The Creed attributed to Athanasius in effect declared it essential to salvation, not only that the mysterious doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation of Christ should be believed, but that the _explanation_ therein attempted of those doctrines should be embraced as “the right faith;” and it denounced the sentence of eternal condemnation against those who did not “thus think,” with a peremptoriness and reiteration amounting to a virtual claim of infallibility. But if he could not discover in the Sacred Records any such explanation of the doctrines in question, nor, consequently, any such conditions of salvation, he might hesitate to declare his belief that those harsh clauses were not at variance with the word of God. In the Baptism of Infants he would perceive that the priest was required to declare the baptized child to be _regenerated_, and to return thanks to God for so great a blessing. And he might think the doctrine obviously implied in that form, and plainly expressed in the catechism which follows it, “contrary to the word of God,” which treats of regeneration as a change of heart, such as no outward ceremony could confer. {79a} In the Catechism also, the Common Prayer Book taught that there were two sacraments “generally _necessary_ to salvation,” whereas he might conceive that it was “contrary to the word of God” to make such an assertion respecting either of them, in any instance. {79b} In the Order for the Visitation of the Sick, the priest was directed to assume authority to “absolve” the penitent sinner: but while he was required to subscribe, as perfectly scriptural, the volume containing that formulary, conscience might be demanding, who can forgive sins but God alone? {80a}