impute to them opinions which they repudiated. Thus the charge of Popery, which was founded on the Nonjurors' Views of the Christian Sacrifice, was shewn by this eminent and candid man to be most unjust. Smith, in his "Epistolary Dissertation," thus alludes to Waterland's conduct in this particular. "Our doctrine of the sacrifice was, in the dispute between the late Dr. Hickes and his opponents, formerly cried down as Popish. Of this imputation Dr. Waterland has been so just as to clear it, for which we cannot but return him our thanks; because it is evident it is entirely inconsistent with the Popish, and quite overthrows it: there being as much difference between it and the Romish, as between the substance of bread and wine, and the substance of our blessed Saviour's body and blood. And this the Papists are so sensible of, that they endeavour all they can to render our notion of a sacrifice contemptible." Smith, however, remarks that Waterland, though he had cleared their view from being Popish, charged it with being Jewish: and this point is discussed at considerable length.[1] The question which had been so learnedly handled by Hickes, Johnson and Brett, was most ably maintained in this work: but the controversy is conducted in a meek and charitable spirit, altogether different from that of The Remarks on The Life of Tillotson, which have been noticed in a previous chapter.
In 1740, Smith published An Account of the
- ↑ An Epistolary Dissertation addressed to the Clergy of Middlesex. Wherein the Doctrine of St. Austin concerning- the Christian Sacrifice is set in a true light: by way of reply to Dr. Waterland's late charge to them. By a Divine of the University of Cambridge. London, 8vo. 1739, pp. 3, 4. The work is anonymous: but there is no reason to doubt that it was written by Mr. George Smith.
