THE ATHAN ASIAN CREED.—A PERSONAL EXPLANATION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.] San—Although you have decided to close the controversy in your columns for the present, I trust you will allow me the parlia- mentary privilege of a "personal explanation," just to defend myself from the imputation upon my sanity contained in Mr. MacColl's letter. His words are,—" He says that the Athanasian Creed gives us the image of a God destitute of any good quality,. and yet he believes the entire of its theology." What I did say was, that the implied minor premiss necessary to Mr. MacColl's argument, namely, that to reject any portion of the Creed involves- a moulding of the character on quite another image of God than that which is revealed, was false, inasmuch as, in order to do that,. the character must be moulded on the image of a God destitute of any good quality. Surely Dr. Routh's advice to the late Lord Derby, given as the result of his long experience, "Always verify quotations," never received a more striking illustration than in the- fact of a statement that a man may reject part of a certain creed without eliminating every good quality from the revelation of God, being changed into a statement (" he says") that the creed itself does so.
I fear I must accept the full force of my opponent's parting words, that "it is useless to attempt to convince me of my error as to the precise and sweeping character of the Athanasiats
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