by De Gerardin, another eminent doctor of that university.  A correspondence of some length ensued, carried on with much friendly and earnest feeling on either side.  Separation from Rome was what the English archbishop chiefly pressed;[306] ’a reformation in other matters would follow of course.’  Writing as he did without any official authority, he was wise enough not to commit himself to any details.  First of all they ought ‘to agree,’ he said, ’to own each other as true brethren and members of the Catholic Christian Church;’ and then the great point would be to acknowledge ’the independence (as to all matters of authority) of every national Church on all others,’ agree with one another, as far as possible, on all matters of moment, and leave free liberty of disagreement on other questions.  He did not see anything in our offices so essentially contrary to their principles, that they need scruple to join in them; and if some alterations were made, we also might join in theirs, on a clear understanding that on all such points of disagreement as the doctrine of transubstantiation, either body of Christians should hold the opinions which it approved.  Upon such terms,[307] two great national Churches might be on close terms of friendly intercommunion notwithstanding great differences on matters not of the first importance, which might well afford to wait ‘till God should bring us to a union in those also.’  Du Pin and De Gerardin replied in much the same spirit.  The former of the two soon after died; and the incipient negotiation, which was never very likely to be followed by any practical results, fell through.  In fact, the resuscitated spirit of independence which had begun to stir in France was itself shortlived.

The correspondence between the English primate and the doctors of the Sorbonne is an episode which stands by itself, quite apart from any other incidents in the Church history of the time.  It bears a superficial resemblance to the overtures made by some of the English and Scotch Nonjurors to the Eastern Church.  There was, however, an essential difference between them.  Without any dishonour to Nonjuring principles, and without passing any judgment upon the grounds of their separation, it must be acknowledged that those of them who renounced the communion of the English Church accepted a sectarian position.  They had gained a comparative uniformity of opinion, at the entire expense of that breadth and expansiveness which only national Churches are found capable of.  Connection with the Eastern Church, if it could have been carried out (though the difficulties in the way of this were far greater than they were at all aware of), would simply have indicated a movement of their whole body in one direction only, and, in proportion as it was successful, would have alienated them more than ever from those whose religious and ecclesiastical sympathies were of a very different kind.  Such communion, on the other hand, of independent national Churches