The English Church in the Eighteenth CenturyAbbey, Charles J. (Charles John)
History
The English Church in the Eighteenth Century
Abbey, Charles J. (Charles John)
Church of England -- History -- 18th century
very same mysterious truths which have given occasion to many futile
speculations, many profitless disputes, are also, in every Christian
communion, rich in their supply of Christian motives and practical
bearings upon conduct.
Tillotson's opinions on points of doctrine were sometimes attacked with
a bitterness of rancour only to be equalled by the degree of
misrepresentation upon which the charges were founded. Leslie concludes
his indictment against him and Burnet by saying that 'though the sword
of justice be (at present) otherwise employed than to animadvert upon
these blasphemers, and though the chief and father of them all is
advanced to the throne of Canterbury, and thence infuses his deadly
poison through the nation,' yet at least all 'ought to separate from the
Church communion of these heretical bishops.'[241] Yet, if we examine
the arguments upon which this invective is supported, and compare with
their context the detached sentences which his hot-blooded antagonist
adduces, we shall find that Tillotson maintained no opinion which would
not be considered in a modern English Churchman to be at all events
perfectly legitimate. Had his opponents been content to point out
serious deficiencies in the general tendency of his teaching, they would
have held a thoroughly tenable position. When they attempted to attach
to his name the stigma of specific heresies, they failed. He thought
for himself, and sometimes very differently from them, but never
wandered far from the paths of orthodoxy. Accusations of Socinianism
were freely circulated both against him and Burnet, on grounds which
chiefly serve to show within what narrow grooves religious thought would
have been confined by the objectors. Burnet, whose theological
discourses received Tillotson's hearty commendation, has fully stated
what appears to have been the less clearly conceived opinion of the
archbishop. There was no tincture of Arianism in it; he showed on the
contrary, with much power, the utter untenability of that hypothesis.
The worship of Christ, he said, is so plainly set forth in the New
Testament, that not even the opposers of His divinity deny it; yet
nothing is so much condemned in Scripture as worshipping a
creature.[242] 'We may well and safely determine that Christ was truly
both God and Man.'[243] But he held that this true Divinity of Christ
consisted in 'the indwelling of the Eternal Word in Christ,' which
'became united to His human nature, as our souls dwell in our bodies and
are united to them.'[244] As Leslie said, he did in effect explain the
doctrine of the Trinity as three manifestations of the Divine nature.
'By the first, God may be supposed to have made and to govern all
things; by the second, to have been most perfectly united to the
humanity of Christ; and by the third, to have inspired the penmen of the
Scriptures and the workers of miracles, and still to renew and fortify
all good minds. But though we cannot explain how they are Three and have
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