rulers tyrannical, we bore in
mind that on our side too there had been rancour and slander in our
controversial attacks upon her, and violence in our political measures.
As to ourselves being direct instruments in improving her belief or
practice, I used to say, "Look at home; let us first, (or at least let
us the while,) supply our own shortcomings, before we attempt to be
physicians to any one else." This is very much the spirit of Tract 71,
to which I referred just now. I am well aware that there is a paragraph
inconsistent with it in the Prospectus to the Library of the Fathers;
but I do not consider myself responsible for it. Indeed, I have no
intention whatever of implying that Dr. Pusey concurred in the
ecclesiastical theory, which I have been now drawing out; nor that I
took it up myself except by degrees in the course of ten years. It was
necessarily the growth of time. In fact, hardly any two persons, who
took part in the Movement, agreed in their view of the limit to which
our general principles might religiously be carried.

And now I have said enough on what I consider to have been the general
objects of the various works, which I wrote, edited, or prompted in the
years which I am reviewing. I wanted to bring out in a substantive form
a living Church of England, in a position proper to herself, and founded
on distinct principles; as far as paper could do it, as far as earnestly
preaching it and influencing others towards it, could tend to make it a
fact;--a living Church, made of flesh and blood, with voice, complexion,
and motion and action, and a will of its own. I believe I had no private
motive, and no personal aim. Nor did I ask for more than "a fair stage
and no favour," nor expect the work would be accomplished in my days;
but I thought that enough would be secured to continue it in the future,
under, perhaps, more hopeful circumstances and prospects than the
present.

I will mention in illustration some of the principal works, doctrinal
and historical, which originated in the object which I have stated.

I wrote my Essay on Justification in 1837; it was aimed at the Lutheran
dictum that justification by faith only was the cardinal doctrine of
Christianity. I considered that this doctrine was either a paradox or a
truism,--a paradox in Luther's mouth, a truism in Melanchthon's. I
thought that the Anglican Church followed Melanchthon, and that in
consequence between Rome and Anglicanism, between hig