My dear Sir,—Permit me to ask you whether you can receive and answer a case of ecclesiastical law? That you can answer it better than any other man I have no doubt; but can you receive the case professionally, so as to enable a Bishop to show your opinion as his authority for action?
I have never thanked you for your kindness in sending me a copy of the second edition of 'The Bishopric of the U. C., &c., at Jerusalem,' for I am ashamed to own I have never, till this day, read the new matter which it gives to us. Accept now my hearty thanks for your kindness to me in sending to me a copy, and my still heartier acknowledgments of your invaluable service to the Church in furnishing it with such a lesson.
You have, of course, seen the 'Alterius orbis Papa's' letter of June 18 to the King of Prussia, and have, with me, wondered at the mixture of temerity and cowardice (which latter quality, by the way, is the rashest of all feelings) indicated in such a mode of escaping from the difficulties by which he was pressed.
I grieve for this marvellous indiscretion. But I am amused by the bolder defiance of all consistency which is exhibited by his prime Adviser, who, while he prompts his Chief to trample Rubrics, Canons, Statutes, under his feet, commands His own Clergy to observe them 'with Chinese exactness.'
I went to your second edition, in order that I might find your promised remarks on the need in which the Church stands of a Church Legislature. I have read them with great gratification, and implore your close attention to the subject. My Clergy are, I believe, about to meet and to address me to urge on the Archbishop their earnest desire of leave from the Crown for Convocation to consider the best means of altering its own constitution, or otherwise devising a new Body empowered and fitted to act synodically.
This is, at present, somewhat of a secret, but it will in a few days, I believe, transpire.
From other quarters, I hear, similar proceedings may be expected. The
Bishop of Llandaff tells me that he makes the necessity of a Church
Legislature one topic in his Charge.
Yours, my dear Sir,
Most faithfully,