as my broad view of the matter, and my
_prima facie_ conclusion.

However, my new historical fact had already to a certain point a logical
force. Down had come the _Via Media_ as a definite theory or scheme,
under the blows of St. Leo. My "Prophetical Office" had come to pieces;
not indeed as an argument against "Roman errors," nor as against
Protestantism, but as in behalf of England. I had no longer a
distinctive plea for Anglicanism, unless I would be a Monophysite. I
had, most painfully, to fall back upon my three original points of
belief, which I have spoken so much of in a former passage,--the
principle of dogma, the sacramental system, and anti-Romanism. Of these
three, the first two were better secured in Rome than in the Anglican
Church. The Apostolical Succession, the two prominent sacraments, and
the primitive Creeds, belonged, indeed, to the latter; but there had
been and was far less strictness on matters of dogma and ritual in the
Anglican system than in the Roman: in consequence, my main argument for
the Anglican claims lay in the positive and special charges, which I
could bring against Rome. I had no positive Anglican theory. I was very
nearly a pure Protestant. Lutherans had a sort of theology, so had
Calvinists; I had none.

However, this pure Protestantism, to which I was gradually left, was
really a practical principle. It was a strong, though it was only a
negative ground, and it still had great hold on me. As a boy of fifteen,
I had so fully imbibed it, that I had actually erased in my _Gradus ad
Parnassum_, such titles, under the word "Papa," as "Christi Vicarius,"
"sacer interpres," and "sceptra gerens," and substituted epithets so
vile that I cannot bring myself to write them down here. The effect of
this early persuasion remained as, what I have already called it, a
"stain upon my imagination." As regards my reason, I began in 1833 to
form theories on the subject, which tended to obliterate it; yet by 1838
I had got no further than to consider Antichrist, as not the Church of
Rome, but the spirit of the old pagan city, the fourth monster of
Daniel, which was still alive, and which had corrupted the Church which
was planted there. Soon after this indeed, and before my attention was
directed to the Monophysite controversy, I underwent a great change of
opinion. I saw that, from the nature of the case, the true Vicar of
Christ must ever to the world seem like Antichrist, and be stigmatized
as