I will now turn to your pamphlet, and to the subject of this letter.
You speak at the outset of "the jubilee of triumph among half-believers" on the occasion of the late Judgment of the Crown in Council; and you add, "A class of believers joined in the triumph. And while I know that a very earnest body of Roman Catholics rejoice in all the workings of God the Holy Ghost in the Church of England (whatever they think of her), and are saddened in what weakens her who is, in God's hands, the great bulwark against infidelity in this land, others seemed to be in an ecstasy of triumph at this victory of Satan." [Footnote 55] Now, I will not ask where you intended to class me. But as an anonymous critic of a pamphlet lately published by me accused me of rejoicing in your troubles, and another more recently—with a want of candor visible in every line of the attack— accused me of being "merry" over these miseries of the Church of England, I think the time is made for me to declare how I regard the Church of England, and events like these; and I know no one to whom I would rather address what I Have to say than to yourself.
[Footnote 55: "Legal Force of the Judgment of the Privy Council," by the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D., pp. 3, 4.]
I will, then, say at once:
1. That I rejoice with all my heart in all the workings of the Holy Ghost in the Church of England.
2. That I lament whensoever what remains of truth in it gives way before unbelief.
3. That I rejoice whensoever what is imperfect in it is unfolded into a more perfect truth.
4. But that I cannot regard the Church of England as "the great bulwark against infidelity in this land," for reasons which I will give in their place.
1. First, then, I will say what I believe of the Church of England, and why I rejoice in every working of the Holy Spirit in it. And I do this the more gladly because I have been sometimes grieved at hearing, and once at even seeing in a handwriting which I reverence with affection, the [{291}] statement that Catholics—or at least the worst of Catholics called converts—deny the validity of Anglican baptism, regard our own past spiritual life as a mockery, look upon our departed parents as heathen, and deny the operations of the Holy Spirit in those who are out of the Church. I do not believe that those who say such things have ever read the Condemned Propositions, or are aware that a Catholic who so spoke would come under the weight of at least two pontifical censures, and the decrees of at least two general councils.
I need not, however, do more than remind you that, according to the faith and theology of the Catholic Church, the operations of the Holy Spirit of God have been from the beginning of the world co-extensive with the whole human race. [Footnote 56]