The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-12-18 00:00:00

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THE REV, H. R. HAWEIS ON THE
ATHAN ASIAN CREED.

On Sunday morning there was a full congregation
at St James's, Westmoreland-s'reet, Mary lebone,
when the Rev. H. R. Haweis preache4 upon the Atba•
nasian Creed. This creed, he said, derived its signifi-
cance from the Nicene Creed, being an attempt tc
emphasize certain propositions contained in the latter.
There were three creeds --the Apostles', the Nicene,
and the so-called Athanasian Creed. He said " so-
called," because it was at first treated as a psalm or
hymn. All creeds—and, be had almost said, all here-
sies—had in common a desire to find out God, to find
out the truth. "0 that I knew where might find
Him!" This insatiable hunger after God went on
age after age ; and the answer c,itne —" If
with all your hearts ye truly seek Me, y e
shall surely find Me." This showed that it
was not necessary to have much head learn•
ing to find out God. If it were true that the
Gospel was meant for the poor and the unlearned,
there must be a way of finding God in the spirit, and
that was so; without any formularies, without ever
having explained their opinions to themselves, they
might know Him, for He found them out, and wrote
His own message in their hearts. This was a great
consolation, for if it were true that unless they under-
stood complicated propositions they could not know
God, what would become of many of them who had
read the Athanasian Creed over and over again and
could not understand it? But the sting of the sen-
tence that everybody was to be damned who did not
understand and believe the Athanasian Creed was
drawn by an orthodox commentator, who said that
the sentence must mean everyone who had come to a
knowledge of the faith without asserting anything of
those who were ignorant of it; and the commentary
went on: "Those who understand it and run intc
heresies." Therefore, if they could say that they
never understood it at all they were not
under the condemnation, and were delivered from
the frightful anathemas of the formulary. This
swept away one objection to the reading of the Creed.
If they did not understand it they could not believe
it, for belief appealed to the mind in some way or
other; they must understand it in order to be in a
position to be criminal in the rejection of it. The
Apostles' Creed was an earlier formulary; the Nicene
Creed belonged to the foarth century; and the Atha-
nasian Creed to the fifth century. After discussing at
some length the origin of the Nicene Creed and its re-
lation to the Athanasian Creed, Mr. Haweis said he
did not like the Athanasian Creed—he did not like
its form of expression, for it wanted a deal of ex-
plaining, and then it would not be clear to all people.
He did not read it in the church, for it was always
misconstrued and misunderstood, and always gave
offence. It was one of the greatest warnings
a4ainst fastening the definitions of one age.
permanently upon another age. Definition was a
necessity of the human mind, but they must
define and redefine' and in every age they must
use the kind of words which would be understood by
the people, and not persist in using old words, corre-
sponding to old metaphysical distinctions, but which
had lost their meaning in our times. That was why
he did not read the Atbanasian Creed. But the
reason why he believed in the At' anasian Creed and
in the truth at which it aimed, was that he believed
in the Nicene doctrine, as it was echoed substantially
in the Athanasian Creed—in the ineffable Deity of
the Father, in the expressional Deity of the Son, and
in the processional or tangential Deity of the Holy
Spirit. In a more succinct form, he could say from
the bottom of his soul, "In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God;" "and we beheld His glory, the glory as
of the only betzotten of the Father, full of grace and
truth."

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