t they considered to be essential truths.
The Patriarchs would have been glad of intercommunion on their own
terms, but in the true spirit of the Eastern Church, would concede
nothing. It was 'not lawful either to add any thing or take away any
thing' from 'what has been defined and determined by ancient Fathers and
the Holy Oecumenical Synods from the time of the apostles and their
holy successors, the Fathers of our Church, to this time. We say that
those who are disposed to agree with us must submit to them, with
sincerity and obedience, and without any scruple or dispute. And this is
a sufficient answer to what you have written.' Perhaps the result might
not have been very different, even if the overtures in question had been
backed by the authority of the whole Anglican Church--a communion which
at this period was universally acknowledged as the leader of Protestant
Christendom. And even if there were less immutability in Eastern
counsels, Bishop Campbell and his coadjutors could scarcely have been
sanguine in hoping for any other issue. Truth and right, as they
remarked in a letter to the Czar, do not depend on numbers; but if the
Oriental synod were thoroughly aware how exceedingly scanty was 'the
remnant' with which they were treating, and how thoroughly apart from
the main current of English national life, it was highly improbable that
they would purchase so minute an advance towards a wider unity by
authorising what would certainly seem to them innovations dangerously
opposed to all ancient precedent. It must be some far greater and deeper
movement that will first tempt the unchanging Eastern Church to approve
of any deviation from the trodden path of immemorial tradition.

There was great variety of individual character in the group of
Churchmen who have formed the subject of this chapter. They did not all
come into contact with one another, and some were widely separated by
the circumstances of their lives. The one fact of some being Jurors and
some Nonjurors was quite enough in itself to make a vast difference of
thoughts and sympathies among those who had taken different sides. But
they were closely united in what they held to be the divinely appointed
constitution of the Church. All looked back to primitive times as the
unalterable model of doctrine, order, and government; all were firmly
persuaded that the English Reformation was wholly based on a restoration
of the ancient pattern, and had fallen short o