ow that the preacher, who had the
reputation of being the most acute man of his generation, and of
having a specially intimate acquaintance with the weaknesses of
the human heart, was utterly blind to the broad meaning and the
plain practical result of a Sermon like this, delivered before
fanatic and hot-headed young men, who hung upon his every word?
that he did not foresee that they would think that they obeyed
him by becoming affected, artificial, sly, shifty, ready for
concealments and equivocations?" &c. &c.--Pp. 14-16.

My accuser asked in this passage what did the Sermon _mean_, and why was
it preached. I will here answer this question; and with this view will
speak, first of the _matter_ of the Sermon, then of its _subject_, then
of its _circumstances_.

1. It was one of the last six Sermons which I wrote when I was an
Anglican. It was one of the five Sermons I preached in St. Mary's
between Christmas and Easter, 1843, the year when I gave up my Living.
The MS. of the Sermon is destroyed; but I believe, and my memory too
bears me out, as far as it goes, that the sentence in question about
Celibacy and Confession, of which this writer would make so much, _was
not preached at all_. The Volume, in which this Sermon is found, was
published _after_ that I had given up St. Mary's, when I had no call on
me to restrain the expression of any thing which I might hold: and I
stated an important fact about it in the Advertisement, in these
words:--

"In preparing [these Sermons] for publication, _a few words and
sentences_ have in several places been _added_, which will be
found to express more _of private or personal opinion_, than it
was expedient to introduce into the _instruction_ delivered in
Church to a parochial Congregation. Such introduction, however,
seems unobjectionable in the case of compositions, which are
_detached_ from the sacred place and service to which they once
belonged, and _submitted to the reason_ and judgment of the
general reader."

This Volume of Sermons then cannot be criticized at all as
_preachments_; they are _essays_; essays of a man who, at the time of
publishing them, was _not_ a preacher. Such passages, as that in
question, are just the very ones which I added _upon_ my publishing
them; and, as I always was on my guard in the pulpit against saying any
thing which looked towards Rome, I shall believe that I did not pr