trial for themselves; yet what after all could they do for me? Confidence in me was lost ;-but I had already lost → full confidence in myself. Thoughts had passed over me a year and a half before (in respect to the Anglican claims), which for the time had profoundly troubled me. They had gone I had not less confidence in the power and the prospects of the Apostolical movement than before; not less confidence than before in the grievousness of what I called the "dominant errors of Rome but how was 10 I any more to have absolute confidence in myself? how was I to have confidence in my present confidence? how was I to be sure that I should always think as I thought now? I felt that by this event a kind Providence had saved me from an impossible position in the future.

First, if I remember right, they wished me to withdraw the Tract. This I refused to do: I would not do so for the sake of those who were unsettled or in danger of unsettlement. I would not do so for my own sake; for how could I acquiesce in a mere Protestant interpretation of the 20 Articles? how could I range myself among the professors of a theology, of which it put my teeth on edge, even to hear the sound?

Next they said, "Keep silence; do not defend the Tract; " I answered, "Yes, if you will not condemn it,if you will allow it to continue on sale." They pressed on me whenever I gave way; they fell back when they saw me obstinate. Their line of action was to get out of me as much as they could; but upon the point of their tolerating the Tract I was obstinate. So they let me continue it on 30 sale; and they said they would not condemn it. But they said that this was on condition that I did not defend it, that I stopped the series, and that I myself published my own condemnation in a letter to the Bishop of Oxford. I impute nothing whatever to him, he was ever most kind to me. Also, they said they could not answer for what (some) individual Bishops might perhaps say about the Tract in their own charges. I agreed to their conditions. My one point was to save the Tract.

Not a scrap of writing was given me, as a pledge of the 39 scrap of] line in

PART V.

HISTORY OF MY RELIGIOUS OPINIONS (FROM 1839 тo 1841).

AND now that I am about to trace, as far as I can, the course of that great revolution of mind, which led me to leave my own home, to which I was bound by so many strong and tender ties, I feel overcome with the difficulty of satisfying myself in my account of it, and have recoiled from doing so, till the near approach of the day, on which these lines must be given to the world, forces me to set about the task. For who can know himself, and the multitude of subtle influences which act upon him? and who 10 can recollect, at the distance of twenty-five years, all that he once knew about his thoughts and his deeds, and that, during a portion of his life, when even at the time his observation, whether of himself or of the external world, was less than before or after, by very reason of the perplexity and dismay which weighed upon him,—when, though it would be most unthankful to seem to imply that he had not all-sufficient light amid his darkness, yet a darkness it emphatically was? And who can (suddenly) gird himself [suddenly] to a new and anxious undertaking, 20 which he might be able indeed to perform well, had he full and calm leisure (allowed him) to look through every thing that he has written, whether in published works or private letters? but, on the other hand, as to that calm contemplation of the past, in itself so desirable, who can afford to be leisurely and deliberate, while he practises on himself a cruel operation, the ripping up of old griefs, and the venturing again upon the infandum dolorem of years, in which the stars of this lower heaven were one by Part V] Chapter III 6 doing so] the attempt

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16 though it would be most unthankful to seem to imply that he had not all-sufficient light] in spite of the light given to him according to his need

20 had he] were

22 has] had

one going out? I could not in cool blood, nor except upon the imperious call of duty, attempt what I have set myself to do. It is both to head and heart an extreme trial, thus to analyze what has so long gone by, and to bring out the results of that examination. I have done various bold things in my life: this is the boldest and, were I not sure I should after all succeed in my object, it would be madness to set about it.

In the spring of 1839 my position in the Anglican Church was at its height. I had supreme confidence in my con- 10 troversial status, and I had a great and still growing success, in recommending it to others. I had in the foregoing autumn been somewhat sore at the Bishop's Charge, but I have a letter which shows that all annoyance had passed from my mind. In January, if I recollect aright, in order to meet the popular clamour against myself and others, and to satisfy the Bishop, I had collected into one all the strong things which they, and especially I, had said against the Church of Rome, in order to their insertion among the advertisements appended to our publications. Conscious 20 as I was that my opinions in religion were not gained, as the world said, from Roman sources, but were, on the contrary, the birth of my own mind and of the circumstances in which I had been placed, I had a scorn of the imputations which were heaped upon me. It was true that I held a large bold system of religion, very unlike the Protestantism of the day, but it was the concentration and adjustment of the statements of great Anglican authorities, and I had as much right to do so, as the Evangelical [party had], and more right than the Liberal (party could show), 30 to hold their own respective doctrines. As I spoke on occasion of Tract 90, I claimed, in behalf of who would (in the Anglican Church), that he might hold in the Anglican Church a comprecation with the Saints [with Bramhall], and the Mass all but Transubstantiation with Andrewes, or with Hooker that Transubstantiation itself is not a point

29 do so] hold it

31 spoke] declared

31 to hold] for asserting

33 that he might hold in the Anglican Church] the right of holding with Bramhall

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for Churches to part communion upon, or with Hammond that a General Council, truly such, never did, never shall err in a matter of faith, or with Bull that man (had in paradise and) lost inward grace by the fall, or with Thorndike that penance is a propitiation for post-baptismal sin, or with Pearson that the all-powerful name of Jesus is no otherwise given than in the Catholic Church. 'Two can play at that," was often in my mouth, when men of Protestant sentiments appealed to the Articles, Homilies, or 10 Reformers; in the sense that, if they had a right to speak loud, I had [both] the liberty (to speak out as well as they,) and (had) the means, by the same or parallel appeals,) of giving them tit for tat. I thought that the Anglican Church had been tyrannized over by a (mere) party, and I aimed at bringing into effect the promise contained in the motto to the Lyra, "They shall know the difference now." I only asked to be allowed to show them the difference.

What will best describe my state of mind at the early 20 part of 1839, is an Article in the British Critic for that April. I have looked over it now, for the first time since it was published; and have been struck by it for this reason—it contains the last words which I ever spoke as an Anglican to Anglicans. It may now be read as my parting address and valediction, made to my friends. I little knew it at the time. It reviews the actual state of things, and it ends by looking towards the future. It is not altogether mine; for my memory goes to this,—that I had asked a friend to do the work; that then, the thought 30 came on me, that I would do it myself: and that he was good enough to put into my hands what he had with great appositeness written, and (that) I embodied it in[to] my Article. Every one, I think, will recognize the greater part of it as mine. It was published two years before the affair of Tract 90, and was entitled "The State of Religious Parties."

In this Article, I begin by bringing together testimonies from our enemies to the remarkable success of our exertions. One writer said: "Opinions and views of a theology 4 inward grace by the fall] on the fall, a supernatural habit of grace 14 had been] was