“As a doctrine most explicitly asserted by the Liturgy,” Dr. STANLEY mentions “the condemnation of _all members_ of the Eastern Church, as maintained by the clauses of the Athanasian Creed, which appear to declare that those who refuse to acknowledge the HOLY GHOST to proceed from the FATHER and the SON, without doubt perish everlastingly.” An “eminent prelate” twenty years ago, we are told, expressed a devout hope that, “for the honour of human nature, no one now would deliberately aver” this! I hope I shall not seem to be harsh if I say I would here put in one word “for the honour” of common sense, which seems shocked by such treatment of such subjects. We might as fairly say, that the words, “Whosoever will be saved must thus _think_ of the Trinity,” consign all infants, and persons of little understanding, to everlasting perdition, because they cannot “think” of it at all. It is trifling to confound the _intellectual_ reception of a doctrine with its _saving_ reception, and it is saying that none but very clever people will be saved. Such confusion is equivalent to a rejection of even the simplest form of Creed. Take for example the Ethiopian’s confession, “I believe that JESUS CHRIST is the SON of GOD,” on which he was baptized (Acts viii. 37). For the intellectual conception here demands explanation at once. In what sense is He the SON of GOD? Are we not all “HIS offspring?” IS JESUS the SON of GOD as man? or as GOD?—or both? If HIS SON, is He Eternal?—and soon. Such questions are _inevitable_, if we would really _know_ our meaning in saying, “JESUS CHRIST is the SON of GOD.” But important as a right understanding of truth assuredly is, no Church ever thus taught that intellectual reception of truth could be attained by the multitude, for whose salvation we labour. If, indeed, we could look into the mind of the majority of good Christians, and see the shape which doctrines there take, we should often find the greatest amount of heresy of the intellect co-existing with orthodoxy of heart. A statement thus drawn out at length in a Creed is the Church’s intellectual exposition, as far as it goes, of the Doctrine professed. The million may not know this; but the Church tells them—“If you hold the true doctrine, _this_ is _what_, consciously or not, you are holding.” The Athanasian Creed is a _statement_ of that truth which dwells in every Christian heart. We know that God’s grace in the soul is always “orthodox;” but “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness;” but the Creed forbids the intellect to misinterpret what the heart has savingly known.—The agreement with the Eastern Church attempted at the Council of Florence illustrates this; for it was evidently on this basis. The Greeks were not told that their forefathers had all perished, but that their _expression_ of the truth which they held was less perfect than the Latin.