Leniter ex merito quicquid patiare ferendum est.
It is difficult to believe that on calmer reflection, a mind like yours will experience no uneasiness at the recollection of having endeavoured to turn an intended kindness to the prejudice of those who had conferred it, and in that light all must view the evident wish on the parts of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Bishop of London, to resolve your doubts, and as far as their private opinions could avail—restore peace to your mind. I allude to the use you have made of private conversations, I say private, for up to a certain time you appear to have so considered the opinions that were then given you. “I have been favoured,” you say in a letter to one of the Bishops, “with the private opinions of many persons I am bound to respect.” [5a] I admit that for your further satisfaction you received permission to mention, or as you say “make known what passed at these interviews.”—Still, although it would have made no difference as to the permission granted, had they even contemplated such a circumstance; I suspect that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, must have felt a little surprised to find that their every word had straitly been observed—
Set in a note book, conn’d and got by rote,
To cast into their teeth—eleven years afterwards!
Yet, by the aid alone of these communications, you have endeavoured to fix upon the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London the following charge, namely, “that in the debate of the 26th of May, 1840, his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London more decidedly endeavoured to crush the very idea of the same latitude, which they had on other occasions most unequivocally allowed and approved.” [5b]
I hesitate not for a moment to say that it is a charge unsupported even by the shadow of a proof. And let us first examine your evidence as it bears upon the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The points to which you direct our attention in substantiation of your charge are these:—His Grace’s conversation in May, 1829—his letters of May 12, 1830—and March 18, 1840—and his speech in the debate on the Petition.
In his letter of March 18, 1840, his Grace says, “I shall be much surprised if expressions are found in any letter of mine, which can be considered as an intended justification of your opinions,” an observation at variance, as you have persuaded yourself with his letter of 1830, and his conversation with you in 1829.
In the first place I would submit that a distinction obtains between not condemning an opinion and intending to justify it. It is possible that his Grace may take higher views of the power committed to the stewards of the mysteries of God than you do. But agreeing perhaps with you that “the power of the keys” cannot as you have elsewhere observed, be “beyond a doubt defined.” [6a] His Grace might be unwilling to condemn your lower views, but you could scarcely have construed this into an intended justification of them. He had besides told you “that the absence of censure did not imply a tacit acquiescence in your opinions.” [6b]
But what was the latitude which his Grace thought fairly allowable, and how far will it justify you in saying that in his speech he endeavoured to crush the very idea of that same latitude being allowed?
Your conversation with his Grace seems to have turned on the three points mentioned in your petition,—the Athanasian Creed, the Absolution, and the words used in a part of the Ordination Service. Upon your mentioning the different opinions given by various eminent writers of our church as to the Athanasian Creed and its condemnatory clauses, his Grace observed, “Well—none of these opinions has been condemned, take whichever suits your own views, and be satisfied.” [7a] But you cannot be satisfied, and although repeatedly told by his Grace, and also by the Bishop of Lincoln, that you could not, so long as Convocation remained in abeyance, obtain the authoritative sense of the Church on these points, you persist in pressing for it. To a request to this effect conveyed in a letter to his Grace, you again refer to the subject of your conversation. To this his Grace replies, “With respect to the subject of your letter, I have only to refer you to our former conversation, in which I expressed an opinion that, on points where writers of eminence have differed without slur on their orthodoxy, a certain latitude of interpretation is fairly allowable. But with respect to the authoritative sense of the Church on the points mentioned in your petition, no individual has a right to declare it, if it is a matter of doubt: and if, during a long succession of years, some difference of opinion is found among writers eminent for learning and piety, the silence of the Church, under such circumstances, may be taken as an indication of her unwillingness to abridge the liberty of her members on these points.” [7b]