they are continuing that
work of sapping and mining the Protestantism of the Anglican Church
which he and his friends so ably commenced. At the present time, they
have no little claim to be considered victorious all along the line. I
am old enough to recollect the small beginnings of the Tractarian party;
and I am amazed when I consider the present position of their heirs.
Their little leaven has leavened, if not the whole, yet a very large
lump of the Anglican Church; which is now pretty much of a preparatory
school for Papistry. So that it really behoves Englishmen (who, as I
have been informed by high authority, are all legally members of the
State Church, if they profess to belong to no other sect) to wake up to
what that powerful organisation is about, and whither it is tending. On
this point, the writings of Dr. Newman, while he still remained within
the Anglican fold, are a vast store of the best and the most
authoritative information. His doctrines on Ecclesiastical miracles and
on Development are the Corner-stones of the Tractarian fabric. He
believed that his arguments led either Romeward, or to what
ecclesiastics call "Infidelity," and I call Agnosticism. I believe that
he was quite right in this conviction; but while he chooses the one
alternative, I choose the other; as he rejects Protestantism on the
ground of its incompatibility with history, so, _a fortiori_, I conceive
that Romanism ought to be rejected; and that an impartial consideration
of the evidence must refuse the authority of Jesus to anything more than
the Nazarenism of James and Peter and John. And let it not be supposed
that this is a mere "infidel" perversion of the facts. No one has more
openly and clearly admitted the possibility that they may be fairly
interpreted in this way than Dr. Newman. If, he says, there are texts
which seem to show that Jesus contemplated the evangelisation of the
heathen:

... Did not the Apostles hear our Lord? and what was _their_
impression from what they heard? Is it not certain that the
Apostles did not gather this truth from His teaching? (Tract 85, p.
63.)

He said, "Preach the Gospel to every creature," These words _need_
have only meant "Bring all men to Christianity through Judaism."
Make them Jews, that they may enjoy Christ's privileges, which are
lodged in Judaism; teach them those rites and ceremonies,
circumcision and the like, which hitherto have been