But in what position do you now stand? You have _done_ what you informed the Bishop of London, you could “not be comfortable without doing.” You have made known to the world, and that by the means you proposed to yourself, namely, a petition to parliament, what your opinions are, and the world interferes not with them, nor does the Church condemn them; you have only therefore to arrange the matter with your own conscience—if that condemns you, your course is a clear one. But why should it condemn you more for the next fourteen years, than it would seem to have done for the last fourteen? During that time you have held your preferment with your opinions, and why should you not continue to hold your opinions with your preferment? You tell us that your object was eleven years ago to “ascertain _with certainty_ whether you held any opinion which the Church condemned.” {13} You were informed that the _authoritative sense_ of the Church on the points you wished for information _could not_ in the abeyance of Convocation be obtained; but you were at the same time told, and that, by many whose opinions probably would have had great weight in Convocation had it been immediately convened for your satisfaction, that they considered your opinions allowable, that the Church did not condemn them; and I think it would have been a reasonable inference with which to have quieted your conscience, that had the Convocation been assembled, the authoritative sense of the Church would not have been against you.