I suppose it hardly needs
demonstration--that such {172} translation is necessary, if it be
possible. I doubt whether any man in this audience who has not made a
special study of the subject, will get up and say that the meaning of
such terms as 'substance,' 'essence,' 'nature,' 'hypostasis,' 'person,'
'eternal generation,' 'procession,' 'hypostatic union,' and the like is
at once evident to him by the light of nature and an ordinary modern
education. And those who know most about the matter will most fully
realize the difficulty of saying exactly what was meant by such phrases
at this or that particular moment or by this or that particular
thinker. A thorough discussion of this subject from the point of view
of one who acknowledges the supreme claims of Christ upon the modern
mind, and is yet willing fairly to examine the traditional Creed in the
light of modern philosophical culture, is a task which very much needs
to be undertaken. I doubt if it has been satisfactorily performed yet.
Even if I possessed a tithe of the learning necessary for that task, I
could obviously not undertake it now. But a few remarks on the subject
may be of use for the guidance of our personal religious life in this
matter:

(1) I should like once more to emphasize the fact that the really
important thing, from the point of view of the spiritual life of the
individual soul, is our personal attitude towards our Lord himself and
his teaching, and not the phrases in which we express {173} it. A man
who believes what Christ taught about God's Fatherhood, about human
brotherhood and human duty, about sin, the need for repentance, the
Father's readiness to forgive, the value of Prayer, the certainty of
Immortality--the man who finds the ideal of his life in the character
of Jesus, and strives by the help which he has supplied to think of God
and feel towards God as he did, to imitate him in his life, to live
(like him) in communion with the Father and in the hope of
Immortality--he is a Christian, and a Christian in the fullest sense of
the word. He will find in that faith all that is necessary (to use the
old phrase) for salvation--for personal goodness and personal Religion.
And such a man will be saved, and saved through Christ; even though he
has never heard of the Creeds, or deliberately rejects many of the
formulae which the Church or the Churches have 'built upon' that one
foundation.

(2) At the same time, if we believe in the su