Untitled - Electric Scotland

504 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP TAIT [CH. xvm.
character I am assured by many. Let me earnestly beg you to
be contented with such means of influence, and to give up the
attempt to engraft on the Church of England parts of the Roman
system which are disapproved by the whole body of our Church
governors. I am greatly interested in what I hear of your zeal
and of the earnestness of your preaching, but you must suffer me
to remind you, as set over you in the Lord, that the course which
are anxious to
you pursued at Norwich, and which I fear you
pursue again, seemed to have so much self-will in it that it can
not be
earnest
expected to be followed by God s
blessing. It is my
prayer that God may guide you aright, develop by His
Holy Spirit all that is good in you, and restrain and regulate all
that is amiss."
To those who remonstrated with him for not taking
sterner measures, the Bishop answered :-
"Mr. Lyne is only in Deacon s Orders, and the opinion of
myself, as well as of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop
of Norwich, respecting him is shown by the refusal to admit him to
Priest s Orders. It must be now above ten years since he was
ordained Deacon, I believe by the Bishop of Exeter, and from
that time to this he has never been able to persuade any Bishop
that he was a fit person to be intrusted with the responsibilities
of the Priesthood. He has not received any licence, or written
permission of any kind, from me to officiate in my diocese.
\Vhen requested, first by Mr. D- -, and afterwards by Mr.
H- -, to allow him to officiate, after making inquiries respect
ing the style and substance of his sermons, I have not as yet been
convinced that it was my duty to interfere and put a stop to his
preaching. It has appeared to me better to allow him, on the
responsibility of the Incumbents who have applied to me, to
exercise his gift under such control over the doctrine to which
he gives utterance as the general law of the Church of England
imposes. The alternative would be to remove from him all
restraint, and send him forth to exercise greater influence over
the young and inexperienced without any check. I am quite
aware that it may become my duty to do so, but I have never
been able as yet to find, from any of the complaints made to me
as to his sermons, that I ought to take this step. The general
impression conveyed to me respecting his sermons has been that