In the 'History,' a bold and well-aimed
attack, he displays, with a happy mixture of narrative and argument, the
faults and follies, the changes and contradictions of our first
reformers: whose variations (as he dexterously contends) are the mark of
historical error, while the perpetual unity of the Catholic Church is
the sign and test of infallible truth. To my present feelings, it seems
incredible, that I should ever believe that I believed in
transubstantiation. But my conqueror oppressed me with the sacramental
words, '_Hoc est corpus meum_,' and dashed against each other the
figurative half-meanings of the Protestant sects; every objection was
resolved into omnipotence; and, after repeating at St. Mary's the
Athanasian creed, I humbly acquiesced in the mystery of the real
presence.
"To take up half on trust, and half to try,
Name it not faith, but bungling bigotry,
Both knave and fool, the merchant we may call,
To pay great sums, and to compound the small;
For who would break with heaven, and would not break for all?"
GIBBON'S _Memoirs of his own Life_.
[6] In a libel in the "State Poems," vol. iii., Dryden is made to say,
"One son turned me, I turned the other two,
But had not an indulgence, sir, like you"--Page 244
[7] Vol. xviii.
[8] [Grounds have already been shown for thinking that Scott is mistaken
here. I owe it to an accomplished critic of my former work in the
_Saturday Review_ to take more notice than I did in that work of
Evelyn's entry in his diary, January 19, 1686.
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