f that success, which Christians
could explain and would not; and that they were simply hypocrites.

Thirdly, I suggested that shrewd ecclesiastics, who knew very well that
there was neither magic nor craft in the matter, and, from their
intimate acquaintance with what actually went on within the Church,
discerned what were the real causes of its success, were of course under
the temptation of substituting reason for conscience, and, instead of
simply obeying the command, were led to do good that good might come,
that is, to act _in order_ to secure success, and not from a motive of
faith. Some, I said, did yield to the temptation more or less, and their
motives became mixed; and in this way the world in a more subtle shape
had got into the Church; and hence it had come to pass, that, looking at
its history from first to last, we could not possibly draw the line
between good and evil there, and say either that every thing was to be
defended, or certain things to be condemned. I expressed the difficulty,
which I supposed to be inherent in the Church, in the following words. I
said, "_Priestcraft has ever been considered the badge_, and its
imputation is a kind of Note of the Church: and _in part indeed truly_,
because the presence of powerful enemies, and the sense of their own
weakness, _has sometimes tempted Christians to the abuse, instead of the
use of Christian wisdom, to be wise without being harmless_; but partly,
nay, for the most part, not truly, but slanderously, and merely because
the world called their wisdom craft, when it was found to be a match for
its own numbers and power."

Such is the substance of the Sermon: and as to the main drift of it, it
was this; that I was, there and elsewhere, scrutinizing the course of
the Church as a whole, as if philosophically, as an historical
phenomenon, and observing the laws on which it was conducted. Hence the
Sermon, or Essay as it more truly is, is written in a dry and
unimpassioned way: it shows as little of human warmth of feeling as a
Sermon of Bishop Butler's. Yet, under that calm exterior there was a
deep and keen sensitiveness, as I shall now proceed to show.

* * * * *

3. If I mistake not, it was written with a secret thought about myself.
Every one preaches according to his frame of mind, at the time of
preaching. One heaviness especially oppressed me at that season, which
this Writer, twenty years afterwards, has set himse