I
contended that the Churches of Rome and England were both one, and
also the one true Church, for the very reason that they had both been
stigmatised by the name of Antichrist, proving my point from the
text, "If they have called the Master of the House Beelzebub, how
much more them of His household," and quoting largely from Puritans
and Independents to show that, in their mouths, the Anglican Church
is Antichrist and Anti-christian as well as the Roman. I urged in
that article that the calumny of being Antichrist is almost "one of
the notes of the true Church;" and that "there is no medium between a
Vice-Christ and Anti-Christ;" for "it is not the _acts_ that make the
difference between them, but the _authority_ for those acts." This of
course was a new mode of viewing the question; but we cannot unmake
ourselves or change our habits in a moment. It is quite clear, that,
if I dared not commit myself in 1838, to the belief that the Church
of Rome was not a type of Antichrist, I could not have thrown off the
unreasoning prejudice and suspicion, which I cherished about her,
for some time after, at least by fits and starts, in spite of the
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
anything 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 the inconsistencies then, to the ambition and intrigue, to the
sophistries of Rome (as I considered them to be) I 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 speak 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 in