Page:A Compendium of the Chief Doctrines of the True Christian Religion.djvu/200

16. It was then men first began to pluck the door of the temple off its hinges, and rush like thieves and robbers into the holy of holies; by the temple is meant the church, by the door the Lord God the redeemer, and by the holy of holies his divinity; for Jesus saith, unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but, the same is a thief and a robber; I am the door, by me if any man enter in he shall be saved. This horrid deed was done by Arus and his adherents; on which account a council was assembled by Constantine the great, at Nice, a city of Bithynia, and it was by the members of this council devised, concluded, and determined, with a view to stop the progress of Arius's damnable heresy, that three divine persons, father, son, and holy ghost, have existed from eternity, each whereof hath a distinct and independent personality, existence and subsistence; and farther, that the second person, or the son, descended, and assumed the humanity, and accomplished the work of redemption, and that in consequence thereof his humanity was made partaker of divinity by an hypostatic union, and that by virtue of this union he had a close relationship with God the father. From that time an incredible number of dreadful heresies, respecting God, and the person of Christ, began to be propagated throughout the earth, whereby the head of antichrist was exalted, and God divided into three persons, and the Lord the saviour into two; and thus the temple, which the Lord had built by his apostles, was destroyed, and that so effectually, that there was not one stone left on another which was not thrown down, according to his own words, Matt. xxiv. 2. where by the temple is not meant the temple at Jerusalem only, but the church also, of whose consummation, or end, that chapter treateth throughout. But what else could be