AN INDEX TO THE TRACTS FOR THE TIMES; WITH A DISSERTATION. BY THE REV. DAVID CROLY, AUTHOR OF "IRISH ECCLESIASTICAL FINANCE," &c. &c. "Whatever points of revelation the Almighty designs to be received universally, we OXFORD, PUBLISHED BY J. VINCENT; J. HATCHARD AND SON, PICCADILLY, LONDON; No. 89.] T674 1840 (Ad Clerum.) [Price 2s. V.6 TRACTS FOR THE TIMES. ON THE MYSTICISM ATTRIBUTED TO THE EARLY § i. Occasion, Grounds, and Limits of the Present Inquiry. (1.) It is curious, and may be not uninstructive, to observe how from time to time the assailants of Primitive Antiquity have shifted their ground, since the beginning of the seventeenth century. During the struggle of the Reformation, men had felt instinctively, if they did not clearly see, that the Fathers were against them, so far as they had begun to rationalize, whether in ecclesiastical practice, or in theological inquiry. But it was many years before they ventured to avow this feeling distinctly to themselves, much more to maintain and propagate it. It was not until divines of his class had thoroughly wearied themselves in vain endeavours to reconcile the three first centuries with Calvin and Zuinglius, that Daillé published his celebrated treatise "Of the Right Use of the Fathers" in which, under pretence of impugning their sufficiency as judges between Papist and Protestant, he has dexterously insinuated every topic most likely to impair their general credit; professing all the while extreme respect both for their sanctity and their wisdom; although, perhaps, an attentive reader may perceive his ironical meaning, disclosing itself more and more, as his argument draws to a point. However, by his skill in rhetorical arrangement, and by a certain air of thorough command of his subject, which he has been very successful in assuming, he became at once the standard author for all who took that side of the question; opening (if so homely a simile may be allowed) a kind 1 In 1631. § i. 1. VOL. VI.-89. B |