IX AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY 343 



drawing a line in the series that might be set out 

 of plausibly attested cases of spiritual interven- 

 tion. If one is true, all may be true ; if one is 

 false, all may be false. 



This is, to my mind, the inevitable result of 

 that method of reasoning which is applied to the 

 confutation of Protestantism, with so much suc- 

 cess, by one of the acutest and subtlest disput- 

 ants who have ever championed Ecclesiasticism 

 and one cannot put his claims to acuteness 

 and subtlety higher. 



. . . the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever 

 there were a safe truth it is this. . . . " To be deep in history 

 is to cease to be a Protestant." x 



I have not a shadow of doubt that these anti- 

 Protestant epigrams are profoundly true. But I 

 have as little that, in the same sense, the " Chris- 

 tianity of history is not " Romanism ; and that 

 to be deeper in history is to cease to be a 

 Romanist. The reasons which compel my doubts 

 about the compatibility of the Roman doctrine, 

 or any other form of Catholicism, with history, 

 arise out of exactly the same line of argument as 

 that adopted by Dr. Newman in the famous 

 essay which I have just cited. If, with one hand, 

 Dr. Newman has destroyed Protestantism, he has 



1 An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, by J. H. 

 Newman, D.D., pp. 7 and 8. (1878.) 



