"One swallow does not make a spring," said Charles.
"This clergyman," continued Sheffield, "was a friend of the most High-Church writers of the day."
"Of course," said Reding, "there has always been a heterodox school in our Church—I know that well enough—but it never has been powerful. Your lax friend was one of them."
"I believe not, indeed," answered Sheffield; "he lived out of controversy, was a literary, accomplished person, and a man of piety to boot. He did not express any feeling of his own; he did but witness to a fact, that the name of Athanasius was unpopular."
"So little was known about history," said Charles, "this is not surprising. St. Athanasius, you know, did not write the Creed called after him. It is possible to think him intemperate, without thinking the Creed wrong."
"Well, then, again; there's Beatson, Divinity Professor; no one will call him in any sense a party man; he was put in by the Tories, and never has committed himself to any liberal theories in theology. Now, a man who attended his private lectures assures me that he told the men, 'D'ye see,' said he, 'I take it, that the old Church-of-England mode of handling the Creed went out with Bull. After Locke wrote, the old orthodox phraseology came into disrepute.'"
"Well, perhaps he meant," said Charles, "that learning died away, which was the case. The old theological language is plainly a learned language; when fathers and schoolmen were not read, of course it would be in abeyance; when they were read again, it has revived."
"No, no," answered Sheffield, "he said much more on another occasion. Speaking of Creeds, and the like, 'I hold,' he said, 'that the majority of the educated laity of our Church are Sabellians.'"
Charles was silent, and hardly knew what reply to make. Sheffield went on: "I was present some years ago, when I was quite a boy, when a sort of tutor of mine was talking to one of the most learned and orthodox divines of the day, a man whose name has never been associated with party, and the near relation and connexion of high dignitaries, about a plan of his own for writing a history of the Councils. This good and able man listened with politeness, applauded the project; then added, in a laughing way, 'You know you have chosen just the dullest subject in Church-history. Now the Councils begin with the Nicene Creed, and embrace nearly all doctrinal subjects whatever.'"
"My dear Sheffield," said Charles, "you have fallen in with a particular set or party of men yourself; very respectable, good men, I don't doubt, but no fair specimens of the whole Church."