such as are constructed with the express object of cutting both ways. One knows not what fatal accident may happen with them before the game is played out, however skilful the jugglery used in their manipulation. The venom indeed has been pretty effectually extracted from the sting in the tail of the Report by the "Riders," so far as they are available, of Sir Robert J. Phillimore, Mr. A. J. B. Beresford Hope, and the Rev. T. W. Perry. That of the two former gentlemen plainly reduces all possible litigation or interference with ritual under sanction of the Commission, exactly to the same and only issue previously capable of being raised,-viz. the question of legality,-by expressly "excluding the consideration of cases, in which the (of course legal) authority of the Bishop and the (of course legal) rights of the parishioners and congregations are carefully guarded." Mr. Perry still more completely neutralised the already nugatory terms, by endeavouring to bring the conclusion of the Report into logical consistency with the premises, limiting its application and the suggested "restraint" to cases of "grave offence" occasioned by "variations in respect of vesture," and cutting down the "aggrieved parishioner" to the dimension of communicants of the Church of England, who have "a reasonable ground for complaint and redress."" Still, the sting yet remains in the tail of the living animal whom the Report is supposed to represent, and being a formidable weapon in itself, who knows but that a fresh supply of virus may be secreted under pressure from without, and by the splenetic energy which is sure to be evolved, when the disappointment of worldly men's hopes in the present results of the Commission comes thoroughly to be realised, by Church Associations and their hirelings?

On the whole, then, our anticipatory estimate of the probable value of a Ritual Commission has been anything but contradicted by unexpected actual results. Compromise is necessarily the aim of its deliberations; and compromise implies "expediency" as its necessary principle of action. The Commission met ab initio, as we have already more than once stated, with the foregone intention of splitting differences between two extremely opposite and irreconcilable parties comprehended within the Established Church. It is not surprising, then, to find that "the main proposition contained in this Report," (to adopt the phrase of Dr. Phillimore and Mr. Beresford Hope) was in diametrical opposition to the evidence on which it professes to be founded, and expresses the Commissioners' opinion ipsissimis verbis,—not that it is just, not that it is legal, not that it is theologically right, or historically proper, not that it is agreeable to Holy Scripture or the Book of Common Prayer, not that it is in accordance with ecclesiastical precedent or Catholic principle of any kind, but-" that it is expedient to restrain in the public services of the United Church of England and Ireland all variations in respect of vesture," &c.

No doubt, "common sense," and not historical or theological evidence, was the predetermined ground on which the bulk of the Commissioners intended to base their deliberations, and on which they arrived at their conclusions. The character of their chosen witnesses is a sufficient proof of this. Not a single learned theologian, ritualist, liturgiologist, or civilian, was cited to give his evidence on the question. The evidence is exclusively that of active parish priests, and others more or less practically or officially connected with the conduct of services in parish churches or cathedrals. Mr. Beadon especially, on their own principle of " common sense," must have been the most valuable witness for their purpose whom they cited. We are not surprised, therefore, to be informed that his evidence appeared to be the most influential of all the witnesses. For our own part, we confess, that we should have been better pleased to have learned something new on the question of ritual development from 'experts' on the subject, well read in "Durandus, Gelasius, Gregory the Great, Goar, and (pace the noble lord who figures in the current anecdote) Catalani," and in the "Lawful Church Ornaments," "according to the use of the United Church of England and Ireland." At the same time we do not blame the Commissioners for their determination. "Common sense" certainly is a very safe criterion in matters of this kind. Only "common sense" is the most uncommon of all human possessions. Coleridge, we think, says in his "Table Talk" that it is the result of long continued and accepted information. He speaks of theory and philosophy passing into the stage of common sense. To our mind, common sense seems to settle the present controversy in a very satisfactory way,-and that very nearly in accordance with Mr. Beadon's evidence. Quot homines, tot sententiæ. De gustibus non est disputandum. Give the utmost liberty consistent with adherence to Catholic truth in "variations in respect of vesture." The matter is confessedly indifferent and not " essential," therefore why (on common sense principles) endeavour to restrain it? Common sense, in this instance at least, agrees with the verdict of a great father: "In all such things," (we quote from Bingham the words of S. Austin,) "whereabout the Holy Scripture has given no positive determination, the custom of the people of GOD, or the rules of our forefathers, are to be taken for laws. For if we dispute about such matters, and condemn the custom of one Church by the custom of another, there will be an eternal occasion of strife and contention; which will be always diligent enough to find out plausible reasons, when there are no certain arguments to show the truth." He adds shortly after, "all the beauty of the King's daughter is within, and those observations which are differently celebrated are understood only to be in her outward clothing. Whence she is said to be clothed in golden fringes wrought about with divers colours. But let that

clothing be so distinguished by different observations, as that she herself may not be destroyed not be destroyed by oppositions and contentions about them." "This," emphatically adds Bingham, "was the ancient way of preserving peace in the Catholic Church, to let different Churches, which had no dependence in externals upon one another, enjoy their own liberty to follow their own customs without contradiction." We should be more than content to accept the principle so expressed as a settlement of the present ritual controversy among ourselves.

FFOULKES ON THE "FILIOQUE" CLAUSE.

An Historical Account of the Addition of the words "Filioque" to the Creed of the West. By EDMUND S. FFOULKES, B.D., Author of "Christendom's Divisions." Being No. VII. of "Occasional Papers of the Eastern Church Association." London: Rivingtons. 1867.

THE longing for Re-union must be very strong, and increasing, when we find a Roman Catholic writing a paper for the AngloCatholic Association for Promoting Re-union with the Eastern Church; and it is a happy sign of the times. It is only by such mutual help that Re-union can ever be effected.

Our readers will be prepared for the line taken by the writer, from our review of his late work, "Christendom's Divisions." There the author very properly lays the whole blame of the schism on the Roman side; he shows throughout that the Greeks were in no wise the guilty party: the Westerns were the aggressors, and to them is due not only this addition to the Creed of Constantinople, but also the fall of the Eastern Empire. The long series of injuries which the East suffered from the West has embittered the whole mind of the former against the latter, so that there is now a greater hatred between these two bodies than there is between Catholics and Protestants. As Bishop Pearson says, in a note on Art. VIII., ("I believe in the HOLY GHOST," "Thus did the Oriental Church accuse the Occidental for adding Filioque to the Creed, contrary to a General Council, which had prohibited all additions, and that without the least pretence of the authority of another Council; and so the schism between the Latin and the Greek Church began and was continued, never to be ended until those words, xaì ex Toũ Tioũ, or Filioque, are taken out of the Creed."

Mr. Ffoulkes in this paper gives us some information on the

formation of the Creed commonly called the Nicene Creed, which is very important, and not generally known:

"The Creed of the First Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381, not that of Nicæa, is the Creed which has been for so many centuries recited in the Liturgies or Communion Offices of the East and West. It goes indeed by the name of, and has been commonly treated as one with, the Nicene Creed; but we must beware of inferring from this circumstance that the Creed of Constantinople is always included whenever that of Nicæa is named. As Suicer remarks, there are literally some fifteen points of difference between the two Creeds: still, in a general way, we should not be wrong in describing the Creed of Constantinople as the Nicene Creed in a revised and enlarged form.

"The difference between the two Creeds, with which alone we are concerned here, consists in the article relating to the HOLY GHOST. This in the Nicene Creed stood thus: καὶ εἰς τὸ ̔́Αγιον Πνεῦμα, ‘And in the HOLY GHOST.' This in the Creed of Constantinople was altered into καὶ εἰς τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ ̔́Αγιον, which in itself is more than a mere verbal change; then, after it, these words in addition: Tò Kúpιov, tò ζωοποιὸν, τὸ ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, τὸ σὺν Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ συμπροσκυνούμενον καὶ συνδοξαζόμενον, τὸ λαλῆσαν διὰ τῶν προφητῶν—the form in which it still appears in all the Liturgies of the East, of the Sectarians as well as the Orthodox, as Renaudot shows, but two, both peculiar to the Jacobites; in which, after ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς ἐκπορευόμενον, is inserted, καὶ ἐκ τοῦ Υἱοῦ λαμβάνον, a phrase generally allowed by the Greek Fathers as based on Scripture."-Pp. 1, 2.

It was, however, not till the Fourth General Council, Chalcedon, that the two Creeds were placed on the same footing; for the Council of Ephesus passed a canon affirming the Nicene, without mentioning the Constantinopolitan. At the same Council an anathema was pronounced against all who should "propose, compile, put together, hold, or teach others, another faith," or " produce, teach, or deliver another symbol:" if bishops or clergy, they were to be deposed. All this is recited and re-enacted with equal solemnity by the Fifth, Sixth, and virtually by the Seventh Council. To this Mr. Ffoulkes remarks:

Subscription to the Creed of Pius IV., to the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England, to the Eighteen Articles of the Synod of Bethlehem, in renouncing error, seem alike forbidden by anticipation in the most solemn manner."-P. 8.

In this remark Mr. Ffoulkes does not seem to distinguish between altering or superseding the Creed, and asserting the Faith against new heresies. Wholly different from this is the Filioque clause, for that does introduce a new doctrine into the Creed, and certainly does appear to come under the anathema of the later Councils. For

"let us ask ourselves, before quitting this part of the subject, if words

are to have any meaning at all, to what the Church, by her Popes and by her General Councils, must, up to this date, the end of the seventh century, be considered to have irrevocably pledged herself? To thus much, for certain to the all-sufficiency of the Creed on the subject of the Trinity in its then existing form, the form authorized exclusively for public use by the Fourth Council; Περί τε γὰρ τοῦ Πατρὸς, καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ, καὶ τοῦ ̔Αγίου Πνεύματος ἐδιδάσκει τὸ τέλειον. It is impossible to gainsay the force of a categorical statement like this. The mystery to which it refers is asserted to have been set forth thoroughly and perfectly in the then existing Creed of which it speaks. If there was anything not set forth, or imperfectly set forth in it, on the subject of the Trinity, all the Popes, and all the Councils that set their seals solemnly to that judgment in it, must be confessed to be mistaken; and if they were mistaken on a point like this in their 'ex cathedrâ' definitions of doctrine, their infallibility is annihilated once for all, and for ever, on that, and on all other subjects. This dilemma is one from which, in common honesty, there can be no escape; nor are the stringent prohi bitions of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Councils against uttering or composing another Creed, memorable as they are beyond doubt, to be for a moment in point of importance to be compared with it.”—P. 12.

The

We think Mr. Ffoulkes has overstated the intention of the Councils in their anathemas; for, according to this theory, not only must go the Creed of Pius, the Thirty-nine Articles, the Eighteen Articles of Bethlehem, but the Creed of S. Athanasius too. Fathers did not mean this: they meant to anathematise those who wished to change the doctrine of the Creed by changing the wording of it, as the Arians at Nicæa, or of substituting a wholly different Creed. Their own experience, in having to meet the heresies of Eutyches, Nestorius, Macedonius, and others, by adding to the Creed as these heresies arose, must have proved to them that it might become necessary for the Church to meet new heresies by new definitions of the one truth: a wholly different thing from making a new Creed, or interpolating the old one.

"If the addition of the words' Filioque' to the Creed was necessary, then the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Ecumenical Councils, and all the Popes who confirmed them, were mistaken in defining that the doctrine of the Trinity was set forth in the Creed to perfection before their insertion; and by consequence it must follow inevitably that there is no such thing as infallibility in the Church. Those who decided that no addition was necessary, and those who decided that some addition was necessary, contradict each other in the strictest sense of the word; and it can only be at the expense of the second that we can uphold the first, without deceiving ourselves.”—P. 12.

We ask the simple question,—has a General Council, subsequent to the 6th, no power to define the Faith if attacked? Are the anathemas of those Councils absolutely prohibitions of any further definition of the Faith? Can, e.g., there never be a General Council 3 P

VOL. XXIX.