d be relieved from
the responsibilities of judging for ourselves only by the existence of
an infallible authority to which we could appeal. This is not granted
either in temporal or in spiritual matters. Nor is it needed. A degree
of certainty sufficient for all our needs is attainable without it. Even
in Apostolic times, when it might be said to have existed, error and
schism were not thereby prevented. 'With charity and mutual forbearance,
the Church may be peaceful and happy without absolute unity of
opinion.'[232] Let it be enough that we have guides to instruct us in
what is plain, and to guide us in more doubtful matters. After all,
'there is as much to secure men from mistakes in matters of belief, as
God hath afforded to keep men from sin in matters of practice. He hath
made no effectual and infallible provision that men shall not sin; and
yet it would puzzle any man to give a good reason why God should take
more care to secure men against errors in belief than against sin and
wickedness in their lives.'[233]

Tillotson, however, did not omit to add four cautions as to the proper
limits within which the right of private judgment should be exercised.
(1) A private person must only judge for himself, not impose his
judgment on others. His only claim to that liberty is that it belongs to
all. (2) The liberty thus possessed does not dispense with the necessity
of guides and teachers in religion; nor (3) with due submission to
authority. 'What by public consent and authority is determined and
established ought not to be gainsaid by private persons but upon very
clear evidence of the falsehood or unlawfulness of it; nor is the peace
and unity of the Church to be violated upon every scruple and frivolous
pretence.' (4) There are a great many who, from ignorance or
insufficient capacity, are incompetent to judge of any controverted
question. 'Such persons ought not to engage in disputes of religion; but
to beg God's direction and to rely upon their teachers; and above all to
live up to the plain dictates of natural light, and the clear commands
of God's word, and this will be their best security.'[234]

There has probably been no period in which liberty of thought on
religious subjects has been debated in this country so anxiously, so
vehemently, so generally, as in the earlier part of the eighteenth
century. The Reformation had hinged upon it; but general principles were
then greatly obscured in the excitement of chan