to be controlled by a consideration of the fair sense of the sacred writings, which can be held only in the minds of inquiring individuals. The church is described as but "a witness and a keeper of holy writ," and expressly precluded from proposing any thing contrary to scripture, or not contained in it. It is idle to say that the church must judge its own expositions, for this would render the qualification nugatory.

That the meaning of the word authority should be restrained in correspondence to the concluding part of the article, may receive confirmation from the history of the composition of it, now generally known. It now appears that the introductory statement of the power and authority of the church was not in the article, as it was originally composed, but was added by the command of Queen Elizabeth. This, therefore, instead of having contained the primary and main position of the article, though qualified and limited by the expressions which follow, was itself prefixed as a qualification of those expressions, and should accordingly be understood as introduced in apprehension, lest the article, as at first framed, should be destructive of a reasonable admission of authority in the church. The main object was to restrain the supposed authority of the church the statement premised was merely a

9 Cardwell's History of Conferences, &c. relative to the Common Prayer, page 21, note. Oxford, 1840.

saving clause in its behalf, to guard against an undue interpretation of that which had been first proposed, and was still admitted.

That individuals must form their own opinions of these matters, as they best may, though under the general direction of that divine assistance, which has been promised to all who sincerely and humbly ask it, may be yet more directly inferred from the next following article, the twenty-first, Of the authority of general councils, which you have, strangely enough, omitted to consider in your vindication. In this article it is collected even from their liability to error, and still more from error actually committed, "in things pertaining unto God," that "things ordained by them as necessary to salvation have neither strength nor authority, unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy scripture." The meaning of these latter words surely cannot be that a council, to give authority to its decrees, should add its own declaration, that they had been taken out of holy scripture, and that this declaration should have the effect of precluding any further inquiry? What confirmation would such a declaration supply to the authority of a council acknowledged to be fallible, and, on account of its liability to error, requiring the support of the written word of God? The very form of the phrase employed in speaking of it would imply the contrary, for the expression is, unless it may be declared, not unless it is

actually at the same time declared; and the meaning must be, unless such a declaration may be made in consistency with the true sense of the sacred scripture, of which possibility the individual must, as he best may, judge for himself. But if this be the manifest bearing of the twenty-first article, how has it happened that you have omitted it from your vindication? Can it be that it was so omitted, because it inconveniently stated the fallibility of general councils?

You, indeed, have by no means claimed for them the attribute of infallibility, however your doctrine of the authority of the church may appear to have required it but you have done that which, to my apprehension, is more revolting, for you have stated as your opinion that a general council, if it could now be assembled, might unhappily fix error. Can it be believed that it could ever have been intended by our Saviour, in the promises which he made to his church, that his immediate protection and assistance should authorise it to impose error on the belief of mankind? I, for my part, cannot, by any means, acquiesce in such a tenet; but, on the contrary, utterly reject it, as dishonouring and blaspheming him. I observe that Mr. Palmer has declined to follow you in adopting it, for he has1 ascribed inerrancy to the general church. I think that I remember that Le Clerc, in his

1 Treatise on the Church of Christ, vol. ii. p. 163.

treatise of logic, has remarked, that a word by association may acquire a modification of meaning rendering it necessary to adopt a new one, of which he gives the verb mentior as an example. The infallibility claimed for the general church by the church of Rome, had in this manner become discredited, and so it had become necessary to introduce the new term inerrancy, which by its novelty was of course guarded against this inconvenience. Doctor Johnson has the word inerrability, which is sufficiently unusual; but I suppose that it was deemed to sound too like infallibility, for which it had been judged necessary to provide a substitute.

The distinction stated between power and authority, as the two terms have been employed in the twentieth article, is consonant to the exposition of the latter, as given in the dictionary of Johnson. The primary signification there given is legal power; the second, influence or credit: the former being excluded in the present case by the distinction necessarily to be understood in the article between the two terms power and authority, the latter must be adopted. This acceptation, moreover, we readily admit; for we do not deny that the testimony of a general council is entitled to influence and credit, though, holding with the following article, that general councils may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining unto God," we must deny to it

an imperative power entitling it to implicit and absolute submission.

2

In proceeding through the articles you have undertaken to shew concerning the eleventh, which treats Of justification, that you maintain a doctrine, which is that of the Anglican church, and holds a place between that of the Lutheran church, from which you derive as a legitimate offspring that of the Wesleyan Methodists, and that of the church of Rome. But how is this assertion proved? That your doctrine is that of the Anglican church you prove, not by a careful examination of the true meaning of the article, but by pleading, as you say, "that which we conceive to have been the teaching of the majority of our church:" so that you first lay aside the authorised statement of doctrine, and then affix your own construction of their meaning to the teaching of a majority. This, certainly, is not to defend yourself by an appeal to the article, which you had undertaken to do; and unless you should do this, the argument, as you have urged it, could amount to no more than the very insufficient plea, defendit numerus, and would be in truth an appeal to the private judgment of individuals from the public profession of your church.

But even in this inconsistent plea you have failed, for your doctrine of justification has been analysed

2 Page 70.