biography, he glances at the injurious consequences of the outward restraint in his own case.* In Doblado's Letters,† where he employs the third person, he has also intimated them. But he protests, and with evident truth, that immorality was not with him a conscious inducement to unbelief. 6. He was ordained priest in 1799; and for some short time after this § he seems to have lived under the power of strong devotional influences. He had already become a fellow of the Colegio Mayor of Seville. In 1801 he was a candidate for a canonry at Cadiz;|| and, shortly after this, he was elected a chaplain of the Chapel Royal of St. Ferdinand, attached to the cathedral of Seville.¶ He does not date with precision his transition to positive and total unbelief; but it seems, from his life, to have occurred either in or soon after 1802.** He resolved, t† however, to continue his external conformity, and to discharge his practical duties in the capacity of confessor, as he best could. Through the force of sympathy he took part with the nation against the Bonapartes; but his own opinion was that more improvement would have resulted from the French rule than could be otherwise obtained. He despaired, however, in his own sense, of Spain; and, on the approach of the French to Seville in 1810, he abandoned his country and his prospects for the hope of mental freedom and a residence in England. 7. On arriving here, he had, of course, difficulties and *Life, I. 117 and 132. † Doblado, pp. 120-2. Life, I. 109; and 'Evidence against Catholicism,' p. 6. § Doblado, pp. 123-6; and Life, I. pp. 64, 65. || Life, I. p. 85. TIbid. p. 92. **In another place he states that he passed ten years in unbelief before his quitting Spain ('Evidence against Catholicism,' p. 11), which took place in 1810, tt Ibid. I. p. 112, discouragements to contend with, but he also had friends; and the activity of his mind soon provided him with occupation. He was attracted towards religion by the mildness *which he found combined with sincerity in some of its professors. The perusal of Paley's 'Natural Theology' began to reanimate his feelings towards God. A service at St. James's Church affected him powerfully.† He resumed the habit of prayer. After three years of growth he found himself convinced of the truth of Christianity, and he joined the Church of England as the "renovated home of his youth."§ When eighteen months more had elapsed, in 1814, he subscribed the Articles of the Church of England, and claimed the recognition of his character as a priest. But after this slow and gradual restoration he had but a very short period of rest. The detail of the records at this period of his life is somewhat scanty, but it appears clearly that, in 1817, he was assailed with constant doubts on the doctrines of the Trinity and the Atonement. In November 1818 he records his distinct abandonment of the divinity of our Lord. In 1825 he returned to the orthodox belief upon that subject. In 1826 he administered the Eucharist and preached; and by an internal act he dedicated himself anew to the sacred office, reviving, as he says, many of the feelings of his ordination. It appears to have been in or after 1829 that he addressed a letter to Neander, ** in which he returned thanks to God for (as he supposed) the final settlement of his religious views. 8. But from or even at this time he was gradually * Evidence against Catholicism,' p. 13. Ibid. p. 18. Life, I. p. 323, § Life, II. p. 48; and + Ibid. p. 14. Evidence, p. 20. |