hat
law is passed, the subject is required to obey it, but he
is not required to approve of the law as just. The
Prayer-Book and the Thirty-nine Articles, so far as
they are made obligatory by Act of Parliament, are as
much laws as any other statute. They are a rule to
conduct; it is not easy to see why they should be
more; it is not easy to see why they should have been
supposed to deprive clergymen of a right to their
opinions, or to forbid discussion of their contents. The
judge is not forbidden to ameliorate the law which he
administers. If in discharge of his duty he has to
pronounce a sentence which he declares at the same time
that he thinks unjust, no indignant public accuses him
of dishonesty, or requires him to resign his office. The
soldier is asked no questions as to the legitimacy of the
war on which he is sent to fight; nor need he throw
up his commission if he think the quarrel a bad one.
Doubtless, if a law was utterly iniquitous--if a war
was unmistakably wicked--honourable men might feel
uncertain what to do, and would seek some other
profession rather than continue instruments of evil. But
within limits, and in questions of detail, where the
service is generally good and honourable, we leave
opinion its free play, and exaggerated scrupulousness
would be folly or something worse. Somehow or other,
however, this wholesome freedom is not allowed to the
clergyman. The idea of absolute inward belief has
been substituted for that of obedience; and the man
who, in taking orders, signs the Articles and accepts
the Prayer-Book, does not merely undertake to use the
services in the one, and abstain from contradicting to
his congregation the doctrines contained in the other;
but he is held to promise what no honest man, without
presumption, can undertake to promise, that he will
continue to think to the end of his life as he thinks
when he makes his engagement.

It is said that if his opinions change, he may resign,
and retire into lay communion. We are not prepared
to say that either the Convocation of 1562, or the
Parliament which afterwards endorsed its proceedings, knew
exactly what they meant, or did not mean; but it is
quite clear that they did not contemplate the alternative
of a clergyman's retirement. If they had, they would
have provided means by which he could have abandoned
his orders, and not have remained committed for life to
a profession from which he could not escape. If the
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