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POSTSCRIPT.
I am led by circumstances, in order to explain the
Tract more fully, to add :
1. That I have most honestly stated in the above Letter
what was intended, though not expressed in the Tract,
about the actual dominant errors of the Church of Rome.
The Tract was no feeler, as it is called, put forth to see how
far one might go without notice, nor is the Letter a retracta
tion. Those who are immediately about me, know that in
the interval between the printing and publication of the
Tract, I was engaged in writing some Letters about
Romanism in which I spoke of the impossibility of any
approach of the EngUsh towards the Roman Church, arising
out of the present state of tbe latter, as strongly as I did a
year ago, or as I do now in my Letter.
2. Again as to the object of my Pamphlet. ^I can de
clare most honestly that my reason for writing and pub
lishing it, without which I should not have done it, and
which was before my mind from first to last, was, as I
have stated it in my Letter, the quieting the consciences of
persons who considered (falsely as I think) tha,t the
Articles prevent them holding views found in the Pri
mitive Church. That while I was writing it, I was not
unwiUing to shew that the Decrees of Trent were but
partially, if at all, committed to certain popular errors, I
fully grant ; but even this I did with reference to others.
In explanation of the sensation which the Tract has
caused (as far as it arises from the Tract itself), I observe :
1. The Tract was addressed to one set of persons, and
has been used and commented on by another.
2. As its Author had very frequently and lately entered
his protest against many things in the Roman system, he

did not see that it was necessary to repeat them, when that
system did not form the direct object of the Tract ; and
the consciousness how strongly Jie had pledged himself
against Rome, as it is, made him, as persons about him
know full well, quite unsuspicious of the possibility of any
sort of misunderstanding arising out of his statements in it ¦
3. Those who had happened to read his former publica
tions, understanding him to identify rather than connect the
decrees of Trent with the peculiar Roman errors, were led
perhaps to think, that in speaking charitably of those decrees
he was speaking tenderly of those errors. And it must
be confessed that, though he has uniformly maintained the
existence of the errors in the Church of Rome both before
and after the Tridentine Council, yet he has sometimes
spoken of the decrees rather as the essential development,
than the existing symbol and index of the errors.
4. There was, confessedly, a vagueness and deficiency in
some places as to the conclusions he would draw from the
premises stated, and a consequent opening to the charge
of a disingenuous understatement of the contrariety between
the Article? and the actual Roman system. This arose in
great measure from his being more bent on laying down
his principle than defining its results.
5. It arose also from the circumstance that, the main drift
of the Tract being that of illustrating the Articles from the
Homilies, the doctrines of the Articles are sometimes
brought out only so far as the Homilies explain them,
which is in some cases an inadequate representation.
I wiU add, moreover, 1. That in the expression "ambigu
ous Formularies," I did not think of referring to the Prayer
Book. And I suppose all persons will grant, that if the
Articles treat of Predestination, and yet can be signed by
Arminians and Calvinists, they are not clear on all points.
But I gladly withdraw the phrase. And I express now, as
I often have done before, my great veneration for those

ancient forms of worship which, by God's good providence,
are preserved to us.
2. That 1 did not mean at all to assert that persons
called High- Churchmen have a difficulty in holding Catho
hc principles consistently with a subscription to the Arti-
cle§; on the contrary, I observe in the Tract, that "the
objection" on this score " is groundless ;" yet that there are
many who have felt it, however causelessly, I know, and
certainly have said.
3. That I had no intention whatever of implying that
there are not many persons of Catholic views in our Church,
and those more worthy of consideration than myself, who,
deny that the Reformers were uncatholic. I consider the
question quite an open one.
4. That, in implying that certain modified Idnds of Invo
cation, veneration of Relics, &c. might be Catholic, I did not
mean to rule it, that they were so ; but considered it an open
question, whether they were or not, which I did not wish
decided one way or the other, and which I considered the
Articles left open. At the same time it is quite certain,
that such practices as the Invocation of Saints, cannot
justly be called Catholic in the same sense in which the
doctrine of the Incarnation is, or the Episcopal principle.
5. That my mode of interpreting the Articles is not of a
lax and indefinite character, but one which goes upon a
plain and intelligible principle, viz. that of the Catholic
sense ; or, in the words of the Tract, " in the most
Catholic sense they will admit."

OXl'OKD: PEINTED by I. SHRIMPTON,

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