Untitled - Electric Scotland

.863-67] SISTERHOOD DIFFICULTIES 461
and besides all other objections, this consideration ought in my
judgment to prevent a clergyman of the Church of England from
administering them except where the law empowers him so to do.
I fear the view you take of these matters makes it impossible for
you to act as Chaplain. Though this letter is marked private/
you are fully at liberty to show it to [the Mother Superior], and
indeed, unless I hear from you to the contrary, I shall take it for
granted that you have done so, and not move further in the
matter of a Chaplain at present till I am applied to. Believe
me, my dear Sir, yours very truly, A. C. LONDON.
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The Bishop of London to the Mother Superior of
MY DEAR
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,
WOODSIDE, WINDSOR FOREST,
loM Sept. 1867.
. . . I presume you are aware that
in the best regulated Sisterhoods connected with the English
Church precautions are taken against the Sisters binding them
selves by vows. It is felt that such vows are not warranted by
anything in the teaching of our Church, and are rash, as binding
the conscience not to follow the leadings of God s providence in
case of a change of circumstances. If, notwithstanding this, any
ladies choose to bind themselves by vows, I do not see what can
be done to prevent their acting in a way unwarranted by the
Church, and rash, from a mistaken notion that real devotion of
life to Christ s service is strengthened by this attempt to forecast
the events of our changeful life which God retains in His own
keeping. The Church of Rome, in sanctioning such vows,
sanctions also a power of dispensing with them ; but the claim to
such dispensing power is rightly repudiated by us so that a vow
for life may be an entanglement of the conscience, when God
plainly, in our changing relations, prescribes for us a change of
duty. The only vows which the Church of England sanctions
are such as the Formularies recognise as based on the teaching
of God s Word, and for these the law of the land provides by
giving its additional sanction to the Formularies. . . .
"
As to habitual Confession, the rule of the Church of England
is almost equally plain. There is no provision for it whatsoever
made in the Formularies. And it is to be noted that no form of
private absolution is provided, except in the Visitation of the