by the entire body
of Catholic dogma formulated and accepted universally in the
pre-Reformation Church.

The Anglican documents, to be sure, speak constantly of the "Primitive
Church," but they do not anywhere define what they mean by that; and
frequently, by their appeal to the "undivided Church," and to "general
Councils," they seem to include in their undefined term much more than
is commonly understood. In any case, the Church has no special authority
because it is _primitive_: its authority results not from its being
primitive but from its being _Church_. The only point of the Anglican
appeal would be the universal acceptance of a given doctrine. Such
universal acceptance must be taken as proof of its primitiveness, that
is, of its being contained, explicitly or implicitly, in the original
deposit of faith. The Anglican Church was content with the summing up of
this Faith in the Three Creeds, and attempted to formulate no new Greed
of her own--the XXXIX Articles are not strictly a Creed: they are not
articles of Faith but of Religion. But the very history of the Creeds
implies that they are not final, that is, complete, but that they are a
summing up of the Catholic Religion to date. There are truths which the
circumstances of the Church in the Conciliar period had not brought into
prominence which later events compelled the Church to express its mind
upon. Such a truth is that of the Real Presence of our Lord in the
Sacrament of the Altar. This truth had attained explicit acceptance
throughout the Church before the Reformation, sufficiently witnessed by
the liturgies in use. It is also embodied in the Anglican liturgy. If
anyone thinks the language of the Anglican Church doubtful on this
point, the principles enunciated by the Church compel interpretation in
accord with the mind of the universal Church. There are other truths
which are binding on us on the same basis of universal consent, but I am
not seeking to apply the principle in every case but only to
illustrate it.

II. There is another class of truths or doctrines widely held in
Christendom, which yet cannot be classed as dogmas of the faith. Such a
doctrine is that of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin
Mary. This doctrine has been made of faith in the Roman communion, but
has not yet ecumenical acceptance, and therefore may be doubted without
sin by members of the Greek or Anglican Churches. What we need to avoid,
as the Lambeth Conference