rly as I can; and when I seriously
believe a thing, I say so in a few words, leaving the reader to
determine what my belief is worth. But I do not choose to temper down
every expression of personal opinion into courteous generalities, and so
lose space, and time, and intelligibility at once. We are utterly
oppressed in these days by our courtesies, and considerations, and
compliances, and proprieties. Forgive me them, this once, or rather let
us all forgive them to each other, and learn to speak plainly first,
and, if it may be, gracefully afterwards; and not only to speak, but to
stand by what we have spoken. One of my Oxford friends heard, the other
day, that I was employed on these notes, and forthwith wrote to me, in a
panic, not to put my name to them, for fear I should "compromise
myself." I think we are most of us compromised to some extent already,
when England has sent a Roman Catholic minister to the second city in
Italy, and remains herself for a week without any government, because
her chief men cannot agree upon the position which a Popish cardinal is
to have leave to occupy in London.]

[Footnote 145: Matt. xxiv. 4; Mark xiii. 5; Luke xxi. 8; 1 Cor. iii. 18,
vi. 9, xv. 33; Eph. iv. 14, v. 6; Col. ii. 8; 2 Thess. ii. 3; Heb. iii.
13; 1 John i. 8, iii. 7; 2 John 7, 8.]

[Footnote 146: [Greek: exousia] in 1 Cor. ix. 12. 2 Thess, iii. 9.]

[Footnote 147: (Carlyle, "Past and Present," chapter xi.) Can anything
be more striking than the repeated warnings of St. Paul against strife
of words; and his distinct setting forth of Action as the only true
means of attaining knowledge of the truth, and the only sign of men's
possessing the true faith? Compare 1 Timothy vi. 4, 20, (the latter
verse especially, in connection with the previous three,) and 2 Timothy
ii. 14, 19, 22, 23, tracing the connection here also; add Titus i. 10,
14, 16, noting "_in works_ they deny him," and Titus iii. 8, 9, "affirm
constantly that they be careful to maintain good works; but avoid
foolish questions;" and finally, 1 Timothy i. 4-7: a passage which seems
to have been especially written for these times.]

[Footnote 148: I leave, in the main text, the abstract question of the
fitness of Episcopacy unapproached, not feeling any call to speak of it
at length at present; all that I feel necessary to be said is, that
bishops being granted, it is clear that we have too few to do their
work. But the argument from the practice of the Primitiv