Endnotes
for section 5
[1]
Although the writings of Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria
(Clemens) contain much godly wisdom, there are also many unscriptural
elements in their works. The famous Puritan John Owen wrote: “It
cannot be denied but that many of the principal teachers in the first
ages of the church after the apostles, especially among those whose
writings remain unto posterity, did, in a neglect of the gospel and its
simplicity, embrace and teach sundry things, perverse, curious, and
contrary to the form of wholesome words committed unto them; whilst, for
any thing that appears, they were not so duly conversant in evangelical
mysteries, with reverence and godly fear, as it was their duty to have
been. It is known how instances hereof might be multiplied out of the
writings of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clemens, Origen, Tatianus,
Athenaguras, Tertullian, Lactantius, and others; but I shall not reflect
with any severity on their names and memories who continued to adhere
unto the fundamental principles of Christian religion, though, what by
curious speculations, what by philosophical prejudices and notions, by
wrested allegorical expositions of Scripture, by opinions openly false
and contradictory to the word of God, they much corrupted and debased
the pure and holy doctrine of Jesus and his apostles” (‘The Nature
and Causes of Apostasy from the Gospel’, Works,
vol. 7, pp68, 69).
