Untitled - Electric Scotland

I-IF1-: OK ARCHBISHOP TAIT [en. xin.
view. I am satisfied on these points: i. The Bishops, even
though only Grahamstown and I should be present, meet as the
Synod of the pro
Province, and also as a Court to try the corn-
v in eial. 2. As a Synod they may declare what the faith of
the Church is, and as a Court condemn. I will not be bound by
the narrow limits, as to the Church s faith, laid down by Dr.
Lushington or Privy Council. I will not recognise them as an
authority as to what are the doctrines Avhich the Church of
England allows to be taught.
l
. . ."
At the usual Bishops meeting held before the opening
of Parliament, on February 4th, 1863, the position of
Bishop Colenso was again under discussion. From the
accounts of the meeting made public in the Biographies of
Bishop Gray and Bishop Wilberforce, 2 it appears that the
Bishops resolved by a large majority (i)
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to
to advise the
"
withhold
its confidence from the Bishop of Natal until he has been
cleared from the charges notoriously incurred by him
(2) to inhibit the Bishop for the present from preaching
in their dioceses. The following letter shows what was
the Bishop of London s view as to the second of these
resolutions :
The Bishop of London to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
"LONDON HOUSE, Feb. 4, 1863.
" MY DEAR LORD,- -The decision arrived at this day by a large
body of the Bishops, to adopt the Bishop of Oxford s motion, and
publish a formal document binding the subscribers to inhibit the
Bishop of Natal from officiating in their several dioceses, makes
1
Bishop Gray s Life, vol. ii. p. 32. It will be observed that the Metro
politan is as little ready to be guided by the Archbishop s Court of Arches
as by the Privy Council.
- See above, p. 283. It is hardly necessary to caution those who may in
vestigate the details of this controversy against accepting the long account of
these meetings given in Bishop Gray s Biography, as other than the personal
recollections and impressions of one of the parties in a sharp dispute.
"
;