such, because a resemblance must ever exist between an original and a
forgery; and thus the fact of such a calumny was almost one of the notes
of the Church. But we cannot unmake ourselves or change our habits in a
moment. Though my reason was convinced, I did not throw off, for some
time after,--I could not have thrown off,--the unreasoning prejudice and
suspicion, which I cherished about her at least by fits and starts, in
spite of this conviction of my reason. I cannot prove this, but I
believe it to have been the case from what I recollect of myself. Nor
was there any thing in the history of St. Leo and the Monophysites to
undo the firm belief I had in the existence of what I called the
practical abuses and excesses of Rome.

To her inconsistencies then, to her ambition and intrigue, to her
sophistries (as I considered them to be) I now had recourse in my
opposition to her, both public and personal. I did so by way of a
relief. I had a great and growing dislike, after the summer of 1839, to
speak against the Roman Church herself or her formal doctrines. I was
very averse to speaking against doctrines, which might possibly turn out
to be true, though at the time I had no reason for thinking they were;
or against the Church, which had preserved them. I began to have
misgivings, that, strong as my own feelings had been against her, yet in
some things which I had said, I had taken the statements of Anglican
divines for granted without weighing them for myself. I said to a friend
in 1840, in a letter, which I shall use presently, "I am troubled by
doubts whether as it is, I have not, in what I have published, spoken
too strongly against Rome, though I think I did it in a kind of faith,
being determined to put myself into the English system, and say all that
our divines said, whether I had fully weighed it or not." I was sore
about the great Anglican divines, as if they had taken me in, and made
me say strong things, which facts did not justify. Yet I _did_ still
hold in substance all that I had said against the Church of Rome in my
Prophetical Office. I felt the force of the usual Protestant objections
against her; I believed that we had the Apostolical succession in the
Anglican Church, and the grace of the sacraments; I was not sure that
the difficulty of its isolation might not be overcome, though I was far
from sure that it could. I did not see any clear proof that it had
committed itself to any heresy, or had taken p