We are disposed to believe that, under the blessing of God, he was the means of preserving the church from the Arian heresy, which threatened to extinguish from Christianity both the name and the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. The enemy aimed at nothing short of a Christless system, which might ere long issue in an utter abandonment of Christianity. But the Nicene council was used of God to overthrow his wicked devices. The assertion of the Godhead of Christ and of the Holy Ghost as equal with God the Father, was greatly blessed of God then, and has been from that day even until now. Though the church had been unfaithful, and drifted into the world, "even where Satan's seat is," the Lord in mercy raised up a great testimony to His holy name, and to the faith of His saints. Historians, both civil and ecclesiastical, bear the most honorable testimony to the ability, activity, constancy, self-denial, and unwearied zeal of Athanasius in the defense of the great doctrine of the holy Trinity. "Thou holdest fast My name, and hast not denied My faith," are words that refer, we doubt not, to the faithfulness of Athanasius and his friends, as also to the faithful in other times.
The overcomers spoken of in the address were also there, without doubt; but it is not permitted of the Lord that they should be seen or recorded by the historian. They were God's hidden ones who were nourished on the hidden manna. They will have a place of great nearness to the Lord in the glory. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." (Rev. 2:1717He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. (Revelation 2:17).)