The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.) WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1899. AN ECCLESIASTICAL SENSATION.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 3706, 5 April 1899, Page 4

The New Zealand Times (PUBLISHED DAILY.)

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5, 1899. AN ECCLESIASTICAL SENSATION.

With which is Incoih'ojiated the Wellington Independent, Established 1845.

The fact that many worshippers at St. Margaret’s Church, London, left the sacred edifice on Easter Sunday while the preacher was still in the pulpit, as a protest against his utterances, is mainly significant because of the evidence it affords that the laity of oil tho churches pre frequently in a more darkened condition than the clergy. Tho protest against the very temperate remarks of tho Rev Dr Robinson proves, also, the powerful hold that supernatural authority and dogma still possess over the minds of civilised people. It might have boon supposed that a mere side attack on the doctrine of the Trinity would have passed unnoticed; but evidently there are Anglican Churchmen prepared to fight for that mystical belief. The gentleman who has produced the present sensation, Dr Joseph A. Robinson, is a preacher and author of some eminence. He has been Norrisiau Professor of Divinity at Cambridge University since 1893. His publications include “A Collection of the Athos Codex of the Shepherd of Hennas,” ■1888; “Appendix to the Apology of Aristides,” 1891 ; “Tho Passion of St. Pcrpetna,” 1891 ; “Tho Philocalia of Origcn,” 1893; and “Euthonalia,” 1895. The Athanasian Creed is received in tho Greek, Roman and English Churches, but it has been left out of the Prayer Book of the Episcopal Church of America. “It presents,” says one writer, “a most admirably stated exposition of the faith of all Christians, and it is objected to only because of tho ‘damnatory clauses,’ which ought never to ho attached to any human composition.” A rubric in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer directs that upon thirteen specified feasts there “shall he sung or said at Morning Prayer, instead of. the Apostles’ Creed, i,„s Confession of our Christian Faith, commonly called The Creed of Saint Athanasius.” No member of the Anglican Church needs to he informed, however, that the rubric in question is more honoured in the breach than in tho observance. It w well known that many of the clergy of tho Church of England intentionally refrain from carrying out the Prayer Book direction. “The authorship and date of this creed, or hymn, as it is, perhaps, more commonly called, arc,” writes the. Rev Evan Daniel, “involved in great obscurity, but the following facts in its history arc unquestionable —viz;., that, by whomsoever written, it was not written by St. Athanasius ; that it was originally written in Latin, and not in Greek; that the curliest mention of it is in connection with the Gallician Church ; that it was held in the highest veneration in that Church; and that it was presented to the Pope by Charlemagne in a.d. 772. It was probably introduced into this country (England) in the ninth century, hut t was not admitted into the offices of tho Church of Rome until a later period, about A.D. 930. Waterland came to the conclusion that it was written by Hilary, Bishop of Arles, about 430 a.d. It has been supposed that when the Arian heresy broke out afresh in Gaul, the Catholic party designated the orthodox creed by the name of St. Athanasius, not because they believed he was the author of it, but because it defines the doctrines -f which he was the champion against tin heretic Arius. Much of the phraseology of the creed is taken from the writings of St. Augustine. Indeed, the framer has done little more than arrange the scattered remarks of the great Latin Father into a connected form. - - - Not a clause of it hut is levelled at some actual heresy which lias troubled the Church, and which, even if it he extinct now, may, as experience has shown, at any time re-appear.”

The heresies opposed by the Athanasian

Creed may be arranged in thron groups: • —l. Those relating to tbo Holy Trinity 2. Those relating to Christ, - (a) to tin Divine nature, (b) to the human nature, ami (c) to tin: union of the two natures Tlioso relating to tlie Holy Ghost. I'm Arians arc so called from Arius, tin

nlexandriau presbyter, A.n. Mi 9. lie maintained that there was a time whop, (he Sou was not, and consequently, by implication, denied that Me was God. ‘‘lf,” said Arius, “the Father begat tlm Son, lie that was begotten hud a beginning of existence ; and thus it is evident that there was a time when the Son •lid not exist.” In tlie words of a -sceptic writer, “Arius thundered out the, comrion-sciise hut heretical assertion, that the Father had existed before the .Son,” .Dean Coulbnrn spaa!.,-; of the At hanasian Creed us “an elaborate Confession of Faith, drawn up probably by a French bishop in the early half of the fifth century, and expressing tlie gViner-d sense of the Western Church in his time

—never, indeed, received by the whole of Christendom, as the. Nicene Creed is, but received by our own National Church, and declared by her to he provable ‘by most certain warrants of Holy Scripture.’” It might have been suppose;.’ that toleration of.difl'erent opinions would Ion;;; ere, now have obliterated all sympathy with the idea that anyone would be “damned eternally” for failing to sub scribe to certain dogmas; but apparent l } the mistaken jseal that kindled the firea of Wmitldield is not yet dead in imgland. ‘'There may In; heaven, there, must be !)ell,” says Drowning, and in this phrase lie, unconsciously perhaps, assert . the un <1 uenchable belief of humanity' in a place of endless torture for those who dare tc think or act otherwise than, the majority ip. a. given country or age. It is saiklcnj ing to think that some F.ugiisb Chris--1 tiaiis of to-day have not risen above fourth century level.