number of other eminent persons with the large train aforesaid, hold that " either to use the -creed less frequently in the Church Service than at present, or to render its use in any case optional, or to omit the mis-termed damnatory clauses, would be fraught with danger to the best interests of the Church." " Every well-instructed Christian," they write, " must understand them " [the " mistermed damnatory -clauses "] " to apply only to those whom God knows to have -enjoyed full opportunities for attaining faith in the perfect Truth, and.to have deliberately rejected it." If that is the explanation, we think it a pity the Creed itself does not say as much. " Who- soever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith. Which faith except every one do keep whole and 'undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." Do the petitioners think it would be " fraught with danger to the Church" to substitute for this, " Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he should not deliberately reject opportunities of attaining faith in the perfect Truth, now about to be defined"? If they don't, let us have that substituted by all means. We :suspect that it would be considered very nearly equivalent to getting rid of the damnatory clauses, but would not even that .change be a " severe shock to the confidence of many of her [the Church's] most attached members, in her claim to teach unfalter- ingly the faith once delivered to the saints" ?
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