and Dr. Pusey,
and Mr. Ward adduce, in proof of the existence of this note of dishonor
in a sister or mother, toward whom we feel so tenderly and reverently,
and whom nothing but some such urgent reason in conscience could make us
withstand so resolutely.

So much has been said on this point lately as to increase our
unwillingness to insist upon a subject in itself very ungrateful; but a
reference to it is unavoidable, if we would adequately show what is the
legitimate use and duty of private judgment, in dealing with those notes
of truth and error, by which Providence recommends to us or disowns the
prophets that come in His name.

What imparts an especial keenness to the grief which the teaching in
question causes in minds kindly disposed toward the Church of Rome, is,
that not only are we expressly told in Scripture that the Almighty will
not give His glory to another, but it is predicted as His especial grace
upon the Christian Church, "the idols He shall utterly abolish"; so
that, if Anglicans are almost unchurched by the Protestantism which has
mixed itself up with their ecclesiastical proceedings, Romanists, also,
are almost unchurched by their superstitions. Again and again in the
Prophets is this promise given: "From all your filthiness, and from all
your idols will I cleanse you"; "Neither shall they defile themselves
any more with their idols"; "Ephraim shall say, What have I to do any
more with idols?" "I will cut off the names of the idols out of the
land." And the warning in the New is as strong as the promise in the
Old: "Little children, keep yourselves from idols"; "Let no man beguile
you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels";
and the angel's answer, to whom St. John fell down in worship, was "See
thou do it not, _for_ I am thy fellow-servant; worship God."[21]

It is then a note of the Christian Church, as decisive as any, that she
is not idolatrous; and any semblance of idolatrous worship in the Church
of Rome as plainly dissuades a man of Catholic feelings from her
communion, as the taint of a Protestant or schismatical spirit in our
communion may tempt him to depart from us. This is the Via Media which
we would maintain; and thus without judging Rome on the one hand, or
acquiescing in our own state on the other, we may use what we see, as a
providential intimation to _us_, not to quit what is bad for what may be
worse, but to learn resignation to what we inherit, nor se