by men's traditions or made of no effect by the commandments of men. This over-concern about the creeds indicates a weakening hold upon the doctrine as Christ hath commanded and as this Church hath received the same. This ultra-devotion to the creeds has now gone so far that those who draw their doctrine from Scripture, diligently studied and with such aids as help to the knowledge of the same, and who are inwardly persuaded of the truth they hold, are accused of betraying the faith, or charged with lacking any objective basis for their faith, and their belief is counted as a vain thing, because it rests on the shifting sands of subjectivity. There is confusion here and grave misunderstanding. It can only be overcome by taking the vows of the Ordinal as meaning what they say, as carrying the meaning which those who placed them in the Prayer Book intended them to convey. We

1 The Catholic Church existed for four centuries, at its best and doing its greatest work, without any creed in its offices, liturgical or other. Peter the Fuller, patriarch of Antioch, was the first to introduce the Creed into the Liturgy, in the time of the Monophysite controversy about 470. The precedent was adopted by Constantinople about 510, and then by Spain 589; by the Gallican and Anglican churches about the eighth century, and by Rome so late as the eleventh. In the offices of the Breviary, the use of the Creed was ordered in the ninth century. The Creed was neither sung nor said during mass at Rome until the time of Benedict VIII (1012-1024). Cf. "Ordo Romanus Primus," ed. by Atchley, p. 80.

must revert again to that earlier position that Scripture is above the creeds, and that the creeds are to be interpreted by Scripture and not the Scripture by the creeds. The vow which the Church imposes on her clergy to be "diligent in reading of the Holy Scriptures, and in such studies as help to the knowledge of the same, makes progress possible, while to put the creeds above Scripture, as the key to their interpretation, makes it impossible. The Church of England is in harmony with the spirit of those memorable words of Robinson, the Puritan minister, that God may yet have more light to break forth from His Holy Word. But we need not go outside of the Church for such reminders. Our own Bishop Butler in the Analogy has uttered the same conviction:

"And as it is owned the whole scheme of Scripture is not yet understood, so if it ever comes to be understood before the restitution of all things, and without miraculous interpositions, it must be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at: by the continuance and progress of learning and liberty, and by particular persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up and down it, which are over

looked and disregarded by the generality of the world. For this is the way in which all improvements are made, by thoughtful men's tracing on obscure hints, as it were, dropped us by nature accidentally, or which seem to come into our minds by chance. Nor is it at all incredible that a book, which has been so long in the possession of mankind, should contain many truths as yet undiscovered." (Pt. ii, chap. iii.)

To this test the creeds must be constantly subjected, and through the process of this test they are passing to-day. Whether we approve or not, however great our regret or pain at seeing things which we cherish become subjects of doubt or controversy, the wiser course is to accept an inevitable situation, and wait for the conclusion equally inevitable. In the case of the Virgin-birth the candid student in search for the truth, will rightly dwell on its tendency to prevent the person of Christ from being regarded as an evolution from humanity by a natural process; or to represent the subordination of man to the transcendent will of Deity, the exaltation of God and not of man. These considerations constitute a presumption in favor of its truth, in addition to the weight of the

Gospel narratives. But there are also objections and difficulties which create doubt and uncertainty. It will not meet the case to say that these objections are frivolous, captious, not to be taken seriously, or that those who make them are insincere, or seeking to discredit Scripture. The Bible as the word of God contains all things necessary to salvation. But all that is written in Scripture is not in the fullest or truest sense Scripture. Else should the speech of Bildad the Shuhite be placed on the same footing as the utterances of great prophets. There are parts of Scripture which are like the fixed stars shining by their own light and centres of vast systems, while other parts are subordinate and inferior. The Virgin-birth is contained in Scripture, but the question before the devout scholar is whether it is such an essential integral part of the Scripture as to be intimately bound up with the things necessary to salvation. The incident of the Virgin-birth is given in two only of the four Gospels, and never alluded to again. Christ Himself does not refer to it. The three great apostles, Peter and John and Paul, are silent about it. The attitude of Mary as given in the evangelical narratives seems to many inconsistent with the knowledge or consciousness of such a wonderful circumstance as the Annuncia

tion. And further a suspicion has arisen that in the New Testament itself there is another way of referring to the birth of Christ,' which has been overlooked under the influence of the conviction of the Virgin-birth; so that when it occurs it has been interpreted as a way of speaking, a concession, a suppression required by the occasion. It may be so, but this is a question not to be determined in any a priori way. There

is nothing in the Virgin-birth incompatible with the teaching of St. John or of St. Paul; but the circumstance of their silence would at least seem to imply that it was not so essential, as that a belief in the Incarnation depended on it.2

1 Cf. Luke iv. 22; John i. 45; vi. 42.

2 In his valuable treatise on the "Incarnation," Dr. Briggs has remarked: "All that we have thus far learned of the incarnation from the teaching of Jesus and the writings of St. Paul, St. John, and the Epistle to the Hebrews, would stand firm if there had been no Virgin-birth; if Jesus had been born of Joseph and Mary, having father and mother, as any other child. Therefore the Virgin-birth is only one of many statements of the mode of the incarnation. It has no more documentary value, no more intrinsic importance, than any other of the many we have thus far studied. The doctrine of the incarnation does not depend upon the Virgin-birth. Since all the other passages relating to the incarnation, except that of the Gospel of the Infancy, know nothing of the Virgin-birth, it is only a minor matter connected with the incarnation, and should have a subordinate place in the doctrine. That which is unknown to the teachings of St. Peter and St. Paul, St. John and St. James, and our Lord Himself, and is absent from the earliest and latest Gospels cannot be so essential as many people have supposed" (p. 217).