. p. 131.) He
adds that I would have nothing to do with him, a circumstance which I do
not recollect, and very much doubt.

* * * * *

I have spoken of my firm confidence in my position; and now let me state
more definitely what the position was which I took up, and the
propositions about which I was so confident. These were three:--

1. First was the principle of dogma: my battle was with liberalism; by
liberalism I mean the anti-dogmatic principle and its developments. This
was the first point on which I was certain. Here I make a remark:
persistence in a given belief is no sufficient test of its truth: but
departure from it is at least a slur upon the man who has felt so
certain about it. In proportion, then, as I had in 1832 a strong
persuasion of the truth of opinions which I have since given up, so far
a sort of guilt attaches to me, not only for that vain confidence, but
for all the various proceedings which were the consequence of it. But
under this first head I have the satisfaction of feeling that I have
nothing to retract, and nothing to repent of. The main principle of the
movement is as dear to me now, as it ever was. I have changed in many
things: in this I have not. From the age of fifteen, dogma has been the
fundamental principle of my religion: I know no other religion; I cannot
enter into the idea of any other sort of religion; religion, as a mere
sentiment, is to me a dream and a mockery. As well can there be filial
love without the fact of a father, as devotion without the fact of a
Supreme Being. What I held in 1816, I held in 1833, and I hold in 1864.
Please God, I shall hold it to the end. Even when I was under Dr.
Whately's influence, I had no temptation to be less zealous for the
great dogmas of the faith, and at various times I used to resist such
trains of thought on his part as seemed to me (rightly or wrongly) to
obscure them. Such was the fundamental principle of the Movement of
1833.

2. Secondly, I was confident in the truth of a certain definite
religious teaching, based upon this foundation of dogma; viz. that there
was a visible Church, with sacraments and rites which are the channels
of invisible grace. I thought that this was the doctrine of Scripture,
of the early Church, and of the Anglican Church. Here again, I have not
changed in opinion; I am as certain now on this point as I was in 1833,
and have never ceased to be certain. In 1834 and the fol