ment, that the Articles were
tolerant, not only of what I called "Catholic teaching," but of much
that was "Roman."

4. And here was another reason against the notion that the Articles
directly attacked the Roman dogmas as declared at Trent and as
promulgated by Pius the Fourth:--the Council of Trent was not over,
nor its decrees promulgated at the date when the Articles were drawn
up, so that those Articles must be aiming at something else. What was
that something else? The Homilies tell us: the Homilies are the best
comment upon the Articles. Let us turn to the Homilies, and we shall
find from first to last that, not only is not the Catholic teaching
of the first centuries, but neither again are the dogmas of Rome, the
objects of the protest of the compilers of the Articles, but the
dominant errors, the popular corruptions, authorised or suffered by
the high name of Rome. As to Catholic teaching, nay as to Roman
dogma, those Homilies, as I have shown, contained no small portion of
it themselves.

5. So much for the writers of the Articles and Homilies;--they were
witnesses, not authorities, and I used them as such; but in the next
place, who were the actual authorities imposing them? I considered
the _imponens_ to be the Convocation of 1571; but here again, it
would be found that the very Convocation, which received and
confirmed the 39 Articles, also enjoined by Canon that "preachers
should be _careful_, that they should _never_ teach aught in a
sermon, to be religiously held and believed by the people, except
that which is agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testament,
and _which the Catholic Fathers and ancient Bishops have collected_
from that very doctrine." Here, let it be observed, an appeal is made
by the Convocation _imponens_ to the very same ancient authorities,
as had been mentioned with such profound veneration by the writers of
the Homilies and of the Articles, and thus, if the Homilies contained
views of doctrine which now would be called Roman, there seemed to me
to be an extreme probability that the Convocation of 1571 also
countenanced and received, or at least did not reject, those
doctrines.

6. And further, when at length I came actually to look into the text
of the Articles, I saw in many cases a patent fulfilment of all that
I had surmised as to their vagueness and indecisiveness, and that,
not only on questions which lay between Lutherans, Calvinists, and
Zuinglians, but on Cathol