Never, I believe, was a more flagrant misuse of any document. The book was prepared for one purpose, and then, for party ends, employed for another. Prayers were made into creeds; the pointing of the Psalms into a test of opinion; and rubrics into confessions of faith. Fortunately, there is wonderfully little in the book, taken as a whole, to wound the conscience of those who subscribe to the Articles. But that is not the point. The real question is, whether prayers, pointings, rubrics, &c., should be employed as creeds. My own belief is, that they never ought to be; for, if there is the accuracy of the creed, there cannot be the devotional warmth of the prayer; that they never have been, except in this instance; and that they would not have been, even in 1662, had it not been for the spirit of retaliation, which, unhappily, induced the King and Parliament to agree in passing the Act of Uniformity. (3.) But as the form of Subscription is Wrong in principle, so to many conscientious minds it becomes painful in practice. In a long devotional book it is next to impossible that all and everything should be exactly to the mind of any one, and of all the thousands of clergymen who regard the Liturgy as amongst the most sacred possessions ever given to a Church I believe there are very few who would not rejoice over a slight change here and there, if only they could be sure that no changes which they disapproved would be introduced with those they would approve. Looking at the book in its comprehensive character, as containing a Calendar of Lessons, a vast number of rubrics, the Psalms pointed for chanting, and several occasional services, it is vain to expect that every point of detail shall be exactly to the mind of any man. However decided the general approval, there must of necessity be points of detail which grate, to say the least, on the feelings, if they are not opposed to the judgment. Thus there are many persons who believe that there is nothing contrary to God’s Word in the Prayer-book, and that it may be lawfully used, who still consider that “assent and consent to all and every thing” is too strong a term to express their state of mind respecting it. The result is that some are deterred from entering the ministry, others decline or resign preferment; while many others would consider it a great relief if the form in the Canon were substituted for that in the Act of Parliament. (4.) But there is another objection of a much graver character, and one which, in these days of loose opinion, is, I believe, far more important than any already mentioned. By the confusion of the Articles and the ritual in one form of Subscription the door is opened for great laxity as to doctrine.