schools of theology, to this day? Arius admitted Christ's personal existence, but said He was only a creature, although an exalted creature. Christ then was not equal with God. And from Simon Magus to this hour, is not this the res gesta, the very substance of the belief, or disbelief, of all who deny the Person, or the Divinity, or the equality of Christ with the Father? It is of but little consequence whether they are known historically as Ebionite Gnostics, Arians, Socinians, Unitarians, Transcendentalists, or followers of the last most popular writers on myths, and legends. Nor should it excite any surprise that there should be such a diversity of opinions concerning Christ among the followers of Arius, from his day to our own, for a part of their creed is to have no creed. And as they have nothing to believe, they are consistent in never saying, Credo. But does not this imply indifference to the character of Christ, and is not the fruit of such indifference seen in the denial of the Christ of the Apostles' Creed?

It would, however, require more time and space, not to say learning and ability, than I have at command, to attempt an exhaustive review of the influence of the Christology of the anteNicene age upon the Rationalism and Unitarianism of our own times. Such a review would, of course, cover the Nicene age itself, at least up to the adoption of the so-called Athanasian Creed, the greatest of all Creeds since the days of the Apostles. The general statement made in the foregoing Discourses, that in the Apostolic age it was not so much our Lord's Divinity as his proper humanity that was the occasion of controversy, must be limited to the Apostles' age, and interpreted in the light of the Christology here briefly presented. And doubtless it was then true, as it is now and always will be, that some of the teachers of heresy were better than their opinions, while some of the confessors of orthodox creeds were not equal to their symbols. It is impossible for us to define, limit, and describe the influence of education. The words of Apostolic faith concerning God and his Son Jesus Christ, often have an influence on the experience and belief and conduct of men after they have formally renounced them. They are not aware of the influence that still overshadows them.

Such conflicting views concerning Christ, however, are no more against His Divinity than erroneous and contradictory opin

ions concerning the Almighty Creator are against our belief in God. Truth is of God, and is unchangeable and eternal. But the history of Redemption extends through immense periods of time, and embraces communications made to man in different ways and at different times. It requires us to contemplate the Son of God before his Incarnation, and the Son of God in human nature in the world, and the Son of God in human nature having ascended into heaven, where He sitteth at the right hand of God. Our Lord declared himself to be the Son of God. His followers believed in Him as such. And although his adversaries denied Him, they admitted that He claimed to be the Messiah. The only question between his followers and his adversaries, was as to the truth of his claims to be the Son of God. His followers believed; His enemies denied. After his ascension, his followers were so filled with awe for his character and miracles that doubts or difficulties in regard to His Divinity, found no place in their mind. The great question in the Apostles' discourses before the Synagogues and Sanhedrim, was concerning Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah-Christ of their own Scriptures. This question settled, He was received as the Son of God, which the Jews understood to mean God himself. The great dispute in their day was as to the real and proper humanity of Christ, rather than as to His Divinity. The main points at issue were: Is Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God? Did He assume a human body, or was his body a phantom? Or was He really born of a woman, receiving his body from her? Gradually, however, errorists grew in numbers and increased in courage, as human learning and philosophy gained an ascendency among Christians, until the Person of Christ was not only attacked, but his equality with God denied. When Arius arose the main point was, whether Christ was equal with God, and was God, or was a mere creature.

It should not, however, weigh against the Divine origin of Christianity that it had so soon to pass through such severe doctrinal conflicts; for our Lord taught that the wheat and tares were to grow together till He comes. It is not surprising, therefore, that the great Enemy scarcely waited for Jesus' ascension from the world before he began to sow the tares of false doctrines. Before the Apostles themselves were dead, we find Ebionites, Cerinthians, and Gnostics teaching that Jesus was a mere man. And immediately afterwards, in the second cotary,

Theodotus taught the same doctrine; and thus such errors were kept alive until the peace of the Church seemed to require a general Council, at Nicæa, in order that the voice of the churches might express what the true faith of Christ was, and put to silence errorists, or at least hinder them from leading the unwary astray. Under these circumstances we come to Arius, the most distinguished of those who denied the proper Divinity of our Lord Jesus. "The sting of his heresy," and of his followers, was this: that while they used complimentary terms about the sacred person of Jesus, and pronounced eulogies upon his precepts and character, still their language was so equivocal as always to leave the point of his Divinity in doubt, even when it was not absolutely denied. Even modern Unitarians and Rationalists are not more complimentary, and yet unsettled and equivocal in their style of setting forth the character of Christ. But they all agree with the Arians of past ages in denying our Lord's proper Divinity, and his vicarious sacrifice.

Before leaving the Council of Nicæa, it is desirable to notice, in a few words:

First. The fact that the emperor of the world, sitting on the throne of the Cæsars, called this Council and presided in it. And this was only a little over three hundred years from the birth of Christ. It is to be remembered, also, that the emperor's great object was to obtain harmony among his bishops and consolidate Christianity, so that he might more efficiently advance it and his empire.

Secondly. The number of its members, and the marks of suffering seen on their persons, which they had borne as witnesses for the truth of Christianity in times of persecution, may well command our attention and veneration. In such an assembly there was doubtless a great diversity of persons and some strongly marked characters. A number of those assembled were young, who had never known persecution. They could barely remember the edict of toleration published in their boyhood. The older and the larger part of the assembly had "lived through the last and worst of the persecutions, and they now came like a regiment out of some frightful siege or battle, decimated and mutilated by the tortures or the hardships they had undergone." Most of the older members of that Council had lost a friend or a brother by persecution for his

profession of Christianity. "Many still bore the marks of their sufferings. Some uncovered their sides and backs to show the wounds inflicted by the instruments of torture. On others were the traces of that peculiar cruelty which distinguished the last persecution. The loss of the right eye, or the searing of the sinews of the leg, to prevent their escape from working in the mines. Both at the time and afterwards, it was on their character as an army of confessors and martyrs, quite as much as on their character as an Ecumenical Council, that their authority reposed. In this respect no other Council, could approach them, and in the whole proceedings of the Assembly, the voice of an old confessor was received almost as an oracle."*

Thirdly. We should note the place assigned in this Council to the Word of God, and their testimony concerning it and their own worth. In the twenty-first Article in the Canons of this Council, it is said: "Things ordained as necessary for salvation. have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of Holy Scripture." And accordingly, after the preliminary discussions had taken place, and every thing was prepared for the opening of the Council by the personal appearance of the emperor, we are then told how they honored the Divine Word. The chamber being a large oblong hall, in the centre of the imperial palace, and the benches being arranged so that the Bishops and their attendants, who were very numerous, were seated according to their dignity; and then, in the centre of the room, on a throne, was placed a copy of the Holy Gospels, as the nearest approach to the presence of Christ himself as presiding in the Council; and near this there was another smaller throne, carved in wood and richly gilt, on which the emperor sat. And according to Wescott, such honor was usually accorded to the Scriptures in the Councils of those days, at least of those held after the Council of Nicæa. And he is supported by Suicer, and by the picture of the Council at Nicæa. Thus did they teach that the use of creeds or catechisms is to assist us to a form of sound words, so that we may more easily and more fully appre

* Stanley's Eastern Church, p. 186.
Wescott on the Canon.

Stanley's Eastern Church, p. 212.

hend sound doctrines. We are to believe concerning God and the Holy Trinity what is revealed to us in the Scriptures, and to obey and do just as the Scriptures teach us. As the solar system, in all its awful grandeur, existed before there was a son of Adam to study and map out the heavens, so our holy faith existed before there was a syllable of our Book-Revelation, or any Creed formulated, or system of theology taught, or any Council, Pope, Convocation, or Assembly to pour anathemas on all who cannot pronounce the approved Shibboleths. Nor is it possible for any one Creed, nor for all human Creeds, to circumscribe the Truth and Grace of God. Our faith is larger than Creeds. And may God grant not only that we may steadfastly hold them, but be filled with the Spirit of God, which is the life of religion.

Fourthly. Something as to the use of Creeds may be easily learned from their influence on Christendom. Strauss, in speaking of the Apostles' Creed (§ 142), says: "Along with this popular form of confession of faith in CHRIST, there sprang up at the same time a more precise elaboration, induced by the differences and disputes which were early manifested on isolated points."

Next to the Holy Scriptures, the Christology of the three creeds is to be considered the greatest legacy of doctrinal truth that we have received from past ages. And, all things taken into a fair account, they are remarkable for the clear, simple, and brief manner in which they express the fundamental articles of religion. The Apostles' Creed may be considered the summary of Christian faith before the Council of Nicæa, and the NiceneConstantinople Creed as the work of its own times, and the so-called Athanasian Creed as the articulated faith of the Catholic Church, from the close of the fourth or middle of the fifth century. The errors aimed at are not always named, but clearly seen in the way the true faith is expressed. These creeds were formed under the light of and with all the advantages of the culture of Greek and Roman literature. No age of the Church had ever been able to employ more cultivated ability for the using of precision and accuracy in terms, than that of the Council of Nicea and the age of Athanasius. And these creeds were formed to deny and refute the heresies of the Cerinthians, Ebionites, Gnostics, Docetæ, of Basilius and Basilides, and of Apollinaris, and of the Nestorians and Eutychians, and are equally