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The advocates for the retention of the Creed do not rest their case upon mere archaeological grounds. They do not stake the issue upon the decision of the question, whether a particular letter in a MS. is Irish or Anglo-Saxon, or whether a certain MS. belongs to the sixth century or to the eighth or ninth. Let me not be understood as disparaging the claims of antiquity upon our consideration. Our feelings of veneration for the Creed are necessarily enhanced by the belief that it is a work of the fourth or fifth century; and it is a subject of thankfulness that the evidence, external as well as internal, on which this belief is grounded, so far from being shaken by any arguments alleged during the present controversy, has been rather confirmed and augmented. But it is not essential, though doubtless advantageous, to be able to maintain the ancient date and origin of the Creed, any more than it is to trace its authorship. The admissions of its opponents are alone sufficient to establish on its behalf a tolerably strong position. The Athanasian Creed, says Mr. Ffoulkes, * expressed the doctrine of the Trinity quite consistently with the views which had been long current of it in the West, were mainly derivable from St. Augustine, and had never excited opposition in any part of the Church; i.e. it expresses the doctrine of Trinity, as expounded principally by the greatest doctor of the Church since the age of the apostles, and universally accepted in the Church.Those who would make good the one or the other of these demands have to show that the Creed is an untrue exposition of the Catholic faith, of ' the faith once delivered to the saints; ' that its doctrines, and in particular those of the Trinity and Incarnation, are not part of God's revealed truth, but are at variance with His holy Word.

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