Section 511
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COUNCIL OF NICE. 29 placed, and which has already been adverted to, they could be in any doubt whether our Lord was divine in the strict sense of the term, or a creature only, however exalted in rank and dignity ; or that such men would have disguised their genuine persuasion, from the fear of losing their sacerdotal honors, or of missing those temporal advantages and emoluments, which they might natu rally have expected to enjoy under the dominion of a Christian prince ? Was it for them, men of unblemished integrity and vir tue, basely to violate their consciences for " a piece of bread ?" or descend, for the sake of office, from their elevated position, as " good soldiers of Jesus Christ," to the meanness of subterfuge and dissimulation? Was it for men who were born and grew up amidst scenes of pagan insult, cruelty and oppression, and many of whom, for their courageous defence of the truth, had been de prived of their substance, or loaded with chains, or confined in a dungeon, or maimed and disfigured in their persons ; and who would doubtless have accompanied their heroic brethren in the faith, " counting not their lives dear unto them," to the scaffold or the stake; or would have expired in torments on the rack, or been nailed to a cross, or become food for lions, rather than " blas pheme that worthy name whereby they were called ;" — was it for them to stoop to such moral degradation ? men, too, some of whom had been distinguished by the episcopal mitre at a period when it was so far from advancing their worldly interest, that it only exposed them more surely to the "loss of all things," added to their toils, their trials and their sufferings, and served but to render them a more conspicuous mark for heathen persecution ? It may be thought that the language and actions of the pre lates were sometimes harsh and overbearing, and little adapted to encourage freedom of debate. It must be confessed, that, mea sured by the standard of modern usage in deliberative bodies, their deportment was occasionally vehement and impassioned. But, is no allowance to be made for ancient manners, and for the fervid and exaggerated style, both of speaking and acting, Avhen under the influence of strong emotion, so prevalent in the eastern and southern regions, of which so considerable a proportion of the members of the synod were natives? It might be asked, how3*