as a general rule, 'the unity of the Church was preserved, like the unity of the State, not by preliminary promises or oaths, but by the general laws of discipline and order, and by the general public sentiment of the whole community.'

In like manner the Church of Rome and the different Protestant communions take entirely different positions with regard to Subscription. The one demand of Rome is the acceptance of the Church's authority. Then whatever the Church enjoins is to be believed and taught. liminary act of assent involves the whole.

The pre

There

is no question of this or that particular article of belief; the submission may, in fact, be made without knowing what these articles are. We have seen in our own time how the dogma, for instance, of Papal Infallibility, strongly opposed by many eminent Romanists until decreed by the Vatican Council, was then at once accepted and maintained by the same persons-not because their arguments had been refuted or their reason convinced, but because Rome had spoken. They henceforth believed, as one may believe in some article of unexpected information. It had seemed unlikely up to the point of confirmation, but when

stated as authentic it was received without any further question.

Now Protestantism cannot understand this

method of dealing with beliefs. It cannot accept its convictions on authority and in the mass, nor can it yield implicit assent to unexpressed dogmas. The Protestant must know what he believes, and must subscribe the dogmas, if he subscribes at all, on their own several merits. In such a spirit the early Protestant Churches proceeded; and the Reformation age, as we have seen, became fertile in Confessions, the very differences in which became evidences of independent judgment. No doubt the requirement of Subscription as sometimes enforced led to even greater difficulties than the Roman method had done. It had been a comparatively simple thing to accept the Church with all its dogmas as a whole, but now, when assent was demanded to a large number of propositions —and some of these Confessions were very long! -on their own separate evidence and authority, the intellectual process was not so easy. Rulers, who took the matter in hand, and enforced the Confession as a State religion, did not always understand this, and led their subjects into some

The

strange absurdities,

Thus Duke Julius of Bruns

wick (1568-89), in his zeal for the Evangelical Faith, ' required from all clergy, from all professors, from all magistrates, a Subscription to all and everything contained in the Confession of Augsburg, in the Apology for the Confession, in the Schmalkaldic Articles, in all the works of Luther, in all the works of Melanchthon, and in all the works of Chemnitz.'1

Such, however, were but the eccentricities of Erastianism. More to our purpose is it to note the law of Subscription as enacted at different times in Great Britain.2 It underwent many fluctuations: the conviction of rulers in Church and State appearing ineradicable, that the way to ecclesiastical union was by the demand of signature. Make men but say, I believe, and set their hands to it, and all would go well!

The first proposal of Subscription in the English Protestant Church seems to have been due to Cranmer, who was greatly influenced in this by the Swiss reformers. The Archbishop in 1552 wrote a letter to the Council of King Edward VI.,

1 Letter to Bishop Tait 'On Subscription': Stanley, Essays on Church and State, p. 128.

2 See Edinburgh Review, April 1862.

referring to the Forty-two Articles then newly drawn up, and 'beseeching their Lordships to be meanes unto the King's Majestie that all the Bishops may have authority from hym to cause all their preachers, archdeacons, deanes, prebendaries, parsons, vicars, curates, with all their clergy to subscribe to the said Articles.' Accordingly, in June 1553, a royal letter was addressed to the bishops, enjoining, as had been requested, the enforcement of Subscription upon the clergy.

It was no doubt felt to be necessary in some decisive way to mark the separation between the Romanists and the adherents of the Reformation. The proposal was, that all clergy refusing to sign were to be deprived of their preferments; but that before proceeding to this extremity the Bishop was to use every means of persuasion; first, as the King's letter enjoins, conferring with the candidate for ordination or any ecclesiastical appointment on every one of the Articles. 'And yet,' it is added, 'if any party refuse to subscribe any of these Articles for lack of learning, or of knowledge of the truth thereof, ye shall in anywise by teaching, conference, and proof of the same by the

1 Strype, Life of Cranmer, Appendix lxiv.

Scriptures, reasonably and discreetly move and persuade him thereto, before ye shall peremptorily judge him as unable and a recusant. And for the

trial of his conformity ye shall, according to your discretions, prefix him a time and space convenient to deliberate and give his consent; so it be betwixt three weeks and six weeks from the time of his first access unto you. And if after six weeks he will not consent and agree willingly to subscribe, then ye may and lawfully shall in any wise refuse to admit or enable him.'1

The King, however, died before this mandate could be enforced; and the whole matter remained in suspense until Elizabeth was firmly established upon the throne. We have already noted the revision of the Articles in her reign, and their reduction to Thirty-nine—the form in which we have them now. It was in 1571 that the 'Act for the Ministers of the Church to be of sound Religion' for the first time enforced Subscription ;2 and the requirement has ever since been part of the law of the Church of England. This was, however, made much more stringent by the Acts

1 Strype, Eccl. Mem. Edward VI. bk. xi. c. 22.

2 See Lecture IV. p. 131. The Act is printed in Gee and Hardy's Documents, pp. 477-480.