Extracts from the Charge of the Bishop of New Zealand to his Clergy on 23rd September, 1817.

New Zealander, Volume 7, Issue 541, 21 June 1851, Page 3

Extracts from the Charge of the Bishop of New Zealand to his Clergy on 23rd September, 1817.

"If in my intetcomse, with you, I should find that diffpzences of opinion exist on the subject of S<icr<vments, it is my wish to lie allowed to discuss such points in private, with calm and thoughtful leference to the iiible, and, if nccobsaiy, to the best Conimentatois, that any diffoieives which are found among ourselves may at least be concealed from our flock and be no stumbling block to them. Most earnestly would I depiecatethe introduction of any modem publications of a polemical kind on these solemn subjects, lest we should be led away from the single and simple object of seeking tiuth, into party spiiit and a blind following in the track ot some human teacher. l'— Page dS. "It may be that some of you will hold peculiar opinions, believing them in join heaits to be in agieement with the doctuncs of the Chuich. Against such it is my solemn rind dehbe ate purpose, never, except in extreme rasjs, to issue any public or authoritative dcelauition." " It is not likely that a mere degenerate stripling in a line of giants can add loice or dignity to the tiaditions ol Ins foief.ithers My own comments on the aiticles must by the ca-c be we iker and more liable to eiror than the articles themselves. But this we may do, under God's blessing, by biotheily conference among ourselves " —Page 25- " It remains then to define by some general principle the teims of oui co-operatian. They are simply these, —That neither will I act without you, nor can you act without me. The souice of all Diocesan action is in the Bishop, and therefoie it behoves him so much the more to take caie that he act with a mind informed and reinfoiced by confeience with his clergy." —page 71.