cribing to forms which men believe not according to
the true and proper sense of words, and the known intent of imposers and
compilers, and the subtleties invented to defend or palliate such gross
insincerity, will be little else than disguised atheism.'[415]
Winston,[416] and other writers, such as Dr. Conybeare,[417] Dean
Tucker,[418] and others, spoke scarcely less strongly. It is evident,
too, that where subscription was necessary for admission to temporal
endowments and Church preferment, the candidate was more than ever bound
to examine closely into the sincerity of his act.

But the answer of those who claimed a greater latitude of interpretation
was obvious. 'They,' said Paley, 'who contend that nothing less can
justify subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles than the actual belief
of each and every separate proposition contained in them must suppose
the Legislature expected the consent of ten thousand men, and that in
perpetual succession, not to one controverted position, but to many
hundreds. It is difficult to conceive how this could be expected by any
who observed the incurable diversity of human opinions upon all subjects
short of demonstration.'[419] Subscription on such terms would not only
produce total extinction of anything like independent thought,[420] it
would become difficult to understand how any rational being could
subscribe at all. Practically, those who took the more stringent view
acted for the most part on much the same principles as those whom they
accused of laxity. They each interpreted the Articles according to their
own construction of them. Only the one insisted that the compilers of
them were of their mind; the others simply argued that theirs was a
lawful and allowable interpretation. Bishop Tomline expressed himself in
much the same terms as Waterland had done; but was indignantly asked
how, in his well-known treatise, he could possibly impose an altogether
anti-Calvinistic sense upon the Articles without violation of their
grammatical meaning, and without encouraging what the Calvinists of the
day called 'the general present prevarication.'[421] A moderate
Latitudinarianism in regard of subscription was after all more candid,
as it certainly was more rational. Nor was there any lack of
distinguished authority to support it. 'For the Church of England,' said
Chillingworth, 'I am persuaded that the constant doctrine of it is so
pure and orthodox, that whosoever believes it, and live