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i86r-66] EXCOMMUNICATION 359
assembled, Bishop Gray, true to his word, pronounced a
solemn sentence of
"
the greater excommunication," and
required it to be publicly read and
"
promulged in the
Cathedral of the Diocese of Natal. This document
declared John William Colenso "separated from the
communion of the Church of Christ," and
"
to be taken of
the whole multitude of the faithful as a heathen man and
1
a publican."
Bishop Colenso replied in a long and careful letter
to the excommunication and the documents which
accompanied it, and again offered to submit his writings,
"
in accordance with the provision in your own letters patent,
to the Archbishop of Canterbury not, of course, to the Arch
bishop in person, for that would be a mere idle form, since his
Grace has repeatedly condemned me unheard but to the Arch
bishop of Canterbury sitting in his Ecclesiastical Court, before
which the case of any clergyman of his province, and of every
dignitary below a bishop, might be brought by appeal/
Clearly, Bishop Gray could not admit such a reference
to the Court of Arches without stultifying what he had
already done as Metropolitan,
and he decided rather to
strengthen his position, if possible, by obtaining the
authoritative sanction of the Church at home to the steps
he had taken against his recalcitrant or impassive suffragan.
In the previous year, before Bishop Colenso s return to
Natal, the Convocation of Canterbury had passed a guarded
resolution expressing personal admiration of the
"
courage,
"
firmness, and love of truth which had been shown by the
Bishops of South Africa in their
"
stand against heretical
and false doctrine." 2 But this fell far short of the definite
1 For
For the full text, see Bishop Gray s Life, vol. ii. p. 248.
an explanation of the real character and purport of this resolution,
which was carried without previous notice, and almost without debate, in
the absence of Bishop Tait and others, see the speeches of the Bishops of
Oxford and Ely a year afterwards (Chronicle of Convocation, June 28, 1866,
pp. 488-490).