THE BONN CONFERENCE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR:1
Sru,—Dr.Liddon is at present out of town, and it is possible that he may see the Spectator too late to reply to the note which you have appended to his letter. May I, therefore, do so very briefly?
You say that "the Articles and their explanation," which were agreed upon at Bonn, "are fatal to the Filioque." This may mean one of two things. It may mean that the Articles in question explicitly give up the Filioque. But this cannot be your meaning, for the Orientals did not even propose that the Filioque should be expunged from the Western form of the Creed ; and certainly neither Anglicans nor Old Catholics would have agreed to such. proposal, had it been made. What I understand you, therefore, to mean is that the Articles and their explanation are fatal to. the doctrine implied by the Filioque. That, of course, is a matter of inference, and my inference differs from yours. The articles were drawn up by the Westerns, and the Easterrus, after much dis- cussion and difficulty, accepted them. In short, both sides came
to the conclusion, after five days' discussion, that they meant substantially the same thing under a different phraseology. Even the Tablet admits that the Bonn propositions are in full agreement with the Western doctrine,—that is, with the Filioque.
You say further, that "the instructions of the Synod of Athens are not yet accepted." As a matter of fact, they have not yet been proposed. The Westerns have heard of them for the first time through the Spectator, and they know nothing at all about them beyond what you have stated.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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