CHAPTER XI. HISTORICAL NOTICES OF SUBSCRIPTION Purport of subscription. I T does not fall in with the design of the present publication to enlarge upon the ethical meaning of subscription, nor to adjudicate in respect of the Articles before us, whether it must be viewed as extending to the positive adoption of every tenet there propounded, or whether it imply no more than a general obligation on the part of the subscriber to keep himself within definite limits in his treatment of controverted topics. Though the latter view has been occasionally advanced by men of the highest reputation', the former would seem to be more consistent with the nature and intention of the Articles as well as with the ground which the Church has occupied in the Canons of 15712. The subscription of the clergy to Formularies of Faith is exacted with the hope of securing a similarity of doctrine in those who have deliberately undertaken the office of public teachers. It must accordingly involve their appropriation of the Articles as the exponent of their individual opinions, so far as they bear upon subjects which are authoritatively determined in that series; and while in this way obliging the clergyman to a full and positive faith, subscription is also the act by which he formally renounces the errors and corruptions which are there either censured or proscribed. It does not indeed assume that every single definition is capable of the same kind of proof, or that all are in the same way needful to 1 e. g. Bramhall, Works, II. 201, and elsewhere; Oxf. 1842: but cf. Bennett, c. XXXIV. on this and other similar passages. 2Articuli illi... haud dubie selecti sunt ex sacris libris Veteris et Novi Testamenti, et cum cœlesti doctrina quæ in illis continetur per omnia congruunt.' Cardwell's Synod. 1. 127. salvation, and necessary terms of communion for the layman; but even with respect to those statements which have been viewed as no more than probable opinions, or which are in truth only matters of history and of morals, the candidate for holy orders must certify his own willingness to shape his teaching by the public standard, and to yield his unwavering assent to the fitness of the whole collection. interpreting The mode of interpreting the Articles has been Mode of made a further subject of discussion from the time of the Articles. their first appearance1; one man claiming to subscribe with the mental reservation- so far as they are in my opinion agreeable to the holy Scriptures;' a second, questioning the obligation of the test where it may seem to have varied from the language of an older school or system; but reluctant as we may be to stigmatize the subscriber of this kind as disloyal to the Church, or regardless of his own character and position, the claim to such an exercise of 'private judgment' is certainly incompatible with the health and continuity of all religious associations. The following canons of interpretation, which have the sanction of some distinguished living prelates, appear to be more reasonable in themselves and more suited to the nature of the document for which they are intended: First, to study the history of the period out of which the Articles were originally produced. Secondly, to read them in this light, approximating as nearly as possible to the point of view which was occupied by the leading compilers. Thirdly, to weigh the language of the Articles in its plain and grammatical sense (i. e. in the sense which it bore in the Edwardine and Elizabethan periods of 1 See above, pp. 112, 201. 2 Bp Conybeare (Sermon on 1 Tim. vi. 3, 4) characterizes the former view as 'trifling with common sense as much as with common honesty.' The same principle was deliberately stated passim. Subscription first publickly enjoined the Church), bestowing on it 'the just and favourable construction, which ought to be allowed to all human writings, especially such as are set forth by authority.' Fourthly, in case of vagueness in the language of the Articles, or (as might be expected from their history) of comparative silence touching some theological topic, to ascertain the doctrine of the Church of England, by consulting the rest of her symbolical writings-the Prayer-Book, the Ordinal, the Homilies and Canons. Fifthly, where all these sources have been tried, without gaining explicit information as to the purport of any Article, to yield our assent to the inferences which the catholic doctors and ancient bishops' have gathered on that point out of the sacred Scriptures; according to the recommendation of the Canon in which the Articles of Religion were originally enjoined. The first occasion which called for an exercise of these principles occurred in the years 1551 and 1552, June 19, 1553. when the Edwardine Articles were put in circulation at least by some of the reforming prelates, for the subscription of the English clergy'. This, however, was done without any public authority either of the Church or of the civil power, and was not unfrequently resisted by the Romanizing party; but a royal mandate of June 19, 1553, made subscription imperative on all (including the students in the University of Cambridge), at the expiration of six weeks from the date of its appearance. By this means all the actual incumbents were constrained to subscribe on pain of deprivation, and a similar test was provided for those who might in future be appointed to any office in the Church2. But the death of Edward interrupted the circulation of this mandate, and subscription to the Articles was accordingly abandoned for a period of eighteen years. In the meanwhile, however, Gardiner had profited by the example which had been set by his rival Hooper; and on forwarding his series of fifteen Articles to the University of Cambridge, he took the pre1 Sce above, 83-86. 2 See above, p. 82, note (3). caution of enjoining that they should be punctually subscribed by the students before admission to degrees1. from 1559 to During the early years of the reign of Elizabeth Intermitted (1559-1571) the clergy, on entering their benefices, 1571. very generally accepted a test of doctrine embodied in Eleven Articles;' being commanded on the authority of the bishops, without any formal order of Convocation, to read this document on two Sundays of the year, after the Gospel for the day. The same was also prescribed in Ireland after the year 1566, but in neither country was attention drawn distinctly to the present list of Articles till 1571, excepting so far as the signatures of the members of the Synod, by whom the Edwardine Articles were revised, was a recognition of the principle of subscription. Parliament renews the necessity of subscription. At the later date two measures, independent in The Act of their origin and operation, were adopted for promoting 13 Eliz. c. 12. uniformity of doctrine, and for excluding all those from the ministry of the Church who were unwilling to acquiesce in the fitness of this test, as well as of the Elizabethan Prayer-Book. The first measure, originating in the House of Commons, and resulting in the Act 13 Eliz. c. 12, required 'every one under the degree of a bishop, which doth or shall pretend to be a priest or minister of God's holy Word and Sacraments, by reason of any other form of institution, consecration or ordering than the form set forth by Parliament in the time of the late king, of most worthy memory, King Edward the Sixth, or now used in the reign of our most gracious sovereign lady, before the feast of the Nativity of Christ next following, shall in the presence of the bishop, or guardian of the spiritualities of some one diocese where he hath or shall have ecclesiastical living, declare his assent, and subscribe to all the Articles of Religion, which only concern the confession of the true Christian faith, and the doctrine of the Sacraments...and shall bring from such bishop or guardian of spiritualities in writing under his seal authentick, a testimonial of such assent and subscription; and 1 Wilkins, IV. 127. Was any limitation openly on some Sunday, in the time of the public service aforenoon, in every Church where by reason of any ecclesiastical living he ought to attend, read both the said testimonial and the said Articles.' The early portion of this clause was clearly designed to meet the case of the ministers who had been ordained during the previous reign, while the Ordinal of King Edward was superseded; and on this ground it had to encounter the reprobation of the 'Admonitioners to the Parliament,' which was pubthis Act as to lished in the following year: but whether the Articles, to which subscription was exacted from the future candidates for ecclesiastical preferment, were all the thirty-nine of the present series, or those which can be regarded as purely dogmatical', are questions very difficult to answer. the number of Articles subscribed? Affirmative evidence. In a following clause of the Act it is enjoined that no person shall hereafter be admitted to any benefice with cure, 'except he then be of the age of three and twenty years at the least and a deacon, and shall first have subscribed the said Articles in presence of the ordinary,'-where the ambiguity of which we complained above, is no less strikingly apparent. 2 Bennett and other writers have contended that the word 'only' was not designed to be restrictive but demonstrative, declaring the nature of the subjects handled in the Articles which exclusively concern the true Christian faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments. But this argument is at the best precarious, and when we bear in mind that such a distinction was actually drawn as early as the introduction of the bill, by its principal promoters3, and revived in the Admonition to the Parliament in the course of the following year, and in the Convocation of 1 The Articles relating to faith and doctrine (so far as these may be separated from the rest), are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22. Bp Gibson's Codex, 321. 2 c. XXII. cf. Collier, II. 531. 3 See above, pp. 145, 146. 4 See Whitgift's Defense of the Answere to the Admonition, 776, Lond. 1574. Elsewhere, however, it would seem as if the Ad |