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    solemn and imposing lights , in which their nearness to the rising sun of Christianity places them ; yet , that the time of their authority over conscience and opinion was gone by 5 that they were no longer to be

    regarded as guides either in faith or in morals ; and that we should be quite within the pale of orthodoxy in saying that ,, though admirable martyrs and saints , they were , after all , but indifferent Christians . In point of style , too , we had supposed that

    criticism was no longer dazzled by their sanctity ; that few would now agree with the learned J esuit , Garasse , that a chapter of St . Augustine on the Trinity is worth all the Odes of Pindar ; that , in short , they had taken their due rank among those affected and

    rhetorical writers , who flourished in the decline of ancient literature , and were now , like many worthy authors we could mention , very much respected and never read . We had supposed all this ; but we find we were mistaken . An eminent

    dignitary of the Church of England has lately shewn that in his opinion at least , these veterans are by uo means invalided in the warfare of theology ; for he has brought more than seventy volumes of them into

    the field against the Calvinists . Aud here is Mr . Boyd , a gentleman of much Greek , who assures us that the Homilies of St . Chrysostom , the Oratious of St . Gregory Nazianzen , and —prohpudor !—the Amours of Daphnis and Chloe are models of

    eloquence , atticism , ana fine writing . Mr . Boyd has certainly chosen the safer , as well as plea . sa . nter path , through the neglected field of learning ; for , tasteless as th <* metaphors of the fathers are in general , they are much more innocent and digestible

    than their arguments ; as the learned bishop we have just alluded to may , perhaps , by this time acknowledge , having found , we suspect , that his seventy folios are , like elephants in battle , not only ponderous , but dangerous auxiliaries , which , when once

    let loose , may be at least as formidable to friends as to foes . This , indeed p has always been a characteristic of the writings of the fathers . This ambidextrous faculty—this sort of Swiss versatility in fighting equally well on frotlt tides of the question , has dis-

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    tinguished them through the whole history of theological controversy : - the same authors , the same passage have been quoted with equal confidence , by Arians and Athanasians , Jesuits and Jansenists , Transubstantiators and Typifiers . Nor is it only the dull and bigoted who have had recourse to these self-refuted

    authorities for their purpose ; we often ftnd the same anxiety for their support , the same disposition to account them , as Chillingworth says , * Fathers when for , and children when ayainst , in quarters where a greater degree of good sense and fairness might be ex *

    pected . Even Middleton himself , who makes so light of the opinions of the fathers , in his learned and rixanly inquiry into miracles , yet courts th&ir sanction with much assiduity for his favourite system of allegorizing the

    Mosaic history of the creation ; a . point on which , of all others , their alliance is most dangerous , as there Is no subject upon which their Pagai * imaginations have rioted more ungovernably .

    a he errors of the primitive doctors of the church ; their Christian heathenism an 4 heathen Christianity , which led them to look for the Trinity among those shadowy forms that peopled the twilight groves of the academy , and to array the meek , self-humbling Christian in the proud

    and iron armour of the Portico ; their bigoted rejection of the most obvious truths in uatural science ; the bewildering vibration of their moral doctrines , never resting between the extremes of laxity and rigour ; their credulity , their inconsistencies of

    conduct and opinion , and worst of all , their forgeries and falsehoods , have already been so often and so ably exposed by divines of all countries , religions and sects ; the

    Dupiiis , Mosheims , Middletons , Clarke 6 , Jortins , &c . that it seems superfluous to add another line upon the subject : though we are not quite sure that , in the present state of Europe , a discussion of the merits of the fathers is

    not as seasonable and even fashionable a topic as we could select . At a time when the Inquisition is re-established by our beloved Ferdinand ; when the Pope again brandishes the keys of St- Peter with an air worthy of a successor of the Hildebrands and

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    i 6 The Fathers .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1815, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1756/page/16/