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    total corruption of human nature , which is decidedly the doctrine of the ninth Article , and the ground-work of those that immediately follow ; that he speaks of infancy as the age of innocence , " an expression utterly inconsistent with the language of modern orthodoxy ; that hi 3 later opinions were directly opposed to the doctrine of the Church in its sixteenth Article , on the possibility of falling from grace ; that no trace of the doctrine of

    predestination is to be found in his writings , as the term is defined in the seventeenth Article ; and that the question involved in the eighteenth concerning the salvation of virtuous heathens , never presented itself to his mind . To this portion of his inquiries , which certainly does not yield in importance to any other branch of them , the learned Professor has devoted only a very few pages . He has cited a few passages from the writings of Tertullian on the fall of Adam , on the nature and condition of the soul , and on the

    freedom of the will , the language of which , he thinks , differs little from that of the Articles , and he draws from other parts of his writings inferences favourable , as he imagines , to the object he has in view : yet we suspect he is not completely satisfied with the result . Certainly we are not . He has recourse to the expedient adopted by preceding writers , alleging that " no controversy on these subjects existed in Tertullian ' s time , " and that " we must not expect him to speak with the same precision of language that was used

    by those who wrote after the Pelagian controversy had arisen . " With such an apology we cannot be contented . They only , we are inclined to think , take the right view of this matter , who own that these doctrines , as they are expressed in those summaries of faith which have been drawn up since the Reformation , were unknown to the ancient Fathers , both of the Greek and Latin Church , prior to the time of Augustin . Flacius Illyricus , as quoted by Dr . Lardner , ( see Lardner's Works , Vol . IV . p . 61 , ) complains that

    " the Christian writers who lived soon after Christ and his Apostles , discoursed like philosophers of the law and its moral precepts , and of the nature of virtue and vice , but were totally ignorant of man ' s natural corruption , the mysteries of the gospel , and Christ ' s benefit . " Similar acknowledgments and complaints have been made by Basnage and others of later times . The attempt to account for the absolute silence or the inconsistent or indefinite language of the early Christian Fathers , in relation to these subjects , on the

    ground that no controversy had arisen respecting them , appears to us exceedingly futile , and utterly repugnant to the representations so commonly made of their supreme and vital importance . These doctrines are extolled not merely as the doctrines of the Reformation , but as the essential doctrines of the Gospel ; as embracing truths of infinite concern to the whole human race ; those truths which it was the great object of Jesus and his apostles to teach . If such be their character , ( and in this light they must be regarded

    by those who receive the Articles of the Established Church , ) the ministers of the orthodox church could in no age be ignorant of them ; if such be their importance , and such it must be if they be true , they could not fail to be openly professed and fully developed from the very commencement of the Christian era ; and if extensive and correct views , distinct and precise

    language respecting them might be expected to distinguish one period more than another , that must surely have been the period nearest to the times of the apostles . If these doctrines now constitute the most valuable portion of the Christian system , if they are absolutely essential to salvation , they must have been so esteemed from the first , and must have formed the principal topics of public instruction in the days of TertulUan , as they do in our own *

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    Review . ' —Dr . Kayes Tertullian . 357

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1827, page 357, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1796/page/45/