necessary that it should be detected, if possible, and the evil effects of it prevented by timely caution. I beseech you, brethren, saith the Apostle, mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to THE DOCTRINE which ye have learned*. And upon another occasion he commands the Christians in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, which expression amounts to an abjuration, to withdraw themselves from every brother who walketh disorderly, and not after the TRADITION received from ust. For securing this tradition he prescribes the following method to the Clergy: Charge some that they teach no other doctrine. We take our Confession to be such a charge as this, practically applied to all the teachers of the Church: and if the Author can instruct us how to apply it in such a manner as better to secure the end of it, which is apostolical tradition, or the faith delivered to the Saints, every friend to true religion will give him thanks for his advice. In the mean time, we are well assured, that no one good purpose can ever be answered by withdrawing it. But notwithstanding all that can be urged from the commands of the Scripture, or the necessities of the people, our cause is but a lost one at last; and for this reason, "Certain it is, in so far as the Laity are allowed not to be bound by these Church Confessions, the point of right to establish them is fairly given ups." But if the Laity are bound in common with the Clergy, then this right is not fairly given up. Let us consider whether they are or not. The Laity can be allowed to be not bound only in so far as they do not subscribe the Confession of the Church. But Rom. xvi. 17. + 2 Thess. iii. 6, 7. ‡ 1 Tim. i. 3. if they are not bound because they do not subscribe, then it will follow, that the Clergy are bound only because they do subscribe. And to what doth this subscription bind them? To the belief of the true God, the Maker and Preserver of all things; of the divine authority of the Scripture; of eternal salvation by Jesus Christ; of the benefit of the sacraments; the necessity of good works, &c. In a word, it binds them to a summary of their Christian faith. But if they had not subscribed it, they had been free from all obligation; that is, they need not have been Christians. Either this is true, or the Laity are bound to our Church Confessions, though they do not subscribe them. To keep the Clergy steady to their profession, some present obligations are added to spiritual considerations; but no man can imagine that the latter became void by the introduction of the former. The laws of every Christian state inflict temporal penalties on the breach of the eighth commandment: yet the eighth commandment is of force with them or without them; and there will be a reckoning on that account in the other world, if there is none in this. The same is true in all other cases, where the laws of God are farther secured by the human sanctions of emoluments on the one hand, or penalties on the other. But his reasoning implies, either that the former are made void by the latter, or, that no man is bound, unless he is bound by both; therefore, to argue with him a little in his own way, it is not clear that the Laity are free from all obligation, even by the present discipline of the establish- . ment; subscription being required of those Laymen, whose conduct is supposed to have any particular in-1 fluence upon religious society; as of graduates in the Universities, many of whom continue in lay profes sions as long as they live; and of all schoolmasters, of whom the majority, I believe, are Laymen. With the Articles of Edward VI. a Catechism was enjoined by public authority, (probably without consulting the private judgment of the children who were to learn it) that the Laity might be brought up in the same principles as were subscribed by the Clergy. The Catechism, as it now stands in the Book of Common Prayer, is part of an act of parliament, and contains, in short, the substance of what is expressed more at large in the Articles. And moreover, if the obligation of the Laity is thought of while they are children, it is not forgotten or given up so long as they live. For let us ask, Why is the Clergyman bound to those particular doctrines expressed in the Articles? Because the contrary doctrines are not fit to be preached to the laity. Thus the public authority, which requires subscription, hath considered the Laity as the end, and the Clergy as the means; and, in so doing, could never intend that the Laity should be without obligation. Had this writer considered the case, before he undertook to pronounce upon it, he might have spared his sarcasm upon the Clergyman, as being obliged to teach doctrines, which the Layman is not obliged to believe, or to practise. The Laity are not indeed generally called upon to subscribe, nor are they generally required to swear allegiance to the government; yet they are no more allowed to be without obligation in the one case than the other. So long as the law of God is in force, they are bound in foro conscientiæ, without swearing or subscribing at all; and must answer it to the supreme law-giver, if Strype's Memorials, vol. ii. p. 420. they disturb the State with treason, or the Church with false doctrine. Our Author would have looked upon it as an instance of great disingenuity in some zealot of the Church, had he found such an one pleading against himself, on a supposition that the Laity are not bound; and then railing at him, on a supposition that they are bound; and all this in the same page. Yet this is his own practice; and let the reader judge whether his words do not amount to a proof of it. "A law inducing men to profess, by a solemn act, that their RELIGIOUS OPINIONS are what they really are not, is no mark of charity in any Church*." This law, as the reader will find, if he turns back to the preceding page, is the test-act; the men he speaks of, are Laymen; the religious opinions they profess by a solemn act, are the opinions of the Church of England; these opinions are expressed in her Creeds and Articles: to these the Laity are bound by a solemn act; and thus he complains of an obligation, which he supposes, at the same time, not to exist! casting all the reproach upon the Church. But the Church does not make acts of parliament; they are made by the State, for its own security, in common with that of the Church. Papists, on pretence of religion, will overthrow a State which is Protestant; and Calvinists have once overthrown the State, for being episcopal. This law, he says, is no mark either of wisdom or charity; but experience will make every body wise, if it is not their own fault; and where self preservation is thought necessary, charity begins at home. His definition. of this act is like those many other descriptions of men and things, with which they who * P. 28. will read his book may be better acquainted, if they desire it. The test-act is a law obliging men to profess that their religious opinions are what they really are; not what they are not. When an oath is prescribed by the law, it is not intended that men should swear falsely, or that they should prophane the Bible, by professing upon it a faith and hope which they have not. If they make this act a snare to themselves, their own infidelity, or want of conscience, is in fault, and not the wisdom or charity of the government under which they live. There is no law, how just or sacred soever, which ill men cannot find ways of affronting or eluding to their own condemnation; and his way of stating the laws would make them all equally ridiculous. For the inducement he speaks of is not in the law, but in the advantage which a wicked man hopes to get by breaking or abusing the law. If the test-act were changed into a law, requiring men to profess that they believe the Scripture to be the word of God, a bishopric, a deanry, or even an archdeaconry, might possibly induce an Infidel, who hath no religion at all, to make the usual profession. If this should appear, the Author might then argue for the repeal of it, as of a scandalous law, inducing men to profess that their religious opinions are what they are not: and a few such arguments, applied in their proper extent, would serve to unhinge all the law and order that is now in the world. The late Bishop of Winchester, as he is pleased to inform us in the same page, has so thoroughly discussed and cleared up this subject of the test-act, that there is no danger it should ever be thrown into confusion again. The late Bishop of Winchester is an author whose principles and reasonings the writer of the Confessional hath copied very closely in many re |