to

If these articles were drawn up, as the compilers say, prevent diversity of opinion," they would never have expressed themselves in such a loose manner as equally to admit persons who thought so differently from each other; and who were so violently hostile to each other, as the Calvinists and Arminians of that age were! The compilers of these articles, like all other writers, intended, no doubt, to express their own ideas as clearly as they could; and no more thought of admitting into a church which they wished to guard by this subscription, those who held opinions different from their own, on the pretence of a latitude of interpretation, than by subscribing them as articles of peace, or in any other way that does not imply a belief of them at all. This latitude of interpretation I cannot help considering as a very dangerous thing, opening a door to the most sophistical perversion of language, and the most shameful prevarication.

Is there not as much evidence of the Scriptures admitting this latitude of interpretation, as the Thirty-nine Articles; and if the use of it be to make room for diversity of opinion, I do not see why the latitude of interpreting scripture might not have answered this purpose, as well as the latitude of interpreting the articles; and, therefore, the compilers of these articles, if they had the ideas that you ascribe to them, might have saved themselves all their trouble, and have required a subscription to the Scriptures only. In reality, by this latitude of interpretation you yourself most evidently contradict the text, when you say, that "they are not Calvinistical."* For if they do not express the ideas of Calvin with respect to the doctrines of grace, original sin, and predestination, it is not easy to say where genuine Calvinism is to be found.

I am still more surprised that you should say, that "the belief of the more moderate Socinians, when reduced to its most simple, as well as most decent expression, and that of the Church of England, as set forth in a general meeting of her divines at Oxford, in the year 1695, differ much less from each other than is usually presumed."+ This, Sir, leads me to think that your own real sentiments are not very different from what you would call moderate Socinianism. But by what strange latitude of interpretation must it be, by means of which Calvinists, Arminians, and Socinians, might all subscribe the same articles, drawn up with

* Address, p. 39. (P.)

+ Ibid. p. 4. (P.)

such studied precision, purposely to exclude diversity of opinion! The compilers must have been very unfortunate in expressing their own opinions, if they had any at all.

You most strangely say, that "the compilers of the articles refer to the Scriptures for a more particular comment." On the contrary, nothing can be more evident than that the articles were intended to be a comment on the Scriptures, that is, to declare in what sense the Scriptures are to be understood. And as the commentary is always more full and explicit than the text, and is written after the text, in order to supply its deficiencies; if the Scriptures themselves had been thought sufficiently full and explicit, the compilers of the articles would doubtless have saved themselves the trouble of making their text. The articles themselves declare that they give the sense of the Scriptures; in other words, that they are a comment upon them, and the compilers never refer to the Scriptures for a fuller or clearer account of what they have expressed in a more concise and less intelligible manner.

Indeed, Sir, nothing can be more absurd than your idea of the articles being the text, and the Scriptures being the comment; and your willingness to have the articles considered in this light is opening another door to subscription which the compilers themselves evidently meant to shut, but without which, you, Sir, could not have so conveniently entered. On the whole, I conclude that you first subscribed these articles as articles of peace, the meaning of which it is not easy to understand, except negatively, that they are not articles of faith, or things to be believed; but reflecting afterwards that this idea would not so well bear a public discussion, you chose another ground of defence, that of the literal sense with a latitude of interpretation. Indeed, it is too common a thing for men to act from one principle, and then to vindicate their conduct on another.

That you have been unwilling to consider the articles of the Church of England as necessary to be bona fide believed by all the subscribing members, is farther evident from your saying, that "though they were enjoined, as the title prefixed to them imports, to prevent diversity of opinions, and to establish consent touching true religion, this is chiefly to be understood with reference to exterior government and discipline. The legislature never designed that all men should

• Address, p. 39. (P.)

explain them exactly alike, and, therefore, purposely expressed them with a degree of generality and latitude which might answer every end of peace and good order in society, over which it was appointed to rule and govern; at the same time that it was unwilling to tie down every member of its ministry to the same precise comments upon its doctrines; which, considering the variety of our habits, apprehensions, studies, and education, perhaps no ten men in the kingdom could be supposed to understand precisely in the same identical acceptation." Now, that no ten men think exactly alike on all the subjects of these articles is very probable; and therefore, I think, that there may not be ten men in the kingdom who, after due consideration, can bonâ fide subscribe them; but it will be easy to find hundreds who shall have the same idea of their meaning.

That the legislature for the time being had any idea of their language being differently explained, so as to admit that latitude of interpretation which you want, and for which you contend; and especially that they had any idea of a greater latitude of interpreting the articles of doctrine, than those of discipline, is a mere chimera of your own, unsupported by any evidence or probability. Of the two, more stress is evidently laid, as it ought to be, on matters of doctrine than on those of discipline; and for any thing that appears, the latitude of interpretation was designed to be the same with respect to both; that is, none at all. They were, no doubt, meant to be believed and conformed to, as the plain sense of their words imports. This, indeed, you do not, in fact, deny; if, as you say, "all are excluded from your church who are excepted by the very letter of the articles;" and these articles are so many, so complex, and so definitely expressed, that your latitude of interpretation, if it be not sophistical and evasive, will amount to nothing.

Farther, you say, "Mr. Paley has thrown some light upon this much controverted subject; that you have considered his arguments at leisure, and that they have strengthened you in your opinion, that, in the present state of society, some establishment or other is absolutely requisite."† I may, therefore, fairly presume, that at one time you approved of the principle on which he defends subscription; and it is well known that he does not think that a belief of all the articles, in their literal sense, even with a latitude of

* Address, p. 38. (P.)

+ Defence, p. 46. (P.)

interpretation, is necessary. hended by Mr. Gisborne."

And for this he is justly repre

This variety and inconsistency, in your ideas of subscription, shew that you have fluctuated very much in your views of it; and I can truly feel for the anxiety you must have suffered on this account. And as the same views will probably occur again at different times, you will be subject to the same uneasiness again and again, while your power of reflection continues. I therefore think that, with your sensibility of mind, you would have chosen a much wiser part, if you had not subscribed at all, and have sacrificed all the boasted, but imaginary, advantages of an establishment, for that liberty and peace of mind which is enjoyed by us Dissenters; who are not bound by any subscriptions, but who are at liberty to follow evidence wherever it leads us, and who can change our opinions as often as we see cause so to do.

I shall close these remarks with some pertinent, though you, Sir, will think them severe, observations of Mr. Clark's, on your idea of subscription to the articles in their

"The opinion which Mr. Paley maintains," he says, (p. 128,) "appears to me not only unsupported by argument, but likely to be productive of consequences highly pernicious.-That subscription may be justified without an actual belief of each of the articles, as I understand Mr. Paley to intimate, is a gratuitous assumption. On this point let the articles speak for themselves. Why is an article continued in its place if it be not meant to be believed? If one may be signed without being believed, why may not all ? By what criterion are we to distinguish those which may be subscribed by a person who thinks them false, from those which may not? Is not the present mode of subscription virtually the same as if each article were separately offered to the subscriber? And in that case could any man be justified in subscribing one which he disbelieved?

"No circumstance,” he adds, “could have a more direct tendency to ensuare the consciences of the clergy; no circumstance could afford the enemies of the Established Church a more advantageous occasion of charging her ministers with insincerity, than the admission of the opinion, that the articles may safely be subscribed without a conviction of their truth, taken severally, as well as collectively. That opinion I have seen maintained in publications of inferior note, but I could not, without particular surprise and concern, behold it avowed by a writer of such authority as Mr. Paley." (P.)

The work to which Dr. Priestley here refers is entitled, "The Principles of Moral Philosophy investigated, and briefly applied to the Constitution of Civil Society, together with Remarks on the Principles assumed by Mr. Paley, as the Basis of all moral Conclusions, and on other Positions of the same Author. By Thomas Gisborne, A. M." See New An. Reg. (1789), X. p. [238].

† Author of "The Defence of the Unity of God, in Four Letters to the Rev. Mr. Harper, &c., by G. Clark.'-His faith is that of the Unitarians; which he seems to have adopted after a calm, deliberate inquiry, and with great seriousness of spirit. To this defence Mr. Clark has added, Remarks on Mr. Romaine's Sermon on the Self-existence of Jesus Christ, and on the Rev. Mr. Hawkins's Letter to Dr. Priestley, which are written with judgment and precision, and with a temper and spirit that do honour to the author." Ibid. pp. [225], [226].

In an Advertisement, on the last page of the Defences, Dr. Priestley says, "Having had occasion, in the course of these Letters, to recommend Mr. Clark's

literal and grammatical acceptation, but with a latitude in the interpretation of them. "It is, in fact," he says, "as much as to say, that he must believe the words as they stand in their literal and grammatical acceptation, but he may, by a mental reservation, save himself from subscribing to the common and general meaning of those words; or more briefly, that he must believe the words exactly as they stand, but he need not believe what is the obvious meaning of them.'

On this, and on your laboured explanations of the doctrine of the Trinity, he goes on to say, "By this the reader will see how true it is that wise men can reason themselves out of their understandings, and how, by a sort of metaphysical legerdemain, that, which in the nature of things is impossible, becomes in a moment not only possible, but so plain and familiar to our apprehensions, that it is matter of wonder that all the world does not see its absolute beauty and consistency."

LETTER IV.

I am, &c.

Of the State of Things among the Dissenters, and the Difference between the Churches of Rome and England.

REV. SIR,

HAD you consulted with any of us Dissenters, as you did with a person of eminence in the Establishment, you would have been better informed than you have been about the state of things among us, and could never have said, as you do, that "the Dissenters themselves in this country, who so much object to several of the ceremonies which our church has either appointed, or retained from ancient times, prescribe the posture of sitting in the celebration of the eucharist, and the joining of hands in that of matrimony, with several other observances and rites, which have no

Tracts in Defence of the Divine Unity, including his Remarks on Mr. Hawkins's Letter to me, I cannot conclude without mentioning two other publications, with which I wish to bring my readers acquainted, viz. ‘A Letter to the Rev. Dr. White, containing Remarks on certain Passages in the Notes subjoined to his Bampton Lectures, by Philalethes,' and Mr. Capel Lofft's Observations on the First Part of Dr. Knowles's Testimonies from the Writers of the Four First Centuries.' [See supra, p. 5, Note §.] I hope that Mr. Lofft will finish what he has begun, and continue his attention to a very important, and too much neglected, branch of learning."

* Defence of the Unity, p. 114. (P.)