Untitled - Electric Scotland

t86o-64] CORRESPONDENCE WITH DR. TEMPLE 295
in hopes that you would have felt with me that the Archbishops
and Bishops letter had so changed the state of the case that
you, and not you only, but the other essayists also, might have
publicly reiterated their demand to be judged each by his own
essay alone, and explained how far you approved or disapproved
of each other s essays. In the judgment of most thinking men,
though they might disapprove of what you had written, you
would, I believe, have been judged to have yourself kept within
the fair limits of the Church s liberty, while, perhaps, all the
writers, certainly three, including yourself, having vindicated
themselves from having their writings explained by a reference to
a gloss derived from the writings of others, would have stood
somewhat better in the estimate of those whose opinions are
worth considering. I can see nothing in such a declaration that
could have been fairly considered as ungenerous ; and indeed I
believe it is called for by the present aspect of things. Seven
persons write without concert in one volume. For a long time
the volume is silently disliked ; at last the feeling against it be
comes very strong. The public insists upon judging it as one
whole, interpreting the words of each writer by reference to each
of the other six. Addresses pour in upon the Archbishops and
Bishops, stating the strong feeling against the general teaching of
the book considered as a whole. You will not, I trust, on
reflection justify yourself in calling those who thus memorialised
the Bishops a mob. Many of them were thoughtful and pious
men, whose best feelings were deeply wounded, and were filled
with not unnatural anxiety.
"
Certain opinions, quite inadmissible within the Church of
England, are asserted in some of these addresses to be distinctly
advocated by the book, while other addresses assert that the
teaching, taken as a whole, though it may not distinctly advocate,
implies these dangerous opinions. The Bishops feel themselves
bound to declare their condemnation of these opinions. What
more natural then for any of the writers who can, now to state
that the opinions in question are not advocated by them ? that
they have been misunderstood ; and to demand to be judged
each by his own statements, and not by the general teaching of
a book, the tone and aggregate effect of which you, at least in
your conscience, disapprove, and which you are anxious shall
not, as a whole, be regarded as an exposition of your opinions.
"It is in vain to say that the disclaimer in the preface was