PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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Your petitioners, whilst desiring no exclusive privileges, and fully alive to the fact that their church GOOD HOPE in this Colony is an un-established church, "in the same situation with any other religious body, in no "better but in no worse position," do nevertheless respectfully submit to Your Majesty's most gracious consideration their claim to be recognized in any such legislative measures as members of the Church of England, and as such, “by implied agreement, bound by her doctrines, rites, rules, and "ordinances, except so far as any statutes may exist which (though relating to this subject) are "confined in their operation to the limits of the United Kingdom of England and Ireland."
No. 17.
Your petitioners desire, in brief, that the rules, ordinances, doctrines, and discipline of the Church of England may continue to be regarded as the rules of their association. These the bishops and clergy of the Church of England in the Colonies have contracted to obey, and by these your petitioners desire that they and all its members shall remain bound.
Your petitioners thankfully accept the status laid down in a recent judgment of the Right Honourable the Master of the Rolls in the case of the Bishop of Natal versus the Trustees of the Colonial Bishoprics Fund,-from which petitioners' quotations are made-that "in any particular district in the "Colonies, presided over by a bishop of the Church of England which is properly termed a, seo or "diocese, the ministers, deacons, and priests officiating within that district, and also all the laymen "professing to be members of the Chuch of England, constitute, not a church in union and in full "communion with the Church of England, but a part of the Church of England itself, and that all the ministers, priests, and deacons there officiating, and all persons composing the several flocks, are "members and brethren of the Church of England in the strict sense of the term."
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Your petitioners feel that, after the lucid judgment in the case before mentioned, they are relieved from any necessity to enlarge on this point, yet they would respectfully bring to Your Majesty's gracious notice that the church property in this Colony, to a large extent, has been vested in and is held in trust by bishops holding office under Your Majesty's Letters Patent, as bishops of the United Church of England and Ireland, for the purposes of the said church, and not for those of a church in union and full communion with the same.
For these and other reasons your petitioners humbly pray that no measures may be initiated by Your Majesty's Government, or receive Your Majesty's royal sanction, which shall be calculated to interfere with the existing status of the Church of England in this Colony; shall not recognize the Church of England in the Colonies as being an integral part of the Church of England, or shall have
the effect of disturbing Your Majesty's royal supremacy, which secures to members of the said church, both in the mother country and in the Colonies," an uniform administration of the law of the Church of "England," by the right of "final appeal to Your Majesty in Council" through established local courts, a privilege deeply cherished by your petitioners as members of the Church of England and loyal subjects.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
Cape of Good Hope,
January 17, 1867.
(Signed) W. W. BURTON PHILLIPSON, B.A.,
Colonial Chaplain, Wynberg. ROUT. G. LAME, A.B.,
Colonial Chaplain, Cape Town.
J. INCLIS,
Paarl, Minister, English Church. WM. LONG,
Incumbent of St. Peter's Church, Mowbray. ARTHUR KAY, Churchwardens, Trinity Church, J. BROADWAY,} Cape Town.
And by 221 others.
No. 17.
Copy of a LETTER from the BISHOP of Cape Town to the Right Ilon. the EARL OF CARNARVON.
Bishop's Court, Jany. 15th, 1867. Received Feb, 20, 1867.
MY LORD,
THE recent judgment of the Master of the Rolls having caused some sensation in this country and led certain members of our communion to think that the position which he has assigned to this branch of the church is the true and legal one; and to petition the British Parliament to connect it with the Church of England in the only way in which the judgment declares a real connexion can be maintained, wiz., by bringing ecclesias tical questions for decision, first before the Supreme Court of the colony, and ultimately before the Judicial Commission of Privy Council; I deem it to be my duty to place before your lordship certain conclusions arrived at on this subject. First, by the synod of the bishop of this province; next, by the synod of this diocese; thirdly, by the clergy and laity of the archdeaconry of George, lately assembled in conference; and lastly, by a very influential meeting held at Cape Town on January 14th 1867.
At the provincial synod the following resolutions were unanimously adopted :— «II. This synod affirms that, inasmuch as this church is not, as the Church of England, by law established,' and inasmuch as the laws of England have by treaty no force in "this colony, those laws which have been enacted by statute for the English Church as an establishment do not apply to and are not binding upon the Church in South Africa,
COLONIAL BISHOPRICS.
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and that this church therefore receives the English Ecclesiastical Statute Law only in "so far as it may serve to remedy and supply manifest defects or omissions of the GOOD HOPE "Canon Law, or of laws framed and enacted by the synods of this church.
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"III. On the grounds stated in the previous resolution, this synod considers that the "final court of appeal, constituted by Act of Parliament, for the Established Church of England, is not a court of appeal in ecclesiastical causes for the unestablished church in "this colony; and therefore this synod declares that while the church in this province is "bound by, and claims as its inheritance, the standards and formularies of the Church of England, it is not bound by ary interpretations put upon those standards by existing " ecclesiastical courts in England, or by the decisions of such courts in matters of faith." At the synod of the diocese, consisting of clergy and lay delegates from its several parishes, the following resolution was moved: " That this synod, duly recognizing the "importance of preserving discipline within the church, and of maintaining the integrity " of the doctrines thereof, as set forth in the Articles of Religion, declares its reliance "upon the sufficiency of the present constitution in church and state, to preserve "effectual discipline, and to maintain the truth; and the members of this synod hereby "assert their unwavering assent and allegiance now, as heretofore, to the principles and
practice of the Church of England as by law established."
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An amendment was moved to the following effect: "That faithfully adhering to the "doctrine and formularies of the United Church of England and Ireland, this synod "assents to and accepts the position assigned to this church by the judgment of the "Judicial Committee of Privy Council in the appeal case, Long v. The Bishop of Cape "Town; viz., that 'of a voluntary religious association, not established by law." The amendment was carried by a very large majority, only three voting against it.
The resolution and petition to the Imperial Parliament adopted by the conference of the archdeaconry of George are annexed."
The resolution proposed and the amendment moved at the meeting at Cape Town are likewise annexed, The amendment was carried by a very large majority, only five holding up their hands against it.
I am not surprise that on a subject of great difficulty and delicacy a difference of opinion should exist amongst the members of the church, when the civil judge pronounces opinions in a very bold and peremptory way; but I think it to be my duty to submit to your lordship my conviction that the adoption by the legislature of the views and principles laid down by the Master of the Rolls would lead not only to great dissensions, but to a most disastrous schism; for the clergy of this church will never consent to come under the system therein proposed for them. That judgment breaks up the provincial organization of the church, takes away from the.clergy the right of appeal from their Bishop to the Metropolitan, from the Metropolitan to Canterbury, as provided and secured to them through the Latters Patent; sets aside the conditions of the contract which they entered into at the period of their ordination or acceptance of office in the church; and substitutes for the church's own tribunal, first the supreme court of the colony, as a court of appeal, and subsequently the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
While admitting that tribunals of religious bodies, having no coercive jurisdiction, cannot themselves carry their decisions into effect without the aid of the c.vil church of these diogeses and of this province, as represented by its synods, clairs for its power, the clergy the right of being tried by their own church tribunals, as provided in the Letters Patent, and affirms that it stands in no different relation to the civil courts, whether in this country or in England, from that in which other voluntary religious associations stand; or from that marked out by Lord Lyndhurst in the celebrated Warren case, by the principles of which the Privy Council has repeatedly affirmed its intention to abide.
In my own name, therefore, as Metropolitan, in the name of our synods, in the names of nearly the whole body of the clergy, and of very many of the faithful laity, I beg respectfully to protest through your Lordship, as Her Majesty's Chief Secretary of State for the Colonies, against any attempt to change the organization of this church, or the system laid down for it in the Letters Patent on the subject of appeals, by any legislative enactments of the British Parliament; believing that such enactments, against our expressed wishes, would be in violation of our civil and constitutional rights, living as we do in a country from which British law is excluded by treaty; which has its own legislature for the enactment of laws to be binding upon the people of this land; and which has no voice in the election of the representative body in England, which would be legislating for them.
And I further pray your lordship to obtain from the British Parliament a confirmation of the decision of the Judical Committee of the Privy Council as to the position of this
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