OF UNIFORMITY***


Transcribed from the 1864 Hatchard and Co. edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org





                          CLERICAL SUBSCRIPTION
                                   AND
                          THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY.


                                * * * * *

                                  BY THE

                         REV. EDWARD HOARE, M.A.,

              INCUMBENT OF TRINITY CHURCH, TUNBRIDGE WELLS.

                                * * * * *

                                 LONDON:
                    HATCHARD AND CO., 187, PICCADILLY.
                                  1864.

                                * * * * *

                             ALEX. MACINTOSH,
                                 PRINTER,
                        GREAT NEW-STREET, LONDON.

                                * * * * *




CLERICAL SUBSCRIPTION AND THE ACT OF UNIFORMITY.


As it has pleased Her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to consider
the subject of Clerical Subscription, the time has clearly come when
those who regard the principle of Subscription to be one of essential
importance to the well-being of our Church should consider carefully by
what arrangements that principle may be best maintained and carried out.
It is the opinion of many that the wisest course is to endeavour to
secure the present system without alteration, and earnestly to oppose any
change of any kind whatever.  Under many circumstances, I could believe
in the wisdom of so doing; but if it can be shown that there are great
objections against the present practice, then I think that, for the sake
of the principle, we ought to be prepared to receive with gratitude such
a change as may remove well-grounded and reasonable objections.  The
principle and the practice are so intimately connected in people’s minds
that they are almost sure to stand and fall together; so that if there is
any great defect in the practice, there is danger of the principle being
made to bear the blame of it; and if the practice is such as to give
reasonable dissatisfaction to reasonable men, it is almost sure to weaken
the hold which the principle has on the public mind.  On these grounds I
am anxious to call the attention of those Churchmen who believe in the
importance of the principle of Subscription to the practice as at present
imposed by the Act of Uniformity on the beneficed clergymen of the Church
of England; and I do so under the very strong conviction that, in order
to maintain the principle and, I might almost add, on every other ground,
there should be an united endeavour amongst English Churchmen without
delay to effect a change.

                                * * * * *

My reasons are as follows:—

(1.)  The Subscription, as now required of all incumbents, is required
not by the Church, but by the State.  The Church of England is in no
sense responsible for it, having never either sought or sanctioned it.
As the Church of England has always held the principle of Subscription,
so it has provided a form.  This form was first prepared in Convocation,
and then sanctioned by James I., by virtue of his prerogative royal, and
supreme authority in causes ecclesiastical.

This is the form embodied in the thirty-sixth Canon, and is as follows:—

I.  That the King’s Majesty, under God, is the only supreme Governor of
this Realm, and of all other his Highnesses dominions and countries, as
well in all spiritual or ecclesiastical things or causes as temporal; and
that no foreign prince, person, prelate, state, or potentate hath, or
ought to have, any jurisdiction, power, superiority, pre-eminence, or
authority, ecclesiastical or spiritual, within his Majesty’s said realms,
dominions, and countries.

II.  That the Book of Common Prayer, and of ordering of bishops, priests,
and deacons, containeth in it nothing contrary to the Word of God, and
that it may lawfully so be used; and that he himself will use the form in
the said book prescribed, in publick prayer, and administration of the
Sacraments, and none other.

III.  That he alloweth the Book of Articles of Religion, agreed upon by
the archbishops and bishops of both provinces, and the whole clergy in
the Convocation, holden at London, in the year of our Lord 1562; and that
he acknowledgeth all and every the articles therein contained, being in
number nine-and-thirty, besides the ratification, to be agreeable to the
Word of God.

                                * * * * *

But the Church’s form was too temperate for the vindictive spirit of
Charles II. and his Parliament; and therefore, without consulting the
Church at all, the King’s