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Untitled Article
<> wx ) i or condemn our own in those of other men ; arid while we bite one another , we : are consumed one of another , ' In fact * the exact meaning of the word consubstantial , on which the council had decided , was still a matter of dispute . Arius , however , thus defeated , was ordered into banishment . After a few years , sides again changed ; the emperor recalled the banished sectary ., and commanded him to be received into communion with the church .
This command was issued to , and obeyed by , the council of Jerusalem in 335 , which once more changed the character of orthodoxy r decreeing in direct opposition to the council of Nice , that Christ was not of the same essence as his Father . It was now the turn of Athanasius , the leader of the party opposed to Arius , to be banished ; and accordingly , his orthodoxy , speaking after the judgment of later ages , did not save him . He was condemned
and deposed by two councils , and ordered by Constantine into Gaul . An Athanasian succeeded to an Arian emperor , and Athanasius was accordingly recalled . Again was he condemned by a council ; again he was acquitted by another council ; and again sent into exile by another emperor . In the council of Sardica , however , he appeared , and here the creed established at jNice was new-made . Essence was become heretical , and
substance was ordered to take its place . Whether there were one or three substances , however , was a difficult question * The westerns affirmed , the easterns denied , that there were three substances in the one God . A decree , however , was procured at Sardica , determining , whatever was , that there should be one substance both in the east and in the west . Five-and-twenty years afterwards * in a reconsideration of the subject , it was
decreed , at the council of Alexandria , that thenceforward there should be three ( and not one ) substances in the unity of the divine essence * We have as yet said little of the personality of the Holy Ghost . But as the council of Alexandria has deterruined that there are to be three substances in the divine essence , we must look back a little . The proper personality of the Holy Spirit is the work of councils . In vain we seek for it in the
early ages of the church , or in the writings of the New Testament * For every error there must be some basis . Error is often nothing more than truth carried to an extreme . The germ of the error of the personal Deity of the Spirit , ' is found in the figurative Jan *« guage in which the operations of the divine power are spoken of in the New Testament , In other words * the Godhead of the
Spirit is founded on a Jewish mode of speech . The language of the easterns is full of the boldest personifications ; and , in the Scripture , mercy , truth , and nearly all the attributes of God , are introduced in a manner which , in strict propriety , befits only a proper living , intelligent being . The claims to deifi- * cation which these attributes prefer , are neglected , and the power of God acting on and for the soul of m&n > has exclusively receive 4
Untitled Article
fiise and Progress < tf the Doctrine of the * Trinity . 4517
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1832, page 317, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1812/page/29/
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