Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/35

33 time when, and the circumstances under which they were framed, the change indeed might not appear very important; but the difficulty would not in any, the slightest degree be removed. But if it be meant that the doctrines of the thirty-nine Articles are not to be made the subject of examination, let us see for a moment to what this will extend.

Now the first five Articles relate to the object of our faith and worship, the ever-blessed Trinity. The three next are on the subject of the rule of faith, viz. the Holy Scriptures, and the three creeds as drawn from them. From the ninth to the eighteenth inclusive, they are occupied with the doctrines relating to Christians as individuals, the great doctrines of the sinfulness of man, and the grace of God. The remaining twenty-one relate to Christians as members of a religious society, including the sacraments and other points of difference between ourselves and the Church of Rome. If, then, by not examining in the thirty-nine Articles it be meant that the examination is neither to touch upon the relation of God to man, nor that of man to God; if the subjects of faith and duty are alike to be excluded; if neither the sinfulness of human nature, nor the justice and mercy of God; neither original sin, redemption, justification, sanctification, nor good works, are to be inquired into; if the nature and effect of the sacraments, the object and end of baptism and the supper of the Lord, are to be forbidden ground, the examination indeed need offer