The Express.
London, England, 1865-03-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 21.

THE long and anxiously expected judgment of
the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council upon
the petition of the Bishop of NATAL WU delivered
yesterday by the Loan CHANCELLOR. It relates
not to religious doctrine, but strictly to questions
of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In the year 1863,
charges of heresy were preferred against Dr. Co-
LENSO, Bishop of Natal, before Dr. GRA; Bishop
of Cape Town, as Metropolitan, and were enter-
tained by him in that assumed capacity. In
December of that year, the Bishop of Cars Tows
delivered a sentence upon those charges, by which
he deposed the Bishop of NATAL from his office,
and further prohibited him from the exercise
of any sacred function within the metro-
politan province of Cape Town. The
Bishop of NATAL protested against this
assumption of authority, and petitioned the Judi-
cial Committee, praying that he might be declared
entitled to holi his see until the Letters Patent
which had been granted to him should be cancelled
by due process of law.
The judgment delivered yesterday opens with
a full and emphatic declaration of Erastian prin-
ciples. The Bishops are declared to be ecclesias-
tical persons who " have been created Bishops by
" the QUEER, in the exercise of her authority
" as Sovereign of this Realm and Head of the Este-
" blished Church"—" their legal existence depends
" on seta which have no validity or effect except
" on the basis of the supremacy of the Crown"—
" they are the creatures of Eaglish law, and
" dependent on that law for their existence,
" rights, and attributes." These principles, which
are enunciated and iterated with a certain zest at
the beginning of the judgment, form the basis of
all the reasoning on which it proceeds. The Lords
of the Judicial Committee say—" We must treat
" the parties before us es standing on this (legal)
" foundation, and on no other."
The first question which the Judicial Committee
decides is the cardinal one—Were the letters
patent of the Bth December, 1853, by which Dr.
GRAY was appointed a Metropolitan, and a Metro-
politan See or Province was expressed to be Created,
valid and good in law 1 To this question the
answer of the Court, in strict agreement with its
decision in the case of " LONG v. the Bishop of
" CAPE Towx," is—No.
Those letters patent were issued in the exercise
of a supposed prerogative, and not under the pro-
visions of a statute, nor have they been confirmed
by the act of either the local or the Imperial
legislature. But then, the Lords of the Judi-
cial Committee say, "we apprehend it to be
" clear upon principle, that after the establish-
" ment of an independent legislature in the settle-
" ments of the C.,pe of Good Hope and Natal
" there was no power in the Crown, by virtue of
" its prerogative, to establish a metropolitan see
"or province." The Crown cannot make a new
diocese in the United Kingdom by prerogative ;
it must be done by legislation, and the Crown, of
course, renounces the legislative power in respect
of a colony as soon as it endows it with independ-
ent legislative institutions. Bishop GRAY was
consecrated in 1847 ; in 1850 the Cape colony
received parliamentary institutions ; in 1853,
Bishop GRAY surrendered his letters patent, and
all his powers under them ceased. The new let-
ters patent, under which he now claims jurisdiction
as Metropolitan, were issued immediately after ;
but by that time the power of the Crown to confer
ecclesiastical jurisdiction at the Cape had ceased.
The Judicial Committee adverted to the extraor-
dinary practice of some unnamed official persons
of issuing letters patent in the name of the Crown,
purporting to confer a jurisdiction which could not
be conveyed by their means, and expressed the
opinion that it must have been done by inadver-
tence.

The second question with which the Court had
to deal was—Supposing the ecclesiastical relation
of metropolitan and suffragan to have been created,
was the grant of coercive authority and jurisdiction
expressed by the letters patent to be thereby
made to the Metropolitan valid and good in law