(1.) The Subscription, as now required of all incumbents, is required not by the Church, but by the State. The Church of England is in no sense responsible for it, having never either sought or sanctioned it. As the Church of England has always held the principle of Subscription, so it has provided a form. This form was first prepared in Convocation, and then sanctioned by James I., by virtue of his prerogative royal, and supreme authority in causes ecclesiastical.
This is the form embodied in the thirty-sixth Canon, and is as follows:—
I. That the King’s Majesty, under God, is the only supreme Governor of this Realm, and of all other his Highnesses dominions and countries, as well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal; and that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within his Majesty’s said realms, dominions, and countries.
II. That the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordering of bishops, priests, and deacons, containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God, and that it may lawfully so be used; and that he himself will use the form in the said book prescribed, in publick prayer, and administration of the Sacraments, and none other.
III. That he alloweth 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 1562; and that he acknowledgeth all and every the articles therein contained, being in number nine-and-thirty, besides the ratification, to be agreeable to the Word of God.
But the Church’s form was too temperate for the vindictive spirit of Charles II. and his Parliament; and therefore, without consulting the Church at all, the King’s Majesty, with the consent of the Lords and Commons, enacted a new form of Subscription, and imposed it on all those who either held any benefice at the time, or should hereafter be presented to one. No one, therefore, need fear that his allegiance to the Church would be in any manner compromised by his disapprobation of the form of Subscription required by the Act of Uniformity; for the Church has never had anything to do with it beyond bearing the blame. It is a test imposed on Churchmen by Act of Parliament, without the concurrence of the Church itself, and virtually supersedes the form which the Church has provided. It appears to me, therefore, that loyalty to our Church would lead us respectfully to petition for the repeal of the Parliamentary enactment, that so our Church may be permitted to carry out her own principles, and make use of the form deliberately drawn up by Convocation, and sanctioned by the Crown.##
(2.) It is impossible to prove a negative; and I may be mistaken: but I am not able to discover that such a form of Subscription as that required by the Act of Uniformity was ever known in the whole history of Christendom. Churches, one after another, have drawn up Confessions of Faith, and employed them as tests of opinion in the admission of their ministers. Most Churches have prepared liturgical forms for devotional purposes, and required the use of these forms in public worship. The Confession of Faith has been carefully drawn up for one object, and the Liturgy for another; the one to secure sound doctrine, and the other pure devotional worship. So the Church of England, in its form of Subscription, has kept the distinction perfectly clear. It requires the new incumbent to subscribe “that he alloweth the Book of Articles to be agreeable to the Word of God,” thereby giving a positive acknowledgment of their truth. But of the devotional book, the Book of Common Prayer, it requires him to sign,—“That it containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God, and that it may lawfully so be used, and that he himself will use the form in the said book prescribed, in publick prayer and administration of the Sacraments, and none other.” The Book of Articles is employed as a Confession of Faith, or test of opinion; whereas all that is required respecting the Book of Common Prayer is the promise to use it, with the declaration that there is nothing wrong in so doing. But this temperate spirit of the Church was not sufficient for the purposes of Charles and his Parliament. The persons whom they wanted to turn out believed in the Articles, and were, many of them, quite willing to use the Prayer-book. Thus the Church’s principles were insufficient for their ejection, and, in order to get rid of them, the plan was devised of omitting all specific mention of the Articles, and making use of the whole book as the test or confession of faith. A long devotional book of 400 pages, containing prayers, Psalms as pointed for chanting, rubrics, addresses, and special services, some of which can be used by the Bishops only, are all massed together, and made into a new exclusive creed. There is no exception made for anything. “All and every thing” is alike included, and the language is made as stringent as possible. It is as follows:—
“I, A. B., do hereby declare my unfeigned assent and consent to all and every thing contained and prescribed in and by the book intituled, The Book of Common Prayer, and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, according to the uses of the Church of England; together with the Psalter, or Psalms of David, pointed as they are to be said or sung in Churches; and the form or manner of making, ordaining, and consecrating of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons.”
Never, I believe, was a more flagrant misuse of any document. The book was prepared for one purpose, and then, for party ends, employed for another. Prayers were made into creeds; the pointing of the Psalms into a test of opinion; and rubrics into confessions of faith. Fortunately, there is wonderfully little in the book, taken as a whole, to wound the conscience of those who subscribe to the Articles. But that is not the point. The real question is, whether prayers, pointings, rubrics, &c., should be employed as creeds. My own belief is, that they never ought to be; for, if there is the accuracy of the creed, there cannot be the devotional warmth of the prayer; that they never have been, except in this instance; and that they would not have been, even in 1662, had it not been for the spirit of retaliation, which, unhappily, induced the King and Parliament to agree in passing the Act of Uniformity.
(3.) But as the form of Subscription is Wrong in principle, so to many conscientious minds it becomes painful in practice.