LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE BONN CONFERENCE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sut,--Pray forgive me for saying that you are under a strange misapprehension, when you state that "the exclusion of the Moque from the Creed" was "granted by Dr. Dellinger and Canon Liddon," at the recent Conference. What the Conference did may be stated as follows :—It admitted, as Bishop Pearson has already admitted, that the filioque had been inserted in an (Ecumenical Creed by an inadequate authority, and therefore irregularly. It formulated certain propositions which might serve to show that when the Latins accept and the Easterns reject the filiogue they do not differ, as has been too gene- rally supposed ; since the Latins reject any assertion of two principles or causes in the Godhead, and the Eastern admit a morrEla of the Son, in the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. Whatever may have been the hopes or fears of individual members of the Conference, no proposition was brought forward this year respecting the exclusion of the filioque from the creed of the Western Church.
Speaking for myself, I trust that no such proposition will be proposed hereafter. For although the ,filiogue has never been affirmed by any (Ecumenical Council, it results by necessary inference from the language of Holy Scripture, and it expresses a revealed truth of the divine nature. To exclude it from the Western Creed would, I fear, do a great deal more than correct an ecclesiastical irregularity ; it would too probably create a popular impression that to attribute to the Son any part in the eternal procession of the Holy Ghost from the Father is not in accordance with God's revealed truth.
Of instructions addressed by the Holy Synod to its delegates at the Conference, we English heard nothing. If they were really given, they would only have affected a minority of the representa- tives of the Eastern Church. And of the subjects which you mention, I do not remember that any was discussed either in the committees or public meetings of the Conference, —if we except the question raised parenthetically by Dr. Overbeck about the Seventh Council. If these questions do emerge hereafter, I am sanguine enough to hope that they will be found to present less serious difficulties than you would appear to anticipate.—I am, Sir, &c.,
3 Amen Court, E.C., August 28. II. P. LIDDON.
[We trusted the Times' report, which certainly affirmed that Dr. Liddon, among others, had accepted the Articles and their explanation, which are fatal to the ,filioque. We explicitly said that the instructions of the Synod of Athens were not yet accepted.—ED. Spectator.]
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