The Clerical Subscription Bill came down from the Lords, and
was debated in the Commons on Thursday evening. Mr. Buxton made a very good speech, pointing out that the deliberate inten- tion of many of the changes was to enlarge the subscribing clergyman's conscience on minor scruples. The more general words " I assent to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion," were intentionally substituted for the words " each and every of them," to imply that they need only be accepted as a whole ; and the "doctrine," as distinguished from the plural " doctrines," of the Book of Common Prayer, was intentionally substituted in the form of declaration of assent, for the express purpose of making the as- sent more general. Mr. Buxton well said, that for the Church to exact from all her ministers " an absolute and uncompromising sub- mission of mind to all and every portion of her dogmatic teaching," would be "to sever the Church from the intellectual energy of the time, to hand over to feeble and narrow minds the high function of instructing the people in religious truth, and thus to weaken her power and degrade her character."
