claim her authority. It is true, as a late Dignitary. of the Establishment observes, (1) that When Protestants first withdrew from the communion of the Church of Rome, the principles they went upon were such as these: Christ, by his gospel, hath called all men to the liberty, the glorious liberty, of the sons of God, and restored them to the privilege of working out their own salvation by their own understanding and endeavours. For this work sufficient means are afforded in the Scriptures, without having recourse to the doctrines and commandments of men. Consequently, faith and conscience, having no dependence upon man's laws, are not to be compelled by man's authority.'-What now was the consequence of this fundamental Rule of Protestantism? Why, that endless variety of Doctrines, errors, and impieties, mentioned above; followed by those tumults, wars, rebellions, and anarchy, with which the history of every country is filled, that embraced the new Religion. It is readily supposed that the Princes, and other Rulers of those countries, ecclesiastical as well as civil, however hostile they might be to the ancient Church, would wish to restrain these disorders, and make their 'subjects adopt the same sentiments with themselves. Hence, in every Protestant State, Articles of Religion, and Confessions of Faith, differing from one another, but each agreeing with the opinion of the Princes and Rulers of the State for the time being, were enacted by law, and enforced by excommunication, deprivation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death.

(1) Archdeacon Blackburn in his celebrated Confessional, p. 1.

These latter punishments indeed, however frequently they were exercised by Protestants against Protestants, as well as against Catholics, during the 16th and 17th centuries, (1) have not been resorted to during the last hundred years; but the terrible sentence of excommunication, which includes outlawry, even now hangs over the head of every Protestant Bishop, as well as other clergyman in this country, (2) who shall interpret those passages of the Gospel concerning Jesus Christ in the sense which, it appears from their writings, a great numher of them entertain; in the mean time none of them can take possession of any living, without subscribing to the 39 Articles, and publicly declaring his unfeigned assent and consent to them, and to every thing contained in the Book of Common Prayer. (3) Thus, by adopting a false Rule of Religion, thinking Protestants are reduced to the cruel extremity of palpably contradicting themselves! They cannot give up the glorious liberty,' as it is called above, of explaining the Bible each one for himself, without, at once, giving up their cause to the Catholics; and they cannot adhere to it, without the above-mentioned fatal consequences, and without the speedy dissolution of their respective churches. Impatient

(1) See the Letter on The Reformation and on Persecution in Letters to a Prebendary. See also Neale's History of the Puritans, Delaune's Narrative, Sewel's History of the Quakers, &c.

(2) See many excommunicating Canons, and particularly one A. D. 1640, against the damnable and cursed heresy of Socinianism, as it is termed in Bishop Sparrow's Collection, p. 355.

(5) 1st Eliz. cap. ii.—14 Car. II. c. 4. Item Canon 36

of the constraint they are under, in being obliged to sign articles of faith which they do not believe, any able clergymen of the establishment have written strongly against them, and have even petitioned Parliament to be relieved from the alleged grievance of subscribing to the professed doctrine of their own Church. (1) On the other hand, the Legislature, foreseeing the consequences which would result from the removal of the obligation, have always rejected their prayer; and the Judges have even refused to admit the following Salvo added to their subscription: 'I assent and consent to the Articles and the Book, as far as these are agreeable to the word of God. (2) In these straits, many of the most able, as well as the most respectable, of the Established Clergy, have been reduced to such sophistry and casuistry, as to move the pity of their very opponents. One of these, the Norrisian Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, (3) as an expedient for excusing his brethren in subscribing to articles which they do not believe, cites the example of the Divines at Geneva, where he says, ' a complete tacit Reformation seems to have taken place. The Genevese have now, in fact, quitted their Calvinistic doctrines, though, in form, they retain them. When the Minister is admitted, he takes an oath of assent to the Scriptures, and professes to teach them according to the Cutechism of

(1) There was such a Petition signed by a great number of Clergymen, and supported by many others in 1772. (2) See Confessional, p. 183.

(3) Lectures in Divinity, delivered in the University of Cambridge, by J. Iley, D. D. as Norrisian Professor, 1797, vol. ii. p. 57.

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Calvin; but this last clause about Calvin, he makes a separate business; speaking lower, or altering his posture, or speaking after a considerable interval.' (1) Such a change of posture or tone of voice in the swearer, our learned Professor considers as sufficient to excuse him from the guilt of prevarication, in swearing contrary to the plain meaning of his oath! It is not, however, intimated that the Professor himself has recourse to this expedient: his particular system is, that the Church of England, like that of Geneva has, of late, undergone a complete tacit Reformation (2)—and hence that the sense of its Articles of faith is to be determined by circumstances.' (3) Thus he adds (referring, I presume, to the Statutes of King's College, Cambridge) the oath: 'I will say so many masses for the soul of Henry VI., may come to mean, I will perform the religious duties required of me!' (4) The celebrated moralist, Dr. Paley, justifies a departure from the original sense of the Articles of Religion subscribed, by an INCONVENIENCE, which is manifest and beyond all doubt!! (5) Archdeacon Powell, Master of St. John's College, defends the English Clergy from the charge of subscribing to what they do not believe; because, he says, 'The crime is impossible; as that cannot be the sense of the Declaration which

(1) Lectures in Divinity, delivered in the University of Cambridge, by J. Hey, D. D. as Norrisian Professor, 1797, vol. ii. p. 57.

(2) Ibid, vol. ii. p. 48, (particularly in its approach to Socinianism, from which he signifies it is divided only by a few unmeaning words)

(3) Ibid. p. 49.

(4) P. 62.

(5) Moral and Polit Philos. He is reported to have said that he could not afford to keep a conscience,

no one imagines to be its sense; nor can that interpretation be erroneous which all have received!' (1) And yet such prelates as Secker, Horsley, Cleaver, Prettyman, with all the Judges, strongly maintain that the literal meaning of the Articles must be strictly adhered to!

I could cite many other dignitaries or leading clergymen of the Establishment, and nearly the whole host of Dissenters, who have had recourse to such quibbles and evasions, in order to get rid of the plain sense of the Articles and Creeds, to which they had solemnly engaged themselves before the Creator, as, I am convinced, they would not make use of in any contract with a fellow creature: but I hasten to take in hand the admired discourses of my friend, Dr. Balguy. He was the champion, the very Achilles, of those who defended the subscription of the 39 Articles, against the petitioners for the abrogation of it, in 1772. And how think you, dear Sir, did he defend it? Not by vindicating the truth of the Articles themselves; much less by any of the quibbles mentioned, or alluded to above; but upon the principle, that an exterior show of uniformity in the Ministers of Religion is necessary for the support of it; and that, therefore, they ought to subscribe and teach the doctrine prescribed to them by the law, whatever they may inwardly think of it. Thus it was that he, and many of his friends, imagined it possible to unite religious liberty with ecclesiastical restrictions. But I will give you the Archdeacon's own words in one of his Charges to. his Clergy. • The Articles, we will say, are not

(1) Serm. on Subscrip.