Supposing, then, truth is desirable, the means to the end are desirable.  Now one of the means is perfect liberty to call in question every opinion whatsoever.  This is not all that is necessary; it is not even the principal condition of the discovery of new truth.  It is, however, an indispensable adjunct, a negative condition.  While laborious search for facts, care in comparing them, genius in detecting deep identities, are the highways to knowledge,—­the permission to promulgate new doctrines and to counter-argue the old is equally essential.  Men cannot be expected to go through the toil of making discoveries at the hazard of persecution.  If a few have done so, it is their glory and everybody else’s shame.

That the torch of truth should be shaken till it shine, is generally admitted.  Still, exceptions are made; otherwise the present argument would be superfluous.  On certain subjects there is a demand for protection against innovating views.  The implication is that, in these subjects, truth is better arrived at by delegating the search to a few, and treating their judgment as final.  I need not ask where we should have been, if this mode of arriving at truth had been followed universally.  The monopoly of enquiry claimed for the higher subjects, if set up in the lower, would be treated as the empire of darkness.

Second.  The subscription to articles, and the enforcement of a creed by penalties, are nugatory for their own purpose; they fail to secure uniformity of belief.

This is shown in various ways.  For instance, to inculcate adhesion to a set of articles, is merely to ensure that none shall use words that formally deny one or other of the doctrines prescribed.  It does not say, that the subscriber shall teach the whole round of doctrines, in their due order and proportion.  A preacher may at pleasure omit from his pulpit discourses any single doctrine; so that, in so far as his ministrations are concerned, to the hearers such doctrine is non-existent; without being denied, it is ignored.  Against omission, a prosecution for heresy would not hold.  In this way, the clergy have always had a certain amount of liberty, and have freely used it.  In so doing, they have altered the whole character of the prescribed creed, without being technically heterodox.  Everyone of us has listened to preachers of this description.  Some ignore the Trinity, some the Atonement; many nowadays, without denying future punishment, never mention hell to ears polite.  If the rigorous exclusion of a leading doctrine should excite misgivings, a very slight, formal, and passing admission may be made, while the stress of exhortation is thrown upon quite different points.

[SUBSCRIPTION FAILS TO ATTAIN ITS END.]