“They do not,” says Archbishop Bramhall, “add the word filioque to the Creed, and yet they acknowledge that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of the Son, which is the very same thing in sense.” [46b] And again—“Peter Lombard, Thomas à Jesu, Cardinal Tolet, and many others, do make the question about the procession of the Holy Ghost to be verbal only, without reality, and that the Grecian expressions of Spiritus Filii and per Filium, do signify as much as our Filioque.” [47a] Bishop Pearson, Bishop Beveridge, Dr. Waterland, and many others of our own divines are of the same opinion.
In explication of the doctrine of the Personality of the Holy Ghost, the Athanasian Creed says—“the Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son,” the Greek Church holds that which as Bishop Pearson says, plainly contains this truth, that the Spirit is of God the Father, and of God the Son. The Creed says, “neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding,” and beyond a procession, distinguishing Him from the Father and the Son, but whether this procession be temporal, eternal, or both—whether from the Father and the Son, or from the Father only, the Creed determines nothing—and the distinguishing property ascribed by the Greek Church to the Holy Ghost, is a procession, Εκπορενσις. [47b] “The Greek Church,” says Dr. Bennet, “does unanimously maintain the temporal procession of the Holy Ghost, from both the Father and the Son. And since this Creed may be understood in that sense, therefore in the use of it we do necessarily declare no more than what the Greek Church does as cordially profess and contend for as ourselves.”
“Though the distinction,” says the same writer, “was so well known to all our Reformers in this nation, yet their prudence and moderation would not suffer them to take notice of it in any public and authentic manner. They would not recede from Rome any further than was necessary, upon the account of the Roman corruptions, and therefore they did not reject the filioque from the Nicene Creed or the Creed of St. Athanasius, nor did they declare themselves against the Greek Church by adding any such term, as must necessarily determine in what sense they understood the procession.” [48a] Literally taken, therefore, the Greek Church is not of necessity included in this sweeping anathema, and as his Lordship states it, “excluded from the merits of the Redeemer’s death hereafter,” any more than five hundred millions of Heathens are condemned to irretrievable perdition by the literal acceptation of Mark xvi. 16.
To affirm the necessity of the Catholic Faith to salvation, is simply to say what our Lord himself says, in the above text. To affirm that he who having had the Catholic Faith rejects it, is to say no more than is said, Heb. vi. 4, Luke ix. 62, Matt x. 13, and 2 Peter ii. 21, with many other like places.
It would appear then from page 51 of your pamphlet, that we differ nothing in our application of these clauses; the only difference between us is, that taking this view of it, I can unreservedly make my Subscription, and conscientiously hold with our eighth Article, that this Creed “ought thoroughly to be received and believed.” But if in my conscience I believed that such an application of them was untenable, I confess I could not so easily lay aside my scruples, as it would appear you were ready to do, provided you could obtain the “sanction of the opinion of the Archbishop of Canterbury,” an opinion which being not ex cathedra, but private and personal, his Grace would not permit you to consider as “of greater value than that of any other individual, who may possess in an equal degree the qualifications of a competent judge in such a matter.” [48b]
But you ask “whether when we read Mark xvi. 16, we can find in that awful threat against those who do not receive the Gospel, a sanction for the even more appalling threat contained in the Creed.” [49a] In what sense it is more appalling you have left us to discover. But by this observation, you would seem to aim at some distinction between not receiving the Gospel and rejecting the “very essentials of Christianity.”
“The Creed,” you say, “consists of a series of propositions deduced by fallible man.” This of necessity would be the case, since the truth was by the wisdom of God committed to the keeping of fallible man, and with it, the command to “take heed to THE doctrine.” But the question is are they correct deductions from the infallible word of God? You admit that they are, all “must admire,” you say, “the extraordinary subtlety and acuteness with which erroneous theories are rejected, and the correct deductions from scripture are maintained,” [49b] and again “the matters treated of in this Creed are of such fundamental importance and so including the very essentials of Christianity.” [49c] If so, if the deductions be scriptural, the spirit of the clauses cannot be otherwise, for “he that believeth not shall be damned,” and I presume that by believing you would contend for the necessity of a sound faith—“the truth as it is in Jesus.”
“You are not,” you say, “so feverishly sensitive as many good men of our Church as to Trinitarian definitions, esteeming a lively ‘faith working by love,’ the grand desideratum of the gospel,” [49d] and so no doubt in a right sense it is. But South draws a distinction between a lively and a living faith, “our faith must not only be living but lively too.” Admitting this distinction, how far behind you does the Unitarian (or rather Humanitarian, if sects would but assume their most appropriate designation), fall in the profession of a like faith? He holds after a fashion, St. Paul’s “word of faith,” Rom. x. 9, and in works of kindness to his fellow creatures and morality, falls nothing behind the most orthodox Trinitarian. In this sense his faith is lively, and artlessness and simplicity are the boasted characteristics of his Creed. He “confesses with his mouth the Lord Jesus”—but then it is that he “was a man constituted in all respects like other men, subject to the same infirmities, the same ignorance, prejudices, and frailties, that he suffered death, not to appease the wrath of God, not as a satisfaction to divine justice, not to exhibit the evil of sin, nor in any sense whatever to make atonement to God for it; for this doctrine, in every sense, and according to every explanation they explode as irrational, unscriptural, and derogatory from the divine perfections, but as a martyr to the truth, and as a necessary preliminary to his resurrection.” [50] They confess Jesus with the mouth, but they deny the gospel of Jesus Christ our Redeemer. And is this believing to the saving of the soul? is this a “confession unto salvation?” Is this THE doctrine? But the rulers of Christ’s Church are to charge some that they teach no other doctrine, than the doctrine which is according to godliness, and great is the mystery of godliness. They are to rebuke sharply that men be sound in the faith. We must in short teach the truth as it is in Jesus,—THE faith and not A faith; and woe to us if from any mistaken notions of Christian charity, of that charity which “rejoiceth in the truth,” we hesitate to declare that to reject “the very essentials of Christianity,” is a “drawing back unto perdition.” At the same time when in the fulfilment of our bounden duty, our positive obligations, we declare the threat of scripture, for we declare no more, we might hope at all events from those whose every sentiment would seem to breathe of Christian benevolence, to have credit for declaring it in the spirit of that charity which “hopeth all things.”
Of the form of absolution in the Service for Visiting the Sick, you say, “no small harm is done to our reputation by sanctioning that which in plain honest language cannot be defended.” [51a]
The Roman Catholic will tell you that you cannot in plain honest language defend any construction of the words “this is my body,” but their own. You put, however, a different construction upon them, and with no harm done to your reputation.