The paragraph in p. 336, of
what Councils ought to order, should be considered Luther's genuine
opinion.
Ib. p. 337.
The council of Nice, held after the Apostles' time, (said Luther) was
the very best and purest; but soon after in the time of the Emperor
Constantine, it was weakened by the Arians.
What Arius himself meant, I do not know: what the modern Arians teach, I
utterly condemn; but that the great council of Ariminum was either Arian
or heretical I could never discover, or descry any essential difference
between its decisions and the Nicene; though I seem to find a serious
difference of the pseudo-Athanasian Creed from both. If there be a
difference between the Councils of Nicea and Ariminum, it perhaps
consists in this;--that the Nicene was the more anxious to assert the
equal Divinity in the Filial subordination; the Ariminian to maintain
the Filial subordination in the equal Divinity. In both there are three
self-subsistent and only one self-originated:--which is the substance
of the idea of the Trinity, as faithfully worded as is compatible with
the necessary inadequacy of words to the expression of ideas, that is,
spiritual truths that can only be spiritually discerned. [4]
18th August, 1826.
Chap. XXVIII. p. 347.
God's word a Lord of all Lords.
Luther every where identifies the living Word of God with the written
word, and rages against Bullinger, who contended that the latter is the
word of God only as far as and for whom it is the vehicle of the former.
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