"To the mechanical genius of Holland we must ascribe the discovery of the art of printing, for the original inventor was Laurentius John Coster, of Haerlem, who made his first essay with wooden types about the year 1430. The art was communicated by his servant to John Faust and John Guttenberg, of Mentz. It was carried to perfection by Peter Shœffer, the son-in-law of Faustus, who invented the modes of casting metal types."
Trihemius, in his Chronicle, written A.D. 1514, says he had it from the mouth of Peter Shœffer that the first book they printed with movable types was the Bible, about the year 1450, in which the expenses were so great that 4,000 florins were expended before they completed twelve sheets. The author of a manuscript, Chronicle of Cologne, compiled in 1499, also says that he was told by Ulric Zell, of Cologne, who himself introduced printing there in 1466, that the Latin Bible was first begun to be printed in the year of Jubilee, 1450, and that it was in large type. Mr. Edwards, of Pall Mall possessed a copy of this curious Bible in three volumes, bound in morocco. In his catalogue it was valued at £126. There, is a beautiful copy of this work in the Bodleian (or Bodleyan) Library in the University at Oxford.
The art of printing soon spread over the greater part of Europe, and to-day our world is a world of books, and the love of the Bible was the origin of printing.
COUNCILS.
UNITY OF ROMAN CHURCH.
The Council of Nice assembled in Asia Minor by the direction of Constantine in the year 325. Here we see more than two hundred and fifty bishops, mostly from the east, with presbyters, deacons and others, engaged in an effort to settle the Arian heresy, which consisted in maintaining that Christ was the most exalted of all created things, but inferior to God the Father. This opinion was first ventilated in the year 318. It was publicly condemned by the Council of Alexandria in the year 320, and then by the Council of Nice. This Council maintained the perfect equality of essence of both Father and Son, and could only express their relation by terming it eternal generation, which Dr. Adam Clark calls eternal nonsense.
"Arius and his partisans were banished by the Council of Alexandria, but as he had powerful adherents he found means to return at the express command of Constantine. He was on his way to receive the oath of ministerial allegiance when he very suddenly, as some say, died by poison. His death was in the year 336. It is said that Constantine was baptized into the Arian communion in the year 337. The followers of Arius increased greatly after his death. Under Constantius, called Flavius Julius, Arianism became the religion of the court, and it even penetrated as far as Rome, which was obliged to receive into its communion Felix, an Arian bishop. But the divisions which grew among the Arians themselves prepared for the Catholic church an easy victory over them and led to their final extinction." It is worthy of being remembered at all times, and under all circumstances, that this whole controversy is unauthorized in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, faith in him as the Son of the living God being the great truth upon which the Church of God is built. What eternal nonsense it is to be quarreling about whether he and his Father are of the same essence. The truths of Christianity and of Protestantism are found in the teachings of the anti-Nicene fathers, but we must remember that these were uninspired men, and therefore displayed no standard of truth. The term fathers, without qualification, includes a vast range, comprising a period of eleven hundred years, from Clemens to Bernard, from the Bishop of Rome to the Monk of Clairvaux.
Immediately after the Council of Nice their works took on the infections of popery. Each succeeding writer in each succeeding century added to the gathering mass of error and superstition. The filth and dirt accumulated until the system of delusion was fully developed in the "man of sin." The Fathers, as they are called, are entitled to no more than other men. They should never be resorted to as authoritative or inspired, for they were not. They may be used as witnesses to show the customs of their times. So far as they are concerned as the standard of truth, we may just as well, with safety and without remorse, deliver them to the Vatican to rot with the lumber and legends of the dark ages. The anti-Nicene fathers had many errors, but theirs were not the errors of Romanism. The religious productions of the first three centuries of our era contain, in the main, the principles of Protestantism. The post-Nicene fathers, or popery, may be compared to a field of wheat overrun with weeds. The great work of the Protestant reformers was to eradicate the weeds. Failing to accomplish this in the Roman field, they gathered the pure seed grain and sowed it in the Lord's field, "the world," where it now waves in beauty, tending to a glorious harvest. Once on a time a person was asked where Protestantism was before the Reformation. He answered in turn, It was where your face was this morning before it was washed. The reply was just. Dirt could be no part of the human countenance, and removing the filth by washing could neither change the features of the face nor destroy its identity. By this cleansing operation the face only assumed its normal and natural appearance. In like manner the superstitious traditions of the Roman church were no part of Christianity. It was but proper that the reformers should dismiss the adulterations of the ages and plant their feet away back in the land of Israel with the Christ of God.
Arius was regarded as an innovater on the true faith. The great enemy of Arianism was simply Trinitarianism. The council of Nice was presided over by Hosius. The assembled fathers declared the consubstantiality of the son for the establishment of Trinitarianism and the extermination of Arianism. This wonderful term, consubstantiality, had been rejected by the synod of Antioch sixty years before, and by Dionysius, of Alexandria, in opposition to Sabellianism.