But whilst so many explanations have since been given of the meaning in which this observation was made by the Bishop of Norwich, and so many insinuations levelled at the Bishop of London for not choosing to see it, I am disposed to think that his Lordship did not feel himself called upon to dive into the thoughts of the Bishop of Norwich, but intending to give a direct negative to an unqualified affirmative, meant to re-repudiate the notion that “the church of England, _was_ founded on liberty of conscience, and the right of private judgment,” and to assert with reference to the well-known _fruits_ of such a principle, that the Church was founded on “truth.” But the Bishop of Norwich contends that the expression is an “incorrect” one, and that had he been speaking of “the only true foundation of the true Catholic Church itself,” he should have said that it was “founded on the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone.” {24a} The Bishop of London could scarcely have thought the _periphrasis_ necessary, considering before whom he was speaking, he would probably reply to the imputed incorrectness of the expression, that he always considered the foundation of which the Bishop of Norwich here speaks, to be “truth,” and that the Church was the interpreter of the _Apostles_, and _Prophets_, and _Jesus Christ_, or in other words of the _Gospel of Christ_. He meant also I should suppose, to repudiate the notion, that _the Reformation of the Church_ proceeded on such a principle, and in effect to affirm that from the days of Archbishop Cranmer to these of Archbishop Howley, no such principle had ever been recognized by the _Church_, as that of admitting “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment,” to have any _directive_ influence in Church affairs; a fact, which if not sufficiently proved by the mandate of Edward the Sixth, enforcing under the penalties of “sequestration, suspension, excommunication, and such _other coercion_, as to ordinaries or others having ecclesiastical jurisdiction, shall seem convenient, straitly charging and commanding his loving subjects to observe the injunctions of 1547,” {24b}—would be amply established by your own observations respecting _Bishop Hooper_, for the sending of the good old man to prison in the matter of the vestments, and that by the _Reformers_ themselves, would seem but little to favour the notion that our reformed Church was founded on “liberty of conscience and the right of private judgment.” But that I may not also be accused of misapprehending his Lordship’s meaning, I will here quote his explanation of the sense in which the observation was made—