(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 Majesty, with the consent of the Lords and Commons, enacted a new form of Subscription, and imposed it on all those who either held any benefice at the time, or should hereafter be presented to one. No one, therefore, need fear that his allegiance to the Church would be in any manner compromised by his disapprobation of the form of Subscription required by the Act of Uniformity; for the Church has never had anything to do with it beyond bearing the blame. It is a test imposed on Churchmen by Act of Parliament, without the concurrence of the Church itself, and virtually supersedes the form which the Church has provided. It appears to me, therefore, that loyalty to our Church would lead us respectfully to petition for the repeal of the Parliamentary enactment, that so our Church may be permitted to carry out her own principles, and make use of the form deliberately drawn up by Convocation, and sanctioned by the Crown.##