24. It has been said of this treatise on the right use of the fathers, that its author had pretty well proved they were of no use at all. This indeed is by no means the case, but it has certainly diminished not only the deference which many have been wont to pay to the opinion of the primitive writers, but what is still more contended for, the value of their testimony, whether as to matters of fact, or as to the prevailing doctrines of the Christian church. Nothing can be more certain, though in the warmth of controversy men are apt to disregard it, than that a witness, who deposes in any one case what can be disproved, is not entitled to belief in other assertions which we have no means of confuting, unless it be shown that the circumstances of his evidence render it more trust-worthy in these points than we have found it before. Hence, such writers as Justin and Irenæus ought not, except with great precaution, to be quoted in proof at all, or at least with confidence; their falsehood, not probably wilful, in assertions that have been brought to a test rendering their testimony very precarious upon any other points. Daillé, it may be added, uses some circumspection, as the times, if not his own disposition, required in handling this subject, keeping chiefly in view the controversies between the Romish and protestant churches: nor does he ever indulge in that tone of banter or acrimony which we find in Whitby, Barbeyrac, Jortin, and Middleton; and which must be condemned by every one who reflects that many of these writers exposed their lives, and some actually lost them, in the maintenance and propagation of Christianity. |Chillingworth’s Religion of Protestants.|