To meet the difficulty which conscientious persons may feel with reference to the ritual, our Church, in the preface, claims for the book that it shall “be allowed such just and favourable construction as in common equity ought to be allowed to all human writings, especially such as are set forth by authority.” It is supposed, therefore, by the Church, that each clergyman will put his own favourable construction on the details of the book, which, as a whole, he greatly values; and, provided that he does not consider any portion contrary to God’s Word, she is prepared to entrust him with the use of it in the public ministry. Now, such a principle as this is all very well with reference to forms, but becomes inexpressibly dangerous when applied to doctrines. It is only right that men should be allowed to entertain their own opinion respecting the selection of lessons in the calendar; but the very life of the Church is imperilled if we admit a similar latitude respecting the essential truths of Christianity. Thus, the Act of Uniformity, by confusing the two in one form of Subscription, practically opens the way for laxity of religious belief. It puts those who do not believe in the Thirty-nine Articles in the same position as those who think that mistakes have been made in the calendar, or that the mind of the Church would be better expressed if two or three sentences amongst the occasional services were omitted or slightly modified. The favourable construction which is necessary for a comprehensive ritual is claimed equally for the confession of faith, and the denial of revealed truth is placed on the same level as a scruple about a rubric. To the mind of Charles and his advisers I am inclined to think that the two were of equal importance, or possibly the forms were more important than the doctrines. But men of all classes are now, thank God, waking up to the conviction that all matters of ritual are as nothing when compared with the truth as revealed in Scripture; and it is lamentable to think that those who deny such a doctrine as the Atonement should be no more condemned by their Subscription than are those conscientious men who are made uncomfortable by a few trifling matters in the ritual. The conclusion, therefore, is that, just in proportion as we value Divine truth, we should endeavour to fall back on the wisdom of our forefathers, who kept the two things quite distinct; and that there ought to be two forms of Subscription, as directed by the Canon, instead of one, as required by the Act of Uniformity; that so our adhesion to the great scriptural and essential truths of the Gospel may stand out, as the Church has placed it, quite distinct from our approbation of the various details of the ritual. But it is frequently argued that, if we touch any portion of the Act of Uniformity, the whole would be endangered; and it is regarded as so sacred a bulwark around the truth that no risk must be incurred respecting it.