LUTHER 1527 The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

LUTHER 1527

If they would stop and think, however, and take care to speak nothing but God’s words, as St. Peter teaches [I Pet. 4:11], and if they would leave their own assertions and assumptions at home, they would not create so much misfortune. This saying, “The Scriptures are not self-contradictory,” would not have misled Oecolampadius, for it is grounded in God’s Word that God does not lie nor does his Word deceive. But this addition to his word, “I, Oecolampadius, say that the Scriptures here are contradictory,” brings him into such toil and sweat that he denies, twists, reinterprets, and tortures the Word of God any way he pleases. Lord God, how easily such a horrible downfall takes place, and still we are sure and fearless on this slippery path!

The Arian Controversy down to the Council of Nicaea, 318-325.

Constantine, the first emperor who mingled in the religious affairs of Christendom, and who did this from a political, monarchical interest for the unity of the empire and of religion, was at first inclined to consider the contest a futile logomachy, and endeavored to reconcile the parties in diplomatic style by letters and by the personal mission of the aged bishop Hosius of Spain; but without effect. Questions of theological and religious principle are not to be adjusted, like political measures, by compromise, but must be fought through to their last results, and the truth must either conquer or (for the time) succumb. Then, in pursuance, as he thought, of a “divine inspiration,” and probably also with the advice of bishops who were in friendship with him, he summoned the first universal council, to represent the whole church of the empire, and to give a final decision upon the relation of Christ to God, and upon some minor questions of discipline, the time of Easter, and the Meletian schism in Egypt.
HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff Volume 3 NICENE AND POST-NICENE CHRISTIANTY A.D. 311-600
(Page 621)