After examination, and previous to ordination, each candidate would subscribe to the Three Creeds, {33} and engage to conform to the Liturgy. At his ordination, as a priest, he would promise before the congregation to study the Word of God, to teach nothing contrary to it, and to fulfil the duties of the ministry according to the solemn and comprehensive pledges of our Ordination Service, to which the writer requests a particular attention in connection with this subject. There is here no want of security so far as pledges can give it; and every advantage _really secured_ on the present plan would be retained. The present Subscription does not produce consent touching true religion, whereas an assent to the doctrine of the Creeds would be almost catholic. The present Subscription does not secure attachment to the doctrines of the Reformation. What advantage then does it realize which would be lost on the plan proposed? They who love the Reformation and revere our Articles, would love and revere them still. It is not Subscription which draws forth their attachment, but conviction—the conviction that they are founded on the Word of God, coupled with a thankful recollection of the men and the times which gave them to us. Let it not be forgotten that, whatever power the laws now give for restraining or punishing those who impugn the Articles or Liturgy, would remain untouched. And in all cases where the law does speak, it ought to be the test of wrong doing. So long as it was not called forth, the just presumption would be that no such offence had been committed; and controversy, which must always exist while truth is loved, would be carried on without the discreditable concomitants detailed above. The precedent adopted then, on the appointment of a Bishop for Jerusalem, suggests an unobjectionable improvement; {34} and it carries with it this further recommendation that it would bring the law and the practice together, which is always considered sound legislation when the practice has become so established that the law is virtually repealed. Instances of this kind are well known. The repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts was little more than a formal abrogation of a law no longer in force; and the repeal of the present form of Subscription would, in like manner, only legally confirm that latitude of interpretation with respect to it which already prevails. {35}