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.]

To attain a conviction for heresy, involving deprivation of office, the
forms of justice must be respected. It is only under peculiar
circumstances, that the ecclesiastical authority can be content with
saying, "I do not like thee, Dr. Fell, or Dr. Smith, and I depose thee
accordingly". A regular trial, with proof of specific contradiction of
specific articles, allowing the accused the full benefit of his
explanations, must be the rule in every corporation that respects
justice. In the Church of England, a man cannot be deprived unless he
contradict the articles clearly and consistently; the smallest
incoherence on his part, the slightest vacillation in the rigour of his
denial, is enough to save him. We may easily imagine, therefore, how
widely a clergyman may stray from the fair, ordinary, current rendering
of the doctrines of the Church, without danger. The whole essence of
Christianity may be perverted under a few cunning precautions and by
observing a few verbal formalities.

It has been pointed out, many times over, that the legally imposed
creeds were the creatures of accident and circumstances at the time of
their enactment, and are wholly unsuitable to the conse