[To THE EDITOR Ow THY " SPECTATOR...I SIR, — In your interesting
article of last week upon the Royal Commission you make a not unusual, but unhappy, slip when you say that the clergyman is bound to obey his Bishop.
But the Ordination vow qualifies this obedience by the words "and other chief Ministers." It does not even commit us to obey "the godly admonitions" of a Bishop, as a despot, but only those of a Bishop in council,—" their godly admonitions." Surely if we want Popery we need not apply to Lambeth or
[We were well aware of the qualifications in the Ordination vow ; but our correspondent is mistaken if be thinks the words "and other chief Ministers" have the effect of restrict- ing the vow. On the contrary, they show, in our opinion, intention to augment it, and to prevent any plea that an obedience was not due to a superior ecclesiastical authority on technical grounds, as, for example, when a See was unoccupied or the Bishop himself was unable to act. " Godly admonitions " is meant, we presume, to guard the case of a Bishop ordering a clergyman to commit a civil crime or do some illegal act. There is, of course, a limit to all human authority. But to say this is not to excuse disobedience or the breach of the most solemn and sacred obligations.—ED. Spectator.]
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