If45

THE CLAIM

HOLD, AS DISTINCT FROM TEACHING,"

EXPLAINED IN

A LETTER TO A FRIEND.

REV. FREDERICK OAKELEY, M.A.,
FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, PREBENDARY OF LICHFIELD, AND MINISTER
OF MARGARET CHAPEL.

LONDON:
JAMES TOOVEY, 192 PICCADILLY.

M.DCCC.XLV.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The object of the following few pages is not to
defend a certain declaration, but simply to explain it.
The author believes that they contain nothing at
variance with the hypothesis, gratuitous as it would
be, of his having formally abandoned the claim to
which they relate, as, under circumstances, impracti
cable ; or at least of his being prepared to shape his
course with respect to it in deference to the clear voice
of authority. But neither, on the other hand, he
should say, has he as yet performed any act, or pub
lished any words, either expressing or implying an
opinion of the abstract untenability of the position
with which his name has of late been prominently
connected. These few pages are put out simply with the view
of shewing that the author has not used serious words
without a serious meaning. An apology to this extent
he feels imperatively due to those kind friends and
generous benefactors with whose feelings he may seem
to have trifled in hazarding the rupture of intimate
ties, if not the sacrifice of precious interests, for the
sake of what has been extensively considered, and that
on very different sides, as a mere theory, if not a
pure conceit. To himself, meanwhile, it has afforded a
melancholy satisfaction, in a season of great trial, to
analyze, as he has been lately for the first time

IV ADVERTISEMENT.
obliged, the view upon which he has attempted to
conduct his ministrations of teaching, and thus to
retrace a ground so dear to his memory.
His friends can harbour no better wish, and offer
no more serviceable prayer, for him, than that every
future step of his life may be taken under as large
a vouchsafement of light as that which for nearly six
favoured years has seemed to shine about his path at
Margaret Chapel ; and that the retrospect of any future
course of duty to which it may please Providence to
call him may be (less chequered indeed by penitential
regrets, but) not less endeared by sweet recollections,
than that of the happy career which is now drawing
to an end. Truly its remembrances come to him,
if the word be not too bold, as the fragrance of a
" field which the Lord hath blessed.''1
Margaret Street,
25 June, 1845.

THE CLAIM, &c.

 I do not want you to suppose that I have
been coming forward, on some late occasions, in a
gratuitous and reckless way. I doubt if I shall per
suade you to the contrary, but it will be something to
prove that I am anxious to persuade you.
The object of my putting out a certain declaration
in February last, on the subject of Subscription to the
Articles, was to bring a great question to an issue. I
said to myself, " I will not so much as entertain the
thought of leaving the Ministry, still less the Com
munion, of the Church of England, as long as I can
fulfil the conditions she imposes upon me with a safe
conscience. I am deliberately, and, as -I believe,
finally, satisfied that there is no standing-ground be
tween Protestantism and the Roman theology. It is
Rome alone which seems to me to propose doctrines
on the authority of the Church ; as soon as I leave
this firm basis, I get adrift, and am thrown in one
way or another upon private judgment, private views
of Scripture, or of Antiquity, or of both. If our Lord
has left a Church on earth, that Church must be, toties
quoties, the authorized Expositress of His Word ; and I
see no Church but the Roman which even claims to
fulfil this office for the Christian world. On the other
hand, Almighty God, of His good purpose, has placed
me in the Church of England ; there I will, by His
help, abide while I may. ' I have a place to fill and

a work to do' * where I am ; I will not be the person
to cut the knot. Some around me have already, and
as I think too soon, given up the contest, and joined
the Roman Catholic Church. Others have not pro
ceeded the whole of this length, but they have still
withdrawn from ministerial duty. I am more hopeful
of the Church of England, and will at least do my
best to maintain myself where I am. There seems to
me one difficulty, and but one — the Thirty-nine Arti
cles. If I may conscientiously hold the doctrines I
cannot conscientiously repudiate, I am content to for
bear from teaching them. I do not (as has been said)
deny my right to teach them, if I can hold them. I
waive it. I waive it, not reluctantly, but gladly, — not
because I am precluded from acting upon it, but be
cause I am not disposed so to act. I waive it for
ethical, not for legal reasons. It is as much a con
science with me to keep from teaching, as it is a con
science with me to decline renouncing." This was the
view upon which I had unawares acted long before I
made my public declaration to the Vice-Chancellor.
In that declaration I merely put into shape what I
had been doing for months, and even years, in a
natural and unconscious way. I repeat, that this
distinction between holding and teaching was no pre
text got up for the occasion ; if my sermons preached
during the three last years were to be published, they
would fully bear out my statement.
But it has been said, " How can a person make up
his mind to withhold from his flock what he knows to
be true and believes important?" It is hardly possible
to answer this objection in a short compass. I am
* Letter to a Roman Catholic Friend, published in the English
Churchman of November 21, 1844.

sure that it admits of a satisfactory answer, and I should
be surprised if any very thoughtful person were to
embrace, or at least cling to it. I will just throw out,
1. What is Roman doctrine ? " English Churchmen "
know full well that much is so called which they
believe to be Anglican doctrine. Of course, I never
felt myself precluded by my position from teaching all
those doctrines which High-Churchmen believe to be
common to England and Rome. And let it be consi
dered, when this stock is exhausted, how exceedingly
small is the residuum.
2. Again, remember what a vast extent of open
and neutral ground in ministerial teaching is inde
pendent of explicit doctrine altogether. I grant that
one who objects to renounce Roman doctrine will not
preach even the same ethical sermons with an ordinary
Protestant. But I am sure that there is a vast range
of most important, yet quite uncontroversial, preaching
and teaching, in which a clergyman, claiming the
right which I have claimed, may strictly fulfil those
obligations by which he is commonly understood to be
bound to the Church of England, without compromis
ing what he may feel his duty to the Catholic Church
in general. However, I freely admit that there is a
great deal of preaching, in which doctrine is, and
ought to be, directly involved. But, with respect even
to instruction of this more purely theological nature, I
deny the position which I formerly assumed to be
necessarily or clearly an untenable one.
3. For let it be remembered once more, that there
is a broad distinction between theological principles
and theological dogmas. There are certain principles
upon which all true Churchmen are, I suppose, agreed;
I may believe that these principles consistently carried

8
out will issue in Roman doctrine, and that certain
dogmas are but the accurate and formal enunciations
of them. As a Roman Catholic teacher, I must put
out these principles in their dogmatic shape ; from this
I am debarred by my (moral) obligations to the Church
of England ; but those obligations, far from forbidding,
even require, me to inculcate the principles. I will
give an instance. A great theologian of our day has
hinted that the doctrine of Purgatory may be the
consistent ultimate result of the Church's penitential
system, as this again is involved in the fact of Sin after
Baptism. I believe that it is so ; now, let any one
tell me whether or not I violate either my conscience
(as believing certain doctrines true and necessary), or
the same my conscience (as objecting to startle and
perplex weak minds, or to give strong meat to ' babes'),
when I teach, for instance, that " suffering is God's
appointed mode of doing away the effects of sin, and-
this throughout the whole Christian life from Baptism
to the Day of Judgment" ? Is such a sentiment ortho
dox upon Church of England principles, or is it not ?
If it be orthodox, certainly it satisfied all my obliga
tions on the score of Roman doctrine. And most
persons will certainly say that this is to teach Roman
doctrine. In one sense it is, and in another it is not.
But I am here meeting the objections, of professing
Churchmen. The same distinction might be illus
trated in other ways. It has been said of some
clergymen, that their object has been " to go as near
Rome as they could." In a certain sense, I admit the
truth of the observation, and am prepared to defend
the principle.
I will give another instance— the doctrine of the
Invocation of the Saints. This, I grant, is a Roman

9
doctrine ; and it is (with Purgatory) one of the very
few Tridentine articles which the generality of Eng
lish Churchmen would consider to be unquestionably
distinctive of Rome. My claim, of course, required me
to believe that the true and authorized doctrine on
this subject is not in terms forbidden by the Thirty-
nine Articles ; but I should as soon have thought of
committing any deliberate sin, when I officiated in the
Church of England, as have recommended this prac
tice from the pulpit. But neither should I have been
obliged to this course as an actual Roman Catholic
Priest ; for the Council of Trent itself does not set
forth the Invocation of the Saints as necessary, but
only as profitable. As then, on the one hand, my
plain duty to the Church of England required me to
abstain from recommending this observance ; so neither,
on the other, did any duty to the Church Catholic
seem to impose on me the obligation to recom
mend it.
But I conceive that my obligations to one as well
as the other did require me to take all convenient
opportunities of setting forth the theological principle
of which I consider (though you may not) that this
practice is the consistent issue. I might, in this way,
have enlarged upon the " doctrine of the Communion of
the Saints, the interest of the glorified in the militant,
their nearness to Almighty God, and the power of aU
the righteous with Him," &c. &c. I might, I say, have
spoken in this manner, and have even fallen below the
language of some Anglican divines on the subject. Yet
you will see how certain the treatment of such topics
in the pulpit would be to expose me to the charge of
" Popery" on the one side, and undue suppression on
the other. Yet surely I could have followed out
A 5

10
such a course with a safe conscience. As it was, I
am certain that I greatly under-used my liberty in
such respects. And accordingly, when the Bishop of
London gave out, in February last, his intention of
breaking up Margaret Chapel (before my Letter to his
Lordship was published or thought of), between one
and two hundred credible witnesses came forward to
attest that during six years " they had never heard
a word from the pulpit of Margaret Chapel which
they conceived his Lordship would have disapproved."
Now, considering that the range of time specified
was sufficient to comprehend some six or seven hun
dred discourses, I certainly regard this statement as an
enthusiastic one. But it is quite enough for my pur
pose that a body of thoughtful, well-instructed, and
conscientious persons should have been able to say
such a thing at all.
But my argument will be still clearer if I select
a doctrine which has in our own time been formally
decided by the Ecclesiastical Courts to be part of
the Anglican system, — Prayers for the dead : will any
one question my right, as a clergyman of the Church
of England, to teach, as well as to hold, this doctrine ?
And yet I suspect that, had I availed myself of
this undoubted right, I should in fact have " exposed
myself to the Bishop's censure." For his Lordship,
as I remember, took occasion, immediately upon the
decision of the Court of Arches, to express publicly his
individual opinion against that doctrine and practice.
Now this is a case especially in point. I should
never have thought of using my undoubted power
of recommending even this practice from the pulpit ;
and that on " moral, as distinct from legal " grounds.
I hope I have made it plain, that the position

11
of " holding, as distinct from teaching," is at least
no unreal, nor necessarily an unconscientious, one.
That the distinction is what is commonly called a
" fine " one, and therefore dangerous to conscience,
I admit. I admit, also, that the difficulty of main
taining it may be increased, even to impossibility,
by the very fact of being obliged to realize and put
it into shape. These are different matters, upon which
I forbear at present to enlarge. But, I suppose it
will be acknowledged by persons conversant with
moral subjects, that not every line is unreal which
is incapable of being described, nor unconscientious
which is ordinarily unintelligible.
To go a little farther back, and analyze the view
of things which, in my own case, has practically issued
in this kind of result : I have never denied that the
actual Church of England has long seemed to me,
though a providential, yet a transitionary, not a com
plete and final, system. On the other hand, I have
strongly felt that, for moral reasons, its passage from
this incomplete to the more perfect state ought,
if possible, to be gradual, and not abrupt. I have
avowedly and deliberately acted upon this view, as
others have done: no wonder, then, if, to those who
treat the Church of England as a permanent and
final dispensation, such as I have seemed undutiful
and restless. Duty to a transitionary system is plainly
other than duty to an abiding system. And persons
would not see that a system felt to be transitionary
might yet be the object of hearty loyalty. It has
always seemed to myself that I was best fulfilling
the obligations of duty and attachment to the Church
of England in carrying out what I honestly believed
to have been the especial object of her mission in

12
the purposes of Divine Providence. Now, I want
objectors to my course to clear their views upon
this point. Do they, or do they not, feel the actual
basis of the Church of England as an insulated com
munion, a solid and substantial one ? If they do,
I cannot expect them to throw themselves into my
situation, and I have a right to ask that they shall
abstain from judging me. If they do not, I ask
them to point out some^ine of action less open to
objection than that which I have adopted ; the line,
I mean, of attempting, in my measure, to educate
minds for higher doctrine, by the inculcation of prin
ciples calculated by degrees to leaven them, and form
them into that character (for religion is a character)
which several persons in the Church of England are
coming to believe the only true counterpart of Apos
tolical Christianity.
But, to go back from this long digression. The
whole question seemed to me, therefore, to resolve
itself into that of the tenability of such a position
as my own, relatively to the Articles which I have sub
scribed, and which I virtually subscribe every day that
I minister in the Church of England.
The Articles, I say, (including the Oath of Supre
macy,) were my only difficulty, and I am surprised
if it should be even supposed that I could recog
nize any other ecclesiastical impediment in the way
of what I have been accustomed to regard as my duty
to the Christian Church at large.
The Service of the Prayer Book was never felt,
as you well know,, any bar to communion with Rome
for the first few years after the Reformation ; and
if Roman Catholics themselves were content, in former
times, to frequent our Church Service, at least it need

13
have presented no difficulty in my way. And, surely,
the more fully and effectively its provisions are car
ried out, the less will appear to be the difference
(great as I admit that difference will still be) between
our Service and the Roman.
But again, while such as myself have always felt
ourselves bound, so far as the Divine Office was con
cerned, by the whole Prayer Book, I need not say
that we have felt ourselves under an equally stringent
obligation to resist all superfluous and gratuitous
additions to the Prayer Book, by whatever authority,
short of the authority of the corporate Church of
England, accredited or recommended. Thus I have
heard something about a certain Office for the recep
tion of Priests of the Roman Church into the Com
munion of the Church of England. I know nothing
more of any such Office, than of any form of service
used, for instance, in the Protestant Churches of the
Continent. I believe that some such Office was once
drawn up, and proposed to the Convocation ; but it
was never accepted, nor in any way formally ratified.
And, far from individual Bishops having power to
enforce such an Office upon the clergy, I believe that
any clergyman, of whatever degree, who should use
it, would subject himself to an ecclesiastical penalty.
The Service for the 5th of November may seem a
greater difficulty, as it is actually bound up with the
Book of Common Prayer. But a number of clergy
men have dropped this, together with the other
political Forms of Prayer and Thanksgiving, by com
mon consent; and their Bishops (although aware of
the circumstance) do not attempt to interfere with
their discretion. In fact, these are not days when
inflammatory language against " Popery " is likely to

14
receive any encouragement in high political and eccle
siastical quarters. The voters for the Maynooth Grant
have at least won this freedom for us. And the four
Services which receive the royal sanction at the com
mencement of each reign, embrace, one with another,
such exceedingly various and even contradictory poli
tics, that they are not likely, as a whole, to rally any
great enthusiasm in their support. I suspect we have
pretty well seen the end of them.
I repeat, the Articles were my only difficulty.
Here, then, I come to the objections which have
been raised against my declarations in the spring.
People have said to me something like this : — " Very
well ; hold all Roman doctrine if you please, but
keep it to yourself. Why endanger the solid
advantages of Margaret Chapel for the sake of
a theory? Why trouble the Church of England
by your protests and manifestoes ? " To which I
reply : Do you, then, give into the view that a
clergyman of the Church of England may honestly
hold any doctrine which he chooses to keep to
himself? Is it a pleasant thought to you, that
there may be at this moment several (say) Arian or
Socinian clergymen of the Church of England, " hold
ing all " the abominations of these heresies in their
closets, though suppressing them in their pulpits ? A
specimen this, truly, of an orthodox Church ! Do you
adopt the theory that the Thirty-nine Articles are
mere terms of peace, although every clergyman sub
scribes them " willingly and ex animo " ? Or do you
say, rather, that Roman doctrine is more compatible
with the Articles than Arian, or Socinian ? But the
question, surely, is not one of degree merely. If one
single Roman doctrine be precluded by the Articles,

15
the subscription of such as myself is not less dishonest
than that of an Arian or Socinian clergyman. More
over, there are considerable persons, of past and
present time, who deny that the Articles are more
tolerant of Roman than of Arian doctrine. What
says Dr. Waterland, and his modern apologist, Dr.
Ogilvie ? " If Arian subscription....could not in the
judgment either of Dr. Waterland, or of Bishop Van
Mildert, be allowed, much less, according to the opinion
of the same divines, was the subscription of such as
held the tenets of the Church of Rome capable of
apology or excuse. Throughout both the Case itself,
and the Supplement to the Case, Dr. Waterland repre
sents the latter, which he takes frequent occasion to
mention, as more objectionable than the former."" * Now,
whether or not this extreme opinion be extensively
prevalent in the Church of England, I suspect that
the number of persons was most exceedingly small
who were prepared to concede the admissibility of
Mr. Ward's claim. And, let it be observed, the de
nial of its admissibility borders very closely upon the
assertion of its dishonesty. At any rate, it leaves that
assertion to be freely made, and raises the suspicion
that those who abstain from making it are so de
terred rather by a feeling of kindness and charity,
than by any very deliberate conviction of its untruth.
Let us, then, fairly state the case of a person in
the situation assumed in my letter to the Vice-Chan-
cellor. Here is a Clergyman and Fellow of a College in
Oxford, conscious to himself that, except he can sub
scribe the Articles without renouncing any one au-
* Considerations on the Thirty-nine Articles by Dr. Ogilvie,
p. 11.

16
thorized Roman doctrine, he cannot subscribe them
at all. It may be said, that subscription is not
a " continuing act," and that he has come to his
present convictions since the time of his last sub
scription. But this view, whether or not legally
practicable, does not appear to him morally sufficient.
Moreover, the view of subscription which he adopts
has the following serious disadvantages lying against
it. If honest men throughout England were polled,
not twenty, perhaps, would pronounce it clearly allow
able. The apparent meaning of the Articles them
selves is against it ; the sense of Catholic Europe is
against it ; several Bishops of the Anglican Church
have apparently denounced it ; and now here is a
large majority in the Convocation of Oxford declaring
that it is inconsistent with " good faith."
This is certainly a prima facie case, under which I
should have thought no man with a conscience could
sit easy. And yet I consider that the Oxford resolu
tion was after all the crisis of the question. Every
other difficulty by which, up to that time, the claim
in which I was interested had been apparently preju
diced, admitted of being met. There was the latitude
in which the Formularies of the Church of England
are actually subscribed. There seemed a kind of tacit
understanding in favour of an exceedingly free inter
pretation of them. The Bishops themselves might
have been thought to acquiesce in a construction of
them, according to which the apparent meaning of
words was wholly evaded. For how else could
clergymen of name, and even Bishops themselves,
impugn a doctrine so decisively stamped upon the
very surface of the Prayer Book as that of Regenera
tion in Baptism ? How else could clergymen, and

17
even Bishops, undermine without any apparent mis
giving, certainly without any formal rebuke, the Apos
tolical Succession of the Ministry, in the face of cer
tain passages in the Ordination Service ? The State,
too, seemed practically to acknowledge that the words
of solemn documents admit of a wide construction. For
example, an oath, taken by every Member of Parlia
ment, declares totidem verbis that the Pope neither
hath, nor ought to have, power, &c, ecclesiastical or
spiritual, within the Queen's dominions. Yet this oath is
not felt to stand in the way of legislating for Roman
Catholics (over whom the Pope undoubtedly exercises
power) as subjects of the Queen ; nay, and it is not
felt by statesmen of great name to preclude the act,
or the prospect, of diplomatic negotiations with the
Court of Home; that is to say, of negotiations de
signed to employ this hypothetically non-existent, and
forbidden power, with a view to political objects.
Again, the Sovereign takes on accession to the
throne, or at the time of coronation, a certain decla
ration against Transubstantiation as a superstitious
and idolatrous doctrine. Nevertheless, it is not felt
incompatible with this declaration that such Sove
reign should ratify, by her own act, the endowment of
an institution pledged to the inculcation of this very
doctrine, as of all other Roman doctrines. I am not
saying, of course, that all this is indefensible; but
certainly I say, that the sense in which these clergy-.
men, and bishops, and statesmen, must understand
certain words, is the " non-natural " sense. There
seemed, then, to be a kind of dispensation, in public
opinion at least, from the strict letter of certain forms,
the conditions whether of civil, or of ecclesiastical,
privileges.

18
Again, on the side of the Roman Catholic subscrip
tion to the Anglican Formularies, was the argument
from historical probability, not to speak of facts.
There is this plain question, which, after all that has
been said, remains unanswered, even by those who
have answered, and, as I think, successfully, some
other portions of the same argument, — Were the
Thirty-nine Articles, or were they not, drawn up with
a comprehensive intention towards the several religious
parties existing at the time? Did the Reformers aim
at including none but the Protestants ? If otherwise,
what Catholics were they whom they sought to satisfy ?
Evidently, Roman Catholics. I think it may fairly be
urged that, if the Articles were not meant to include
Roman Catholics, they were not meant to include any
but ultra-Protestants, at least no opinions more Ca
tholic than those of Ridley. What then becomes of
the " developement of the 17th century"? Let me
not be understood to urge this latter point in any
other way than as a consideration on the side of the
claim in question. I have been accused of catching
at straws ; I answer, that such is ever the wisdom, and
the duty, of persons in a desperate condition, such as
I have never denied my own to be. Was I, with my
settled, and, as I trust, unalterable convictions on the
subject of the Roman Catholic theology, to retreat
from the Church of England, at least from its minis
try, without a hard struggle? Was I to abandon,
without necessity, any hope however faint, any dis
tinction however subtle, whereby I could at once
satisfy my conscience and keep my ground ? On the
contrary, there was no imputation, as long as I felt it
to be undeserved, on the score of inconsistency, shal
lowness, or disingenuousness, which did not seem to

19
me a light thing in comparison with the needless
relinquishment of a post where I felt 1 was doing
good, and in a right way.
Under these circumstances, I considered myself
under no call to volunteer, at least in a direct and
forward manner, declarations of my opinions as long
as the interpretation of the Articles appeared to be
left as an open question.
The reasons for which I considered the result of the
Convocation at Oxford, on February 13th, as the
fitting occasion of coming forward, I have detailed
at length in a Letter published in the English
Churchman of February 27th ; and I am glad to find
the same view of the matter taken by a clergyman
and member of Oxford University holding somewhat
different theological views from my own.*
Now, I do not expect all my friends to sympathise
in my unwillingness to renounce any Roman doctrine,
but I ask them to bear in mind that my views on
this point are no matter of choice with me ; and yet,
this being so, I must either have taken it for granted
that the Articles (tolerant, by acknowledgment, of
all Protestant doctrine,) are stringent only in the op
posite direction ; or have made a push to win for
the Church of England, at any risk to myself, an
admission which would not only have relieved many
a distressed conscience, but might have preserved
to her ministry many a loving son. That the number
of those is small who were interested in the esta
blishment of my claim, I wholly deny, and am daily
confirmed in my impression to the contrary. Now,
which of the courses open to me was the less ob-
* Vide Subscription to the Articles, by the Rev. G. D. Ryder, p 4,

20
trusive, and less hazardous to myself, is evident. But
I can never concede that the one which I adopted
was the less loyal towards the Church of England.
If you will have it that my Letter to the Vice-
Chancellor was of the nature of a challenge to my
Church in the person of its Bishops, (which I deny,
but if you so think,) I suppose you will allow that
the following is no unfair interpretation of it.
" Certain persons, of whom I am one, have arrived,
no matter by what process, or on what grounds, at a
state of mind in which they desire to claim the liberty
of subscribing the Formularies of our Church in such
a sense as not necessarily to involve the renunciation
of any single authorized doctrine of the Church of
Rome. We are well aware that the only way of
endangering this liberty is to claim it ; our Church
will ask us no questions, if we on our side volun
teer no declarations. But we do not wish to serve
our Church ' under false colours ;' we wish her to
know the worst of us, and then to say whether she
will have us in her ministry or no. The position on
which we rely is actually disputed, and there is much
to be said on the side of those who question it. Our
consciences will not let us rest in such an equivocal
situation. We do not indeed ask for leave to teach
all those doctrines which we ' claim to hold ;' we do
not crave entire freedom, nor public countenance, nor
even so much as hearty sympathy. We ask not coun
tenance, but toleration only. We are content to fore
go many of those privileges and encouragements
which we could easily find elsewhere, could we make
up our minds to desert our Church, and for which we
must needs look out, on account of the liberty which
accompanies them, if she cast us off. But there shall

21
be our first tender of service, where is the claim upon
our first love. If we must give up our places in the
Church of England, we will do it, not by our own free
choice, but at her irresistible bidding. We feel that
there is a great work to be done in England ; perhaps
not very much less than that of evangelizing it. We
are sure that the Church of England, as represented in
her established and popular system, is unequal to this
work, or to any portion of it. But we are not sure,
and are loth to believe, that she is incapable of being
prepared for it ; only we are sure that she cannot
accomplish it single-handed, or till an entirely new
spirit is poured into her. We believe, that as the
handmaid of the Church of Rome she could achieve
what she can never achieve of herself ; and we frankly
acknowledge our desire of bringing her into the
utmost practicable sympathy with the ' Holy Church
throughout all the world.' It is for you, our spiritual
fathers, to deal with us according to your good
pleasure. You know all we claim ; and our very
frankness in declaring what we might conceal, is some
guarantee for our fidelity, and some warrant for
your confidence. At all events, our pledges are before
the world ; and if we break them we render ourselves
justly amenable, all men being judges, to your seve
rity. If you recognize the Church of England as a
branch of the Catholic Church, we consider that the
manifestation of earnest Catholic sympathies at any
rate gives us a claim upon your indulgence. And
even though your profession be strictly Protestant,
you will surely feel that we are less likely to hurt the
cause of Protestantism under the restraints which, as
we admit, our Church puts upon us, than if you force
or tempt us to assume the posture of antagonism to

22
it. If you will not let us hold what we forbear to
teach, you may drive us where we may teach as well
as hold. This is no unbecoming menace ; it is a plain
matter of fact, and question of prudence. It is a
question, however, for you, and not for us.
" We ask not of the Church of England her chief
rooms, but her lowest places. Catholics as we would
fain hope ourselves, we are content to be put upon a
par with that tribe of misbelievers whom, for whatever
reason, she refuses to cast from her bosom. We, who
(whatever our extravagances, or, if you will, our
errors,) honour her Sacraments, reverence her altars,
obey her rubrics, adorn her temples, prize her ordi
nances, (do not let us seem to make a boast of what we
regard as our plainest duty,) ask from her no more —
nay, much less — than she is ready to bestow, of her
large but somewhat suicidal disinterestedness, upon
those who dishonour and traduce her, and hold her up
to the contempt and derision of Christendom. Gladly
will we bear with affronts, and make the best of the
bad company in which we find ourselves, if you will
but let us have our hearts' desire, which is not to live
on smiles and participate of bounties, but to wait on
our Church in all fidelity, though with crumbs for our
portion and buffetings for our reward."
But I must go to a different subject, my Letter to
the Bishop of London, which has been treated in
some quarters* as a second instance of the wanton
obtrusion of my opinions Let me, then, explain the
circumstances under which that letter was put out.
It was an honest, but, as I admit, desperate effort
to preserve what I considered very precious interests.
* Vide an article in the Christian Remembrancer of April last.

23
 The Bishop, as you know, made my letter
to the Vice-Chancellor the occasion of a demand for
the resignation of my licence, accompanied by the
expression of an intention to withdraw it in the event
of my refusal. I craved time, and offered to put out a
defence. That defence is contained in my published
Letter. I never refused the resignation of my licence
(as has been said) ; the Bishop waived, for the time,
his Lordship's purpose of requiring it, and assigned as
a reason the doubt as to my case expressed by a high
legal authority to whom his Lordship had submitted
my published Letter, and the testimonies of my congre
gation to the character of my ministerial teaching.
 Again, it has been said in several quar
ters that I " forced" his Lordship into the late legal
proceeding. Certainly, I had expressed both publicly
and in private an anxious wish for the settlement of a
great question ; and I supposed, of course, that the
reference to the Court of Arches was made with a
view to such settlement. In this I find that I was
mistaken. Now, some persons may be disposed to
argue in this way. Either the letter to the Vice-
Chancellor was a valid ground of proceeding against
me, or not. If not, why, it may be asked, was it so
used ? If so, why is not it, rather than a subsequent
and purely defensive act (forced by an emergency) em
ployed as the weapon of attack against me ? I am not
questioning that the course admits of vindication ; but
I think it is open to such a remark. You remember,
that when Tract 90 was attacked by the Hebdomadal
Board, its author put out a defence in the shape of a
letter to his Bishop. When I took my course, I had
no time to think of precedents ; but it now strikes
me that the cases were so far parallel  There

24
are reasons of duty against my entering upon any ex
planation, at the present time, of my withdrawal from
the suit in the Court of Arches. But, if I have con
vinced you that I did not act without deliberation and
an apparent necessity in the instances to which I have
referred, you will, perhaps, be disposed to take my
more recent proceeding upon trust ; at all events, till
I am in a situation to account for it. You will at
any rate see, that in considering the suit in the Court
of Arches to leave untouched the question (of sub
scription to the Articles), " upon which I had expressed
myself anxious for an authoritative judgment," my able
advisers were fully borne out by the facts of the case.
And it will always be a satisfaction to me to feel
that I have, on two separate occasions, manifested
to my Bishop that I had no desire to push matters
to extremities, if his Lordship, on his side, should
see reason to forbear from them ; first, when, in Feb
ruary last, I suppressed a publication which might
have caused embarrassment to his Lordship, in the
prospect of an amicable adjustment (which unhappily
proved but temporary) ; secondly, when I lately ten
dered the resignation of my licence, with the view
of terminating a suit which is now acknowledged,
on all hands, to have no other than a partial subject-
matter and a merely personal bearing. I consider
that I have satisfied the claims of duty on the score
of submission to the very utmost extent which was
compatible with my obligations to the Church.

Frederick Oakeley.

London : Printed by S. & J. Bentley, Wilson, and Fley, Bangor House, Shoe Lane.