date for the future, before taking his degree, should subscribe the Articles of Religion; and in 1576, a further law extended the application of the test to every person above the age of sixteen, upon entering his name at any College or Hall. The powers of both the Universities were subsequently enlarged1 in 1616 by directions from King James I. enjoining that all persons on admission to degrees should sign not only the Articles of Religion, but also the two other statements of the 36th Canon. But in reference to Cambridge, if not Oxford also, it was ruled by the Grand Committee for Religion' (Jan. 19, 1641), that to exact subscription from the students was against the law and liberty of the subject, and ought not to be pressed in future on any one whatever2. Restoration "subscription. But on reaching the close of that gloomy interval which Effect of the next ensued, we find that on the Restoration of Charles II., to re-establish subscription to the Articles was universally imposed upon the clergy with more stringency than ever. Close conformity to rules and rubrics was now peremptorily ordered by Sheldon and his colleagues, while the 36th of the Jacobean Canons was obeyed by minister and prelate with unswerving punctuality. Among the other proofs of vigilance, which rulers both in Church and State thought necessary to exert, it may be noticed, that the Act of Uniformity, 13 and 14 Car. II. c. 4, requires every head of a college to subscribe unto the Nine and Thirty Articles of Religion, mentioned in the statute made in the 13th year of the reign of the late Queen Elizabeth... and declare his unfeigned assent and consent unto, and approbation of, the said Articles:' and in a subsequent proviso (§ xxx.) it enacts, with the intention of removing every species of evasion, that 'all such subscriptions shall be construed as extending to the Ordinal mentioned in the six and thirtieth Article, any thing in the said Article, or in any statute, 1 Three years earlier the King had prescribed subscription to the three Articles of the 36th Canon in the case of candidates for divinity degrees, but the rule was now made 2 Rushworth, IV. 149. Subsequent attempts to remove it. act or canon heretofore had or made, to the contrary thereof, in any wise notwithstanding.' The Act of Toleration, we have seen already, limited the number of the Articles to which 'dissenting ministers' were still required to subscribe; but in the application of that test of doctrine to the clergy, it has undergone no change whatever from the period of the Restoration to the present time. We should remark, indeed, that one large section of English clergymen, especially about the middle of the last century, were loudly crying for emancipation from the 'fetters of subscription.' Their demand was not unlimited toleration' as dissenters, but unlimited licence,' while discharging their ministerial functions. The depriving of Nonjurors had too frequently involved the introduction, in high places, of a class of teachers whose ideas ill accorded with the temper of the Prayer-Book, or the voice which other Formularies were continually uplifting in behalf of dogmatic truth. The controversies with Deism, which broke out in the succeeding period, were the means of lowering the tone of clerical society, or limiting men's interest too exclusively to wants of their own age; while in proportion as the study of patristic literature decayed, a school of Arian and Socinian clergy had sprung up in England, absolutely denying the necessity of faith in fundamental doctrines of the Church, or striving to reduce the plain credenda of the Gospel to the smallest possible number. It is painful to record, that not a few of these writers were willing, in the first instance, to encounter the 'formality,' as they esteemed it, of subscribing Articles to which they rendered no allegiance, either as a step to ordination or the honours and emoluments of office. They contended that these Articles may conscientiously be subscribed in any sense in which they themselves, by their own interpretation, could reconcile them to Scripture, without regard to the meaning and intention, either of the persons who first compiled, or who now imposed them'.' 1 Waterland, Case of Arian Subscription: Works, II. 264, 265. ment of 1771, Blackburne. But the hollowness of such a principle was very soon discovered, and its chief abettors next resorted to a bolder scheme for getting rid of oaths and declarations, which were challenging their personal fitness for the work of their high callings. Headed by Archdeacon Blackburne, The movethe unscrupulous author of the Confessional,' those agi- headed by tators argued that the doctrines of the Christian religion cannot possibly be made clearer by human compilations or Articles of faith; that to demand a full and undoubted assent to propositions, in themselves very doubtful and obscure, is to tyrannize over the understanding of subscribers; that to disqualify a person on account of his religious scruples is to subject him to pains and penalties, and that bare compliance in the use of an established Liturgy without the aid of Articles of Religion, or indeed of any test of doctrine whatsoever, is security enough for all the decencies. of public worship, as well as for the peaceful continuation of the present Church-establishment1. And as the press was teeming for a while with publications in support of these sweeping measures, the objections to religious tests assumed a formidable aspect under the guidance of the same Archdeacon Blackburne, who had been the foremost instrument in stirring up the general agitation. In 1771, he published his 'Proposals for an Application to Parliament, for relief in the matter of subscription to the Liturgy and Thirty-nine Articles of the Established Church of England';' and the way being already paved with great ability in his earlier productions, there were learned and conscientious clergy' at his beck to aid him in his present undertaking. A petition3, known 1 See these arguments soberly stated in a Letter to the Members of the Honourable House of Commons, by a Christian Whig, Lond. 1772. The Arian character of the movement is peculiarly manifest in 'Reasons humbly offered for composing a new set of Articles of Religion; with XXI. Articles proposed as a specimen for improvement,' Lond. 1771. In this 'improved set,' there is no allu- 2 Works, VII. I, seqq. Camb. 3 See it at length; Ibid. pp. 15 seq. These Petitioners, however, adopted the old principle to some extent by proposing to subscribe to the Scriptures as set forth in our Defeated by the House of Commons. as the 'Feathers' Tavern Petition,' was accordingly prepared and introduced into the House of Commons, Feb. 6, 1772. It set out by affirming 'the undoubted right of Protestants to interpret Scripture for themselves;' it pleaded that habitual violence was done to this principle by exacting the assent of candidates for orders to Articles and Confessions of faith drawn up by fallible men;' and, after dwelling at some length on other grievances, submitted the cause of the petitioners, 'under God, to the wisdom and justice of a British parliament, and the piety of a Protestant king.' It was a happy day for England when this feverish struggle of the Arian party to escape from obligations they had freely undertaken, was defeated in the House of Commons. By whatever motives such decision had been mainly influenced, whether by 'disinclination to religious changes',' 'by the fashion of the times2,' or else by clear anticipation of results which must have followed from the passing of this measure, the petition was repulsed upon the threshold, by 217 to 71, and Blackburne left to pour out his regrets in a new series of 'Reflections' on the fate of his darling project. Since that crisis there has been no organized attack upon our Articles of Religion, nor, indeed, on any of the tests of doctrine promulgated by the English Church. In spite of the excessive coldness which pervaded our communion at the close of the last century; in spite of individual scruples, and of laxer theories of subscription which revive from time to time, our Formularies have retained their hold on the affections both of priest and people, and are answering the salutary end for which they were compiled. Authorized Version: but such a man speak the language of another.' Blackburne, Reflections on the Fate of a Petition, &c. Works, VII. 37. And now, perhaps, there is more hope than ever, that the Articles will steadily resist the undermining of indifferentism, as well as the more open onslaughts of heresy and unbelief1. A flame of holier zeal is being kindled in the hearts of churchmen, and, commencing at the heathenish masses of this island, is diffused from year to year through the dependencies of our gigantic empire. There, as here, while stimulating higher aims and countenancing every project for the social and material good of the community, it wakens a fresh love for the distinctive truths of supernatural religion. It is widening our Christian sympathies, and quickening in us the perception of our close affinity to all the members of the Christian brotherhood. It urges us to emulate the line of ancient worthies into some of whose best labours we have freely entered; and if only it be calm and sober, patient and discriminating, as it certainly is active and expansive, it will ultimately, with God's blessing, make this Church of England the joy of all the earth. 1 It is also gratifying to remark that with respect to tests of doctrine, a wonderful reaction has taken place of late in Germany. At a meeting of the Prussian Kirchenbund (or confederation of churches composing the Evangelische Unirte Kirche of Germany) the following resolution was carried in September, 1853, by more than 2,100 voices against six dissentients: The members of the German Evangelical Kirchentag hereby make known, that they with heart and voice hold and profess the Confession presented by the Evangelical Princes and Estates to the Emperor Charles V. at the imperial diet of Augs burg in the year 1530, and hereby publicly testify their accord with it, as the oldest and simplest common record of publicly acknowledged Evangelical doctrine in Germany.' In commenting upon this act, a writer in the Evangelische KirchenZeitung, No. XI (1854), forcibly remarks: Dass eine freie Versammlung von solcher Ausdehnung sich wieder zur Augsburgischen Confession bekannt, und damit dem Teufel von Neuem entsagt hat, lässt hoffen, dass diese wenigstens bei den Dienern der Kirche bald wieder vollständig in ihre ursprünglichen Rechte eintreten wird.' |