Stanley has appealed; but was foreign to the principles of every class of Christians.  Yet if the evils of Subscriptions are such as we are now assured, things cannot be suffered to remain as they are.

But broad assertions can frequently be only met by like broad assertions; and I hope that I shall not be thought disrespectful if I thus treat some now before me.

“Contradictoriness” of the Articles and Prayer-book.

(1.)  It is said that the Subscriptions are made to documents “contradictory to each other in spirit;” (p. 22) and that this is felt by those who are called on to sign the Prayer-book, and the Articles;—the former being devotional and sublime, the latter scholastic, and less impressive;—the former emanating from ancient sources, the latter being the product “of the Calvinistic, and in some measure even the Scholastic period.” (pp. 16, 17.)  This is popularly but scarcely correctly put; but I would ask, whether the difference between the “two documents” is greater than between Aquinas’ Summa, and his Pange Lingua?—or between any man’s didactic statements and his devotional offices?  And if not, then how cannot the same man honestly sign both—each in its plain and obvious sense?  Personally, I do not feel the least difficulty in the case; and I cannot recollect meeting with any clergyman who could sign the one, and yet had difficulty about the other, except as to a few phrases here and there.  The general “contradictoriness,” which is affirmed by Dr. Stanley, I believe then is not commonly perceived by the Clergy, and I do not myself perceive any other difference than the nature of the case demands.  The purely Theological language of the earlier Articles—then the mixed statements of the “anthropology,” as it is called—and the terms of the Sacramental Articles,—may almost in every instance be traced in Catholic fathers, from St. Augustine to St. Bernard.  And yet they are not recondite, but so intelligible to educated English people, that some years ago as a matter of edification I went through them, with a class of fifty of the laity in my parish, and a few clergy, who for several weeks were glad to devote attention to the subject; and I venture to think that the idea never occurred to one of us, that there was the least want of harmony between the two documents.  We really did not see the “calm image of Cranmer” reflected on the surface of the “Liturgy,” as Lord Macaulay fancied he did (p. 18); and as to the “foul weeds in which the roots were buried,” we did not discover them there;—(nor did Lord Macaulay, I suppose, as it was not his custom to go to these “roots.”)  I think I am entitled, then, to meet the charge of the “contradictoriness” of the Articles and the Prayer-book, with an assertion that there is a thorough inward harmony, which not a few of us feel; and we cannot be talked out of this conviction by the contrary assertions of microscopic thinkers.  I should grant, of course, that it would be a “practical evil” of no small kind, demanding immediate redress, if I could admit any real opposition between the Formularies which we have to sign.  But I unreservedly deny it.  I know indeed what objectors would mean when they say this: but I know also that the same objectors would find “contradictoriness” in different parts of Holy Scripture; and I am thankful that I do not find it, after many years’ steady work at both Old Testament and New.

The early age of those who “subscribe.”

(2.)  Another alleged grievance, or “practical evil,” is said to be the age [28] at which young men are called on to make these important professions of their belief.  I had, many years since, to encounter the same objection in another form.  I met with some among the Baptists, who objected to teaching children to “say their prayers,” on the ground that they could not understand the mysterious subjects implied; and others who would not ask them to believe any thing in Religion, until they had proved it.  The “practical evil” is—and I am sure that your Lordship will agree with me—altogether on the side of those who leave the young thus to make their own opinions, and find their faith how they can.  The Bible is, in many respects, a more complex book than the Prayer-book; and yet I can ask my child to put entire faith in it, as God’s Word.  Nor can the faithful Churchman, I believe, feel any difficulty in giving into the hands of young and old, the Formularies which have been his own comfort and help hitherto, and asking their “assent and consent” to all that which he knows to be true.

Men of ability will not take Holy Orders.

(3.)  There is a “practical evil,” which has of late been greatly pressed on public notice, which Dr. Stanley thus refers to (p. 30)—“Intelligent, thoughtful, highly educated young men, who twenty or thirty years ago were to be found in every Ordination, are gradually withheld from the service of the Church, and from the profession to which their tastes, their characters, and their gifts, best fit them.”

This is an evil, the existence of which I shall not question—it is indeed too plain, and too alarming to admit of any doubt.  But I deny that it has any foundation in the practice of Subscription; which has not been changed, or made more rigid, in our days.  I have never known one conscientious, thoughtful young churchman kept from Holy Orders by a shrinking from Subscription.  They who have shrunk have been persons who differ from the Church, and acknowledge the fact.  They have been men, like my upright friend Mr. Fisher,—the author of “Liturgical Revision,”—who would not, for all the temptations that might be offered, use the entire Offices of our Church, even if ordained immediately without Subscription.  Subscription keeps them out, of course.  It is meant to do so, if it has any meaning at all.  But if we look around us at the state of things in the Church, during the twenty or thirty years to which Dr. Stanley alludes, we shall not find it difficult to ascertain causes which have kept, and will keep, so many intelligent and conscientious minds of the higher order, from entering the ministry of the Church.  Young men of ability in the last generation, if designed for Holy Orders, gave themselves to Theological study.  But we all remember the panic which arose in consequence of the secessions to the Roman Church.  Public patronage and popular feeling were then so successfully worked on, by the fanatical portion of the press, that the bare rumour of “Theological learning” was enough to mark any Churchman for suspicion.  Parents who did not wish their more gifted sons to be victims, chose for them other callings, and found a thousand new and attractive openings in the Civil service.  Youths of greatest promise saw encouragement in other professions, and rewards in the distance for successful merit; but if they began to read Theology, they soon found themselves obliged to pause.  To read St. Augustine, till you began to believe the ancient doctrine of Baptism, was fatal: to study Church history, or the Liturgies, was still worse,—if men did it honestly.  Hundreds, I believe, were thus beaten off.  Parents and guardians and friends could not