The Nicene Creed

THE NICENE CREED A MANUAL jfor tbe use of ~anlJilJates for }ilol!} ®tlJets BY J. J. LIAS, M.A. RECTOR OF EAST BERGHOLT, COLCHESTER ; CHANCELLOR OF LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL, AND EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP OF LLANDAFF; AUTHOR OF ''PRINCIPLES OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM," ''THE ATONEMENT," ETC, LONDON SW AN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM. NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO. 1897 tto SIR GEORGE STOKES, BART., LL.D., D.Sc., F.R.S. LUCASIAN PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED WITH A FEELING OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS GREAT ATTAINMENTS AND OF RESPECT FOR HIS HIGH CHARACTER AND GENUINE AND ENLIGHTENED ATTACHMENT TO THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF ttbe lE>octrtne of <Ibtlst PREFACE T is, perhaps, necessary that I should explain my reasons I for adding one more to the vast number of books which pour forth in so continuous a stream in the present day. Four reasons have mainly weighed with me. The first is, that my experience as an examiner of candidates for Holy Orders has convinced me that many of them obtain their knowledge of the first principles of the religion which they propose to teach, in a very unsatisfactory and haphazard way. This is partly due to the absence, at least until lately, of satisfactory text books. Few candidates attempt to read Pearson's great standard work on the subject, and most of those who have attempted it find him very abstruse and difficult to follow. Moreover, it must be admitted that in a good many respects, in spite of the still inestimable value of the work, Pearson's manner and matter are out of date. This has been so ably pointed out by one whose name must ever be held in reverence by Cambridge men of my own standing, Bishop Harvey Goodwin, in his Foundations of the Creed, that I need do no more on this. point than shelter myself under the authority of his name. 1 Next, I believe that there is urgent need for a restatement of theological truth in the light of recent scientific discovery, such as has been attempted by Professor Allen in his Continuity of Religious Thought, and by my friend Mr. Heard in his suggestive volume, The Old and New Theology. The first principles of the Christian faith remain, and we may venture to say will ever remain, unchanged. They are above and beyond all criticism. But the manner in which it has been customary to explain them, and recommend them to the hearts and consciences of mankind, will be found to have varied considerably according to the scientific prepossessions and current intellectual and moral conceptions of those to whom the teachers have had to address themselves. There never has been a greater need to bear this in mind than at the present moment. I ventured to say as much at the Congress at Norwich last year, and was as much surprised as. pleased to find that I had the general assent of my audience. Moreover, as the Church has the promise of an indwelling Spirit to instruct her in all the truth, it may well, be that as 1 See his Prefatory Address to the reader. PREFACE. V the ages roll on a fuller comprehension of the mysteries of Revelation may be vouchsafed to her through the continuous study of the inspired records in which the first principles of that Revelation have been handed down. Was there ever an age, I may venture to add, in which such vast advances have been made in and through the study of those records, as in our own 1 Thirdly, I have long been convinced that in this age, when men are simply bewildered by the multitude of books, what is urgently needed is a series of manuals in which the student may master the first principles of a science before attempting to study the larger works in which those principles are more fully treated. More especially is this the case in theology. The great mass of the clergy will be sufficiently furnished for their task if they have a firm grasp of first principles. We do not expect every clergyman to be a profound scholar, or a deep theologian ; and if we did expect it, our expectation would not-could not-be realized. But we have a right to expect that he shall be thoroughly grounded in the Creed of Christendom, as well as in the Scriptures which explain and elucidate that Creed. Such manuals, I am aware, already exist. Yet I may, perhaps, be acquitted of the charge of presumption if I imagine that there is yet room for another statement of first principles by the side of my friend Dr. Maclear's excellent Handbook to the Creeds, Professor Mason's Faith of the Gospel, and the late Bishop Harvey Goodwin's most thoughtful and instructive volume on the Foundations of the Creed, to which reference has already been made. I may add that I have already endeavoured to supply the want of manuals on some points of Christian theology and evidence, and I shall make no apology for referring the readers of this book to them, where a fuller statement of my views than I am able here to give may seem to me to be necessary. Lastly, I desire this book to have the character of an Eirenicon. From my boyhood, I may be allowed to say, the reunion of Christendom has been my dream, and it has been my privilege to see some steps taken towards the fulfilment of that dream, and even to take some myself. I have joined in conference with Nonconformists at home, and with Old Catholics, and with members of the ancient Orthodox Churches of the East abroad. I have been admitted behind the Icono stasis at the celebration of the Eucharist in a Russian Church. I have communicated, and even officiated, at Old Catholic vi PREFAO:B:. altars. If I have not joined in conference with Roman Catholics, or communicated at their altars, it has been because the opportunity has never been given me. One thing, however, I have learned from my intercourse with the members of other religious bodies. It is, that the chief obstacle to a general union is our incapacity to draw the line between things fundamental and things indifferent ; or, in other words, between Catholic truth and pious opinion. And here I cannot refrain from expressing my conviction that there is no greater obstacl~ to home reunion, at least, than the loose way in which the word "Catholic " is used, the unwise readiness to affirm of this or that particular doctrine or practice, that the "Church has always held" or "prescribed" it: In these pages the word "Catholic" will be used in strict accordance with the definition of Vincentius of Lerins. It will be applied only to such doctrines, or practices, as can be proved to have been held, or inculcated, "ubique, semper, et ab omnibus." If they do not satisfy this criterion, then, however early we may meet with them, however widely they may have been spread, they are not, strictly speaking, Catholic. I shall say of no doctrine or practice that "the Church has always held" or "prescribed" it, unless I find evidence to that effect in the New Testament. If such evidence be not found there, I must believe that the doctrine or practice in question is no part of the Church's essential deposit of faith, and cannot, therefore, be required of any Christian man as requisite or necessary to salvation, or of any particular Church as necessary to establish its claim to be regarded as part and parcel of the Catholic Church of Christ. I am the more anxious to place this view of the case before my readers, as we are on the eve of a new era, in which the Church of Christ is called upon to face new problems, and to take, perhaps, a more prominent part than ever before in the regeneration of human society. She will be "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'a," in addressing herself to this most important task, if she is still to be bound by the rules and regulations of the fourth, fifth, or succeeding centuries. Not even the most careless student of history can be unaware how essentially different were the conditions of society at the break-up of the Roman Empire, or the dawn of modern society, from what they are now. To encumber ourselves with the antiquated regulations of those distant times in th~ conflict.a of ~-day w~re as wise as if our soldiers were to go out to meet then- enemies PREFACE. vii equipped with the weapons and armour used by their fore fathers ten or fifteen centuries ago. Not that I would advise anyone to despise the past. Not one line to that effect will be found in these pages. But while we respect the past, we must decline to be fettered by it. To social, moral, economical, political, we must add ecclesiastical progress. The Eternal Spirit has been given to the Church to enable her to adapt her machinery to the needs of the hour, and to comprehend ever more and more fully how the "faith once for all delivered to the saints " can be brought to bear on the hearts and consciences of mankind, so as to mould them into conformity with the image of Christ. In the hope that this book may be useful to others beside those for whom it was originally designed-to such lay members of our Church as may desire to have themselves, and to impart to others, a clearer knowledge of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ-I have, as a rule, translated the passages I have cited from the Fathers.

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