9. In this most learned period, according to the sense in which the word was then taken, that Europe has ever seen, it was of course to be expected that the studious ecclesiastics of both the Romish and Protestant denomination would pour forth a prodigal erudition in their great controversy. It had always been the aim of the former to give an historical character to theological inquiry; it was their business to ascertain the faith of the Catholic church as a matter of fact, the single principle of its infallibility being assumed as the basis of all investigation. But their opponents, though less concerned in the issue of such questions, frequently thought themselves competent to dispute the field; and conversant as they were with ecclesiastical antiquity, found in its interminable records sufficient weapons to protract the war, though not to subdue the foe. Hence, partly in the last years of the sixteenth century, but incomparably more in the present, we find an essential change in the character of theological controversy. It became less reasoning, less scriptural, less general and popular, but far more patristic, that is, appealing to the testimonies of the fathers, and altogether more historical than before. Several consequences of material influence on religious opinion sprang naturally from this method of conducting the defence of Protestantism. One was that it contracted very greatly the circle of those who, upon any reasonable interpretation of the original principle of personal judgment, could exercise it for themselves; it became the privilege of the deeply learned alone. Another that, from the real obscurity and incoherence of ecclesiastical authorities, those who had penetrated farthest into that province of learning were least able to reconcile them; and however they might disguise it from the world, while the pen was in their hands, were themselves necessarily left, upon many points, in an embarrassing state of doubt and confusion. A third effect was, that upon these controversies of Catholic tradition, the church of Rome had very often the best of the argument; and this was occasionally displayed in those wrestling matches between religious disputants, which were held, publicly or privately, either with the vain hope of coming to an agreement, or to settle the faith of the hearers. And from the two last of these causes it arose, that many Protestants went over to the church of Rome, and that a new theological system was contrived to combine what had been deemed the incompatible tenets of those who had burst from each other with such violence in the preceding century. |Especially in England. Laud.|