“One of my chief objections to subscription to the thirty-nine Articles as a perpetual test of English Churchmanship is that they are throughout controversial, and speak, as of necessity they must speak, the controversial language of their day; they cannot, therefore, in my opinion, be fully, clearly, and distinctly understood without a careful study and a very wide knowledge of the disputes and opinions of those times, a calm yet deep examination of their meaning, objects, limitations, which cannot be expected from young theological students, from men fresh from their academical pursuits.  I venture to add, indeed to argue, that their true bearing and interpretation seems to me to have escaped some of our most eminent judges from want of that full study and perfect knowledge; and I must say that, in these laborious and practical day, it may be questioned whether this study of controversies, many of them bygone, will be so useful, so profitable, as entire devotion to the plainer and simpler duties of the clergyman.

“Their immense range, too, the infinite questions into which they branch out (it has been said, I know not how truly, that five hundred questions may be raised upon them), is a further objection to their maintenance as a preliminary and indispensable requirement before the young man is admitted to Holy Orders.  On the whole I stand, without hesitation, to my proposition, that the doctrines of the English Church are not only more simply, but more fully, assuredly, more winningly, taught in our Liturgy and our Formularies than in our Articles.”

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The very elaborate work of Mr. Taylor Innes, entitled the “Law of Creeds,” is exhaustive for Scotland; including both the Established Church and the various sects of Protestant Dissenters.  It also incidentally takes notice of some of the more critical decisions on heresy cases in the English Church.  Mr. Innes properly points out, that the abolition of Subscription is compatible with compulsory adherence to Articles.  The relaxation of the forms of Subscription in the English Church, by the Act of 1865, gave a certain amount of relief to the consciences of the clergy, but left them as much exposed as ever to suits for heresy.

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[Report of Presbyterian Alliance.]

For the usages of the Reformed Churches, on the Continent, and in America, a mass of valuable information has been furnished in the Report of the Second General Council of the Presbyterian Alliance, convened at Philadelphia, September, 1880.  At the previous meeting of the Council, held at Edinburgh, July, 1877, a Committee was appointed to Report on the Creeds and Subscriptions in use among the various bodies forming the Alliance.  It is unnecessary to refer to the answers given in to the Committee’s Queries, from Great Britain and Ireland, except to complete the history of the Presbyterian Church of England, so long distinguished for the abeyance of clerical subscription.