Son, not in order only, but in dominion and authority. Only Dr. Clarke
expresses himself more guardedly than his friend. He had already made a
great name among theologians, and he had no desire to lose it.

We may take the appearance of Dr. Clarke's book as the commencement of a
new era in this controversy, which after this time began to reach its
zenith. Various opponents at once arose, attacking various parts of Dr.
Clarke's scheme. Dr. Wells complained that he had taken no notice of the
Old Testament, that he had failed to show how the true sense of
Scripture was to be ascertained, and that he had disparaged creeds,
confessions of faith, and the testimony of the fathers; Mr. Nelson
complained, not without reason, of his unfair treatment of Bishop Bull;
Dr. Gastrell pointed out that there was only one out of Dr. Clarke's
fifty-five propositions to which an Arian would refuse to
subscribe.[438]

These and others did good service on particular points; but it remained
for Dr. Waterland to take a comprehensive view of the whole question,
and to leave to posterity not only an effective answer to Dr. Clarke,
but a masterly and luminous exposition, the equal to which it would be
difficult to find in any other author, ancient or modern. It would be
wearisome even to enumerate the titles of the various 'Queries,'
'Vindications,' 'Replies,' 'Defences,' 'Answers to Replies,' which
poured forth from the press in luxurious abundance on either side of the
great controversy. It will be sufficient to indicate generally the main
points at issue between the combatants.

Dr. Clarke then, and his friends[439] (who all wrote more or less under
his inspiration), maintained that the worship of God is in Scripture
appointed to one Being, that is, to the Father _personally_. That such
worship as is due to Christ is the worship of a mediator and cannot
possibly be that paid to the one supreme God. That all the titles given
to the Son in the New Testament, and all powers ascribed to Him, are
perfectly well consistent with reserving the supremacy of absolute and
independent dominion to the Father alone. That the highest titles of God
are never applied to the Son or Spirit. That the subordination of the
Son to the Father is not merely nominal, consisting in the mere position
or order of words, which in truth of things is a _co_-ordination; but
that it is a _real_ subordination in point of authority and dominion
over the universe. That three p