h really are not theirs. But
granting all this to an extent greater than can with any show of reason
be imputed to the ruling power in the Church, what difficulty is there
in the fact of this want of prudence or moderation more than can be
urged, with far greater justice, against Protestant communities and
institutions? What is there in it to make us hypocrites, if it has not
that effect upon Protestants? We are called upon, not to profess any
thing, but to submit and be silent, as Protestant Churchmen have before
now obeyed the royal command to abstain from certain theological
questions. Such injunctions as I have been contemplating are laid merely
upon our actions, not upon our thoughts. How, for instance, does it tend
to make a man a hypocrite, to be forbidden to publish a libel? his
thoughts are as free as before: authoritative prohibitions may tease and
irritate, but they have no bearing whatever upon the exercise of reason.

So much at first sight; but I will go on to say further, that, in spite
of all that the most hostile critic may urge about the encroachments or
severities of high ecclesiastics, in times past, in the use of their
power, I think that the event has shown after all, that they were mainly
in the right, and that those whom they were hard upon were mainly in the
wrong. I love, for instance, the name of Origen: I will not listen to
the notion that so great a soul was lost; but I am quite sure that, in
the contest between his doctrine and followers and the ecclesiastical
power, his opponents were right, and he was wrong. Yet who can speak
with patience of his enemy and the enemy of St. John Chrysostom, that
Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria? who can admire or revere Pope
Vigilius? And here another consideration presents itself to my thoughts.
In reading ecclesiastical history, when I was an Anglican, it used to be
forcibly brought home to me, how the initial error of what afterwards
became heresy was the urging forward some truth against the prohibition
of authority at an unseasonable time. There is a time for every thing,
and many a man desires a reformation of an abuse, or the fuller
development of a doctrine, or the adoption of a particular policy, but
forgets to ask himself whether the right time for it is come: and,
knowing that there is no one who will be doing any thing towards its
accomplishment in his own lifetime unless he does it himself, he will
not listen to the voice of authority, and he s