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To bring a cafe within this rule, the inconveniency muft,

1. Be manifeft; concerning which there is no doubt.

2. It must arise from fome change in the circumftances of the inftitution; for let the inconveniency be what it will, if it existed at the time of the foundation, it must be presumed, that the founder did not deem the avoiding of it of fufficient importance to alter his plan.

3. The direction of the ftatute must not only be inconvenient in the general, for fo may the inftitution itself be, but prejudicial to the particular end proposed by the inftitution; for it is this laft circumftance which proves that the founder would have difpenfed with it in purfuance of his own purpose.

The ftatutes of fome colleges forbid the speaking of any language but Latin, within the walls of the college; direct that a certain number, and not fewer than that number, be allowed the ufe of an apartment amongst them; that so many hours of each day be employed in public exercises, lectures, or difputations; and fome other articles of discipline adapted to the tender years of the ftudents, who in former times reforted to univerfities. Were colleges to retain

fuch rules, nobody now-a-days would come near them. They are laid aside therefore, though parts of the ftatutes, and as fuch included within the oath, not merely because they are inconvenient, but because there is fufficient reason to believe, that the founders themfelves would have difpenfed with them, as fubwerfive of their own designs.

CHAP.

CHAP. XXII.

SUBSCRIPTION TO ARTICLES OF RELIGION.

UBSCRIPTION to Articles of Religion,

SUBS

though no more than a declaration of the fubfcriber's affent, may properly enough be confidered in connection with the subject of oaths, because it is governed by the fame rule of interpretation:

Which rule is the animus imponentis.

The inquiry therefore concerning subscription will be, quis impofuit, et quo animo.

The bishop who receives the fubscription, is not the impofer, any more than the cryer of a court, who administers the oath to the jury and witneffes, is the perfon that impofes it; nor confequently is the private opinion or interpretation of the bishop of any fignification to the fubfcriber, one way or other.

The compilers of the thirty-nine articles are not to be confidered as the impofers of fubfcription, any more than the framer or drawer up of a law is the person that enacts it.

The

The legislature of the 13th Eliz. is the impofer, whofe intention the subscriber is bound to fatisfy.

They who contend, that nothing lefs can juftify fubfcription to the thirty-nine articles, than the actual belief of each and every separate propofition contained in them, must suppose, that the legislature expected the consent of ten thousand men, and that in perpetual fucceffion, not to one controverted propofition, but to many hundreds. It is difficult to conceive how this could be expected by any, who observed the incurable diversity of human opinion upon all fubjects fhort of demonstration.

If the authors of the law did not intend this, what did they intend ?

They intended to exclude from offices in the church,

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2. Anabaptists, who were at that time a powerful party on the continent.

3. The Puritans, who were hoftile to an epifcopal conftitution; and in general the members of fuch leading fects or foreign establishments, as threatened to overthrow our own.

Whoever finds himself comprehended within these descriptions, ought not to subscribe.

During the prefent ftate of ecclesiastical patronage, in which private individuals are permitted to impose teachers upon parishes, with which they are often little or not at all connected, fome limitation of the patron's choice may be neceffary, to prevent unedifying contentions between neighbouring teachers, or between the teachers and their refpective congregations. But this danger, if it exift, may be provided against with equal effect, by converting the articles of faith into articles of peace.

CHAP.

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