is to be given to the use, not the truth, of the liturgy; and cannot be understood to extend farther than to an approbation of the doctrines which it openly professes, or with which it has an evident and necessary connexion. Thus the law, which requires his assent, explains it; thus common sense requires it to be explained. Nobody ever asks concerning a petition, or a rule, whether it be true; but whether it be decent, proper, reasonable, useful. If such be our public service, we may do more than assent to it; we may heartily and thoroughly approve it.

But even this part of its character has been sometimes examined too scrupulously. We meet with demands on one side, and boasts on the other, of such perfection, as never was found, nor probably ever will be, in any human composition: and whence have these demands and these boasts arisen ? From a notion many have entertained, that they must allow of nothing, in the worship of God, which is not perfect; a notion, connected indeed with an important truth, that our public adorations should be performed with all the purity and solemnity which the wisest can devise; but strained to a pernicious error, that every defect, which the weakest may imagine, will justify a refusal to join in them. Nothing was ever written on any subject, nothing certainly on so difficult a subject as religion, which, after time and attention, was not found capable of improvement: and yet there are many religious books, which the most cautious might venture to recommend. Even in the holy Scripture itself, some portions have been thought less proper to be publicly read; and yet no Christian will scruple to declare, that it is profitable for reproof, for exhortation, for instruction in righteousness. Why then is the liturgy to be rejected, for want of that imaginary perfection, which no book, not even the book of God, has ever obtained?

But it may perhaps be replied, that the difficulties arise not from the want of some supposed excellency, but from real blemishes; from blemishes, which have been observed long ago, and their remedies proposed. Be it that you are thus convinced. But is there in our liturgy any absurdity so glaring as to be visible to every eye? Is there any impiety so monstrous as to shock every devout worshipper? Our most scrupulous ad

versaries never pretended it. Their complaints relate chiefly to those appointments, in which there was the greatest room for a difference in men's judgment or fancy. Of what length the public service should be, into how many parts it may conveniently be divided, what passages of the Scriptures ought to be intermixed with it, how often some of our most important petitions may be repeated, either in the same, or a different form; these, and such as these, are the matters in controversy; matters of so uncertain a nature, that it might be difficult to find two thinking men, if even thinking men were not guided by fashion, who would determine them exactly alike. It must therefore often happen, that they, who will not withdraw themselves from all religious assemblies, will be obliged to comply with forms which they do not wholly approve. The same answer may be given in all disputes concerning the ceremonies observed in public worship. Whether it be more decent, on one occasion, for the minister to kneel, on another, for the people to sit, can never be determined by any principles of reason. The greatest part of mankind always think that ceremony right, to which they have been accustomed: nor are they much mistaken; for in matters of this sort nothing is plainly wrong but change. But whether the point in dispute be of greater or of less importance, capable of being exactly defined or not yet he, who, without public authority, assumes to himself the determination of it, assumes a power, which every man might claim with equal reason, and which, if every man should exercise, all united worship must totally cease.

In other cases, similar to this which we are considering, men do not perplex themselves with the same difficulties. It was never agreed, what is the most convenient form of civil government: yet, except some few, whose enthusiasm has approached to madness, all have, without scruple, submitted to every form, while it answered in any degree the principal purposes of its institution. The laws of particular countries or societies oblige us, in many instances, where the law of nature has left us at liberty; nay, they often oppose the law of nature, where its commands are either obscure or not important. Yet these things offend no man's conscience. We not only consent to be governed by imperfect or

unreasonable laws, without fear of displeasing God; but are ready to declare that consent, whenever it is demanded. Nor let it be pretended, that the affairs of civil life are more indifferent, or more subject to human prudence, than those of religion. The virtue, and knowlege, and happiness of a people certainly depend as much on the form of their government, and the nature of their laws, as on the ceremonies of their public worship. Let the decision therefore in both cases proceed on the same principles; and then every man, who thinks our liturgy a pious and useful, though not a faultless service, will think himself obliged to conform to it.

It will easily be understood with what view these reasons are offered not to intimate, that of all the difficulties, which our adversaries have heaped together, any part remains unremoved; but to convince them, that the removal was more than they could reasonably demand; it not being a condition of union in our church, that even its ministers should acknowlege every thing in the public service to be exactly what is best and fittest. Nothing more is required of them, but to profess by words, what they profess in the strongest manner by their entrance into the ministry; that in their minds they assent to, and will follow in their practice, the prescribed forms of prayer: so that the true meaning of this declaration must have been mistaken, if it has ever driven one man from our communion.

But our other subscription is to be understood in a different manner. Our articles of religion are not merely articles of peace; they are designed also as a test of our opinions. For since it cannot be imagined, that men should explain with clearness, or enforce with earnestness, or defend with accuracy of judgment, such doctrines as they do not believe; the church requires of those, who are appointed to teach religion, a solemn declaration of their faith. Nor is it more unreasonable to exclude a man from this office, who, through error, unavoidable, suppose, and innocent error, is unfit to execute it; than to deay him a civil employment, for which he is accidentally disqualified.

He, therefore, who assents to our articles, must have examined them, and be convinced of their truth. But their truth

perhaps might have been obscured with fewer doubts and difficulties, had men attended to the proper method of interpreting them. It cannot appear strange, that there should be rules of interpretation peculiar to these writings, when the design of interpreting them is peculiar. We are not here concerned to discover what was meant by the writers, but what will be understood by the readers: for every sincere man, who makes a public declaration, will consider it as meaning what it is usually conceived to mean. I will not add, by those, who require this declaration; not by the governors of the church, because they cannot properly be said to require that, which they have no authority to dispense with or alter; not by the legislature, because their sense we shall never be able to determine, but by the general voice of learned men through the nation.

But if our articles are to be thus explained, will they not be rendered uncertain and useless by a variety of inconsistent senses? Where shall we fix the standard of public opinion? Will not every whimsical interpreter find some followers, whom he may call the learned of the nation; and give the color of public authority to his own inventions? Without doubt, the method proposed admits some variety of interpretations: and what other does not? The larger its compass is, the more honest men will it comprehend; and perhaps there is no danger, even in times of the greatest freedom and candor, that it should become too wide. But what its limits ought to be, is no part of our inquiry. It is sufficient if we can determine what they are; what difference of judgments is allowed among those, who may nevertheless agree without scruples in the same confession of their faith,

And wherever an article is expressed in such general terms, as will fairly contain several particular opinions; there certainly it is sufficient for him who subscribes, to be convinced that some one of these opinions is true. To confirm this, if it be not too evident to receive any confirmation, it has been said, that this latitude of expression was chosen, on purpose to admit, within the pale of the church, men of various, and even opposite principles: and the clergy have been exhorted, by the

royal authority, to shut up all disputes, in the general meaning of the articles; that meaning, which, in some curious points of controversy, persons of every denomination have supposed to be on their side.

But they are not only general words, which are capable of different interpretations. Such as were originally determinate, by length of time and change of circumstances, may become ambiguous. Custom can take away the force of expressions, or give them a new meaning: and where the original sense is one, the received another, the subscriber is at liberty to use them in either. That he may understand them in their most obvious and primitive signification will scarce be doubted: and yet, if there is any place for doubt, it can be only here. That he may understand them as they are usually understood, cannot be denied, unless we also deny the meaning of words to be arbitrary and changeable. The payment is honestly made, which is reckoned according to the value the money now bears, however it may have varied since its first coinage: and truth is then fairly spoken, when each expression has the full weight for which it generally passes. Nor are these changes of the sense unusual, even in our most solemn forms. The passages of the Psalms or other Scriptures, which make a part of our daily devotions, cannot always be applied by every Christian as they were by the writers: and yet nothing could be more contemptible, than to object to them on this account. How unjust then is the charge brought against the English clergy, that, having departed from the meaning of their articles, they all continue to subscribe what none believes! The accusation is not only false, but the crime impossible. That cannot be the sense of the declaration, which no one imagines to be the sense; nor can that interpretation be erroneous, which all have received. With whatever violence it was at first introduced, yet possession is always a sufficient title; and a long and quiet possession renders that title indisputable.

This, indeed, is more than it is necessary to claim. Doubtful pretensions in these disputes are equivalent to the clearest. It is sufficient to justify the use of any explanation, that it has been openly declared, and not generally condemned: and