wiard

APPENDIX

FEW MORE WORDS

IN SUPPORT OF No. 90

TRACTS FOR THE TIMES,
IN ansWeb to
MR. LOWE'S PAMPHLET.

BY THE /¦ U V

Rev. WILLIAM GEORGE WARD, M. A.
FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGEi

OXFORD,
JOHN 5ENRY PARKER J
J. is. F. AND J. HIVINGTON, LONDON.
184L

BAXTEK, PBINTER, OXFORD.

APPENDIX.

Mr. Lowe has announced himself as the Author
of the pamphlet which I have criticised ia the pre
ceding pages, and has written another in reply to
mine. In saying a very few words by way of answer,
I have the less temptation to allude in detail to his
charges against myself personally, because I cannot
think they will ultimately do me any injury.
Whatever may be thought of the obscurity of my
style or the weakness of my reasonings, I am well
persuaded, that when the heat of controversy is over,
my pamphlet will not be considered by any one to
be in the common sense of the word dishonest : it
will I am sure be acknowledged, that I have stated
openly what I wished to prove, and the reasons
which appeared to me to prove it. As to the view I
have taken, Mr. Lowe certainly strikes me as
having misunderstood in many instances the posi-
a2

tion I have maintained, and all that I propose is to
mention some of the cases in which he has mis
understood it. At the same time I trust it will not
appear arrogant to express a conviction, that those
who will give themselves the trouble of fairly
throwing their minds on the arguments I have
brought together, will not find any thing in Mr.
Lowe's pamphlet that interferes with their co
gency. The point on which the present controversy'
turns will, perhaps, be acknowledged to be this :
" are we to look at the Articles as ' of the nature
" of a creed, intended to teach doctrine, or of the
" nature of a joint declaration intended to be vague,
" and to include persons of discordant sentiments.^ "
(Few More Words, p. 40.) If the former, I for one
plainly acknowledge they do not teach Catholicism ;
if the other, the argument in Mr. Lowe's first
pamphlet falls to the ground ; if the former, the
right way to ascertain their meaning, were it a pos
sible task, would be the one so ably advocated in that
pamphlet, to interpret them by themselves, and
each individual Article by the spirit of the whole ;
if the latter, the right way to ascertain their
meaning will be that adopted by the Tract, to take
* Dr. Pusey's Pamphlet, however, while it advocates the very
same interpretation of the Articles in dispute, even considers the
Reformers themselves sound in doctrine; and persons who follow
his guidance will he still more at issue with Mr. Lowe : hence,
however, what follows is not necessary for them.

them clause by clause, and accurately analyse how
much their wording really does determine. If they
are intended to teach doctrine, we discover their
meaning by discovering what they teach ; but if to
include great varieties of opinion, we discover
their meaning by discovering how much their wording
will include.
This question then, being the very pith of the
matter, must not be begged ; yet Mr. Lowe in his
new pamphlet seems to me again to beg it. How
are we to arrive at its solution ? There seem of
course two modes, the external or historical, and
internal : upon the former I said comparatively
little, leaving it to more competent persons ; and
I am glad to be able to say that the task of in
vestigation is in progress : upon the other I laid
my own stress, " the internal evidence arising
" from the known public documents of the period,"
especially of course the Articles themselves. So far
from intending to exclude the latter, I have no hesi
tation in saying that their phraseology is the argu
ment which of all others carries the fullest satisfac
tion to my own mind. That opinion of mine which
Mr. Lowe most of all objects to, and which certainly
seems to me the most important of all, I expressly
found on " PecuUarities in the phraseology of the
" Articles," (p. 43.) : nor should I have thought it
necessary to mention the other collateral grounds,
except for the many causes which prevent English
Churchmen from doing (what appears to me) jus-

tice to the wording of the Articles themselves. As
it is, I have been blamed in several quarters for not
dwelling more on external evidence ; and without
such, persons are naturally afraid to trust them
selves to their own theorizing on the text.
It would be invidious and is not necessary to enter
upon the causes which (as I think) cloud the per
ception of members of the English Church gene
rally, and inclusively of several for whom we feel
deep veneration, as to the composition and (if I
may use the expression) ethical character of the
Articles considered as a human composition. In
proportion as such causes cease, I shall not fear to
rest the whole of my case on a comparison between
the manner in which the first five Articles are
drawn up, and the rest. The first five relate to
points of Catholic Faith, in which the then Church
occupied herself merely in handing down what she
had received ; the remainder (to speak generally)
to questions then in controversy : and the con
sideration to which I wish the attention of my
brethren directed is this ; are not the whole spirit
and wording of the latter thirty-four, in every
respect that which would be found in a document,
the result of (I should say in parts disingenuous)
compromise, and not that which would be found in
a document intended to teach doctrines of whatever
kind? Or let our Articles be compared with the
decrees of Trent, which were intended to teach doc
trine (true or not) to a great extent on the same

subjects; and the same conclusion will perhaps
even more forcibly impress itself on the mind.
Nor let it be forgotten, that almost the sole collateral
evidence I have dwelt upon has been the Prayer
Book, to which we are bound equally with the Articles,
and the Homilies, to a general agreement with whose
doctrine the Articles themselves bind us, (pp. 36, 37,
38, 48, 49, 50.) and therefore which are quite
necessary elements in the consideration to which
Mr. Lowe in his first pamphlet in principle'' ap
plied himself, the determination of our Church's
doctrine from her authoritative forms. And with
regard to the Prayer Book, I yet desiderate an
answer to my question, on what principle he inter
prets the Articles by themselves, that is by the spirit of
the Thirty-nine, rather than by the spirit of Articles
and Prayer Book together, neither of which from our
subscription has less claims than the other on our
belief and deference.
Thus then the question I have raised is, " what
" is the meaning of the Thirty-nine Articles" to
which we subscribe, and the principal, the almost
sole, instruments I have used for throwing light on
their meaning, have been our Church's authori
tative formulae, including the Articles themselves.
I have moreover gone over in detail the Articles
in dispute, in order to shew in each case marks
'' I mean by this phrase, that the reasoning in Mr. Lowe's first
pamphlet led, so far as it had force, siraply to this, and that he
assumed the Articles to be the sole authoritative forms.

8
of the spirit which had presided at their wording.
Yet Mr. Lowe has accused me (p. 5.) of " impliedly
" repudiating" the position, " that every one who
" signs the Articles binds himself to agree in their
" meaning," and (p. 8.) of drawing my syllogism
" from considerations wholly irrespective of the
" Articles themselves."
I said, (p. 6.) ' If it were not intended by those
' who framed the Articles that certain opinions
' should be excluded  there is no primd facie
' case . . . what the Articles were not meant to ex-
' elude they do not exclude.' Mr. Lowe urges
(p. 10.) that ' the disciples of Owen and Irving'
could not be ' intended to be excluded by Articles
' drawn up nearly three centuries ago,' and asks
' how upon my principle they are excluded.' Cer
tainly I had not worded my proposition with sufiicient
accuracy to bear this sort of criticism, and yet it
seems almost absurd to put in words a distinction
which surely is sufiiciently obvious. Certain opinions
had existed universally in the Church for an in
definite period ; great numbers held them at the
tirae, many holding "them had seats in the very
Convocation which sanctioned the Articles. 1 did
and do think, that if it were acknowledged that these
opinions, so general, so well known, were not
intended to be excluded by the Articles we now
subscribe, those Articles do not exclude them ".
' In the case of purely negative Articles, (which however are
but few,) Articles 1 mean whioh confine themselves to the con-

Mr. Lowe urges, (p. 13.) that my hypothesis, if
true, condemns myself. ' The man who avails him-
' self of, and knowingly derives advantage from,
' the fraud of another, adopts it and makes it his
' own.' This remark is irrelevant : what we derive
advantage from is the fact that the Reformers
intended to include Catholics, ' their fraud' (on the
hypothesis which I advocate) is, that they worded
them, notwithstanding such intention, in a manner
prima facie Protestant : from this latter we ' derive'
no * advantage,' the very contrary : we and the
whole Church of England have suffered from it ever
since. Perhaps it will make more clear the manner
in which I conceive the Articles to have been
sanctioned, to conceive a case which must at all
events be something like what really took place.
Let us suppose the framers submitting to the
Convocation the Twenty-first Article, in what from
its drift must plainly (as I said in my first pamphlet)
have been its original shape.
" General Councils may not be gathered together
" without the commandment and will of Princes.
" And when they be gathered together, (forasmuch
" as they be an asserably of men, whereof all be not
demnation of error, without positive statements of their own,
such e. g. as the XlVth, XXIId, and latter part of the XXXIst,
Mr. Lowe himself would I suppose acknowledge -without reserva
tion the principle, that ' what was not meant to be condemned is
not condemned ?

10
" governed with the Spirit and Word of God,) they
" may err, and sometimes have erred, even in things
" pertaining unto God. Wherefore things ordained
" by them have neither strength nor authority, unless
" it may be declared that they be taken out of holy
" Scripture." Many persons would at once of course have
protested against an Article which seemed to sanc
tion an appeal from the decision of any General
Council, and on any subject, to the private judgraent
whether of the individual or local Church. Ac
cordingly it is taken clause by clause, ' General
* Councils may not be gathered together without
' the commandment and will of princes :' this
could not be denied : the principles of civil obedi
ence and primitive practice were directly in its
favour. ' When they be gathered together, for-
' asmuch as, &c. they may err and have erred, &c.'
This could not be denied ; I have pointed out in
my pamphlet, that members of both parties in the
Roman Church considered General Councils as such
fallible, and I have quoted from Galilean writers
language altogether similar to this of the Article.
' Therefore things ordained by them have neither
• strength nor authority, unless it may be declared
' that they be taken out of holy Scripture.' Here
the opposite party interfere, and make the same
protest they have already made in the Vlth aud
XXth Articles, that it is only things necessary to
salvation which need be contained in Scripture.

11
And here too as well as in those two Articles, if
any clause had been originally inserted maintaining
the right of the local Church '', to judge by its own
authority what doctrine was proveable by Scripture,
the same party would enforce the omission of such
clause. Mr. Lowe (p. 17.) in allusion to my charge
against him in p. 20, replies virtually, that I am
bound to respect that document in its human side
which I venerate on its divine"; and censures (p. 14.)
the shocking impiety of attributing to the Holy Spirit
the ¦ gross and intentional deception which I ascribe to
'the framers of the Articles.' It is not in place to
enter more fully into explanation of a theory which
it does not certainly seem to me very diflScult tp
understand ; had Mr. Lowe thought of the case of
Caiaphas, who, in the very words which, as he used
them, were blasphemy against our Lord Himself,
was the organ of the Holy Spirit, and delivered a
prophecy, he would not have committed himself
to so singularly shallow an objection.
With regard to the rest of Mr. Lowe's argument
in p. 14, whoever will read from p. 71, to p. 73,
of my pamphlet, will be able to answer it for him-
'' The notion of -private judgment, according to the remarkable
and very candid testimony of Dr. Arnold, (Sermons on Christian
Life, &c. p. 476.) did not exist at that time.
e Mr. Lowe omits my qualifying words ' viewed by itself and
' as to its human origin,' which I put in to guard by the way
against such a confusion as Mr. Lowe has made.

12
self. I am not bound as a Catholic to believe tbe
Articles will have a Catholic sense ; I am not
bound as a point of faith to believe the English a
branch of the Catholic Church ; but I do believe it
to be so ; and I say that every argument (and they
are very many) which leads to that conclusion, lead
so far to the conclusion that she has not committed
herself to heretical teaching. I do not consider, as
Mr. Lowe (p. 18.) seems to think, that behef in
the Protestant doctrine of private judgment is in
consistent with belief in the doctrine of the Athana-
sian Creed, but with a belief in that doctrine as
necessary to salvation, which the Creed afiirms it to
be : and a reference to the passage in my pamphlet
(p. 22.) will shew that Mr. Lowe has not attempted
to answer what I there urged.
My negative interpretation of the Bishop's cen
sure has been disapproved by other persons alsQ,
who consider the rest of my pamphlet open
and honest. I much regret it, but cannot see
grounds for their objection. On the one hand I
do not represent, as Mr. Lowe thinks, (p. 24.)
that his Lordship's objection was rather to the time
and manner, than to the substance of the Tract ;
but that he pointedly abstained from expressing
more definitely what his objections raight be. It
is I suppose considered by some that his Lordship
decided ex cathedra, that such a mode of inter
preting the 39 Articles, was inadmissible: the
result of which of course would be, that those who

13
held preferment in the diocese of Oxford in virtue
of subscription to them in such sense, would, to
say the least, be in a most painful position, unless
they threw up such preferment. And I can only ex
press my surprise that it should be supposed in any
quarter, that a decision, pregnant with such ex
tensive consequences as upon this hypothesis the
Bishop's judgment would be, should have been
couched in terms so vague, as that the Tract was
' objectionable,' and that it ' might tend to disturb
' the peace and tranquilUty of the Church.'
Without giving any opinion on Mr. Lowe's
pamphlet individually, I may in conclusion ex
press my pleasure at every fresh sign of the attention
of Churchmen being drawn to the careful examina
tion of our Articles, whether as ' construed by them
selves' or as illustrated by contemporary history.
Whatever effects such increase of attention may
have on the judgment that will be formed of the
English Reformation and Reformers, of this I am
well convinced, that it will only tend to place Mr.
Newman's interpretation of the Articles on a more
immoveable basis, and to induce more and more
fair minded persons of whatever school of opinion
to acquiesce in its honesty and lawfulness.
WILLIAM GEORGE WARD.
Balliol College,
June 21, 1841.

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