and a younger man as to a work on the religious state of things, but I do
it on N.'s suggestion, as seeing and being able to judge of men's minds;
and ye question is not as to _what_ is said, but whether it is
expedient to say it, and for me; what will be its probable effect.

The origin of it was my visit to Addington last autumn: after my return
Harrison wrote me some long letters, recommending that one shd take
occasion of ye Bishops' charges, under wh people writhed so much, to make
one's defence, show that one was not so unsound as one seemed, and plead
for sympathy. [Footnote: This fondness for the use of the indefinite
pronoun very much characterised the Puseyite dialect, as I have somewhere
read that it did the Jansenist. The _phase_ which it marked may he
seen fully developed in the tract 'On Reserve,' by Isaac Williams.] I was
unwilling to leave what I was doing and put myself forward; but as H. told
me that he had spoken on ye subject with ye Abp, it seemed to come with his
authority, so I set myself to it. It has been delayed until now, waiting in
part for unpublished charges, and for ye documents about ye Jerus. Bpric.
It is now about finished, and wd occupy about ten sheets; what I send is,
then, not half. The object of ye analysis of the Bishops' charges is to
show that some do not object to our main principles, but to matters of
detail; that others (as the Bps of Chester, Winchester, Calcutta) do not
object to our principles at all, but to certain principles which they
conceive to be ours. The effect of both, I hoped, wd be that our friends,
who were fretted by these charges, wd see that neither we nor (wh alone
signifies) Catholic truth is condemned, that others mt be better disposed
towards us, and that the hint mt be taken in some charges this year.
Anyhow, that there wd seem less of a consent of Bishops agst us, I was
rather sanguine about this part. Then there follows something about the
Jerusalem Bishopric and the East and Lutheranism, my object being to say
that things are safe so long as the Bishops do not make any organic changes