them, he unquestionably, without seeing what he was doing, went much farther—­where he never meant to go.  In fact, he so stated his argument that he took in with the Thirty-nine Articles every expression of collective belief, every document, however venerable, which the Church had sanctioned from the first.  Strangely enough, without observing it, he took in—­what he meant to separate by a wide interval from what he called dogma—­the doctrine of the infallible authority and sufficiency of Scripture.  In denying the worth of the consensus and immemorial judgment of the Church, he cut from under him the claim to that which he accepted as the source and witness of “divine facts.”  He did not mean to do this, or to do many other things; but from want of clearness of head, he certainly, in these writings which were complained of, did it.  He was, in temper and habit, too desirous to be “orthodox,” as Whately feared, to accept in its consequences his own theory.  The theory which he put forward in his Bampton Lectures, and on which he founded his plan of comprehension in his pamphlet on Dissent, left nothing standing but the authority of the letter of Scripture.  All else—­right or wrong as it might be—­was “speculation,” “human inference,” “dogma.”  With perfect consistency, he did not pretend to take even the Creeds out of this category.  But the truth was, he did not consciously mean all that he said; and when keener and more powerful and more theological minds pointed out with relentless accuracy what he had said he was profuse and overflowing with explanations, which showed how little he had perceived the drift of his words.  There is not the least reason to doubt the sincerity of these explanations; but at the same time they showed the unfitness of a man who had so to explain away his own speculations to be the official guide and teacher of the clergy.  The criticisms on his language, and the objections to it, were made before these explanations were given; and though he gave them, he was furious with those who called for them, and he never for a moment admitted that there was anything seriously wrong or mistaken in what he had said.  To those who pointed out the meaning and effect of his words and theories, he replied by the assertion of his personal belief.  If words mean anything, he had said that neither Unitarians nor any one else could get behind the bare letter, and what he called “facts,” of Scripture, which all equally accepted in good faith; and that therefore there was no reason for excluding Unitarians as long as they accepted the “facts.”  But when it was pointed out that this reasoning reduced all belief in the realities behind the bare letter to the level of personal and private opinion, he answered by saying that he valued supremely the Creeds and Articles, and by giving a statement of the great Christian doctrines which he held, and which the Church taught.  But he never explained what their authority could be with any one but himself.  There might be interpretations