1575', and urged still more emphatically on behalf of the Puritans in the reign of James I.2, it must be allowed that the statute was regarded, at least by many who were in search of a pretext for non-conformity, as binding to no more than one class of statements. Selden3 has alluded to the same fact in the following passage of his Table-Talk:''There is a secret concerning the Articles,' he writes; of late ministers have subscribed to all of them, but by Act of Parliament that confirmed them, they ought only to subscribe to those Articles which contain matter of faith and the doctrine of the Sacraments....But bishop Bancroft, in the Convocation held in king James's days, he began it, that ministers should subscribe to three things, to the king's supremacy, to the Common-Prayer, and to the Thirty-nine Articles; though many of them do not contain matter of faith.' 66 evidence. The writers on the other side have alleged a re- Negative markable opinion from the Institutes of Sir Edward Coke, which is couched in the following terms: 'I heard Wray, Chief Justice in the King's Bench, Pasch. 23 Eliz., report that where one Smyth subscribed to the said Thirty-nine Articles of Religion with this addition so far forth as the same were agreeable to the Word of God," it was resolved by him and all the Judges of England, that this subscription was not according to the statute of 13 Eliz. Because the statute required an absolute subscription, and this subscription made it conditional; and that this Act was made for avoiding of diversity of opinions, &c. and by this addition the party might by his own private opinion take some of them to be against the Word of God, and by this means diversity of opinions should not be avoided, which was the scope of the statute,—and the very Act monitioners did not themselves recognize this distinction. They speak of the 'pontificall, which is annexed to the booke of common-prayer and whereunto subscribing to the Articles we must subscribe also.' B. v. 1 Wilkins, IV. 284. 2 See above, p. 200, note (2). 3 Table Talk,' Articles,' 3, 4. Lond. 1789. Proceedings of the Convocation, 1571, on itself made touching subscription hereby of none effect 1.' Now this opinion of the Lord Chief Justice, soon after the statute came into operation, is certainly entitled to great weight, but it seems to rest solely on a determination that no such reserve or restriction was easily reconcileable with the object of the Church, instead of being drawn from a careful examination of the wording of the Act itself, and the known views of its leading promoters. The practice also of the high commissioners before whom delinquents were summoned was in favour of the rigorous interpretation; but while this fact is of the greatest service in ascertaining the general feeling of the Church at that period, it does not clear away the ambiguity of language observable in the passages above mentioned. As late also as the opening of the reign of Charles II. the king himself appears to have recognised a distinction between articles of doctrine and articles of discipline: yet in the Act of Uniformity (13 and 14 Car. II. c. 4), such a difference is wholly abandoned, and there is now no colourable plea3 for seeking shelter in a limitatory clause, however plausibly it might have been urged anterior to the passing of that Act. But while the House of Commons were thus exacting a subscription to the Articles (1) of all the Subscription. clergy who had not been ordained according to the Edwardine form, and (2) of all future incumbents upon admission to their cures, the Convocation of the same year was actively engaged in devising a second and auxiliary provision. They enjoined' that all persons approved as public preachers, should have their licenses renewed only on the condition that they subscribe the Articles of Religion as agreed on at the Synod, and pledge themselves to preach in accordance with that standard. In like manner every minister of a church before entering upon his sacred functions is enjoined' to give a satisfactory proof of the orthodoxy of his creed by subscribing (not some, but) all the Articles of Religion;-where the prelates had obviously an eye to the notion that all the requirements of the Church were included in the recognition of what were deemed the doctrinal Articles; and consequently, if subscription to the rest could not have been legally enforced, it is indisputable that the whole work was now binding on the clergy, at least in foro conscientiæ. the Non-con It may have been this consideration which moved Resistance of the commissioners to demand the subscriptions of formists. 1572 without any limitation or reserve: and the obligatory imposition of the Articles in general would form the crying grievance of the Puritans, and the cause of the formidable agitations which sprang up in every quarter. The earliest symptom of discontent appears in the following extract2: Whereas immediately after the laste Parliament, holden at Westminster, begon in anno 1570, and ended in anno 1571, the ministers of God's holy Word and Sacraments were called before her maiesties hygh commyssyoners and enforced to subscribe vnto the Articles, if they would kepe theyr places and liuyngs, and some for refusing to subscribe3 vnbrotherly and vncharitably intreated, and from theyr offyces and places removed: May it please therefore thys honorable and high court of Parliament, in consideration of the premises to take a view of such causes as then dyd withhold, and now doth, the foresayd ministers from subscribing and consenting vnto those foresaid Articles,' &c. 1 Cardwell, Synod. 1. 120. 2 Pref. to the First 'Admonition to the Parliament.' 3 The number actually deprived for non-subscription was about one hundred. Neal, I. 284: cf. Preface to Rogers, On This attack on the general principle of subscription without regard to the nature of the document propounded, was speedily followed by others of the same unsparing tone. The wound grows desperate,' they cried', 'and wants a corrosive; 'tis no time to blanch Laxity of the or sew pillows under men's elbows.' Yet instead of pressing sub- meeting this furious onslaught and repelling the demon prelates in scription: of non-conformity at its first invasion of the Church, too many of the Elizabethan prelates, after a few feeble efforts, sunk down into lethargic acquiescence, or even fostered the growth of the evils which were to issue in the Great Rebellion. The whole of the primacy of Grindal was marked by his tenderness in favour of the Non-conformists, and in his later years he seems to have almost wholly neglected to press the Articles, or any other test of doctrine, upon the clergy of his province". The result was that when Whitgift succeeded to his post in 1583, he found it necessary to enter upon more stringent measures for preserving the Church from the rising inundations of the Puritanic principle. He accordingly proposed a number of declarations which are known as 'Whitgift's Articles,' and which finally received the sanction of the Church in the 36th of the Jacobean Canons. They were designed for all who had been admitted to the cure of souls3, as well as for all who should in future be licensed to preach, read, catechize, minister the sacraments, or execute any other ecclesiastical function. The first relates to the royal supremacy, the second to the Prayer-Book and Ordinal, while the third immediately bearing on our subject is expressed in the following terms: 'That I allow the Book of Articles of Religion agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy, in the Convocation holden at London in the year of our Lord God 1562, and set forth by her Majesty's authority, and do believe all the Articles therein contained to be agreeable to the Word 3 Pref. to Rogers, On the Articles. 1 Neal, I. 285. 2 Fuller, Church Hist. Bk. IX. p. 138. ed. fol. 4 Bennett, 398, 399. of God. name',' In witness whereof I have subscribed my of the Puri- tans. 'The brethren,' as the Puritan party was now Indignation generally designated, were so pressed by this vigorous measure of the Primate2, that the year 1584 is noted in their annals as the woful year of subscription"." Nor was the indignation excited at this period confined to the bosoms of the clergy. The House of Commons also, which was now more and more strongly tainted with the democracy of Geneva, addressed a petition to the Lords in 1585, desiring that 'hereafter no oath or subscription be tendred to any that is to enter into the ministry, or to any benefice with cure, or to any place of preaching, but such only as be expressly prescribed by the statutes of this realm',' &c. relaxation tion. Yet the impulsive efforts of one true-hearted Continued prelate appear to have had little force in curing the of subscriplaxity of discipline which prevailed in the Church at large. Non-conformity went on silently increasing, and that with the connivance of the bishops, until it leavened the whole lump. How carelessly subscription is exacted in England,' was the lamentation of Bancroft in 1593, 'I am ashamed to report. Such is the retchlessness of many of our bishops on the one side, and their desire to be at ease and quietness to think upon their own affairs; and on the other side, such is the obstinacy and intolerable pride of that factious sort, as that betwixt both sides, either subscription is not at all required, or if it be, the bishops admit them so 1 For another form of subscription employed at this period, see Bennett, 399. 2 In the same year the Convocation put forth certain 'Articuli pro clero,' enjoining among other things that no bishop shall hereafter admit any person to holy Orders, except he is of his own diocese... 'vel saltem, nisi rationem fidei suæ juxta Articulos illos Religionis.... Latino ser mone reddere possit, adeo ut 4 D'Ewes, 358. The Arch- |