ARTICLE I.

Of Faith in the Holy Trinity.

There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all things, both visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity, the Father the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

De fide in sacro-sanctam
Trinitatem.

Unus est vivus et verus Deus, æternus, incorporeus, impartibilis, impassibilis, immensæ potentiæ, sapientiæ ac bonitatis, creator et conservator omnium, tum visibilium, tum invisibilium. Et in unitate hujus divinæ naturæ tres sunt personæ, ejusdem essentiæ, potentiæ, ac æternitatis, Pater, Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus.

NOTES ON THE TEXT OF ARTICLE I.

Comparing the Latin with the English text, we may notice the following expressions :

Without body: Latin, incorporeus. Without parts: Latin impartibilis, i.e. insusceptible of division into parts. Without passions: Latin, impassibilis, i.e. incapable of suffering. Infinite: Latin, immensæ, immeasurable.

This Article remains as it was in the original formula of

1552.

It has been chiefly derived from Art. I. of the Augsburg Confession, as may be seen from the following quotation from that document:

'There is one divine essence, which is called, and is, God, everlasting, without body, without parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Creator and Preserver of all things, visible and invisible, and yet there are three Persons, of one substance and power, and coeternal: the Father, the Son, and

the Holy Ghost.' The original Latin corresponds in the same exact manner with that of our present Article. As the definitions of so great a divine as Melancthon must be valuable, it may be well to add from the same Article of the Augsburg Confession the definition of the word Person: The name Person is used in the same sense in which ecclesiastical writers have used it in this matter, to signify not a part or quality of something else, but that which has a proper existence of its own'-(quod proprie subsistit).

OBSERVATIONS ON ARTICLE I.

It is assumed that the reader is sufficiently aware of the principal varieties of belief as to the nature of the Deity which have prevailed in different times and countries. It is beyond the limits of this work to give even a sketch of the history of the misbelief of man on this fundamental subject; and a mere catalogue of names is a worthless thing for practical purposes. It may, however, be desirable to name the principal classes under which the varieties of human notions of the Deity are arranged. The dire name of Atheism needs no definition : The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.'

Deism is a general expression for the notions of those who believe in One God, the Creator, and in some moral relation to Him, but who reject revelation.

Theism is an ill-defined term, often used as equivalent to deism, but sometimes as including something more, and as the opposite to atheistic ideas.

Polytheism holds that 'there be Gods many,' personal existences, sharing among themselves in various degrees the divine power.

Pantheism holds that 'the universe is itself God, or of the divine essence.' All organised matter, all sentient being, it views as appertaining to the Deity, coming from Him, returning to Him, and always in Him. There is, therefore, no personal God distinct from the creature he has made. This was the inner belief of many of the ancient philosophers. It is also that of the Buddhists, and lies at the root of Brahminism. It

has also been revived in various forms in some schools of modern European philosophy. In further illustration of these portentous aberrations of the human intellect, a passage full of indignant eloquence is subjoined from a charge of the late Bishop of Peterborough (Dr. Jeune).

'Material Atheism.-In the last and at the beginning of the present century, it was a material and mechanical atheism which attracted the vulgar of scientific men. It was the atheism which denies all existence but the existence of matter —of matter eternal, and containing a divinity called Force in every atom; the atheism which regards thought as a mere secretion of the brain, and vice and virtue simply as products, "like sugar or vitriol"; the atheism which sees order, but not design, in the universe-laws, not Providence, in the course of things.

'Pantheism.-To this blank and revolting materialism succeeded pantheism, as revived in Germany-the system which confounds the Infinite and the finite, and which makes God the sum of all things. God, it teaches, is brutal in brute matter, mighty in the forces of nature, feeling in the animal, thinking and conscious only in man. This system is, in its first aspect, more noble than material atheism, but in truth it is not less fatal to all that is noble and good. It, indeed, makes man-nay, the beast that perisheth; nay, the very dung on the earth-divine; but it also makes God human, animal, material. It degrades what is high by exalting what is low. Better to deny God, after all, than to debase Him. Pantheism is, if possible, a worse atheism.

'Positivism.-Of both these systems, positivism—the system which at this moment claims exclusive possession of truth; positivism, for such is its barbarous name, to which all thought, we are told by a leading review, in Germany and England, as well as in France, its birthplace, is now converging-speaks with no less contempt, though with less hatred, than it speaks of Christianity. "Day-dreams," it says, "are all the assertions, all the negations alike, of philosophers: impotent attempts to compass impossibility." Of God, if there be a God; of the soul, if there be a soul; of revelation, if revelation there be, man

can know, man need know, nothing. Away, then, it cries, with mere hypothesis! To the positive, to the material, to the teaching of the senses, to observation of facts, philosophy must limit itself. This system is mean, though supercilious. Perhaps, however, positivism rises in comparison with atheism, which itself is less base than pantheism; for it is better to ignore than to deny, as it is better to deny than to degrade God.

A

Suicide of Philosophy.-Human reason, then, left to itself, leaves us, as to God, a threefold choice: we may deny God, we may degrade God, we may ignore God. A noble result! godless philosophy ends in suicide! So it will ever be. To quote from the noble close of the Dunciad—

'Philosophy, which leaned on Heaven before,
Sinks to her second cause, and is no more.

One specimen of their ethical
Hear Spinosa, the greatest of

'Destruction of Morality.-As is the theology, so is the morality of all these systems. teaching will suffice for all. pantheists:"Every act of man, as every fact of nature, is produced by fated laws. Free-will is a chimera, flattering to our pride and founded on our ignorance. Not only has every man the right to seek his pleasure, he cannot do otherwise. He who lives only according to the laws of his appetites is as much in the right as he who regulates his life according to the laws of reason, in the same manner as the ignorant man and the madman has a right to everything that his appetite compels him to take. A compact has only a value proportioned to its utility; when the utility disappears, the compact disappears too. There is folly, then, in pretending to bind a man for ever to his word, unless at least that the man so contrive that the breach of the contract shall entail for him more danger than profit."

'Practical Results of false Philosophy.-Utter heartless selfishness, restrained by cowardice, is then to be our sole rule of life! Our final destiny is to perish like the brute; or, like bubbles, to be absorbed, when we burst into the ocean of being on which we now float!