ne
schism, we may cause another? All those things which the Puritans regard
as the blemishes of the Church are by a large part of the population
reckoned among her attractions. May she not, in ceasing to give scandal
to a few sour precisians, cease also to influence the hearts of many
who now delight in her ordinances? Is it not to be apprehended that, for
every proselyte whom she allures from the meeting house, ten of her old
disciples may turn away from her maimed rites and dismantled temples,
and that these new separatists may either form themselves into a
sect far more formidable than the sect which we are now seeking to
conciliate, or may, in the violence of their disgust at a cold and
ignoble worship, be tempted to join in the solemn and gorgeous idolatry
of Rome?

It is remarkable that those who held this language were by no means
disposed to contend for the doctrinal Articles of the Church. The truth
is that, from the time of James the First, that great party which has
been peculiarly zealous for the Anglican polity and the Anglican ritual
has always leaned strongly towards Arminianism, and has therefore never
been much attached to a confession of faith framed by reformers who, on
questions of metaphysical divinity, generally agreed with Calvin. One of
the characteristic marks of that party is the disposition which it has
always shown to appeal, on points of dogmatic theology, rather to the
Liturgy, which was derived from Rome, than to the Articles and Homilies,
which were derived from Geneva. The Calvinistic members of the Church,
on the other hand, have always maintained that her deliberate judgment
on such points is much more likely to be found in an Article or a Homily
than in an ejaculation of penitence or a hymn of thanksgiving. It does
not appear that, in the debates on the Comprehension Bill, a single High
Churchman raised his voice against the clause which relieved the clergy
from the necessity of subscribing the Articles, and of declaring the
doctrine contained in the Homilies to be sound. Nay, the Declaration
which, in the original draught, was substituted for the Articles, was
much softened down on the report. As the clause finally stood, the
ministers of the Church were required to declare, not that they approved
of her constitution, but merely that they submitted to it. Had the bill
become law, the only people in the kingdom who would have been under
the necessity of signing the Articles would have