la Y) ers

1844
T5

TO MEMBERS OF CONVOCATION.
Objects of the \ Meets ures to be submitted to the Convocation on t3ie 13//* of
HOebmaryj 1845.
1. The purposes ©f ite two tJinsLymoposaitioms; can scarcely be mistaken ; of the first, to
condemn an unfair subscription ; of the second*, to cancel Degrees when the condition has been
violated upon which Aey were conferred; both of them, unhappily, necessary for the vindication
of the principle, never questioned in a Pmrtestaot University vmtil within the last three years, —
the main principle in! fact an which Convocation first imposed subscription * — that subscription
to, the Article* of the 'Church of EngUund implies tfie renunciation of Roman Catholic error
in doctrine and in practice.
.: 2. But this measure by itself will be incomplete. Another principle must be vindicated,
and another error opposed, more dangeiious, because more delusive, and far more likely to be
extensively mischievous. Few defend Mr. Ward's hook, no one will write one like it ; many
may be misled by a theory of .subscription which professes respect for primitive antiquity, and
regard for religious liberty, butiwhich in reality (how honeBtly soever intended) is opposed to
truth and honesty, and defeats the objects of religious tests, the safeguards of our public teaching.
Wq, must re-assert the true principle of subscription. This is attempted in the altered form, of
statute. i Under the existing Statute, the Vice-Chancellor is enjoined to proceed against persons
holding unsound opinions, and has authority to test the soundness of any Member of the
University by the criterion of subscription, and the Clergyman who refuses to subscribe is to be
ipso facto banished from the University. This is the existing Statute, which, if seldom used,
is, neither obsolete nor Useless, but is rather the more useful, if it prevents evil whilst it is rarely
enforced. Since the aiumher .of our lay teachers has been much increased, it is proposed to
comprehend Laymen within the penal (Clause of the Statute. [Under No. 2. "to omit the words
' S. Ordinibus initiatus.' "] But, with this exception, the present proposal does not affect the
original'., intention of the Statute, establishes no new article of faith or new test of doctrine,
conveys no! new powers to the Vice-Chancellor, much less makes Aw opinions the standard of
doctrine, but, leaving has office as it was before, seeks only to express the true meaning of
subscription to the existing test, and thus to ¦ prevent evasion -of the express intention of the
present Statute, and replace it in the position which it occupied before the integrity of
subscription was undermined.
* Subscription to the XXXIX. Articles first required of ¦Graduates (not by the Church, but) by the
University in Convocation, Oct. 1576; at Matriculation, Nov, 14, 1581 : in this oase for the express purpose
ofeNcludiBjr. Ronranwrts, according to the letter of the Chancellor, Oct. 5, 1581. A. Wood, Annals, vol ii.

Hence the use of the preamble to the proposed Declaration — " Quoniam vero Articulos
illos Fidei et Religionis, in quibus male-sanse opiniones et praesertitn Roinanensium errores, re-
prehenduntur, ita nonnulli perperam interpretati sunt, ut erroribus istis vix aut ne vix quideui
adversari videantur, nemini posthac, &c." Let the University pass this clause, and she will have
declared her sentiments in accordance with those of the Church against Romish interpretations
of the English Articles. And hence also the use of the Declaration itself on the part of the
subscriber — " Ego, etc., profiteor, fide mea data, etc., me Articulis istis omnibus et singulis eo
sensu subscripturum in quo eos ex animo credo et primitus editos esse, et nunc mihi ab Uni-
versitate propositos tanquam opinionum mearum certum ac indubitatum signum ;" in a word,
that he will subscribe the Test in the sense of the imponent : not with any mental reserva
tion, not in any sense which his private judgment or his ingenuity may ascribe to the Articles*
contrary to what he believes to be the sense both of the Reformers in the first instance, and of
the Church and the University at the time, but in that only way in which Articles, as a Test,
can be honestly subscribed at all, in the sense which the subscriber believes in his heart to be
the sense of the imponent.
Many may think other measures required. These, at least, are necessary, if the intended
safeguards of our public teaching are to be of any avail.
But the nature and intention of the 'proposed form of ; Declaration having been much
misconceived, Members of Convocation are respectfully requested to consider further,
1. That the Declaration is not designed to accompany subscription, either at Matriculation
or at the Degrees, since the intention of subscription, it is to be hoped, on those occasions, is
not generally misunderstood or evaded. It is only proposed to introduce the Declaration into
the existing Statute against unsound opinions, recent experience having unhappily 'shewn1 that
the express intention of the Statute may otherwise be altogether defeated. ; i
2. That the Statute permitting a person accused of unsound opinions to clear himself by
subscribing the Articles, must presume that he subscribes in the sense in which they are pro
posed to him as a test of his opinions, not in a sense consistent with the very errors of which
he is accused ; it being simply absurd, that a person accused, e. g. of Arianism or Romanism,
should be allowed to free himself from the imputation by subscribing the Articles in an Arian
or Roman Catholic sense.
3. That the Declaration, whilst it prevents such an abuse of the Statute, is neither a new
Article, for it states no point of faith or religion, nor a new Test, for it states only the true
meaning of the Church's Test, long ago imposed by the University upon her Members as a
condition of Degrees and Membership ; or if it can be called a Test at all, it is a Test not of
doctrine or of the opinions of the Subscriber, but only of his honesty in the act of subscription.
4. That in fact it expresses only what sound writers upon subscription — Bishop Cony-
beare, for instance, or Dr. Waterland — have shewn to be the true meaning of subscription to
Articles as a Test. They refer us to " the intention of those who first compiled the forms, or
who now impose them ;" maintain " that the sense of the compilers and imposers (when cer
tainly known) must be religiously observed, even though the words were capable of another

ssuse ;" and determine " that if the sense intended by the framers and imposers of such Articles
is not that in which our understandings concur," we may not therefore " receive or subscribe
to them in some other sense which we ourselves approve," but " we ought not to receive them
or subscribe to them *."
5. That the sense of the framers and of the imposers is presumed to be, and is, in fact, the
same ; and it is the sense, of course, not of the officer before whom the Articles are subscribed,
but of the Reformers, the Church, and the University. Wherever it is " certainly known, there
it must be religiously observed ;" wherever it is obscure or indeterminate, there will there be
that room for subordinate differences of opinion, which is required by the imperfections of
human forms, and the diversities of men's understandings. But if the Articles may be sub
scribed in any sense of which the words are, by possibility, capable, and which the subscriber
may think (with the Arians) agreeable to Scripture, or (with the Romanists) agreeable to
Catholic antiquity, the analogy of faith, or the doctrine of development, then they establish
no doctrine, and exclude no error, and subscription itself is much worse than nothing.
6. That if the University shall declare, by passing the proposed addition to the Statute,
that Roman Catholic errors are inconsistent with subscription to the Articles of the Church
of England, she will only assert what, without a question until of late, the Church and the
University have uniformly maintained. The general surprise with which a Roman Catholic
interpretation of the Articles was received in 1841 proved that it contradicted the general
impression, as the miserable shifts by which it was supported prove also that the interpretation
was unsound. 7. That the Statute in all other respects (except as to the persons comprehended within
its penalty) remaining precisely what it was, the University, by making the proposed addition
to it, will riot (as has been alleged) institute a new test of doctrine, or impose new restrictions
upon religious liberty, overstep her proper province, alter the relations of the University to the
Church, perplex men's minds, encourage informers, or destroy mutual confidence; but will
only uphold, as is her duty, the true meaning and integrity of Subscription, and the acknowledged
principles of the Reformed Church of England.
* Bp. Conybeare on Subscription 1 725, printed by Bp. Randolph in the Enchiridion Theologicum, Vol. II.
See also Bp. Van Mildert's Life of Waterland, p. 75 — 88. and Waterland's Case of Arian Subscription, and
Supplement. Works, Vol. II.

Oxford, Dec. 26, 1844.

BAXTER, PRINTER, OXFORD.