999 
 
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 The Gospel and the Creed
 
 Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN ; 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 "A "N
 
 The 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS B. STRONG 
 
 '.OP OF RIPON 
 
 READ AT THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC CONGRESS 
 20 JUNE, 1922 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 -KFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 :)'. EDINBURGH GLASGOW COPEN 
 NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOY 
 BOMBAY CALCU1 PA M ' iAI
 
 The 
 
 Gospel and the Creed 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS B. STRONG 
 
 BISHOP OF RIPON 
 
 READ AT THE ANGLO-CATHOLIC CONGRESS 
 20 JUNE, 1922 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW COPENHAGEN 
 NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE CAPE TOWN 
 BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI 
 1922
 
 PRINTED IN ENGLAND 
 
 AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 BY FREDERICK HALL
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 
 
 ' THE Purpose and Aim of this Congress is ', accord- 
 ing to the statement on the front page of its programme, 
 ' to extend the Knowledge of Catholic Faith and practice 
 at home and abroad, and, by this means, to bring men 
 and women to a true realization of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, as their personal Saviour and King.' The ulti- 
 mate purpose here stated is one with which every 
 Christian man must have sympathy : and it appeals with 
 special force to members of the Church of England, as 
 it combines in its purview the evangelical message of 
 Salvation through Christ and the reference to Catholic 
 faith and practice. I do not think, therefore, that I need, 
 in any way, to apologize for my presence here to-day ; 
 though I am, of course, aware that some, perhaps many, 
 of those here present may support beliefs and practices 
 which do not seem to me to be either rightly described 
 as Catholic, or capable, intrinsically, of valid defence. I 
 could not, for instance, accept many of the statements 
 in the Handbook, under the heading ' misunderstood 
 subjects '. I do hold, and in this I understand that we here 
 I think it will become increasingly manifest through- 
 out Christendom are all likely to be agreed, that the 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ as the Saviour of man, which is 
 the divine answer to the doubts and hopes of man, will 
 make firm and stable progress when it is presented by 
 a society ' perfected together in the same mind and in 
 the same judgement ', ' speaking the same thing '. The 
 Gospel makes its appeal as a faith, not only as a life ; 
 and either without the other, though it may perform 
 part of the work laid by Christ upon His followers, must 
 
 1023932
 
 4 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 
 
 always fall short of what Christ's Church may rightly 
 be expected to do. 
 
 Our subject to-day is the Gospel and the Creed, and 
 I am glad to have the opportunity of addressing some 
 remarks to you on this head, for it is one upon which 
 there is much discussion. Many questions are involved, 
 and I cannot treat them all. Two of the most important, 
 the idea of the Supernatural and the doctrine of our 
 Lord's Person, are in the very able hands of Mr. Selwyn 
 and Mr. Mozley ; I shall not touch upon either of these 
 subjects. I wish to say a few words upon a matter 
 which seems to me of vital importance at the present 
 time the function of a definite faith, expressible in 
 definite terms, in the shape of a creed, in the proclama- 
 tion of the Gospel of Christ. 
 
 There has been, as we all know, a prevalent notion 
 that Christianity needs no positive doctrine no dogma. 
 Its functions are fulfilled if men are virtuous and chari- 
 table, and when that is so, it does not matter much what 
 they believe. I greatly hope that this theory of religion 
 is gradually dying of inanition. Christianity has always 
 been, when it is at its best, a missionary religion : it is 
 hard to imagine a more futile programme for missionary 
 work than a Gospel, so-called, without a creed. It is 
 merely homiletic when it ought to inspire with new 
 force and enthusiasm : and it leaves all the real problems 
 of nature and life and religion out of account. The 
 hope of Reunion, which has been seriously delayed by 
 the prevalence of such notions as these, will probably 
 extinguish them finally, now that the task of finding an 
 agreed basis has been at last taken up with determina- 
 tion and goodwill. 
 
 I do not propose, therefore, to trouble you with argu- 
 ments in favour of the profession by a missionary body 
 of a definite form of belief. The point to which it 
 seems to me more immediately necessary to direct our 
 attention is one which comes to us from the side of
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 5 
 
 historical criticism. What we are now told is, in effect, 
 that the Creeds themselves as we have them are a spu- 
 rious accretion to the original content of the Christian 
 faith, to be accounted for by the influence of non- 
 Christian influences acting upon the minds of those 
 who preached the Gospel first, and then more ex- 
 tensively upon the growing Catholic Church. Two 
 conspicuous cases of this external influence are said to 
 be Greek philosophy and the mystery-religions. Of 
 these, the second concerns more directly the sacraments 
 and the doctrine connected with them; I am, for the 
 present, more particularly considering the Creeds, and 
 I have therefore to deal primarily with the influence of 
 Greek philosophical thought. 
 
 In order to deal with this subject as clearly as I can 
 in the brief time possible now, I will ask you to con- 
 sider for a few moments one of our present Creeds 
 somewhat carefully. I do not choose the Quicumque 
 vult, partly because this document does not cover the 
 whole ground of the Creed it says nothing of the doc- 
 trine of the Holy Spirit partly because it differs in 
 history, and style, and usage from the other two. I 
 select rather the Nicene Creed so-called, because that 
 is used both by the Eastern and Western Churches, and 
 because, from the present point of view, anything that 
 may be said of it is true a fortiori of the Apostles' Creed. 
 
 If then, we turn to the Nicene Creed, we find that it 
 falls into three paragraphs. The first deals very shortly 
 with the doctrine of the Father, and affirms the creation 
 of the world by Him. Strictly speaking, this is or in- 
 volves a metaphysical doctrine : no one, for instance, 
 who held a purely materialistic view of the world could 
 accept this article of the Creed. But the appearance of 
 the word Father removes even this article from the 
 region of pure metaphysic, and connects it with the 
 teaching of our Lord. In the second paragraph we 
 have the doctrine of the Son, and of His manifestation
 
 6 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 
 
 in the Incarnation, and of His Second Coming. In the 
 third paragraph there is a brief statement of the doctrine 
 of the Holy Spirit : and there is added a reference to 
 the Church, to Baptism, and to the Christian hope after 
 death. 
 
 It is of the utmost importance to notice that in all this 
 there is only one word which travels definitely outside 
 the vocabulary of Scripture, and that is 6p.oov<riov. It is 
 true, of course, that those who drew up the Creed, and 
 those who have defended it since, use of necessity the 
 language of philosophy, because all theological belief 
 involves as I have just pointed out a scheme of 
 thought which affects and is affected by other ideas and 
 convictions. But it is noticeable that these philosophical 
 arguments are not included in the Creed. There is not 
 even an indication of the meaning of ovvia implied in the 
 word opoovcTiov. This is a point of some importance, 
 and, in order to illustrate it, I will ask your attention for 
 a few moments to certain passages from St. Athanasius. 
 As you are aware, he was not a member of the Council 
 of Nicaea, being in deacon's orders only ; but he was in 
 attendance upon the Patriarch of Alexandria, and being 
 already a theologian of high eminence, was consulted 
 informally on the questions in dispute. About the year 
 352 he wrote a book, De Decretis Nicaenae Synodi. This 
 was intended to defend the Council against criticism 
 based on its use of the expressions 6p.oov<nov and K rfjs 
 ova-ias TOV Trarpoy. In chapter i he tells us that persons 
 have asked the question, ' Why did those who met at 
 Nicaea use unscriptural phrases (aypa0oi/y Ae|ety) e< rrjs 
 ova-tas and opoovo-iov ? ' He discusses at considerable 
 length the actual problem before the Council, and gives 
 his answer to the above question as follows (ch. 20) : 
 ' The Bishops . . . were compelled to collect again the 
 sense out of the Scriptures, and to state again more 
 clearly what they said before, and to write that the Son 
 was of one substance with the Father.' ' If then (ch. 2 1)
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 7 
 
 [the AriansJ refuse the terms on the pretence that they 
 are strange, let them reflect upon the sense in which the 
 Council used them, anathematizing what the Council 
 anathematized, and then, if they can, let them find fault 
 with the phraseology. ... If they blame the sense, it is 
 plain to all that they are talking idly about the wording, 
 and using them as a starting-point for their impiety. . . . 
 Let any studious person perceive that, even if the 
 phrases are not in so many words in the Scriptures, yet 
 they carry the sense of the Scriptures, and by giving 
 expression to this they declare it to those whose hearing 
 is sound towards piety.' Athanasius then considers 
 various erroneous inferences which may be drawn from 
 the term ovo-ia, and from the use of such phrases as 
 Father to describe God : then he writes (c. 22), ' Even 
 though it be impossible to comprehend what the sub- 
 stance (ova-ia) of God may be, yet if we perceive that God 
 is, and if Scripture describes Him in these terms, we 
 merely wish to describe none other than Himself when 
 we speak of God as Father and Lord. ... So let no one 
 feel startled, if he hears that the Son of God is of the 
 essence of God, but rather admit that the Fathers, clear- 
 ing up the sense, wrote more plainly but, as it were, in 
 equivalent phrases, " from God ", and " from the Sub- 
 stance of God ".' They thought that it meant exactly the 
 same to say that the Son was e/c rov Qcov, and that He was 
 CK rfjs ova-ias rov Oeov. The former phrase runs back 
 upon John xvi. 28 : the meaning of the other is determined 
 by the first. In another place in the same book (ch. 31) 
 Athanasius lays emphasis upon the superiority of Scrip- 
 tural phraseology over that of ' the Greeks '. ' We can 
 indicate the [nature of] God better and more truly by 
 means of the Son and by calling Him Father than by 
 naming Him by means of His works alone, and calling 
 Him Ingenerate. The latter points to the works created 
 by Him by means of the Word : the name of Father 
 calls attention to the unique generation from His
 
 8 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 
 
 substance. And as the Word is superior to created 
 things, so and more truly will it be better to speak of 
 God as Father than as Ingenerate. The latter word 
 is unscriptural and suspect, and has many meanings : 
 the former is simple and scriptural and truer, and points 
 only to the Son. The term Ingenerate was devised by 
 Greeks who know not the Son : the term Father was 
 recognized by our Lord ((yvaxrdr) irapd) and has been 
 given [to us] as a gift (Ke\dpi<rrai).' 
 
 It is plain from these passages, and many others could 
 be quoted from the De Decretis and other works, that 
 Athanasius conceives the function of the Council to be 
 to interpret and to protect the Scripture, to prevent 
 its teaching being gradually changed by the intrusion 
 of alien and incompatible ideas. The meaning of the 
 Scripture is the main test of what is true, and it is 
 supported, so he would contend, by the utterances of 
 distinguished theologians in the past (De Deer. 25, foil.). 
 It is not, I think, possible to maintain that Athanasius 
 was trying to translate Christian doctrine into philo- 
 sophical language : he is guided throughout by Scrip- 
 ture, and he brings all the phraseology to that test. 
 We should not always, perhaps should not often, accept 
 his interpretation of the text, especially in the Old 
 Testament, but I think it is impossible to avoid the 
 impression that his object is interpretation and not 
 speculation. 
 
 The evidence of Athanasius shows, I think, what the 
 Church had in view in its use of the word oftoovo-iov. 
 As I have already observed the rest of the Creed is 
 entirely within the language of Holy Scripture. It 
 describes in its second paragraph the salient facts in the 
 Life of our Lord His Resurrection and Ascension; 
 and in this it simply summarizes the account of Him 
 which stands in the New Testament. It is of great 
 importance to note that all these statements are his- 
 torical in character : they affirm the occurrence of certain
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 9 
 
 events, and perhaps it is not too much to say that, if 
 they are true, the account of our Lord in the earlier 
 part of the second paragraph is natural enough. It is 
 at this point that we have to consider a particular line 
 of criticism. Many writers would admit that the Nicene 
 statement is organically continuous with ideas already 
 present in the New Testament, and would acknowledge 
 that they must search there for the beginnings of the 
 Hellenization which in their view characterizes Catholic 
 doctrine. In days when the books of the New Testa- 
 ment were placed at a considerable distance from the 
 date of our Lord's Life, this was easier than it is now, 
 as there was a considerable time given in which the 
 process of Hellenization could take place. But we are 
 still in presence of a theory of this sort, and the points 
 to which I propose to refer briefly in regard to it are 
 the two following. By means of analysis of the Gospels 
 it is attempted to disentangle the nucleus of historic 
 fact which underlies them : this is called the search for 
 the 'Jesus of History*. The influence of Greek philo- 
 sophy and mystery-religions is then sought to be traced 
 in the writings of St. Paul and St. John : such terms as 
 the Aoyoy, and the language used in i Cor. about the 
 Eucharist being assigned to these sources. To discuss 
 these positions with any degree of adequacy would 
 require a long and technical treatise, and this is not the 
 occasion for attempting anything of this sort. All I can 
 do now is to lay before you what are the general results 
 of my own study of these matters, which has been in 
 process for many years. 
 
 i. What I have said about Athanasius is mutatis 
 mutandis true of the writers in the New Testament. It 
 is undeniable that words and phrases occur in them 
 for which it is easy to find parallels in pagan writers, 
 religious and philosophical. But it is not enough to 
 find words and phrases. In their non-Christian use 
 these words belong to a system of ideas, and I venture
 
 10 
 
 to think that it is impossible to prove the presence of 
 this system of ideas in the Pauline and Johannine 
 writings. The thought in these, however near their 
 phraseology may occasionally appear to Hellenic 
 thought, goes back not to this but to the much less articu- 
 late and reasoned thought of the Hebrew Scriptures. 
 
 2. I do not quarrel with the attempt to disentangle 
 the 'Jesus of History' from the existing records. But 
 I think we have a right to ask that the figure which 
 results should account for the existence of the Church 
 and the development of its thought and practice. I 
 venture to think that this condition is not fulfilled. 
 There is one fact written large over the New Testament 
 as a whole, which is that the new movement in religion, 
 whatever it was, dated from the presence in the world 
 of Jesus Christ. None of those to whom it fell to spread 
 the movement were in the smallest doubt about this. 
 St. Paul was not a man to accept dictation or to conceal 
 his own part in the movement ; but, though he tells us 
 nothing new of the life of the Lord, there is no doubt 
 that his whole mind and will are prostrate in abasement 
 before the Lord. The same is true of the other New 
 Testament writers : there is not the slightest vestige of 
 a suggestion that any of them were acting in any other 
 capacity than as servants of His. It is difficult to see 
 how if Christ were merely a prophet of the Second 
 Coming with an 'interim ethic', if He were merely a 
 preacher of righteousness and charity, with no message 
 of Salvation, if He had succeeded after His death in 
 convincing His followers of immortality, but did not rise 
 from the grave it is difficult to see how His followers 
 can have held and retained the opinion of Him which 
 they express in their works. For it must be remembered 
 always that the Second Coming did not take place ; the 
 preaching of righteousness did not keep sin out of the 
 infant Church ; Christian people, as the Thessalonians 
 noted to their great perplexity, died like other men in
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED n 
 
 spite of the new life. If the followers of Jesus got their 
 positive doctrines about His nature and functions from 
 Greek philosophy and mystery-religions, it is hard to 
 understand why they should have continued to preach 
 these things as part of the message of Christ, when 
 their experience showed them that the course of the 
 Church was going to be very different indeed from 
 what they had grounds for supposing. All that they 
 believed and taught seemed to them to date back to 
 their knowledge of Him : they were witnesses of what 
 He was and did. 
 
 Of course, it is difficult for evolutionary minds to 
 understand how such tremendous changes can have 
 come about through the activities of one Teacher : we 
 naturally try to bridge over the change by imagining 
 a series of almost imperceptible steps. But it seems to 
 me that it is a mistake to suppose that evolution excludes 
 catastrophic changes in history, especially in the spiritual 
 history of man. Look, for instance, at the forty volumes 
 or so of J. S. Bach's music. You can study these, and 
 go back behind them to various predecessors, and see 
 how in various ways characteristics of Bach were antici- 
 pated. But there is no unbroken passage from the 
 predecessors to Bach. If you had mastered all that 
 Heinrich Schutz, and Pachelbel, and Buxtehude could 
 teach you, you would still be in the presence of a great 
 fixed gulf, which Bach alone could cross. It is the 
 same with the Divina Commedia of Dante. More than 
 almost any other poem that work is the happy hunting- 
 ground of scholars, busily tracing its ' origins ' in the 
 history and philosophy and poetry of the day. But the 
 Summa of St. Thomas, and the Speculum of Vincentius 
 of Beauvais, and all the early Italian poets put together 
 will not give you the Divina Commedia : that is a dif- 
 ferent thing altogether. In like manner, I venture to 
 think, you may study the Apocalypses and the mystery- 
 religions and the current philosophy, and show, pro-
 
 12 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 
 
 bably quite truly, how various elements in the doctrine 
 of the New Testament fit on to elements in pre-Christian 
 and non-Christian thought ; but this will not explain the 
 figure of Christ the impression He made upon His 
 followers. What is called the 'Jesus of History 'will 
 not, I think, displace the Jesus of the New Testament, 
 of the New Testament as a whole and not merely of 
 the Gospels. 
 
 You will think, I am afraid, that I have forgotten our 
 purpose here to-day, and the Anglo-Catholic Congress. 
 What I have just said brings me back to it directly. I 
 have ventured to suggest that the so-called ' Jesus of 
 History', when opposed to the Jesus of the New Testa- 
 ment, is a fictitious figure or perhaps, I should rather 
 say, a theoretical expedient devised for the solution of a 
 problem. And I think it fails, not because there is no 
 problem, but because it never is solid and stable enough 
 to bear the super-structure which, ex hypothesi, depends 
 upon it. So far as we have gone, in other words, it has 
 proved impossible to get behind the Jesus of the New 
 Testament to anything adequate to account for the 
 actual presentation of our Lord in those writings. I 
 now want to go a step further, and suggest that you 
 must be very careful in any efforts you may make 
 towards distinguishing the Jesus of the New Testament 
 from the Jesus of the Church. It is here, I think, that 
 the Anglo-Catholic movement has a great part to play. 
 
 In spite of various authorship the books of the New 
 Testament have a wonderful unity in idea. It is easy to 
 distinguish the thought of St. Paul and that of St. John, 
 but it is also inevitable that their agreements should 
 emerge, under study, in a very striking fashion. More- 
 over, the books comprised in the New Testament have 
 been for many centuries sharply distinguished from all 
 others : a list or Canon was developed, and the books 
 included in it were set in connexion with the Old Testa- 
 ment Scriptures. And it can hardly be denied that
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 13 
 
 there is a difference between them and all other Christian 
 literature. This difference, which all Christians admit, 
 has been variously defined, and we are not con- 
 cerned with these definitions now. But it is important 
 to notice that the difference raises a very serious ques- 
 tion. Assuming that it is possible to derive from the 
 canonical books a coherent conception of Christ and 
 His work, what is the position of the Church after the 
 close of the Canon ? Is Christianity, like Judaism, after 
 all, a religion of a book in spite of St. Paul's antitheses 
 between that which is written (TO ypa/*/*a) and the Spirit ? 
 Or is the Spirit who guided the writing and selection of 
 these books alive still in the Church, interpreting the 
 book and guiding the Church to applications of the 
 written word to new ages and circumstances and men ? 
 Unfortunately, this is not a plain question, but still more 
 unfortunately, it is widely supposed that a plain answer 
 can be given to it. It is widely held that there is an ex- 
 haustive alternative between the Bible and the Church : 
 one or other may be many would say must be taken 
 as the complete and final and infallible guide. It seems 
 to me that both sides of this disjunction are inadequate 
 to the facts : both alike aim at severing and treating in 
 severance two parts of one single living whole. This is 
 a mistake somewhat resembling that upon which I have 
 already made some comment the severance between 
 the 'Jesus of History' and the Jesus of the Church. It is 
 true that there is, at any rate almost all Christians think 
 so, a coherent conception of Christ and His work in 
 Scripture, but it is not justifiable to set this in antagon- 
 ism to the body through which the Scriptures themselves 
 were selected and gathered together, as if it were an 
 alien body with no continuity of mind and no unity of 
 inspiration with the Scriptures. As I understand the 
 matter, it is this principle of continuity in idea and in- 
 spiration which the Anglo-Catholic party has inherited 
 through Tractarianism from the ancient Church, and for
 
 14 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 
 
 which it stands to-day. Anglo-Catholics maintain, as 
 truly as St. Peter, that there is none other name under 
 heaven, except that of Jesus Christ, whereby men may be 
 saved. But they wish also to retain and to emphasize 
 in various ways their retention of the consciousness of 
 union with the whole spiritual Body of Christ through- 
 out its history from the days of the Son of Man 
 until now. 
 
 But at this point a new question arises, upon which 
 I will venture to say a few words in conclusion. I have 
 compared the attempt to disentangle the 'Jesus of His- 
 tory ' to the attempt to sever the Jesus of the New Testa- 
 ment from the Jesus of the Church. That these last are 
 closely connected I have no doubt. But there is an 
 important difference between the two cases. If I am 
 right in thinking that the various conjectural pictures of 
 the 'Jesus of History* fail to achieve their purpose, we 
 are left with the character set forth in the New Testa- 
 ment and with that alone. But if we are also right in 
 condemning the undue severance of the Bible and the 
 Church, are we bound to all that has been asserted in 
 the name of the Church as regards our Lord, and all 
 the inferences that have been based upon His life and 
 work ? I think not. The history of the Church covers 
 many centuries, and it has been chequered by contro- 
 versy, discussion, and schism. Doubtless there has 
 been continuous development, but there have also been 
 heresies and accretions which have no true place in the 
 line. Every one who has studied Church history knows 
 the complexity of the problems raised in it. Might we, 
 perhaps, put our question in a rather different form? 
 Is there any limit to the range of authority? Are there 
 any propositions, short of self-contradiction, which no 
 authority can make credible? I think there are such 
 propositions, and they are of two kinds. One kind 
 belongs to the region of history, the other to that of 
 metaphysic. I can make my meaning most clear by
 
 THE GOSPEL AND THE CREED 15 
 
 taking instances, and for these I will go back to the Nicene 
 Creed from which I began. This Creed asserts that 
 our Lord Jesus Christ was Incarnate of the Holy Ghost 
 and the Virgin Mary, and that He ascended into heaven. 
 Any one may say that these two statements are a priori 
 impossible, and that the historical evidence is against 
 them. The Church maintains that they are not impos- 
 sible, and that the assertion of them rests upon adequate 
 historical evidence, and that they are part of its continuous 
 witness. Some centuries later it was asserted that the 
 Blessed Virgin was immaculately conceived, and was 
 received into heaven by an Assumption. There may be 
 a priori reasons for believing these things, but they do 
 not prove the facts: there is no historical evidence 
 worth serious consideration. I would venture to assert, 
 therefore, that no authority, however venerable, could 
 make these assertions as to the Blessed Virgin Mary 
 rationally credible. In the Nicene Creed it is asserted 
 that the Son is of one substance with the Father. I have 
 tried to show that no theory of substance is here in- 
 volved ; and I should further maintain that no authority 
 is adequate to define and impose a theory of substance, 
 either in regard to the Incarnation or in regard to the 
 Eucharist, and that, therefore, all theoretical expositions 
 or practices in regard to the Eucharist which depend 
 upon a theory of substance have no validity, however 
 venerable the authority which promulgates them. 
 
 The history of the Church is chequered : it has amply 
 fulfilled the forebodings of St. Paul, and for this reason, 
 while we claim our place in the succession of Christian 
 thought, we cannot bind ourselves blindly to everything 
 which has been held by venerable authority. The New 
 Testament claims a unique authority, because without 
 it we have no means whatever of knowing anything 
 about the founder of our religion : all our knowledge 
 and the primary content of the witness of the Church 
 is there. Nothing else stands quite in this position.
 
 16 TH GOSPEL AND THE CREED 
 
 In the subsequent period the development of heresy, 
 of controversy, and schism places us in a different 
 position. We have to work out for our own times, 
 and in the light of the history of the Church the 
 real meaning for to-day of the original witness. It 
 is here, I think, that the Anglo-Catholic requires the 
 help of the Modernist. He wants to be able to go 
 freely to the history of the Church, and to study freely 
 the development of its doctrine and practice. The 
 Church of England has many difficulties, but it has 
 some peculiar advantages. Owing to its special history 
 it can approach questions of doctrine and practice with- 
 out being crushed by the weight of a tradition, such as 
 that of the Eastern Church, which has not for very 
 many centuries had to face the blast of new thought and 
 criticism ; it is free, also, without for a moment denying 
 or attenuating the truth of the Christian religion, to 
 adopt a more liberal conception of the nature of truth 
 and the method of approaching it than is compatible 
 with the Roman claims. So far from disparaging the 
 Nicene Creed, I think we want to study more carefully 
 its method and principles, and to remember that many 
 years passed after its formulation before its authority was 
 recognized by the whole Church. I think the Fathers of 
 Nicaea were wiser and more subtle than many of their 
 critics; they reasserted, but they did not venture to 
 add to, the contents of the witness of the Church ; they 
 protected the deposit of the Faith by adopting one 
 extra-scriptural word, but they made no attempt to tie 
 up the Church to any system of metaphysical thought.
 
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