Whatever opinion may be now entertained of the tractarian party, the praise of zeal, ability and piety cannot be denied to the leaders of it; yet they are censured as disaffected to the Church, and their exclusion not obscurely suggested. For some of their opinions the writer can be no advocate. He believes them to have fallen into errors equally lamentable and dangerous if persisted in: yet were the choice given him between such instructors and others who pass uncondemned in ruinous indolence and indifference, he would not hesitate in giving his preference to the former. Nor, when he remembers the want of earnest men, and the ever-varying forms of human opinion, can he hesitate in desiring their continuance as ministers in our Church. “We are not only uncertain of finding out truths, in matters disputable, but we are certain that the best and ablest doctors of Christendom have been actually deceived in matters of great concernment; which thing is evident in all those instances of persons from whose doctrines all sorts of Christians, respectively, take liberty to dissent. The errors of Papias, Irenæus, Lactantius, Justin Martyr, in the millenary opinion; of St. Cyprian, Firmilian, the Asian and African fathers in the question of re-baptization; St. Austin in his decretory and uncharitable sentence against the unbaptized children of Christian parents; the Roman or the Greek doctors in the question of the procession of the Holy Ghost, and in the matter of images, are examples beyond exception. The errors that attach to the minds of men are numberless. Now if these great personages had been persecuted or destroyed for their opinions, who should have answered the invaluable loss the Church should have sustained in missing so excellent, so exemplary, and so great lights?” “Since those opinions were open and manifest to the world, that the Church did not condemn them, it was either because those opinions were by the Church not thought to be errors, or if they were, yet she thought fit to tolerate the error and the erring person. And if she would do so still, it would, in most cases, be better than now it is.”—_Bishop Jeremy Taylor_.