off the head of the hated monster. The consubstantiality of the Father
and the Son was established by the council of Nice, and has been
unanimously received as a fundamental article of the Christian faith,
by the consent of the Greek, the Latin, the Oriental, and the Protestant
churches. But if the same word had not served to stigmatize the
heretics, and to unite the Catholics, it would have been inadequate to
the purpose of the majority, by whom it was introduced into the orthodox
creed. This majority was divided into two parties, distinguished by
a contrary tendency to the sentiments of the Tritheists and of the
Sabellians. But as those opposite extremes seemed to overthrow the
foundations either of natural or revealed religion, they mutually agreed
to qualify the rigor of their principles; and to disavow the just, but
invidious, consequences, which might be urged by their antagonists. The
interest of the common cause inclined them to join their numbers, and to
conceal their differences; their animosity was softened by the healing
counsels of toleration, and their disputes were suspended by the use
of the mysterious Homoousion, which either party was free to interpret
according to their peculiar tenets. The Sabellian sense, which, about
fifty years before, had obliged the council of Antioch [57] to
prohibit this celebrated term, had endeared it to those theologians who
entertained a secret but partial affection for a nominal Trinity. But
the more fashionable saints of the Arian times, the intrepid Athanasius,
the learned Gregory Nazianzen, and the other pillars of the church,
who supported with ability and success the Nicene doctrine, appeared to
consider the expression of substance as if it had been synonymous
with that of nature; and they ventured to illustrate their meaning, by
affirming that three men, as they belong to the same common species, are
consubstantial, or homoousian to each other. [58] This pure and distinct
equality was tempered, on the one hand, by the internal connection, and
spiritual penetration which indissolubly unites the divine persons;
[59] and, on the other, by the preeminence of the Father, which was
acknowledged as far as it is compatible with the independence of the
Son. [60] Within these limits, the almost invisible and tremulous ball
of orthodoxy was allowed securely to vibrate. On either side, beyond
this consecrated ground, the heretics and the daemons lurked in ambush
to surprise and d