It is a very easy thing to make a confident assertion, and such assertions produce a greater effect on many minds than the most careful and best-established proof. Thus it is not at all an uncommon thing to hear it asserted with the utmost confidence that what is termed ‘The Doctrine of the Real Presence,’ is taught by the Church of England; and the result is that a considerable number of persons believe in the assertion, and place reliance on those who make it, as if they, and they only, were the true expositors of the Church’s doctrine. In many cases a blind consent is blindly given. The Scriptures are not investigated because the point is supposed to have been settled by the Church, and the documents of the Church are not studied because the doctrine is regarded as beyond the reach of doubt; whereas, if the real groundwork of that opinion were examined, it would be found to consist in nothing more than confident assertion.