The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-07-24
CREED SUBSCRIPTION
Its Enforcement Said to
Have an Injurious
! Effect on Mental
A+ Integrity.
PROFESSOR JOWETT's OPINION
Gladstone and the Univer-
stiles . Among the
Churches.

In the Jure Contemporary Review
DR.. A. M. Fairbairn, principal Of Mans
field independently College, Oxford, has
an article upon oxford and Jowett,"
which is rendered peculiarly interesting
by his personal knowledge Of the uni
.versity and of the late master of
Balliol. Els remarks upon the moral
effects of enforced subscription to a
creed are worthy of notice. coming
from a man Of the highest character, a
man, who. as a leading Nonconformist,
looks with irnpartiality upon the ques-
tons which arise in the Anglican Church.
He says:-"The long enforcement of
subscription at the university had the
most injurious select upon the mental
integrity of the subscribers. A boy
who could not possibly know the mean
ing of the act had to subscribe. ' : y
Subscribing was an initial vice aecentu-
ated at every step in the academic
career. y = There was begotten in
the mind of the more thoughtful the
worst of all attitudes to religious be-
lief. that of giving a formal assent to
what was understood not TO represent
internal convictions"
In Jowett's own experience subscrip-
ton was turned into the means Of
enforcing cruel humiliation on a proud
and sensitive spirit, for he was com
PEELED to subscribe before being allowed
to enter upon his professorship, and this
was done at the Instance of men who
were in certain respects as faithless to
the articles as he was himself, and as
little ~scrupulous in their Interpretation
of their obligations when the literary
sense seemed contrary to their convic-
tions." .'Jowett could hardly understand
why a man should make difficulties
about subscription when it had become
conventional, a thing not. to be
seriously. 1t seemed to him more than
a trifie foolish; indeed, only a sort OF
iiliberal ~scrupulosity, to stand aloof from
the national church because you did not
believe its creed As a matter Of fact,
nobody did agree with that creed. Time
and years a modified subscription suf-
feiently to ease the tender conscience OF
its pain
Through the action of Mr.. Gladstone
the universities are now thrown open to
all Of whatever creed, and undoubtedly
the time will come when the professor
If dt4d Liz 1SAlO SA-AR 49,
ly liberated. Fortunately we in America
are free from the eneumbranee of a State
Church; but is there not occasion for us
to derive a lesson from the experience Of
our English friends? All of our leading
denominations have more or less definite
articles of belief, to which every minister
and every o~ffeeholder is expected to sub
scribe. Many of these We're drawn up
W. ~; 1--- - "a Io xn
greatly changed; in a multitude of cases
the Confessions no longer xpres the SEN
timents of the great body of. those who
are expected to subscribe to them Is
there not great danger thai these Confess
sions will increasingly be a snare to the
conscience? The minister subscribes as
the indispensable condition of entering
upon the office for which he has prepared
himself. to which he thinks himself call
ed, and in which lies his career If he
refuses to subscribe, he is without a pro-
fession and without a calling. 1t is quite
possible he may not have read the ar
ticles, it is altogether probable that he
has not read them carefully; and it is
quite within the pounds of possibility
that he does not agree with them in the
natural sense to be placed upon their
language, Yet he subscribes. Does he
not, in doing so, injure that most vital
and sensitive of all the ~organs-the con-
science? Does he not lower the tone of
his own moral nature? The evil is Pc
culiarly fragrant when the Confession is
exceedingly definite and minute upon
which lie far within the realm of
the Unknown, matters which concern the
of the Infinite II the Finite.
Would we then advocate sweeping away
all subscriptions? Far from 1t. Every
denomination must ave its own distine-
tive belief, or it has no reason for ex-
The trouble lies in making the
Confessions so minute. Every political
party has its distinct principles, but each
party wisely makes its platform SO gem |
eral as moi to repel any who, while hold
ing these general principles, yet would
differ as to details. A party believes in
but it does not put into its
platform precisely the rate of duty which
it would place on every imported article.
Just in proportion as the statement of
is narrow and precise, just in
tina proportion the number who can
agree to it is limited, and those who do
agree to it are forced either to be-
come dissentients and outsiders, or to
certify a belief which is contrary to the
fact. The religious bodies and their
should surpass all others in their
delicate regard for the sacredness of con |
They will consult the integrity
Of conscience by not seeking to force up-
on men statements which men cannot |
agree with. 4