The Council of Nicea had scarcely adjourned,—­when it was plain to all impartial men that, as a method of establishing a criterion of truth in religious matters, such councils were a total failure.  The minority had no rights which the majority need respect.  The protest of many good men, that a mere majority vote given by delegates, whose right to vote had never been examined and authorized, could not be received as ascertaining absolute truth, was passed over with contempt, and the consequence was, that council was assembled against council, and their jarring and contradictory decrees spread perplexity and confusion throughout the Christian world.  In the fourth century alone there were thirteen councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favor, and seventeen for the semi-Arians—­in all, forty-five.  Minorities were perpetually attempting to use the weapon which majorities had abused.

The impartial ecclesiastical historian above quoted, moreover, says that “two monstrous and calamitous errors were adopted in this fourth century:  1.  That it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie when, by that means, the interests of the Church might be promoted. 2.  That errors in religion, when maintained and adhered to after proper admonition, were punishable with civil penalties and corporal tortures.”

Not without astonishment can we look back at what, in those times, were popularly regarded as criteria of truth.  Doctrines were considered as established by the number of martyrs who had professed them, by miracles, by the confession of demons, of lunatics, or of persons possessed of evil spirits:  thus, St. Ambrose, in his disputes with the Arians, produced men possessed by devils, who, on the approach of the relics of certain martyrs, acknowledged, with loud cries, that the Nicean doctrine of the three persons of the Godhead was true.  But the Arians charged him with suborning these infernal witnesses with a weighty bribe.  Already, ordeal tribunals were making their appearance.  During the following six centuries they were held as a final resort for establishing guilt or innocence, under the forms of trial by cold water, by duel, by the fire, by the cross.

What an utter ignorance of the nature of evidence and its laws have we here!  An accused man sinks or swims when thrown into a pond of water; he is burnt or escapes unharmed when he holds a piece of red-hot iron in his hand; a champion whom he has hired is vanquished or vanquishes in single fight; he can keep his arms outstretched like a cross, or fails to do so longer than his accuser, and his innocence or guilt of some imputed crime is established!  Are these criteria of truth?

Is it surprising that all Europe was filled with imposture miracles during those ages?—­miracles that are a disgrace to the common-sense of man!