It  is  not  much  to  require  a  little  modesty  and  humi-
lity in  judging  of  the  Church ;  and  learned  men  are
to  be  warned  against  supposing  that,  by  the  canon  of
1571,  more  latitude  is  allowed  them  than  is  con-
sistent with  a  due  regard  to  our  formularies. "  This
canon,"  says  Dr. Waterland,  "  does  not  order  that
preachers  shall  teach  whatever  hath  been  taught  by
the  fathers. No;  that  would  be  setting  up  a  new
rule  of  faith:  neither  doth  it  say  that  they  shall
teach  whatsoever  the  fathers  had  collected  from
Scripture. No;  that  would  be  making  them  infal-
lible interpreters  or  infallible  reasoners  :  the  doctrine
must  be  found  first  in  Scripture ;  only,  to  be  more
secure  that  we  have  found  it  there,  the  fathers  are


LUTHERAN,    llOMAN,    ANGLICAN. G5

to  be  called  in,  to  be,  as  it  were,  constant  cliccks
upon  the  presumption  and  wantonness  of  private  in-
terpretation ;  but  then,  again,  as  to  private  interpret-
ation, there  is  liberty  enough  allowed  to  it. Preachers
are  not  forbidden  to  interpret  this  or  that  text,  or
hundreds  of  texts,  diiferently  from  what  the  fathers
have  done,  provided  still  they  keep  within  the
analogy  of  faith,  and  presume  not  to  raise  any  new
doctrine. Neither  are  they  altogether  restrained
from  teaching  any  thing  new,  provided  it  be  offered
as  an  opinion  only,  or  an  inferior  truth,  and  not
pressed,  as  necessary,  upon  the  people. For  it  was
thought  that  there  could  be  no  necessary  article  of
faith  or  doctrine  now  drawn  from  Scripture,  but
what  the  ancients  had  drawn  out  before  from  the
same  Scripture :  to  say  otherAvise,  would  impl}?  that
the  ancients  had  failed  universally  in  necessaries,
which  is  morally  absurd. From  this  account  it  may
appear  that  the  Church  of  England  is  exactly  in  the
same  sentiments  which  I  have  been  pleading  for ;
and,  indeed,  if  there  be  any  Church  now  in  the  world
which  truly  reverences  antiquity,  and  pays  a  proper
regard  to  it,  it  is  this  Church. 