s Dr.
Waterland, 'do we who make the Son essentially the same God with that
one, and suppose but one God in all, or you who make two Gods, and in
the same _relative_ sense, God _to us_, falsify St. Paul? _We_ can give
a reason why the Son is tacitly included, being so intimately united to
the Father as partaker of the same divine nature, but that any creature
should not be excluded from being God is strange.'

To turn now from Scripture to antiquity. The question as to what was the
opinion of the ante-Nicene fathers had been so thoroughly handled by
Bishop Bull, that Waterland (his legitimate successor) had no need to
enter upon it at large over again. But Bishop Bull had done his work too
well to suit the theory of Dr. Clarke and his friends. Although the
latter professed to find in the early fathers a confirmation of their
views, yet from a consciousness, perhaps, of the unsatisfactoriness of
this confirmation they constantly depreciate the value of patristic
evidence. In connection, therefore, with the subject of the Trinity,
Waterland clearly points out what is and what is not the true character
of the appeal to antiquity. The fathers are certain proofs in many cases
of the Church's doctrine in that age, and probable proofs of what that
doctrine was from the beginning. In respect of the latter they are
inferior additional proofs when compared with plain Scripture proof; of
no moment if Scripture is plainly contrary, but of great moment when
Scripture looks the same way, because they help to fix the true
interpretation in disputed texts. Waterland, however, would build no
article of faith on the fathers, but on Scripture alone. If the sense of
Scripture be disputed, the concurring sentiments of the fathers in any
doctrine will be generally the best and safest comments on Scripture,
just as the practice of courts and the decisions of eminent lawyers are
the best comments on an Act of Parliament made in or near their own
times, though the obedience of subjects rests solely on the laws of the
land as its rule and measure. To the objection that interpreting
Scripture by the ancients is debasing its majesty and throwing Christ
out of His throne, Waterland replies in somewhat stately terms, 'We
think that Christ never sits more secure or easy on His throne than when
He has His most faithful guards about Him, and that none are so likely
to strike at His authority or aim at dethroning Him as they that would
displace His old