TRACTS FOR THE TIMES.
L. It is visionary to talk of such a reformation: the people would not endure it.
C. It is; but I am not advocating it, I am but raising a protest. I say this ought to be, "because of the angels[1]," but I do not hope to persuade others to think as I do.
L. I think I quite understand the ground you take. You consider that, as time goes on, fresh and fresh articles of faith are necessary to secure the Church's purity, according to the rise of successive heresies and errors. These articles are all hidden, as it were, from the first, in the Church's bosom, and brought out into form according to the occasion. Such was the Nicene Confession against Arius; the English Articles against Popery: and such are those now called for in this age of schism, to meet the new heresy, which denies the holy Catholic Church—the heresy of Hoadley, and others like him.
C. Yes—and let it never be forgotten, that, whatever were the errors of the Convocation of our Church in the beginning of the 18th century, it expired in an attempt to brand the doctrines of Hoadley. May the day be merely delayed!
L. I understand you further to say, that you hold to the Reformers as far as they have spoken out in our formularies, which at the same time you consider as incomplete; that the doctrines which are wanting in the Articles, such as the Apostolical Commission, are the doctrines of the Catholic Church; doctrines which a member of that Church holds as such prior to subscription; that, moreover, they are quite consistent with our Articles, sometimes even implied in them, and sometimes clearly contained in the Liturgy, though not in the Articles, as the Apostolical Commission in the Ordination Service; lastly, that we are clearly bound to believe, and all of us do believe, as essential, doctrines which nevertheless are not contained in the Articles, as e. g. the inspiration of Holy Scripture.
C. Yes—and further I maintain, that, while I fully concur in the Articles, as far as they go, those who call one Papist, do not acquiesce in the doctrine of the Liturgy.
L. This is a subject I especially wish drawn out. You threw
