saying, whatsoever they should decree therein, he would cause to be observed. This may perhaps seem a greater indifferency, than would in these days be approved of. But so it is in the history; and the articles of faith necessary to salvation, were not thought then to be so many as afterwards they were defined to be by the Church of Rome. When Constantine had ended his oration, he caused the aforesaid libels to be cast into the fire, as became a wise king and a charitable Christian. This done, the fathers fell in hand with their business, and following the method of a former creed, now commonly called _the Apostles' Creed_, made a confession of faith, _viz._: I BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, THE FATHER ALMIGHTY, MAKER OF HEAVEN AND EARTH, AND OF ALL THINGS VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE: in which is condemned the polytheism of the Gentiles: AND IN ONE LORD JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF GOD: against the many sons of the many Gods of the heathen: BEGOTTEN OF HIS FATHER BEFORE ALL WORLDS, GOD OF GOD: against the Arians: VERY GOD OF VERY GOD: against the Valentinians, and against the heresy of Apelles and others, who made Christ a mere phantasm: LIGHT OF LIGHT: this was put in for explication, and used before to that purpose by Tertullian: BEGOTTEN, NOT MADE, BEING OF ONE SUBSTANCE WITH THE FATHER: in this again they condemn the doctrine of Arius. For this word, _of one substance_, in Latin _consubstantialis_, but in Greek ὁμοούσιος, that is, _of one essence_, was put as a touchstone to discern an Arian from a Catholic; and much ado there was about it. Constantine himself, at the passing of this creed, took notice of it for a hard word; but yet approved of it, saying, that in a divine mystery it was fit to use _divina et arcana verba_; that is, divine words, and hidden from human understanding: calling that word ὁμοούσιος, divine, not because it was in the divine Scripture, (for it is not there) but because it was to him _arcanum_, that is, not sufficiently understood. _And in this again appeared the indifferency of the Emperor, and that he had for his end, in the calling of the Synod, not so much the truth, as the uniformity of the doctrine, and peace of his people that depended on it._ The cause of the obscurity of this word ὁμοούσιος, proceeded chiefly from the difference between the Greek and Roman dialect, in the philosophy of the Peripatetics. The first principle of religion in all nations, is, _that God is_, that is to say, that God really is something, and not a mere fancy; but that which is really something, is considerable alone by itself, as being _somewhere_. In which sense a man is a thing real; for I can consider him _to be_, without considering any other thing _to be_ besides him. And for the same reason, the earth, the air, the stars, heaven, and their parts, are all of them things real. And because whatsoever is real here, or there, or in any place, has dimensions, that is to say, magnitude; that which hath magnitude,