TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
ON THE CONTROVERSY WITH THE ROMANISTS.
(Against Romanism.—No. 1)
The controversy with the Romanists has overtaken us "like a summer's cloud." We find ourselves in various parts of the country preparing for it, yet, when we look back, we cannot trace the steps by which we arrived at our present position. We do not recollect what our feelings were this time last year on the subject,—what was the state of our apprehensions and anticipations. All we know is, that here we are, from long security ignorant why we are not Roman Catholics, and they on the other hand are said to be spreading and strengthening on all sides of us, vaunting of their success, real or apparent, and taunting us with our inability to argue with them.
The Gospel of Christ is not a matter of mere argument; it does not follow that we are wrong, and they are right, because we cannot defend ourselves. But we cannot claim to direct the faith of others, we cannot check the progress of what we account error, we cannot be secure (humanly speaking) against the weakness of our own hearts some future day, unless we have learned to analyse and to state formally our own reasons for believing what we do believe, and thus have fixed our creed in our memories and our judgments. This is the especial duty of Christian Ministers, who, as St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, must be ready to dispute, whether with Jews or Greeks. That we are at present very ill practised in this branch of our duty, (a point it is scarcely necessary to prove) is owing in a very great measure to the protection and favour which have long been extended to the English clergy by the state. Statesmen have felt that it was their interest to maintain a Church, which, absorbing into itself a great portion of the religious feeling of the
