prived of all their force if they were accompanied with reservations, say in favour of those who sin ignorantly, or in particular degrees of ignorance, or of those who are educated in sin, as many are.

And if, for obvious reasons, these reservations are not expressed in the Bible, neither must the Church express them when she denounces the punishment of God against impenitent sinners.

Now all this is strictly applicable to the damnatory clauses of this Creed, and in somewhat of this way.

God in His word lays down in the plainest possible terms, that belief in Jesus Christ is necessary to salvation. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." "If ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." This is so plain, and is so universally acknowledged, that I need say nothing more upon it.

But another matter concerning this belief in Christ is quite as certain, though it is not now recognised in the popular religion of the day-which is, that the only belief in Jesus Christ which is recognised in Scripture is a belief in Christ's PERSON, that He is God's only begotten Son come in the flesh.

Belief, I say, in His PERSON, rather than-though of course not excluding-belief in His work or in His love. Let us see whether this be not so.

First, we have our Saviour saying, "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish," &c. (John iii. 16.) Now, that this belief is belief in the person of Christ is evident from what follows: "He that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Here is a damnatory clause, for here is expressly laid down the condemnation of those who do not believe,

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but in what? Why, do not believe in the NAME of the Only Begotten Son-not merely in the work of the Son of God, though that work be a "finished work "-not even in the love of the Son of God, though that love "passeth knowledge," but in the name of the Only Begotten, i.e., in that which distinguishes His Person as the Person of the Only Begotten.

Again, "If ye believe not that I am [He], ye shall die in your sins." (John viii. 24.) Of course we must ask here, "What are we to believe that He is ?" And this is what the Jews asked, for we go on to read, "Then said they unto Him, Who art Thou? And Jesus said unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning." Now up to this time Jesus had represented Himself to be the true, i.e., the only begotten Son of God, and because of this they had taken up stones to stone Him. He had as yet said little or nothing to them about His work, but He had said much about His Person; and naturally so, for how could they exercise any true trust in His work, except they realised His Person, for the allsufficiency of His work depends wholly upon the greatness of His Person, that He is in very truth the Only Begotten Son-the "Word made flesh ?"

Again, we have a confirmation of this in the very next chapter (John ix. 35). "Jesus heard that they had cast him out and when He had found him, He said unto him, Dost thou believe on the Son of God? He answered and said, Who is He, Lord, that I might believe on Him? And Jesus said unto him, Thou hast both seen Him, and it is He that talketh with thee. And he said, Lord, I believe. And he worshipped Him."

And again, in the thirteenth chapter: "Now I tell you before it come, that, when it is come to pass, ye may believe that I am He." (John xiii. 19.)

Again, we have the Saviour Himself saying, "Ye believe in God, believe also in ME" (John xiv. 1), mentioning Himself, that is His Person.

How could He put "believing in Himself" side by side with "believing in God," except that belief be the recognition of what He is, viz., the Son of God, and so in nature equal with God?

Again, when St. Paul began to preach, it is said that "he preached Christ in the synagogues, that He is the Son of God." (Acts ix. 20.)

Again, in the very first verses of the Epistle to the Romans, the Gospel is set forth as having specially to do with Christ's Person. "The Gospel of God concerning His Son Jesus Christ, who was made of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power... by the resurrection from the dead."

Here we have belief in the Resurrection of Christ set forth as subsidiary to belief in the Person of Christ as the Son of God, for St. Paul says, "He was declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead."

Lastly, 1 John iv. 3: "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof," &c. With this we must join St. John's words in his Second Epistle: "Many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God," &c. Here we have belief in Christ's Person guarded with a very strong anathema.

Now, what can the Apostle here mean by "confessing not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh?" Evidently he can mean but one thing, viz., "confessing not" the

Incarnation, for the Incarnation is the one thing which distinguishes the coming of Christ into the world from the coming of any other man into the world. He must mean, in fact, that truth of God which he sets forth in the very beginning of his Gospel,-"The Word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us."

All men come into the world in the flesh, so that there would be no meaning in the Apostle's denunciation of those who denied that Jesus Christ had " come in the flesh," unless Christ's coming "in the flesh' involved that which St. John elsewhere connects with it, viz., the Incarnation.

From all this it is abundantly clear that the only belief in Christ which the Scriptures recognise is a belief in His Person as God's Only Begotten Son Incarnate.

Now, the whole Creed of St. Athanasius, as I have shown, may be assumed to be written to defend, or hedge round, or guard, the simple statement that Jesus Christ is God's Only Begotten Son in our nature; so that we should hold and confess this truth in the one real true sense which the salvation of such a world as ours requires.

If any one holds in its integrity, without any reservation, the statement that Jesus Christ is God's true and Only Begotten Son in our nature, he commits himself to the belief of every statement respecting the Trinity and Incarnation in the Creed of St. Athanasius. He may not be conscious of so doing, but he unquestionably does so. For if the Son of God be His Only Begotten Son, and not His Son by adoption or by regeneration, then He must be Eternal, Incomprehensible, Uncreated, Almighty, Lord, and God, for it is the very nature of the Godhead to be all this, and so if He be the true actual Begotten Son of God He must be all this-otherwise the glory of the First Person as the Father" would be taken away; for if the

Son of God be in essence inferior to His Father, then the Eternal Father has begotten a Son to Whom He has communicated an inferior and created, and so less glorious, nature than His Own.

On any hypothesis short of the Athanasian, the relation of the Son to the Father in the Godhead would be nothing like so intimate and close as the relation of any human son to his father.

By the Creed of St. Athanasius we hold and confess that "Son" means "Son," that "begetting" means the real communication of nature-of what constitutes Deity; that these terms when applied to the Godhead have no unreal meaning, but betoken the same intimate relationship as the same words do when used to denote true fatherhood and sonship amongst men. They may have a higher meaning, but we will not for a moment allow them to have a lower.

If we give them a lower, we lose our whole conception of the "love of the Father" to sinners.

The more real the Sonship of the Son to the Father, the greater the love of the Father in giving Him.

The Creed of St. Athanasius is the great defence of the reality of the love of God the Father. "God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son," and the Creed of St. Athanasius obliges us to realise and confess that this Son Whom He gave is really and actually His Only Begotten. So that in giving Him, God manifested a love to us sinners infinitely greater than if He had given the highest archangel from before His throne.

So that when we confess the damnatory clauses of this Creed we say, perhaps in stern and somewhat harsh, but still in true language, what the Scriptures say, that to be saved we must believe in the Person of the Redeemer as the True and Only Son of the Living God, and so a par