We must all tremble when we hear those awful declarations in the Athanasian Creed, respecting the Catholic faith, such as, "Which faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." And some are offended, and wish these sentences were not there. But if it sounds severe and uncharitable for the Church to speak in this way, then, no doubt, the same must be said of the Church of God in old times; and we shall find just the same difficulty with the Bible itself. The Old Testament, wherein we have the figure or pattern of God's Church set before us, is full of things quite of the same kind; of things that sound at first to unthinking men in these days as severe and uncharitable. Yet, surely, those ways, which we read of in the Old Testament, are the ways of God, and He is the same yesterday, and today, and for ever;" and all those things were "written for our learning." Why does God put into our mouths, in His house of prayer, such dreadful words respecting others, our fellow-creatures, perhaps no worse than ourselves?
I. These things might, indeed, appear to us quite irreconcilable with all that we know of God's lovingkindness, might seem to be great difficulties and stumbling-blocks if taken by themselves; but when they are set by the side of another vast and overwhelming doctrine, which is the very last of all that the heart of man is willing to believe, yet is the great foundation of all revealed truth, then we see that all things wonderfully agree together, and support each other. The doctrine I mean is this, that the wicked shall be cast into hell, and all the people that forget God; that a great part of mankind will have to depart into a place of everlasting fire, notwithstanding all the lovingkindness and infinite mercy of Almighty God to us.
II. Since, therefore, the Holy Scripture is so full throughout of what would sound to men of these days, if it were not there, as so severe, and awful, and uncharitable, it is quite consistent; with this, that the voice of the Church also should speak out in so very fearful and strong a manner, so as to offend weak and carnal men, respecting the Catholic Faith. The Church, like a kind mother, calls aloud to her child when she sees it sporting on the brink of a great precipice. The danger was all there before, but she declares it. Fire will burn, and water will drown, and he who falls over a precipice will be killed, although no one warned him, and, as it were, pulled him back rudely and forcibly from destruction: and so we find that the eternal danger is imminent respecting our not holding rightly the Catholic faith, although the Church of God did not, in mercy, ring it, as it were, aloud in our ears.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. x., p. 153.
References: Mark 16:16. J. Keble, Sermons from Easter to Ascension Day,p. 425; Spurgeon, Evening by Evening,p. 281.Mark 16:17; Mark 16:18. W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles,vol. ii., p. 281.