Church now receives it, when it might have come down
in any other shape; that it was but a toss-up that Anglicans at this day
were not Calvinists, or Presbyterians, or Lutherans, equally well as
Episcopalians. This historical fact did but clench the difficulty, or
rather impossibility, of saying what the faith of the English Church
was. On almost every point of dispute the authoritative standard of
doctrine was vague or inconsistent, and there was an imposing weight of
external testimony in favour of opposite interpretations. He stopped
after lecture once or twice, and asked information of Mr. Upton, the
tutor, who was quite ready to give it; but nothing came of these
applications as regards the object which led him to make them.

One difficulty which Charles experienced was to know whether, according
to the Articles, Divine truth was directly _given_ us, or whether we had
to _seek_ it for ourselves from Scripture. Several Articles led to this
question; and Mr. Upton, who was a High Churchman, answered him that the
saving doctrine neither was _given_ nor was to be _sought_, but that it
was _proposed_ by the Church, and _proved_ by the individual. Charles
did not see this distinction between _seeking_ and _proving_; for how
can we _prove_ except by _seeking_ (in Scripture) for _reasons_? He put
the question in another form, and asked if the Christian Religion
allowed of private judgment? This was no abstruse question, and a very
practical one. Had he asked a Wesleyan or Independent, he would have had
an unconditional answer in the affirmative; had he asked a Catholic, he
would have been told that we used our private judgment to find the
Church, and then in all matters of faith the Church superseded it; but
from this Oxford divine he could not get a distinct answer. First he was
told that doubtless we _must_ use our judgment in the determination of
religious doctrine; but next he was told that it was sin (as it
undoubtedly is) to doubt the dogma of the Blessed Trinity. Yet, while he
was told that to doubt of that doctrine was a sin, he was told in
another conversation that our highest state here is one of doubt. What
did this mean? Surely certainty was simply necessary on _some_ points,
as on the Object of worship; how could we worship what we doubted of?
The two acts were contrasted by the Evangelist; when the disciples saw
our Lord after the resurrection, "they worshipped Him, _but_ some
doubted;" yet, in spite of this,