fessor Driver had been guilty of apostasy in the technical sense of that word, and I gather that you reply that such is your opinion."1

On March 8th you wrote:

66

". . . I am making careful preparation to meet the exact position which Your Grace describes as held by yourself. I am not dealing with technical points, nor shall I set down anything but what any educated Englishman can easily understand at sight....

The foregoing extracts will, I think, explain sufficiently the origin of your published "letter."

I am,

(Signed)

Yours very truly,

RANDALL CANTUAR:

1 See p. vi. The word "apostasy" attracted my attention, being new to me in a legal sense. It is not the word I should myself have chosen to describe the position, but I accepted it as given in the Lawbook where I found it, without presuming to vouch for its accuracy myself. See the words of the statute cited on pp. 21, 22, and the note there. [C. H. W.]

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

THE above "Initial Preface" makes clear what the Archbishop desired to explain. I should not myself have ventured to say so much about the origin of the book. I have only to state now how the lines laid down in this correspondence have affected the form of my work.

I. As to its legal, rather than literary, shape.

I could not forget that I was really putting a case before one of our chief Judges as well as the Archbishop of the Established Church of England. Hence I felt that I must begin from the Thirtynine Articles, which are the Law of the Church in all matters of Doctrine,—and not least as to the sufficiency and supremacy of the Holy Scriptures. And in what might be

called drawing an indictment of Professor Driver, a teacher appointed by the Crown, I felt obliged to put the matter into legal shape. I therefore cited first the Rule of Doctrine for the Established Church, and next the published writings of the Professor, where they appear to contradict it.

This way of presenting the matter may seem to some readers the weak point of my case. They may say, Who cares for the Thirty-nine Articles? Why not go back to the primary facts?

In reply to this, I would say:

That I have cited the Articles to prove one point only, and that absolutely fundamental to the whole business,-that in all matters where the Bible lays down anything as law or fact, the Church of England recognises its authority as supreme. That has been our position for more than three hundred years? Are we to abandon it to-day?

The position of the Higher Critics and of Professor Driver is, that the Testimony of the Bible is not to be received in all

matters, but only in some. But I am not acquainted with any precise criterion of distinction between matters in which the authority of the Bible is to be received as final, and matters in which it is not.

This is not the Law of the Church of England as laid down by the Articles, and I thought it my duty to show that it is not. So far as to why I began with the Articles.

II. Next as to what some may think the personal character of my letter and allegations, in regard to the Professor whose writings I have impugned.

1. It has been thought that I desire to "arraign" Professor Driver. That is not So. It is much better that he should arraign himself, if he can be induced to do so. I do not say that he intends all that follows from his writings. But I heard only a few days ago from one who knows Berlin well, that Driver is constantly quoted by German teachers, and is regarded as a strength to their position and teaching.