Page:A review of the state of the question respecting the admission of dissenters to the universities.djvu/53

51 passed through our course of education as well in divinity as in other subjects, and gave satisfaction in their public examination, might surely be permitted without danger to proceed to their degree, and need be subjected to no invidious distinctions among ourselves.

I consider indeed an objection to attach to the subscription to the Articles, either at matriculation, or at our degrees, quite independent of all consideration of the amount of knowledge, or exact accordance of opinion of the persons called upon to subscribe. In the first place, as subscription to the Articles is made the solemn test of the opinions of those who are admitted into holy orders, the attaching the same obligation to other less sacred circumstances, tends to lessen the serious sense in which it is viewed at ordination. But, besides this, the subscription to the Articles is an obligation, which our church in no case imposes upon its lay members. Laymen are admitted to the highest acts of church-membership—to participation in the sacraments—without being required to sign the Articles at all. Assent to the creed and the catechism is all that is necessary in order to confirmation. Confirmation is the due preparation for the sacrament of the Lord's supper. Though our church requires a declaration of full assent to all its Articles from those who are admitted to the sacred functions of the ministry, it does not seem to have intended to institute so rigid a scrutiny into