Surely there was more zeal than wisdom in this declaration. Does the Athanasian or rather the
pseudo
-Athanasian Creed differ from the Nicene, or not? If not, it must be dispensable at least, if not superfluous. If it does differ, which of the two am I to follow;—the profession of an anonymous individual, or the solemn decision of upwards of three hundred Bishops convened from all parts of the Christian world?
Vol. I. p. 177-180.
No problem more difficult or of more delicate treatment than the
criteria
of miracles; yet none on which young divines are fonder of displaying their gifts. Nor is this the worst. Their charity too often goes to wreck from the error of identifying the faith in Christ with the arguments by which they think it is to be supported. But surely if two believers meet at the same goal of faith, it is a very secondary question whether they travelled thither by the same road of argument. In this and other passages of Skelton, I recognize and reverence a vigorous and robust intellect; but I complain of a turbidness in his reasoning, a huddle in his sequence, and here and there a semblance of arguing in a circle—from the miracle to the doctrine, and from the doctrine to the miracle. Add to this a too little advertency to the distinction between the evidence of a miracle for A, an eye-witness, and for B, for whom it is the relation of a miracle by an asserted eye-witness; and again between B, and X, Y, Z, for whom it is a fact of history. The result of my own meditations is, that the evidence of the Gospel, taken as a total, is as great for the Christians of the nineteenth century, as for those of the Apostolic age. I should not be startled if I were told it was greater. But it does not follow, that this equally holds good of each component part. An evidence of the most cogent clearness, unknown to the primitive Christians, may compensate for the evanescence of some evidence, which they enjoyed. Evidences comparatively dim have waxed into noon-day splendour; and the comparative wane of others, once effulgent, is more than indemnified by the
synopsis
