"The elegance of style
and freedom of argument were repelled by a shield of prejudice. I still
revered the character, or rather the names of the saints and fathers
whom Dr. Middleton exposes; nor could he destroy my implicit belief
that the gift of miraculous powers was continued in the Church during
the first four or five centuries of Christianity. But I was unable to
resist the weight of historical evidence, that within the same period
most of the leading doctrines of Popery were already introduced in
theory and practice. Nor was my conclusion absurd that miracles are the
test of truth, and that the Church must be orthodox and pure which was
so often approved by the visible interposition of the Deity. The
marvellous tales which are boldly attested by the Basils and
Chrysostoms, the Austins and Jeromes, compelled me to embrace the
superior merits of celibacy, the institution of the monastic life, the
use of the sign of the cross, of holy oil, and even of images, the
invocation of saints, the worship of relics, the rudiments of purgatory
in prayers for the dead, and the tremendous mystery of the sacrifice of
the body and the blood of Christ, which insensibly swelled into the
prodigy of transubstantiation.
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