Page:Tracts for the Times Vol 3.djvu/83

Rh and to turn us in affection and sympathy towards the afflicted Church, which has been the "Mother of our new-birth." They will but lead us to confess that she is in a measure in that position which we fully ascribe to her Latin sister, in captivity; and they will make us understand and duly use the prayers of our wisest doctors and rulers, such as Bishop Andrews, that God would please to "look down upon His holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in her captivity; to visit her once more with His salvation, and to bring her out to serve Him in the beauty of holiness ."

4. A further antecedent reason for anticipating practical imperfections in the Anglican system, (and to those mainly allusion is here made), arises from the circumstance that our Articles, so far as distinct from the ancient creeds, are scarcely more than protests against specific existing errors of the 16th century, and neither are nor profess to be a system of doctrine. It is not unnatural however that they should have practically superseded that previous Catholic teaching altogether, which they were but modifying in parts, and, though but corrections, should be mistaken for the system corrected.

These reasonings prepare us to acquiesce in much of plausible objection being admissible against our Church, even in the judgment of those who love and defend it. When, however, we proceed to examine what its defects really are, we shall find them to differ from those of Rome in this all-important respect, which indeed has already been in part hinted, that they are but omissions. Rome maintains positive errors, and that under the