See what questions can be raised upon these words, to which they, taken by themselves, afford no answer.

First-Who is this Jesus, that we should profess to "believe" in Him in the same terms in which we profess that we believe in God? We go on to profess that this Jesus is God's only Son. Why God's only Son? Are we not all " sons "of God in one sense? Are not good men sons of God in a higher sense, because "born of God ?" How, then, is this Jesus God's only Son? And how came this "Only Son" of the Maker of all things to bear the name of a man? Then, how is it that a man is called "Our Lord?" Surely in the highest worship the name of "Lord" should be restricted to the One God? Then, how came it to pass that the Son of God could be " conceived by the Holy Ghost and born of the Virgin Mary?" Who is the Holy Ghost, that through Him the Son of God should be conceived? Then, how could the Son of God be born of a woman; of a virgin? Again, how could the Son of God suffer and die? If a son partakes of his father's nature, then the only Son of God partakes of His Father's nature, and so He must be infinitely above the reach of suffering and death; for it is contrary to the first principles of Theology to suppose that the Divine Nature can suffer, and it is blasphemy to assert that the Divine Nature can die.

All these questions are suggested by those words of the Apostles' Creed to which we have alluded, and the creed itself suggests no answer to them, whereas the Creed of St. Athanasius answers them all.

The greater part of the Creed of St. Athanasius may be supposed to have been written for the purpose of answering these questions which may be raised upon this part of the Apostles' Creed.

For, first, it lays down that the Divine Nature is One,

and yet is wholly shared by Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost--that these Persons so partake of the Divine Nature that Each One by Himself is God and Lord, and yet that this is not to be understood as if we believed in three Gods, or three Lords.

In order to this, the Creed in question takes all the names or attributes applied to the Divine Being in Scripture-that He is Uncreated, Eternal, Incomprehensible, Almighty, Lord, God; it declares that Each One of the Three Persons is all these, and yet that there is but One Almighty Uncreated Lord God.

All this is a necessary deduction from our present Scriptures. If we take into FULL account all that is said in the Bible respecting the Unity of God, and all that is said of the Divine Nature and glory of Christ and of the Holy Ghost, we are driven to accept a doctrine identical with that stated in this Creed, that "there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all One; the Glory cqual, the Majesty co-eternal."

The latter part of this Creed is written to give us such a view of the Person of the Saviour as will enable us to hold that He is in all respects God and in all respects sinless man; His nature is not a mixture of the Divine and human: He is not partly God, and partly man, but He is wholly God, and wholly man. Wholly partaking of His Father's Adorable and Infinite nature, and wholly partaking of our low and finite nature. The glory of the Godhead in Him does not extinguish one property essential to His Perfect Manhood, neither does the manhood take aught from one attribute of His Godhead.

All this is essential to our salvation, for if He were not God, all His love and sufferings could have had no power

to save us, and if He were not man, He could neither have truly suffered for us, nor could He truly sympathise with us.

In no other way than in that set forth in this Creed can we truly and intellectually hold that He is in very deed God, and in very deed our Brother.

So that the opposition to this Creed from its supposed difficulties, arises from want of thought, for the Creed of St. Athanasius gives to the thinking mind a rational and intellectual view of the astounding mystery which is stated in all its naked difficulty in the Apostles' Creed.

The Creed of St. Athanasius answers the question respecting God's having an Only Son, for it teaches us that the nature of God is fully partaken of by Two Persons, Who bear to one another the relation of Father to Son.

The Creed of St. Athanasius solves such questions as to how it came to pass that the Son of God was conceived and born, and had a man's name, and suffered and died a man's death: for we confess in it that Jesus our Lord is "God of the substance of His Father, begotten before the worlds, and man of the substance of His Mother, born in the world," and that this God and man is "One Christ, Who suffered for our salvation."

That the Creed of St. Athanasius is more easy to a thinking mind than the Apostles' Creed, so far, at least, as its statement of the Incarnation is concerned, is only in accordance with what surely may be the fact, that a bare simple statement expressed in very plain words may be very difficult, and a more elaborate statement expressed in somewhat more scientific terms may be in reality far more easy to apprehend.

This applies not only to the clauses in the Creed of St. Athanasius compared with the corresponding clauses in the Apostles' Creed, but to the statements of the

Incarnation in the same Creed (St. Athanasius') compared with certain Scripture statements.

Take these three very plain assertions. "The Word was made flesh." (John i. 12.) "He that hath seen Me, hath seen the Father." (John xiv. 9.) "Our hands have handled of the Word of Life." (1 John i. 1.) Here are three very plain statements, expressed almost in monosyllables, and yet every student in Theology knows that each one of these verses, taken as it stands, involves a far greater difficulty than anything asserted in the Creed of St. Athanasius.

We have now to consider certain expressions in this Creed which are assumed to be unscripturally harsh and uncharitable. I believe that, on examination, the objections to these expressions will be found just as futile as the objections to the rest of it.

What are called the "6 damnatory clauses" in this Creed are only the echo of certain "damnatory clauses" in the word of God, and are to be received in the same sense, and applied in the same way, and with the same limitations, as certain corresponding denunciations in the New Testament.

I will take the best known of these denunciations, which forms a part of the last commission of Christ to His Apostles: "He that believeth not shall be damned;" the whole commission being, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." (St. Mark xvi. 16.)

Now, suppose that with this commission I go to some heathen city, and preach the Gospel, what message must I deliver? Evidently the message contained in my commission; and this message is twofold. "He that believeth shall be saved." "He that believeth not shall be damned."

If I am to be a faithful messenger, I must deliver all my message. If I think the terms are too harsh, as an honest man I have only one alternative-I must throw up my commission. If I am true to my Master's instructions, I have to tell my heathen hearers plainly that if they do not believe they will be damned.

Now supposing that, after I have faithfully delivered my message, a heathen who has heard it dies in unbelief. Am I to say respecting that man that he is certainly lost? No: clearly not-I have nothing more to do with him. He has passed to the bar of his Sovereign Judge. Now, I humbly trust that this Sovereign Judge has reserved to Himself the right of making allowances. I cannot but believe that He has reserved to Himself the right of modifying His decisions in particular cases according to the circumstances of each soul, which circumstances are known only to Him; but though He has reserved to Himself this power, He has assuredly not given it to me. I have but one duty, to deliver His message unaltered and unmodified. Whilst my hearers are in life, then, I must say to them, "He that believeth not shall be damned." When they pass to the bar of their Judge, I humbly hope that God will take every circumstance into consideration which can possibly tell in their favour. But I have no power to make any reservations, the terms of my commission being, "He that believeth not shall be damned."

For a legislator to make a law, and fence that law with a penalty, and at the same time to express all the possible modifications and exceptions, would make any law a dead letter. And as it is with the law of man, so it must be with the law of God. The New Testament contains a multitude of denunciations of the wrath of God against all manner of sins, which denunciations would be de