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Of all the chiefs he was the greatest controversialist, and in his capacity of preacher he distinguished himself from his companions by wearing a wig. There must have been something comical in his appearance, for Brueys describes him as a little, squat, bandy-legged man, presenting "the figure of a little bear." But it was an enemy who drew the picture.
Denis had been their pride, the privileged person among them the individual whose talents were to throw lustre upon a nameless and unknown family; the future priest the embryo preacher of eminence the resistless controversialist the holy father confessor and, perhaps, for with that vivacity of imagination peculiar to the Irish, they could scarcely limit his exaltation perhaps the bishop of a whole diocese.
Martineau was far too keen a controversialist to adopt Canon Green's foolish retort, but he does seek to parry the force of the atheist criticism by saying that God "if once he commits his will to any determinate method, and for the realisation of his ends selects and institutes a scheme of instrumental rules, he thereby shuts the door on a thousand things that might have been done before."
But even then, perhaps the supreme authority hesitates to do so, and nothing is determined on the point for years: or so generally and vaguely, that the whole controversy has to be gone through again, before it is ultimately determined. It is manifest how a mode of proceeding, such as this, tends not only to the liberty, but to the courage, of the individual theologian or controversialist.
In 1449 "Bible men" were still formidable enough to call a prelate to the front as a controversialist: and the very title of Bishop Pecock's work, "A Repressor of overmuch blaming of the clergy," shows the damage done by their virulent criticism. Its most fatal effect was to rob the priesthood of moral power.
Servetus was a rhetorician, controversialist and diplomat gentle, considerate, gracious. He belonged to that suave and cultured type of Catholic that wins to the Church princes and people to education and wealth. He has been likened by John Morley to Cardinal Newman.
If you make mind mechanical, you may argue in that manner. One mind is a vice, and holds fast; there's a good memory. Another is a file; and he is a disputant, a controversialist. Another is a razor; and he is sarcastical. We talked of Whitefield. JOHNSON. 'Why, sir, I take it, he was at the height of what his abilities could do, and was sensible of it.
Doctrines do not stand or fall by their proofs, and are only logical in so far as they are cleverly put. An able controversialist no more than an able general demonstrates the justice of his cause.
Elizabeth was delighted, and gave the poet a diamond for his pretty book. But Ronsard does not live in literature mainly as a flatterer. Nor is he remembered as a keeper of the conscience of princes, or as a religious controversialist. If nothing but his love-poems had survived, we should have almost all his work that is of literary importance.
Ridgeway has an illustrative argument with some one, who says: "The dress and weapons of the Saxons given in the lay of Beowulf fitted exactly the bronze weapons in England, for they had shields, and spears, and battle-axes, and swords." Now, if the supposed controversialist were a Homeric critic, he would not admit any difficulty.
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