I do not say that it is always so; God forbid! But I do say that it
is often so, because I see it so; because I see every day false
doctrines about God making men lead bad lives, and commit actual
sins; take God's name in vain, dishonour their fathers and mothers,
lie, cheat, bear false witness against their neighbours, and covet
other men's goods. I say, I see it, and I must believe my own eyes
and ears; and when I do see it, I begin to understand the text which
says, 'This is eternal life, to know thee, the only God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent;' and I begin to understand the
Athanasian Creed, which says, that if a 'man does not believe
rightly the name of God, and the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus
Christ, he will perish everlastingly; his soul will decay more and
more, become more and more weak, unhealthy and corrupt, till he
perishes everlastingly. And whatsoever that may mean, it must mean
something most awful and terrible, worse than all the evil which
ever happened to us since we were born.
There is a very serious example of this, to my mind, in what is
called the Greek Church; the Greeks and Russians. They split off
from the rest of Christ's Catholic Church, many hundred years ago,
because they would not hold with the rest of the Church that the
Holy Spirit proceeded from the Son as well as from the Father.
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