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 Canons promulgated at the date when the Articles were drawn up[5],
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, authorized or suffered by the high name of Rome.
The eloquent declamation of the Homilies finds its matter almost
exclusively in the dominant errors. As to Catholic teaching, nay as to
Roman dogma, of such theology those Homilies, as I have shown, contained
no small portion themselves.

[5] The Pope's Confirmation of the Council, by which its Canons became
_de fide_, and his Bull _super confirmatione_ by which they were
promulgated to the world, are dated January 26, 1564. The Articles are
dated 1562.

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 reasonably
considered the authority _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 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 just