rs would lead us to become Catholics, before we were aware of it.
This was loudly expressed by members of the Evangelical party, who in
1836 had joined us in making a protest in Convocation against a
memorable appointment of the Prime Minister. These clergymen even then
avowed their desire, that the next time they were brought up to Oxford
to give a vote, it might be in order to put down the Popery of the
Movement. There was another reason still, and quite as important.
Monsignore Wiseman, with the acuteness and zeal which might be expected
from that great Prelate, had anticipated what was coming, had returned
to England by 1836, had delivered Lectures in London on the doctrines of
Catholicism, and created an impression through the country, shared in by
ourselves, that we had for our opponents in controversy, not only our
brethren, but our hereditary foes. These were the circumstances, which
led to my publication of "The Prophetical office of the Church viewed
relatively to Romanism and Popular Protestantism."

This work employed me for three years, from the beginning of 1834 to the
end of 1836, and was published in 1837. It was composed, after a careful
consideration and comparison of the principal Anglican divines of the
17th century. It was first written in the shape of controversial
correspondence with a learned French Priest; then it was re-cast, and
delivered in Lectures at St. Mary's; lastly, with considerable
retrenchments and additions, it was rewritten for publication.

It attempts to trace out the rudimental lines on which Christian faith
and teaching proceed, and to use them as means of determining the
relation of the Roman and Anglican systems to each other. In this way it
shows that to confuse the two together is impossible, and that the
Anglican can be as little said to tend to the Roman, as the Roman to the
Anglican. The spirit of the Volume is not so gentle to the Church of
Rome, as Tract 71 published the year before; on the contrary, it is very
fierce; and this I attribute to the circumstance that the Volume is
theological and didactic, whereas the Tract, being controversial,
assumes as little and grants as much as possible on the points in
dispute, and insists on points of agreement as well as of difference. A
further and more direct reason is, that in my Volume I deal with
"Romanism" (as I call it), not so much in its formal decrees and in the
substance of its creed, as in its traditional action and