Page:Dean Aldrich A Commemoration Speech.djvu/22

 Church men, Smalridge, Atterbury, Wake, and Aldrich. It was for this Aldrich wrote his 'Reply to two Discourses,' a work to be judged by its purpose; the purpose, that is, of overthrowing the popular rhetoric, the superficial cleverness of the Jesuistry of that day; and in view of such an end we can understand its brilliancy being more apparent than its depth. What strikes one in reading it is, I think, the consciousness of superiority over his opponents. He fights as one sure of his ground, as bold in the strength of certainty. There is no timidity, no caution; rather a sallying out to meet his adversary, to vaunt his triumph: and such a temper is justified by Burnet's account of the meagreness of the Roman defence, of the utter vanquishing which it then endured.

Such was the determination of Aldrich's attitude toward Rome; but the thing to observe is, that though he could write thus against the Jesuit, yet when the reaction came and Protestant William had taken the place of Catholic James, he could act as we have seen him act, against the Puritan. This is what recalls in him the wisdom of the Elizabethan Church—that he could guard against the recoil—that he could let go this and yet hold fast to that—that he could stand four-square, not to one or two, but to all the winds that blow. Even in the crisis of James's accession he could preach against, on May 29, 1682, and 'reell very clearly,' as Antony à Wood heard him, the arguments of the Republican Parson Samuel Johnson in his famous 'Julian the Apostate,' in which the Papist king took the form of the Apostate emperor.

But, if we do not still study his theology, there is one book of Aldrich's in all our hands, if not in our heads—a book