Subscription the disgrace of the English Church [2nd edition] — John Shaqi
Subscription the disgrace of the English Church [2nd edition]Wodehouse, C. N. (Charles Nourse)
Religion
Subscription the disgrace of the English Church [2nd edition]
Wodehouse, C. N. (Charles Nourse)
Church of England -- Controversial literature; Church of England. Thirty-nine Articles
If the remarks above offered be well founded, they cannot be a matter of
indifference, for they affect all to whom truth, and religion, and the
credit of its ministers, and the national honour are dear: and all such
might, without compromise of any principle or opinion, as the writer
believes, join in an address to the following effect:—
To Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, over all persons and in
all causes Ecclesiastical and Temporal within Her Dominions supreme.
We your Majesty’s faithful subjects have observed with pain the
Controversies now for some time carried on with respect to the true
interpretation of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion and of the
Subscription by law required to them and to the Book of Common
Prayer; and we humbly pray your Majesty to institute such measures as
to your wisdom shall seem fit, with the advice of your Majesty’s
Privy Council, in order to provide a remedy for the uncertainty
prevailing upon this subject.
* * * * *
IT is with reluctance that I add to the above remarks any that relate
merely to myself. Some circumstances, however, appear to require a few
brief observations.
In a former publication on the Meaning of Subscription, {41} occasioned
by the extreme uncertainty and perplexity in which this subject is
involved, I stated my readiness to resign my preferment, if called upon
to do so within a certain time by His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury.
That call has not been made. It may, however, be supposed that the
remarks now offered on the same subject are published, not so much with a
view to any general improvement as from a desire to obtain relief for my
own difficulties. I wish therefore distinctly to state that this is not
the case, and that those difficulties are removed, for the present, on
the following grounds.
Within the last three years a departure from the plain and obvious
meaning of the Articles has been displayed, to an unparalleled extent,
amongst the ministers of our Church; yet no call has been authoritatively
made upon any of them to resign, and they retain their situations, with
the exception of two or three who have voluntarily seceded. In this
state of things, I can hardly imagine any diversity of opinion with
respect to the Thirty-nine Articles which calls for the resignation of a
clergyman; indeed, it appears to me that it would be simply absurd in any
one to resort to such a step, unless under a decided wish for communion
with some other church or body of Christians.
It can hardly be necessary to say, after what has been already offered,
how far I am from desiring that such a state of things should continue,
however unfavourably a change might affect myself: for I still maintain,—
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