[TO THE EDITOR OF TER "SPECTATOR. " ] SIR, — If the intention of
the framers of the Thirty-nine Articles was in any sense pacific, it will certainly not be forwarded by the offensive letter in which a certain Canon of Westminster, ad captandum—if not " vulgus," certainly the populum or popellum that delights in the services and theology of the Abbey—impeaches the bona-fides of the English Church Union's parallel, or rather contrast, between the attitude of the present Upper House of Convocation and the spirit of the Eighth Article. That attitude is certainly opportunist, and very different from that of Dean Burgon, and Canons Mozley and Liddon, who were not members of the English Church Union, but defended the obnoxious clauses on Scriptural authority, including that of St. Mark. To compare this precious "Resolution" with one of the Articles which received not only Parliamentary but Royal confirmation is preposterous. But a mere Provincial Synod has no more power to alter the Canon of Scripture on grounds of so-called "Higher Criticism " than it has to mutilate one of the Three Creeds.—I am, Sir, &e.,
Woodeaton Rectory, Oxford.
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