AGNOSTICISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 46 5 



reasoning which is applied to the confutation of Protestantism, 

 with so much success, by one of the acutest and subtlest disputants 

 who have ever championed ecclesiasticism — and one can not put 

 his claims to acuteness and subtlety higher. 



, . . the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a 

 sate truth it is this. . . . " To he deep in history is to cease to he a Protestant." * 



I have not a shadow of doubt that these anti-Protestant epi- 

 grams are profoundly true. But I have as little that, in the same 

 sense, the " Christianity 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. New- 

 man in the famous essay which I have just cited. If, with one 

 hand, Dr. Newman has destroyed Protestantism, he has annihilated 

 Romanism with the other ; and the total result of his ambidextral 

 efforts is to shake Christianity to its foundations. Nor was any 

 one better aware that this must be the inevitable result of his 

 arguments — if the world should refuse to accept Roman doctrines 

 and Roman miracles — than the writer of Tract 85. 



Dr. Newman made his choice and passed over to the Roman 

 Church half a century ago. Some of those who were essentially 

 in harmony with his views preceded, and many followed him. 

 But many remained ; and, as the quondam Puseyite and present 

 Ritualistic party, they are continuing that work of sapping and 

 mining the Protestantism of the Anglican Church which he and 

 his friends so ably commenced. At the present time, they have no 

 little claim to be considered victorious all along the line. I am 

 old enough to recollect the small beginnings of the Tractarian 

 party ; and I am amazed when I consider the present position of 

 their heirs. Their little leaven has leavened, if not the whole, yet 

 a very large, lump of the Anglican Church ; which is now pretty 

 much of a preparatory school for Papistry. So that it really be- 

 hooves Englishmen (who, as I have been informed by high author- 

 ity, are all, legally, members of the state Church, if they profess 

 to belong to no other sect) to wake up to what that powerful or- 

 ganization is about, and whither it is tending. On this point, the 

 writings of Dr. Newman, while he still remained within the An- 

 glican fold, are a vast store of the best and the most authoritative 

 information. His doctrines on ecclesiastical miracles and on de- 

 velopment are the corner-stones of the Tractarian fabric. He be- 

 lieved that his arguments led either Romeward, or to what eccle- 

 siastics call " infidelity," and I call agnosticism. I believe that 



* " An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine," by J. H. Newman, D. D., pp. 

 1 and 8. (1878.) 



vol. xxxv.— 30 



