It's _Phil.'s_ mistake, not mine. He will endeavor to doctor
the case, by pleading that he was speaking universally of Christian
error; but the position of the clause forbids this plea. Not
only in relation to what immediately precedes, the passage must be
supposed to contemplate _Protestant_ error; but the immediate
inference from it, viz., that 'the world may well be excused for
doubting whether there is, after all, so much to be gained by that
liberty of private judgment, which is the essential characteristic
of Protestantism; whether it be not, after all, merely a liberty to
fall into error,' nails _Phil_. to that construction--argues
too strongly that it is an oversight of indolence. _Phil._
was sleeping for the moment, which is excusable enough towards the
end of a book, but hardly in section I. P.S.--I have since observed
(which _not_ to have observed is excused, perhaps, by the too
complex machinery of hooks and eyes between the text and the notes
involving a double reference--first, to the section; second, to the
particular clause of the section) that _Phil._ has not here
committed an inadvertency; or, if he _has,_ is determined
to fight himself through his inadvertency, rather than break up
his quaternion of cases. 'In speaking of Romanism as arising from
a misapplication of Protestant principles; we refer, not to those
who were born, but to those who have become members of the Church
of Rome.' What is the name of those people? And where do they live? I
have heard of many who think (and there _are_ cases in which
most of us, that meddle with philosophy, are apt to think) occasional
principles of Protestantism available for the defence of certain
Roman Catholic mysteries too indiscriminately assaulted by the
Protestant zealot; but, with this exception, I am not aware of any
parties professing to derive their Popish learnings _from_
Protestantism; it is _in spite of_ Protestantism, as seeming