justification by faith alone, had the majority of the Council decided in
favor of the Arminian scheme? If not, by what right could he expect
OEcolampadius or Zuinglius to recant their convictions respecting the
Eucharist, or the Baptists theirs on Infant Baptism, to the same
authority? In fact, the wish expressed in this passage must be
considered as a mere flying thought shot out by the mood and feeling of
the moment, a sort of conversational flying-fish that dropped as soon as
the moisture of the fins had evaporated. 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,