67. Many of us, beloved brethren, declare the
substance of the Father and the Son to be one in such a spirit that I
consider the statement to be quite as much wrong as right. The
expression contains both a conscientious conviction and the opportunity
for delusion. If we assert the one substance, understanding it to
mean the likeness of natural qualities and such a likeness as includes
not only the species but the genus, we assert it in a truly religious
spirit, provided we believe that the one substance signifies such a
similitude of qualities that the unity is not the unity of a monad but
of equals. By equality I mean exact similarity so that the
likeness may be called an equality, provided that the equality imply
unity because it implies an equal pair, and that the unity which
implies an equal pair be not wrested to mean a single Person.
Therefore the one substance will be asserted piously if it does not
abolish the subsistent personality or divide the one substance into
two, for their substance by the true character of the Son’s birth
and by their natural likeness is so free from difference that it is
called one.