Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 1.djvu/203

 But it confirms an opinion I was going to express to you. For if a good kind of man, as Mr. Cartwright is said to be, objects to the Litany on such grounds, how much more is it to be expected that such an admonition as that which I have spoken of would be frequently scorned and hooted at.

"And then," continued he, "supposing such an admonition as this had been made and used in the Church for hundreds of years, and it were now to be left out in the reformed Prayer Book, would not such a measure give great satisfaction and encouragement to all the loose dissolute people throughout the country?"

"That cannot be doubted," I answered. "But there is one objection, (absurd enough to be sure,) which people offer against the Athanasian Creed, which you have not noticed, perhaps because you had never heard of it.

"The objection I mean is, that this Creed leaves no allowance for unavoidable ignorance, or bad education; nor any chance even for persons of weak doubting minds, no not for idiots, or children, to escape from its heavy censures.

"It is, obviously, an absurd objection, yet it is what people do urge, and people too who make pretension to reason and religion."

"Sir," said he, "I can never suppose that any really conscientious person, whose mind was free from prejudice, could offer such an objection.

"It must be quite plain to all candid minds, that as in the Scripture itself, so in the Church Prayer Book, we are always instructed to believe that our merciful God makes allowance for our weakness and blindness in matters of knowledge and faith, as well as in other things. As in the Scriptures, so in the Church Prayer Book we are always taught, that occasional doubt and perplexity are no proof of want of Faith; that he truly believes who acts, (if I may so say,) upon trust, who like Abraham, the father of the faithful, 'obeys and goes on' obeying, 'not knowing whither he goes;' knowing only that if he follow guidance, he must be right.

"It is too always taught, as in the Scriptures, so in the Prayer Book, that upon true repentance, sincere faith in the Blood and Mediation of the One Redeemer, and entire submission to the guidance of the One Sanctifier, it is, I say, always taught, that the door of