Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/36

34 little difficulty to any class of Dissenters, but will assuredly hardly be of much use to any, be they Dissenters or not. We might still indeed examine in the history of the kings of Israel, as well as that of the kings of Rome, and require a knowledge of the events of the life of Christ, as of those of Alexander and of Cæsar. But if this were all we retained, it would hardly be worth while to retain this: and if in this sense the thirty-nine Articles were not to be made the subject of examination, it would be as well not to profess to have any examination in divinity at all.

If, then, it were necessary after having contrived means for the admission of Dissenters thus to give up our examination in divinity, in order to enable them to take a degree, this would be a second difficulty, which I should regard as insuperable. But could the previous obstacles be got over, and Dissenters be brought satisfactorily up to this point, means might perhaps be found by which this difficulty might be surmounted.

In the first place, I myself believe that, even under the present statute, it might be possible for the examination to proceed as it does at present, regarding it as an inquiry into religious knowledge, and not into orthodoxy of belief. So that if the candidate for a degree showed himself fully acquainted with the doctrines of our church, and with the scriptures upon which those doctrines are founded, he need not even now be excluded from his de-