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Untitled Article
the reader himself into a prophet in this particular . Though Constantine was stained with crimes , the Christians of the fourth century paid to his name , his tomb , and his statue , honours little short of divine . He was called a saint , —and a saint equal to the apostles . Nicephorus had the effrontery to declare , that God Jiad endued the urn and the statue of Constantine with
miraculous powers , and that whoever touched them was healed of all diseases and infirmities . The Pagans , who scorned to be less complaisant than the Christians , made him at once a god ; and ; by a decree of the senate , this Christian emperor was associated , after his death , with those very deities whom , in his life , he had renounced and insulted . But to trace the workmanship through
the chief of its stages . First , we have the two councils of Antioch ; the former , held in 264 , was convened in order to silence Paul of Samosate , a Unitarian bishop * . A majority of votes was obtained in the assembly against the alleged heretic , but being beloved and well supported by his people , Paul refused to submit to the decree ordering his deposition . The latter , held in 270 * determined that Jesus Christ was not of the same essence as his
Father . This orthodox decision- —orthodox we mean for its day 1—was reversed in the council held in the year 325 , at Nice , in Bithynia . Here , after much quarrelling and mutual wrath , it was decided , by a majority of votes , in opposition to the doctrine of Arius , who affirmed that he was made out of nothing , —that is ; created , and created in time , —so that there was a time when he was not , —that Jesus was of the same essence as the Father .
This decision being made , all , one might have expected , would have . been peaceful arid serene . Alas I no . Men had left the scriptures for their own fictions ; and when could the corruption stop ? What human passions had originated , human passions would carry on , and never will their baneful influence be stayed till all are content to take the New Testament as the sole test of Orthodoxy . How far the council of Nice settled anything in point of fact , may be learned from the following words of Hilary , a
contemporary : — ' Since the Nicene council * we do nothing but write creeds ; and while we quarrel . about words , while we raise questions about novelties , while we fight about ambiguities and about authors , and strive about parties , while there is difficulty in consent , , and while we anathematize one another , scarce any one i # Christ ' s . What a change there was in the last year ' s creed ! The
first decrees that homo-ousios ( consubstantial ) shall not be mentioned ; the next decrees and publishes it : the third does by indulgence excuse the wordousia—( essence)—the fourth does not excuse it , but condemns it . It is at length come to pass , that nothipg amoqg us or those before us is inviolable . We decree annual and monthl y creeds concerning God- *—we repent of our < Jecre £ s-r—we defend those who repent of thetn—we anathematize those that we defended—> y 0 defend other men ' s opinions in our
Untitled Article
316 Rise and Progress ofihe ^ Doctrine the Trinity .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 316, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/28/
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