Now Mr. Goode, remarking upon Bishop Geste's Letter of Decr. 22, 1566, says, (p. 6):—

"From this letter it seems, that the words, the body of Christ,' etc., inserted in the 28th Article in the revision of 1562, were proposed by Bishop Geste, and proposed by him (with a subtility to be regretted) under the notion that they admitted his doctrine of the presence of our Lord's body in the elements.

"This is the utmost that the advocates of Bishop Geste's doctrine of the presence can extract from this letter in their favour."

But need they wish to "extract" more? It is enough surely for those who hold the doctrine of the Real Objective Presence, to be able to maintain-that they are entitled to hold and teach that doctrine because the terms of the Article do "not exclude" it, and that this is affirmed by the Bishop who drew up the Article. They demand, and justly demand, complete toleration, at least, for what they believe to be much more than an opinion, yet certainly (as they think) an opinion meant to be comprehended by the language of the Article. Nor will they object to be accused, with Bishop Guest, of "subtilty," if by that is meant refinement; convinced that nicety of definition is not inappropriate to the subject of the Eucharistic Presence: though they would repudiate any intention of cunning or artifice, and might think it unbecoming in Mr. Goode to impute it to Bishop Guest, if here, as elsewhere, he is indulging that license of judgment which unfortunately he is apt to betray towards the motives of his opponents.

Mr. Goode admits, indeed (p. 7), that,

"... under some circumstances, it might have been difficult to show, that those who agreed to the Articles in the Convocation of 1562, did not use these words in the same sense as that attached to them by Bishop Geste. But," he adds, "fortunately these Articles were passed in Convocation with the addition of another, namely the 29th, which I shall now show, by Bishop Geste's own testimony, to be entirely irreconcileable with his view of the presence, and which therefore excludes his interpretation of the 28th. And accordingly we find that he did not subscribe the Articles in the Convocation of 1562. (See Lamb's Historical Account of the xxxix. Articles.)

"Now what Bishop Geste himself held to be the doctrine main

tained in Article 29, he himself shall inform us as also how far he would have been glad subsequently to modify the phraseology of Article 28."

In proof of his statements he then proceeds to quote §§ 8, 9, 10 and 11 of the Document above printed.

But, first of all, Mr. Goode (unless I mistake his words) argues upon an assumption which, to say the least, is quite unwarranted by the commonly received theory of the prin ciple which guided the framers of the Articles, viz., a desire of comprehension. If that theory be true (and there seems no reason to dispute its accuracy) it surely was not requisite that all "those who agreed to the Articles in the Convocation of 1562 "should use these words ['after an heavenly and spiritual manner onely '] in the same sense as " Bishop Guest did. Considering the various opinions which were then held, as to the nature and mode of the Presence, all that the acceptors needed to secure was-that the language of the Articles did not condemn such diversities as, it was understood, were meant to be tolerated. To imagine that Guest's doctrine was unknown to the Convocation, or that (as Mr. Goode says, p. 11) he "penned the words... with the secret intention of understanding them as he has explained them in his letter to Cecil;" and that, consequently, he and the Convocation passed the Article with entirely opposite objects, is a notion wholly devoid of foundation, and totally alien to the important position he occupied in the revision of both the Prayer Book and the Articles: the opinions of the man who was intimately associated with Cecil and Parker in that work, and who was substituted by Cecil, in the time of the Archbishop's illness, to aid in preparing the Prayer Book of 1559, were not likely to be hidden from the Convocation of that day. That those opinions ran in, what would be called, a Roman direction, is sufficiently disproved by the fact that, in his answers to the Secretary touching certain proposed emendations in the Prayer Book, (1) he thought it needless to use the proper Eucharistic Vestments; (2) proposed such a division of the Eucharistic Office, that non-communicants should not remain throughout; (3) considered it not convenient "to continue

the use of praying for the dead in the Communion;” (4) advised the omission of the Prayer of Consecration as it stood in Edward's 1st Book; (5) said that the Sacrament should be received in the hand and not in the mouth; (6) and deemed it "indifferent" whether the communicants partook of it standing or kneeling.—Strype's Ann. Vol. i., p. 83.

Mr. Goode further contends that the 29th Article, as understood by Guest, was "entirely irreconcileable with his view of the Presence," (p. 7), and "consequently was fatal to his mode of interpreting the 28th," (p. 11).

But it is noticeable that the words objected to by Bishop Guest, in § 11, are not the words which ultimately appeared in the Article, or in its title: he complains that in the Book about to be presented for the Queen's authentication, "there is this Article. Evill men receave not ye bodye of Christ:" and he uses the same word three other times in the course of his objections in this Section, besides three times employing the expression, "take eat." Yet neither of these words "receive" and "take" occur at all, either in the heading or in the body of the 29th Article of 1571. Was this a mere oversight of the writer? It is difficult to believe in such an absence of accurate quotation on the part of one so intimately acquainted with the Articles as Guest necessarily was, and that, too, on an occasion when he was complaining of words and phrases-the more so as, in all the other instances in this Letter, he cites the Articles exactly. May it not, then, have been the case that some change was made in the English title* of this Article before the Articles were presented to the Queen for ratification? If so, it must have been before May 11th, as on that day they were signed by the Bishops, including Guest himself; and this fact of his subscription at that time to the English copy of the Articles (Lamb, p. 30), helps to determine the date of this Document now under consideration; for if it be Guest's (and there seems every reason to believe that he was the author of it) there can be no

* The title of Article xxix., as signed by Guest, on May 11, 1571, is, “The wicked do not eate the Body of Christe in the use of the Lord's Supper."-See Lamb's Reprint.

reasonable doubt that it was written prior to May 11th, and that his objections having been then in some way satisfied, he was able to concur with his Episcopal brethren in attesting, by his signature, his acceptance of the Articles; though, probably, not his entire approval of some of their language. Mr. Goode, indeed, (p. 13) chooses to make a most unfair and uncharitable insinuation against the Bishop for thus acting: he says:

"That Bishop Geste, almost immediately after penning the above letter to Lord Burleigh, should subscribe the Articles, including the 29th, is, I suppose, to be accounted for from what some modern writers would style, 'The necessities of his position;' but it is a fact which does not seem very creditable to his candour. It did not, however, go without its reward, for by the end of the year he was promoted to Salisbury."

Now, as Mr. Goode does not offer a particle of evidence to sustain his inuendo, and as there is nothing, so far as I am aware, in what is recorded of Bishop Guest's character, to justify such a surmise; this suggestion of unworthy motives may be dismissed with the remark-that that Prelate's conduct in signing the Articles is apparently more consistent with candour than is Mr. Goode's in censuring him for his

act.

That the Articles did undergo a variety of changes of more or less importance during the Convocation, which began April 3, and ended May 30, 1571, is plain from such slight notices of its proceedings as remain in the Abstract made by Dr. Heylin before its records were destroyed in the Fire of London. Bennett (Hist. of Articles, pp. 261-3) has quoted from this a description of what occurred on the very day when the Articles were signed by the eleven Bishops, of whom Guest was one, which seems to suggest that, probably, it was on this occasion that that Prelate was satisfied: he says:

Fryday, May 11, the Bishops being met in a low Parlour at Lambeth, de et super rebus Ecclesiæ et libro articulorum de doctrina (ut apparuit) secrete semotis omnibus arbitris tractarunt; which may perhaps have been the subject of that two hours Conference, which they had afterwards on Wednesday, May 23. Sess. 8."

• Whither, on "May the 4th, the Convocation" had "been adjourned. . . because of the Archbishop's indisposition, as it seemeth, . . ."-Strype's Parker, Bk. iv., p. 319.

It is, indeed, extremely likely that the question of the readoption of Article 29 occupied a material place on this occasion (see also Hardwick, p. 154, and Swainson, p. 32), and that the Meeting was held for the very purpose of discussing the points raised in Guest's supposed Letter to Burleigh the opinions of such a man could hardly be disregarded, and as it is not probable that he suddenly abandoned what, plainly, he had been holding for at least the five years preceding (apparently very much longer),* yet did then subscribe, there is certainly fair ground for believing either that some alteration was made, or that he was convinced of the phraseology of the 29th Article being not at variance with his belief. That the Archbishop was ready to meet as far as he could the difficulties which beset this question, seems plain from the occurrence related in his Letter to Lord Burleigh on June 4th (Parker Correspondence, No. cclxxxix., p. 381), when, apparently, the Articles were waiting for the Queen's ratification. For, though he retained his opinion as to the applicability of the passage quoted from St. Augustin, it seems (see Bennet, chap. 24) that he afterwards "removed" the reference from the margin of the Article, when some copies had been struck off, and so left the appeal to St. Augustine more general. It is, moreover, worthy of notice, that this marginal reference to St. Augustine is not in the copy (as reprinted by Dr. Lambe) signed by Guest on May 11, 1571. If Guest (though I doubt it) was the author of this objection, the Archbishop's course further confirms the view here suggested.

Now Guest's objection to the 29th Article arose from his opinion that it was "quite contrarie to ye Scripture and to y doctrine of the Fathers:" he thought moreover (and indeed with a kind of prophetic mind, considering what has since happened) that it would "cause much busynes;" therefore he was anxious for its omission, or for some modification of it, so as to avoid these evils. But it is quite easy to con

*For in 1548 he published "A Treatise againste the Prevee Masse," in which occurs the passage given at p. 193, as illustrating his Letter of December 22, 1566.

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