s at the end of 1843, I introduced them with a
recommendation that none should read them who did not need them.
But in truth the virtual condemnation of Tract 90, after that the
whole difficulty seemed to have been weathered, was an enormous
disappointment and trial. My Protest also against the Jerusalem
Bishopric was an unavoidable cause of excitement in the case of many;
but it calmed them too, for the very fact of a Protest was a relief
to their impatience. And so, in like manner, as regards the four
sermons, of which I speak, though they acknowledged freely the great
scandal which was involved in the recent episcopal doings, yet at the
same time they might be said to bestow upon the multiplied disorders
and shortcomings of the Anglican Church a sort of place in the
Revealed Dispensation, and an intellectual position in the
controversy, and the dignity of a great principle, for unsettled
minds to take and use, which might teach them to recognise their own
consistency, and to be reconciled to themselves, and which might
absorb into itself and dry up a multitude of their grudgings,
discontents, misgivings, and questionings, and lead the way to
humble, thankful, and tranquil thoughts;--and this was the effect
which certainly it produced on myself.

The point of these sermons is, that, in spite of the rigid character
of the Jewish law, the formal and literal force of its precepts, and
the manifest schism, and worse than schism, of the ten tribes, yet
in fact they were still recognised as a people by the Divine Mercy;
that the great prophets Elias and Eliseus were sent to them, and not
only so, but sent to preach to them and reclaim them, without any
intimation that they must be reconciled to the line of David and the
Aaronic priesthood, or go up to Jerusalem to worship. They were not
in the Church, yet they had the means of grace and the hope of
acceptance with their Maker. The application of all this to the
Anglican Church was immediate;--whether a man could assume or
exercise ministerial functions under the circumstances, or not, might
not clearly appear, though it must be remembered that England had the
apostolic priesthood, whereas Israel had no priesthood at all; but so
far was clear, that there was no call at all for an Anglican to leave
his Church for Rome, though he did not believe his own to be part of
the One Church:--and for this reason, because it was a fact that the
kingdom of Israel was cut off from the Te