When I was between sixteen and seventeen years of age, I heard, or rather I attended, for the first time, to the words of the Athanasian Creed. I felt the utmost disgust at the direct contradiction in terms which its words implied; and during several weeks I recurred, at intervals, to the Prayer-Book to assure myself that I rightly remembered its singular and self-contradictory assertions. On inquiry amongst my seniors, I was assured that it was all true, and that it was part of the Christian religion, and that it was most wicked to doubt a single sentence of it. Whereupon I was much alarmed, seeing that I found it absolutely impossible to believe it, and consequently, if it were an essential dogma, I clearly did not belong to that faith.
In the course of my inquiries, I met with the work upon the Trinity, by Dr. Samuel Clarke. This I carefully examined, and although very far from being satisfied, I ceased from further inquiry. This change arose probably from my having acquired the much more valuable work of the same author, on the Being and Attributes of God. This I studied, and felt that its doctrine was much more intelligible and satisfactory than that of the former work. I may now state, as the result of a long life spent in studying the works of the Creator, that I am satisfied they afford far more satisfactory and more convincing proofs of the existence of a supreme Being than any evidence transmitted through human testimony can possibly supply.
If I were to express my opinion of the Athanasian Creed merely from my experience of the motives and actions of mankind, I should say that it was written by a clever, but most unscrupulous person, who did not believe one syllable of the doctrine,—that he purposely asserted and reiterated propositions which contradict each other in terms, in order that
