orised the publication of
theological works licensed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was
therefore out of the power of the government to silence the defenders of
the established religion. They were a numerous, an intrepid, and a
well appointed band of combatants. Among them were eloquent declaimers,
expert dialecticians, scholars deeply read in the writings of the
fathers and in all parts of ecclesiastical history. Some of them, at a
later period, turned against one another the formidable arms which they
had wielded against the common enemy, and by their fierce contentions
and insolent triumphs brought reproach on the Church which they had
saved. But at present they formed an united phalanx. In the van appeared
a rank of steady and skilful veterans, Tillotson, Stillingfleet,
Sherlock, Prideaux, Whitby, Patrick, Tenison, Wake. The rear was brought
up by the most distinguished bachelors of arts who were studying for
deacon's orders. Conspicuous amongst the recruits whom Cambridge sent to
the field was a distinguished pupil of the great Newton, Henry Wharton,
who had, a few months before, been senior wrangler of his year, and
whose early death was soon after deplored by men of all parties as an
irreparable loss to letters. [117] Oxford was not less proud of a youth,
whose great powers, first essayed in this conflict, afterwards troubled
the Church and the State during forty eventful years, Francis Atterbury.
By such men as these every question in issue between the Papists and
the Protestants was debated, sometimes in a popular style which boys and
women could comprehend, sometimes with the utmost subtlety of logic, and
sometimes with an immense display of learning. The pretensions of the
Holy See, the authority of tradition, purgatory, transubstantiation, the
sacrifice of the mass, the adoration of the host, the denial of the cup
to the laity, confession, penance, indulgences, extreme unction, the
invocation of saints, the adoration of images, the celibacy of the
clergy, the monastic vows, the practice of celebrating public worship in
a tongue unknown to the multitude, the corruptions of the court of Rome,
the history of the Reformation, the characters of the chief reformers,
were copiously discussed. Great numbers of absurd legends about miracles
wrought by saints and relics were translated from the Italian and
published as specimens of the priestcraft by which the greater part of
Christendom had been fooled. Of the tra