The Henson Journals

[212]

Monday, September 17th, 1923.

The Oath of Canonical Obedience –

According to my interpretation that oath is taken to the Bishop, as superior of the Society of which the beneficed & licenced clergy are members, in one word, are canons or canonical persons, not monks. 'Canonical obedience' is a moral & personal thing like 'true obedience' .

It is obedience such as befits a canonical person. It is not obedience to the rules or canons of the Church, as some, rather trivially, explain it . These rules are binding on the clergy, whether a man promise to obey them or not. The word 'canonical' is, in this sense, derived from [^Greek word^] , signifying a roll on register, rather than from [^Greek word^] in the sense of a rule. Canonical obedience is that due from a man on the clerical roll to him whose name stands at the head of it, under whom he chooses to place himself …….

I wish that some of the younger clergy did not now & then claim exemption from obedience to the plain directions & the yet plainer traditions of the Church of England, & defend themselves by appeal to what they call Catholic rule & custom. Immediate Church authority – speaking in a reasonable & fatherly manners – is to us the voice of the Catholic Church, [213] unless, indeed we are believers in Vaticanism ".

Bishop John Wordsworth, to the Synod of Clergy, assembled in 1908.

This interpretation of the oath differs from that given by E. G. Wood in the "Prayer Book Dictionary" p489:–

"The promise is not one of personal, far less of unlimited, obedience, but of obedience to an administrator. The real object of the promise is still the 'Sacred Canons', meaning thereby the general discipline of the Church, as expressed by canons, customs, & constitutions, & lawfully & duly administered by the person to whom the promise is made . The obedience promised is therefore limited to what is prescribed by the law & custom of the church. This was very clearly stated by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the case of Long v. The Bp. of Capetown (Brodrick & Freemantle 313): "The Oath of Canonical Obedience does not mean that the clergyman will obey all the commands of the Bishop against which there is no law, but that he will obey all such commands as the Bishop by law is authorised to impose: that indeed is what is signified by the qualifying word "Canonical".

So Abp. Temple (1908) "Canonical obedience is the obedience to be rendered to the Bishop when he is giving a command which he has the right to give".

[214]

The "Ordination Vow" gives a larger range to the Obedience which the clergyman owes to his superiors:

Deacon

Will you reverently obey your Ordinary, & other chief Ministers of the Church, & them to whom the charge & government over you is committed, following with a glad mind & will their godly admonitions?

Priest

Will you reverently obey your Ordinary, & other chief Ministers, unto whom is committed the charge and government over you: following with a glad mind and will their godly admonitions, and submitting yourselves to their godly judgements?

The response of the Deacon, "I will endeavour myself, the Lord being my helper", is slightly altered in the case of the Priest: "I will so do, the Lord being my helper".

In the Roman use an oath or promise of canonical obedience is included in the Ordination Service. The form is,

"Promittis mihi, et successoribus meis, reverentiam et obedientiam? et ille respondet: Promitto.

In pontificals of about the 11th century we find this question asked by the Bp:

'Nis episcope tuo, ad cujus parochiam ordinandus es, obediens et consentiens esse, secundum justitiam et ministerium?"

To which the candidate is to reply, "Volo" (v. Maskel, Monumenta 11th, 232/3)

[215] [symbol]

I finished "Lord Shaftesbury". It is a curious question whether, if Palmerston had not given him a free hand in exercising the Crown patronage, and the Bishops had been more impartially selected, the practical schism between the "Anglo–Catholics" and the Episcopal Bench might not have been averted.

I began reading a very interesting book, which was recommended to me at Bath – "The Romans in Britain" by Bertram C. A. Windle. In the afternoon I walked with Clayton in the Park, and, on my return to the Castle, wrote to Cecil Fortescue & Albert Saxton. To the last I sent a letter of introduction to Charnwood.

The Times publishes a summary of the draft constitution for the Church in India which "will be submitted next summer to the National Assembly of the C. of E. under the provisions of the Enabling Act". It is said to be largely the work of the Bishop of Bombay . Anglicanism, when it cuts itself off from the C. of E., must needs be a strange product of ecclesiastical theorists. For neither of the two factors which historically determined the Church of England is present. Protestantism and the Nation, the one shaping the doctrine, the other the polity of the National Church, have no locus standi in the case of an Anglican Church which claims to be "Catholic", and to be independent. Here also the same fundamental question presses for answer, What does the Church of England really stand for in Christendom?

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