CHAPTER IX.

Scruples About The Athanasian Creed.

In the December of 1827 the old scruples, that came into his head some two years before, about the Athanasian Creed revived. Perhaps it is better to give the words of the Journal before going into particulars on this point. He says--

"Tuesday, Dec. 4.--.... Thursby came to dine and sleep here. We conversed till nearly 12, almost incessantly, about his concerns first, then about mine. I let him know my thoughts of resigning my preferment on account of the Athanasian Creed. He was at first very much displeased at them, but seemed better satisfied as I explained myself."

"Wed., Dec. 5.--I came down after a wakeful night, and much confirmed in my resolution to take decided steps about declaring against the Athanasian Creed. Thursby seemed to coincide much more nearly with my views. We talked on this and other topics until 11 or 12, when he went away. I went out in Great Brington till 2; dined; then ran to Althorp .... came back and wrote long letters to my father and the Bishop of Chester, about my intended declaration, and probable resignation of my living. I here solemnly affirm that before last week I had no sort of idea of taking this step. I am now writing on Friday, fully determined upon it. The circumstances which led me to this decision are:--1st. My many conversations of late, and correspondence with, dissenting ministers, by whose words I have been led to doubt the perfectness of our Establishment. 2ndly. My discussions and reflections about retrenchments, leading me to consider the probability of more preferment, and how I could accept it. 3rdly. The quantity of Church preferment which has been of late {156} changing hands, by which I have been led to think how I should answer an offer myself. And, 4thly. My thoughts about signing Baily's boy's testimonial, which has led me to reckon more highly on the value of my signature."

From the letters of those who undertook the setting of Mr. Spencer's troubles at rest, it appears that his difficulties about the Athanasian Creed did not arise from the doctrines there put forth about the Blessed Trinity and Incarnation; but that he objected to the terminology as un-Scriptural, and to the condemning clauses in the beginning and end of the Creed. Dr. Blomfield is the first to reason with him; his answer to the letter above-mentioned is couched in the following terms:--

"The letter which I have just received from you astonishes and confounds me; not that I ought to be surprised at anything strange which you may do, after what I have lately witnessed and heard; but I must say, in plain terms, that your letter is the letter of an insane person. You profess to be willing to ask advice and hear reasoning, and yet you take the most decided steps to wound the feelings of your friends and injure the cause of the Church, without giving those whom you pretend to consult an opportunity of satisfying your doubts. You suffer your father to be with you two days without giving him a hint that you were meditating a step incomparably the most important of your life, and most involving his happiness; and then, in the midst of his security, write him a letter, not to tell him that you are doubtful on certain points and wish to be advised, but that your mind is made up and you are determined to act. Surely common sense and filial duty ought to have suggested the propriety of waiting till you had communicated with me, although even to me you do not state what your doubts and difficulties are with sufficient precision to enable me to discuss them; but you write a long panegyric upon your own sincerity and humility, of which I entertained no doubt, and thus, after repeated conferences with Dissenting ministers and Roman Catholic priests, far more astute and subtle reasoners than yourself, you are worked up into an utter disapprobation of one of the articles of our Church, having all along concealed your doubts from your nearest and dearest {157} friends, and from me, who had an especial claim to be made acquainted with them. Is this sincere and judicious conduct?"

He proceeds to some lengths in this style, then tells him that it is one thing to doubt of the truth of a doctrine, and another thing to believe it to be false, and that one should take no step of importance until he thought in the latter way. He tells him to be quiet for some time, and give him the objections one by one. This Mr. Spencer does, and the answer is partly, that given in Dr. Blomfield's life, page 85, and partly, another letter he wrote to him within a fortnight's time. The argument of this good ecclesiastic shapes itself thus:--

"The general proposition of excluding all from salvation who do not believe the doctrine of the Trinity and Incarnation, as set forth in the Athanasian Creed, is laid down with certain limitations. The Protestant Church does lay it down thus, as is evident from certain quotations from the Articles. Besides, she never intends to pronounce a condemnation on any, like the Church of Rome. The meaning, therefore, of these clauses is an assertion of the truth of the doctrine simply; and for this he quotes the opinion of some commissioned interpreters and the admission of "the most scrupulous and captious Baxter that such exposition may be received."

This is the sum of Dr. Blomfield's argument; he gives several other authorities for his opinion. We need not be surprised that the argument was not convincing; and Mr. Spencer says, in his Journal:--"I had a letter from the Bishop of Chester this morning, which was weak in argument and flippant; I hope good may result from it." The weakness of the Bishop's argument arises from the dilemma in which he was placed. If he said the Anglican Church does really condemn all who hold not her doctrines, then she would arrogate to herself the claim of infallibility which she takes good care to disclaim, and even makes an article to that effect. If she does not condemn, what is the meaning of allowing the clauses to remain in her formularies, and require her ministers to subscribe, read, and preach them? His only line of argument, considering his position, was to {158} steer a middle course, and this he endeavoured to do, and succeeded pretty well. But shifting difficulties by trying to reconcile contradictions, is a process that may calm an easy-going mind, previously disposed to indifference, but never can satisfy a clear, earnest one, that seeks the truth in all its terrible reality and straightforward meaning. A Church composed of a mass of heterogeneous elements in doctrine and practice, must be very hard set indeed when driven to give an account of herself. The wonder is, that she cannot see the absence of a Divine guidance, even in the admissions she is forced to make, if not in the very nature of her own human constitution. Only a Catholic can account for a creed, and if there was not a body of living teachers with the promise of Divine direction in their formal decisions and utterances, the Church that Christ established would not exist; and only Catholics can claim and prove this very hinge of their system, which pseudo-bishops have their hits at when they writhe under the pressure of difficulties they cannot answer.

The letter of this Bishop did not settle Mr. Spencer's mind--it unsettled him the more. Two or three clergymen were invited to talk him back to the old way, but with similar success. Lord Spencer then gets one of the London clergy to undertake the task which foiled so many. We give the father's letter of introduction, as it is so characteristic of his paternal affection and concern, and at the same time his due consideration for his son's conscientious difficulties. The Earl was staying in Althorp for a few days, and left this letter for George on his departure:

"Your mother writes me word that Mr. Allen, of Battersea, will come and dine with her to-morrow, and remain here nearly the whole week. I am very happy at this, because, if you are sincere (and I do not now mean to question your sincerity) in wishing for information, instruction, and advice, I know of no man--either high or low, clerical or secular--more able to afford them to you, more correct in his doctrines and character, or more affectionately disposed to be of all the service he can to every one connected with {159} us, and to you in particular. But, my dear George, in order to enable yourself to derive all the benefit that may unquestionably be derived from serious and confidential communications on a most important subject, with such a man, you must be more explicit, more open, and more confidential with him than, I am grieved to think, you have yet been, either with your excellent friend the Bishop of Chester, or even with me, though I allow that in the conversations we have had together _in this visit_ to you here, I saw rather more disposition to frankness on your part than I had before experienced.

"I should not thus argue with you, my dear George, if I did not from my heart, as God is my judge, firmly believe that your welfare, both temporal and eternal, as well as the health both of your body and mind, depended upon your taking every possible means to follow a better course of thinking, and of study, and of occupation, than you have hitherto done since you have entered the profession for which, as I fondly hoped, and you seemed fitted by inclination, you would have been in due time, if well directed and well advised, formed to become as much an ornament to it as your brothers are, God Almighty be thanked for it, to those they have entered into.

"I still venture to hope, though not without trembling, but I do hope and will encourage myself in the humble hope, which shall be daily expressed to the Almighty in my prayers, that I may be permitted, before I go hence, to witness better things of you; and I even extend my wish that when I return hither on Friday, I may have the satisfaction of learning that your interviews with Mr. Allen, who I have no doubt will be well prepared to hear and to discuss all you have to say, have had a salutary effect; and that our private domestic circle here may be relieved from the gloom which, for some time past, you must have perceived to overhang it when you made part of it, and afford us those blessings of home so comfortable and almost necessary to our advancing age. I write all this, because, perhaps, if I had had the opportunity, my spirits, which are {160} always very sensitive, might prevent me from speaking it. God bless you, my dear George.

"Your ever affectionate father, "Spencer."

The conferences he held with this Mr. Allen are faithfully noted in the Journal, and many and long they were. To-day conversing, to-morrow reading Hay and Waterland together, on the Athanasian Creed. He became no better, but a good deal worse, and the _finale_ was that he wrote to his own Bishop, Dr. Marsh, of Peterborough, to resign his living or have his doubts settled. This was early in the year 1828.

This Bishop answers him thus:--

"In reference to the doubts which you expressed in a former letter, you say: 'All that I was anxious about was to avoid any just imputation of dishonesty, by keeping an office and emoluments in the Established Church, while I felt that I could not heartily assent to her formularies.'

"If this difficulty had occurred to you when you were a candidate for Holy Orders, it would certainly have been your duty, either to wait till your doubts had been removed, or, if they _could not_ be removed, to choose some other profession or employment. Whoever is persuaded that our Liturgy and Articles are not founded on Holy Scripture cannot conscientiously subscribe to the latter, or declare his assent to the former. To enter, therefore, on a profession which requires such subscription and assent, with the _previous belief_ that such assent is not warranted by Scripture, is undoubtedly a sacrifice of principle made in the expectation of future advantage. But you did _not_ make such a sacrifice of principle. ... Whatever doubts you _now_ entertain, they have been imbibed since you became Rector of Brington; and you are apprehensive that it may be considered as a mark of dishonesty, if, oppressed with these difficulties, you retain your preferment.

"I know not at present the kind or the extent of these difficulties, and therefore can only reply in general terms. I have already stated my opinion on the impropriety of {161} entering the Church with the previous belief that our Liturgy and Articles are not founded on Scripture. But if a clergyman who believed that they were so at the time of his ordination, and continued that belief till after he had obtained preferment in the Church, begins at some future period to entertain doubts about certain parts either of the Liturgy or the Articles, we have a case which presents a very different question from that which was considered in the former paragraph. In the former case there was a choice of professions, in the latter case there is not. By the laws of this country a clergyman cannot divest himself of the character acquired by the admission to Holy Orders. He can hold no office in the State which is inconsistent with the character of a clergyman. To relinquish preferment, therefore, without being able to relinquish the character by which that preferment was acquired, is quite a different question from that which relates to the original assumption of that character: Nor must it be forgotten that a clergyman may have a numerous family altogether dependent on the income of his benefice, whom he would bring therefore to utter ruin if he resigned it.

"On the other hand, I do not think that even a clergyman so situated is at liberty to substitute his _own_ doctrine for that to which he objects. By so doing he would directly impugn the Articles of our Church, he would make himself liable to deprivation, and would justly deserve it. For he would violate a solemn contract, and destroy the very tenure by which he holds his preferment.

"But is there no medium between an open attack on our Liturgy and Articles and the entertaining of doubts on certain points, which a clergyman may communicate in confidence to a friend, in the hope of having them removed? If, in the mean time, he is unwilling to inculcate in the pulpit doctrines to which his doubts apply, he will at the same time conscientiously abstain from inculcating doctrines of an opposite tendency. Now, if I mistake not, this is precisely your case. And happy shall I be if I can be instrumental to the removal of the doubts which oppress you. I am now at leisure; the engagements which I had at Cambridge {162} respecting my lectures are finished; you may now fully and freely unburden your mind, and I will give to all your difficulties the best consideration in my power. "I am, my dear Sir,

"Very truly yours, "Herbert Peterborough."

This letter evoked a statement of the precise points, and the following was the answer:--

".... I now venture to approach the difficulties under which you labour, and I will take them from the words you yourself have used in your letter of April 30. In that letter, speaking of the Church, you say, 'I cannot at this time state any paragraph in her formularies and ordinances with which I cannot conscientiously comply, except the Athanasian Creed.' You then proceed in the following words: 'and now I must go on to state wherein I differ from this Creed: not in the parts which may be called doctrinal; that is, where the doctrine itself is stated and explained.' And you conclude by saying, 'the parts of the Creed to which I object are the condemning clauses.' And you object to the clauses on the grounds that they are not warranted by the declaration of our Saviour recorded in Mark xvi. 16, on which passage those clauses are generally supposed to have been founded. Whether they are so warranted or not depends on the extent of their application in this Creed, which begins with the following words:--'Whosoever 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 (entire and unviolated, Cath. trans.), without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. Now the Catholic faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity.' So far, then, it is evident that they only are declared to be excluded from salvation who do not hold the Catholic faith, that is, as the term is there explicitly defined, who do not hold the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity. Now this doctrine has been maintained, with very few exceptions, by Christians in general from the earliest to the present age. It was the doctrine of the Greek Church {163} ...... and all the Reformed churches. To exclude from salvation, therefore, only those who reject a doctrine which is received by Christians in general, is a very different thing from the denial of salvation to every one who does not believe in all the tenets of a particular Church. The doctrine, _nulla salus nisi credas in Trinitatem_, bears no resemblance to the sweeping declaration _nulla salus extra Ecclesiam Romonam_. Surely, then, we may appeal to Mark xvi. 16, combined with Matthew xxviii. 19, in order to prove that a belief in the Trinity is necessary to salvation, and consequently to prove that those two passages warrant the deduction, that they who reject the doctrine of the Trinity will not be saved. The two passages must be taken together, in order to learn the whole of our Saviour's last command to his Apostles. If, then, our Saviour himself commanded his Apostles to baptize 'in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' and then added, 'he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned;' it really does appear that our Saviour himself has warranted the opinion that a belief in the doctrine of the Trinity is such a fundamental article of the Christian faith that they who reject it do so at their own peril.

"But you think that the anathema of our Saviour in Mark xvi. 16, had a different application from the corresponding anathema in the Athanasian Creed. Our Saviour spoke of those to whom the Gospel had been preached, as appears from Mark xvi. 15. And if the anathema in the Athanasian Creed had a more extensive application, or if it were meant to include not only those who wilfully rejected the doctrine of the Trinity when it had been duly explained to them, but those also to whom the doctrine had never been preached, and whose want of belief arose merely from a want of knowledge, I should likewise admit that the anathema of the Athanasian Creed derived no authority from Mark xvi. 16. But I see no reason whatever for the opinion that the anathema of the Athanasian Creed includes those who have never heard of the doctrine. Neither the Creed itself, nor the circumstances under which it was {164} composed, warrant such an opinion. Whoever was the author of it, the Creed was framed during the controversy which then distracted the whole of the Christian Church. It applied, therefore, immediately and exclusively to those who were partakers in or acquainted with the controversy. It could not have been originally intended to apply to those who had never heard of the controversy or the doctrine controverted. It would be, therefore, quite uncritical to apply it at present in a way which was not originally intended. Nor does the language of the Creed itself warrant any other application. When it is declared necessary to _hold_ the Catholic faith, and to _keep_ the Catholic faith, that necessity can apply only to those to whom the Catholic faith has been _presented_. Unless a man is previously put in possession of a thing, he cannot be said either to _hold_ it or to _keep_ it.

"Surely the most conscientious clergyman who believes in our Saviour's declaration, recorded in Mark xvi. 16, may read without scruple the similar declaration in the Athanasian Creed. And if, on the authority of our Saviour, he may read the anathema in the beginning of the Creed, he may, without scruple, read the less strongly expressed anathema in the end.

"In the hope that, after reading this letter, your mind will become at ease, I subscribe myself, dear Sir,

"Very truly yours, "Herbert Peterborough."

This letter is a tolerable specimen of the Bishop's power of reasoning, and very sharp it is too; but it does not exactly meet Mr. Spencer's difficulties. He might object:--"What passage of Scripture warrants our uniting together the two passages from St. Mark and St. Matthew?" And "being _presented with_ a thing is not exactly the same as _being in possession of_ a thing." "We should have the same warrant for the remaining clauses of the Creed as for the first three, otherwise, according to the Articles, we are not bound to receive them; then why not erase them?' The Bishop would have no resource here, except to fall back {165} upon the Church, and that was not the point at issue; so perhaps he did well not to try. He uses tradition, and Dr. Blomfield authority; but these could have no weight against a Bible Christian, as Mr. Spencer was then.

A Catholic could very easily solve the difficulty. The Church has used these terms to express her doctrine, and she says this is the revealed doctrine; therefore it must be. No one can be saved who does not believe the Trinity and Incarnation, implicitly or explicitly; those to whom it has never been properly proposed, implicitly, and those to whom it has, explicitly. Some theologians will have explicit credence required of both classes, and say that God would even send an angel to a savage, if he placed no obstacle, and reveal this mystery to him rather than that he should die without it. And now it will seem very strange to say that this doctrine is less terrible than the Protestant open-arm theory. Yet, so it is, for we allow many Socinians and ignorant Protestants and others to be in good faith, and perhaps never have had this doctrine properly proposed to them. We suspend our judgments with regard to them, and say if they live well they may be saved. That is more than the Bishop of Peterborough could allow, according to his principles.

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