[15] See Appendix A.
[18] Second Letter, pp. 78, 79.
[20] Second Letter, p. 19, note; p. 75.
[21] Judgment of the Privy Council, p. 18.
[22a] Judgment of the Privy Council, p. 18.
[22b] Appendix B.
[23] Lord Campbell’s first letter to Miss Sellon, Guardian, April 17th.
[24] Lord Campbell in his second letter to Miss Sellon, (Guardian, Ap. 17,) has these words, which are likewise remarkable. “No reproach can be brought upon her (the Church of England) by a misconstruction of her articles and formularies; and it must be a very slight reproach to her if she has omitted to denounce one false doctrine as heretical, considering that no Christian Church has professed to settle dogmatically all points of doctrine.” The beginning of this sentence is a tolerably bold assumption, I think, unless Lord Campbell will allow a few words to be supplied, to explain what I trust he will feel to be an omission; that no reproach will come upon her, by a misconstruction of her formularies, by that court, if only with all her heart and soul, she set herself to correct it, and cast the misconstruction from her: but the latter part of the above quotation seems to admit of no palliation by any possible addition, and is surely a most marvellous slip for a mind of any acuteness to have made. “A very slight reproach,” Lord Campbell says it must be, “to have omitted to denounce one false doctrine as heretical;” without apparently a single thought as to what the doctrine in question may be. That it is an article of the creed which is expunged, and therefore denied, appears never to have crossed his Lordship’s mind, as worthy of the slightest consideration. “It is but one doctrine out of many:—reckon them up by tale, and you will never miss one:—no Churches settle everything:—why then so uneasy?” What hope, what possible chance that a mind constituted so as to be able to write such a sentence, can ever have appreciated, or believed, or understood, the meaning or importance of dogmatic teaching at all. Had he lived in the time of the Arian controversy, could the writer of the above sentence have believed it was possible any matter of moment was, or could be, involved in so minute a distinction as in the two letters of the ὁμοούσιον, that it could be worth the toil of Athanasius’s life, to contend for so slight a point? and repay all the labours and persecutions of a host of saints to win it? and in truth Lord Campbell’s method of arguing, or consolation to an afflicted Church, would apply just as much, had it been the doctrine of the atonement, or of the divinity of the Son of God, which had been brought in question by Mr. Gorham’s examination. “No need to settle every thing. So one open question can be no great matter, and no great reproach!”
[27a] Judgment, p. 8.
[27b] Judgment, p. 9.