Which of these
parties is the rather correct? this deceived man, who is now among
us, and is still alive, or they who were witnesses before us,
possessing before our time the tradition in the Church, and they
having received it from their fathers, and those very fathers
again having learned it from those who lived before them?... The
Church has received it, and it is unanimously confessed in the
whole world, before Aerius and Aerians were born."--_Haer._ 75,
Sec. 6.

4. Once more, there is this very observable fact in the case of each of
the three, that their respective protests seem to have arisen from some
personal motive. Certainly what happens to a man's self often brings a
thing home to his mind more forcibly, makes him contemplate it steadily,
and leads to a successful investigation into its merits. Yet still,
where we know personal feelings to exist in the maintenance of any
doctrine, we look more narrowly at the proof for ourselves; thinking it
not impossible that the parties may have made up their minds on grounds
short of reason. It is natural to feel distrust of controversialists,
who, to all appearance, would not have been earnest against a doctrine
or practice, except that it galled themselves. Now it so happens that
each of these three Reformers lies open to this imputation. Aerius is
expressly declared by Epiphanius to have been Eustathius's competitor
for the see of Sebaste, and to have been disgusted at failing. _He_ is
the preacher against bishops. Jovinian was bound by a monastic vow, and
_he_ protests against fasting and coarse raiment. Vigilantius was a
priest; and, therefore, _he_ disapproves the celibacy of the clergy. No
opinion at all is here ventured in favour of clerical celibacy; still it
is remarkable that in the latter, as in the two former cases, private
feeling and public protest should have gone together.

6.

These distinct considerations are surely quite sufficient to take away
our interest in these three Reformers. These men are not an historical
clue to a lost primitive creed, more than Origen or Tertullian; and much
less do they afford any support to the creed of those moderns who would
fain shelter themselves behind them. That there were abuses in the
Church then, as at all times, no one, I suppose, will deny. There may
have been extreme opinions and extreme acts, pride and pomp in certain
bishops, over-honour paid to saints, fraud in t