And it is this
perfect trust, this unfeigned respect, that is the appointed criterion
of Caius's friends and disciples, and not their full acquaintance with
each and all particulars of his superiority." Thus without Christ, or in
any other power but that of Christ, and (subjectively) of faith in
Christ, no man can be saved; but does it follow, that no man can have
Christian faith who is ignorant or erroneous as to any one point of
Christian theology? Will a soul be condemned to everlasting perdition
for want of logical 'acumen' in the perception of consequences?--If he
verily embrace Christ as his Redeemer, and unfeignedly feel in himself
the necessity of Redemption, he implicitly holds the Divinity of Christ,
whatever from want or defect of logic may be his notion 'explicite'.
Ib. p. 18.
'But the whole three Persons are co-eternal, and co-equal'. And yet
this we must acknowledge to be true, if we acknowledge all three
Persons to be eternal, for in eternity there can be no 'afore, or
after other'.
It must, however, be considered as a serious defect in a Creed, if
excluding subordination, without mentioning any particular form, it
gives no hint of any other form in which it admits it. The only 'minus'
admitted by the Athanasian Creed is the inferiority of Christ's Humanity
to the Divinity generally; but both Scripture and the Nicene Creed teach
a subordination of the Son to the Father, independent of the Incarnation
of the Son.
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