THE DUNEDIN BISHOPRIC.

Evening Star, Issue 3032, 7 November 1872, Page 4

THE DUNEDIN BISHOPRIC.

We continue Bishop Jenner’s pamphlet:— Shall I be told that Mr Bagahaw is not referring to my submission to the constitution, when he accuses me by implication of violating my promise? What the late Primate of New Zealand thought on this point is sufficiently plain from the following spontaneous testimony with which his Lordship favored me last year, “The Palace, Lichfield, June 2nd, 1871. “ My dear Bishop Jenner, —You have my full authority to state—l. That the declaration required by the New Zealand Church Constitution was duly executed by you, and entered upon the minutes of the standing commission of the General Synod, 2. That the declaration states that in consideration of being appointed Bishop of Dunedin [the italics are the Bishop ot Lichfield’s] you undertake to resign your appointment whenever you are called upon to do so by the General Synod. 3. It is evidently inconsistent with the terms of this Declaration that it should first be denied that you have ever been appointed Bishop of Dunedin, and then [stated] that you have refused to act upon your Declaration, when called upon by the Synod to resign. 4. The truth is, you have never been legally called upon to resign, because no office-bearer, clerical or lay, can be so called upon to resign, or removed from his cure, except upon a decision of a tribunal established by the General Synod. No formal charge has been brought against you, and therefore there has been no trial or decision by any tribunal. 5, The Resolution of the Syuod of 1868 was simply a recommendation to resign for the sake of the peace of the Church.” I pass on to another point in the address of the Bishop of Wellington. The Bishop, admitting that there is no express provision made in the Constitution for the appointment of Bishops to new - sees, says that such being the case, it is necessary to fall back on ecclesiastical precedents derived from the ancient Catholic Church. Quite so ; but the New Zealand Church, instead of keeping this principle in view, has acted throughout this unhappy affair more after the manner of the ancient Donatists, utterly setting at nought all Catholic precedents and principles that in any way militated against their predetermined course of action. “ Nc invitis delur episcopus,” quotes Bishop Hadfield; implying that I was forced on the Gtago and Southland churchmen against their will. What are the facts ? • I will not here use my own words, but the words of one whom I may call the chief of my antagonists in and out of the Synods—the present .Primate of New Zealand. “It seems to me,” he writes in June, 18G7 (a period when he was profoundly convinced that “the New Zealand Church was bound iu justice and duty to accept me as ono of its Bishops ’’—for he changed his mind subsequently) “ impossible to read these resolutions (viz., those by which, iu February, 1867, my acceptance was voted, by a majority of eleven to six, in the quasi Synod of Otago and Southland), without accepting the conclusion that the Rural Deanery Board, representing as it did the Church in the Provinces of Otago and Southland, acquiesced, to say the least, in the appointment of Dr Jenner, It should be remembered also,” continues the Bishop of Christchurch, “that on this occasion all the clergy of the Deanery were present, and an unusual number of lay members” —the “Deanery” being co-exten-sive with the Diocese of Dunedin It is really high time that, this figment of an unwilling diocese should be left to its wellearned repose. When did the “unwillingness” show itself? Not till at leagt eight months after my consecration— i e., sixteen months after it was well known and understood throughout New Zealand that I was to bo Bishop of Dunedin. Up to that time I received nothing but the heartiest congratulations, and warmest assurances of welcome from both clergy and laity. “But,” continues the Bishop of Wellington, “ a Bishop —according to ancient Church principles—must not be intruded into an ecclesiastical province, without, at least, the consent ot the Bishops of the Province.” Most true ; and, iu the present case, no objection whatever was raised by any single Bishop of the Province, until nearly three years after my nomination, and two years after my consecration. Thus, to go through the whole list, Bishop Selwyn, of New Zealand, was, of course, actively consentient from first to last ; so was Bishop Abraham, of Wellington. Bishop Harper, of Christchurch, warmly approved of my nomination and consecration. I have his letters still, {'->f his conduct and attitude towards me at a later period, I prefer to say nothing.) Bishop Suter, of Nelson, was consecrated side by side with me ; he was therefore presumably a consenting party to my consecration. Of Bishop Williams, of Waiapu, i can only say that ho made no sign that I ever heard of one way or the other ; while, as to the holy martyr of Melanesia, it is an unspeakable satisfaction to know th&t he vigorously strove against the counsel and deed of those whp (sought tp ignore iny status as Bishop of Dunedin. What pretence, then, is there for saying that that the Bishops of the Province'did not consent to my consecration ? I consider that I have a good right to complain of such outrageous misrepresentation of matters of fact. Bishop Hadfield includes among those positions which he says are “ absolutely without any foundation whatever”—a formula which he employs more than once—my statement that “the Primate of New Zealand, acting iu the name and by the authority of the General Synod, empowered Archbishop Longley to select and consecrate a Bishop for Dunedin.” Well, I can only repeat for the twentieth time, and with the full conviction that it may be necessary to repeat it twenty times more, that the assertion is made on the distinct authority of tho late Primate of New Zealand. It is not my statement, but his; and, in affirming that “it is absolutely -without any foundation whatever,” Bishop Hadfield contradicts not me, but Bisfiop Selwyn ; whose words, in answer to a donbt expressed by me, whether I need have accepted the Constitution at so early a period, are as follows —the date is April, 1866, four months before my consecration : “ You seem to have been told that your subscription to the New Zealand Church Constitution was premature, if not unnecessary. On the contrary, the (lencral Synod expresd y requested the Archbishop of Canterbury to'place our Constitution in the hands of any clergyman whom he might select, and obtain his written assent to it, before he recognised him as Bishop Designate.” if language has any meaning at all, the above extract proves that the Archbishop was authorised by the General Synod to do

three things :—l. To select a clergyman ;2. To obtain his written assent to the Constitution ; 3. To recognise him as Bishop Designate. And all these several steps did Archbishop Longloy take in regard to myself. The Bishop of Wellington dwells upon Archbishop Tait’s admission that bis “judgment” of October, 1870, was formed on an ex parte statement. That statement, however, was furnished to his Grace, not only by myself, but by one than whom none could be better qualified to give information —the late Primate of New Zealand himself. As there could have been no ignoradee, those who talk of an ex parte statement must mean that there was a wilful suppression or distortion of material facts. But if so, it was in the Bishop of Lichtields account of the matter as wcdl as in mine. There is, however, less need to defend the information furnished to the Archibishop by myself and the Bishop of Lichfield from this charge, inasmuch as his Grace has now, at all events, had the advantage which he at first desiderated, of hearing statements from “ churchmen resident in New Zealand.” The Bishop of Christchurch has written to him on the subject—so has the Bishop of Waiapu, and probably others also : yet his opinion remiins unchanged. His Grace was good enough to send me a copy of bis reply to the present Primate of New Zealand ; of which I shall only say, that it was certainly not calculated to encourage that prelate, orthe church over which he presides, in the course which they have pursued in what the Archbishop says he “ must still [i. e. , in spite of the statements of ‘ churchmen resident in New Zealand’] consider the strange circumstances connected with Bishop Jenner’s appointment” I have never argued, as Bishop Hadfield insinuates, that the assenting on my part to the Constitution, would, per se, establish my right to the Bishopric of Dunedin. What I have said, and what I now repeat, is this : that Archbishop Longley, being “expressly requested by the General Synod to place the Constitution in the hands of any clergyman whom he might select, and obtain his written assent to it, before he recognised him as Bishop Designate,” did select me, did place the Constitution in my hands, did obtain my written assent to it, and did recognise me as Bishop Designate. And I have argued also, that the fact of my assent having been required and given “in consideration of being appointed Bishop of Dunedin,” and the statutable declaration to that effect having been accepted by the Standing Commission (the authorised representative of the General Synod when not in session), and recorded on their minutes without demur or hesitation, is presumptive evidence that no violence had been done to the Constitution, and that my recognition as Bishop Designate was regarded as a matter of course. (To be continued.)