"
The Bishop of Peterborough has all his brother-bishops against him, though
they certainly love power as well as he. Not one will defend him in debate;
not one will allege that he has acted or would act as Peterborough has
acted.
Then, again, the bishop who refuses to license a curate unless he
satisfactorily answers Eighty-Seven Questions, thereby puts himself in
opposition to the bishop who ordained the curate. One standard of orthodoxy
is established in one diocese; another in another. The theological system
of the Church becomes local and arbitrary instead of national and fixed.--
"If a man is a captain in the army in one part of England, he is a
captain in all. The general who commands north of the Tweed does not
say, 'You shall never appear in my district, or exercise the functions
of an officer, if you do not answer eighty-seven questions on the art
of war, according to my notions.' The same officer who commands a ship
of the line in the Mediterranean is considered as equal to the same
office in the North Seas. _The Sixth Commandment is suspended by one
medical diploma from the North of England to the South_.[79] But,
by the new system of interrogation, a man may be admitted into Orders
at Barnet, rejected at Stevenage, readmitted at Buckden, kicked out as
a Calvinist at Witham Common, and hailed as an ardent Arminian on his
arrival at York.
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