ISE RITUALISTS AND THE DECISION OF THE ARCHBISHOPS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—May I be permitted to defend myself ? In your foot, note to my letter in the Spectator of August 19th you refer me to the Ordination Services in the Book of Common Prayer (services which, I may remark, I have seen before). There one finds reference to " Canonical Obedience; " and " Obedience to godly admonitions " are charges laid upon newly-ordained clergy or newly-consecrated Bishops. But the whole point at issue is whether these are godly admoni- tions and canonical demands. A Bishop wielding a spiritual jurisdiction is not the proper person to interpret Acts of Parliament, passed without the concurrent assent of the Church, and universally disregarded by even the Bishops and Archbishops themselves. There are only two positions which can be taken up,—either all commands of a Bishop mast be obeyed, independently of their character, or the priest must exercise a discretion as to whether a particular demand is one which he can conscientiously obey. The former position is essentially Papal, even Ultramontane ; in the latter will lie the true strength of the Church of England, which' should make it quite clear that it did not get rid of a Papacy at Rome in order to set up a new one (but without the restric- tions of the former) at Canterbury.—I am, Sir, .Szo.,
E. J. E. H.
[No doubt the obedience is conditional on the orders being " godly "—as, in truth, it should be in all cases—but con- sidering that the Prayer-book lays down that the Archbishop is, in the last resort, to decide disputed matters of ceremony, it seems somewhat strange to regard his decision as 'ungodly because it, perhaps a little incautiously, refers to an Act of Parliament. Can it seriously be urged that this reference makes the Archbishop's decision malum in se?—En. Spectator.]
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