THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN AND DR. COLENSO.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 217, 18 February 1875, Page 3

THE BISHOP OF LINCOLN AND DR. COLENSO.

(From the Spectator. ) It seems that the Bishop of Lincoln (Dr Wordsworth) addressed on 3rd December to the Archdeacon of the diocese of Lincoln and to the Heads of the three Colleges of which the Bishop of Lincoln is Visitor (namely, Lincoln, and Brazenose Colleges, Oxford, and King’s College, Cambridge), a letter setting forth the heresy of the Bishop of Natal, and exhorting his correspondents to assist him in keeping the said Bishop out of all pulpits where they have any control, until that heresy is retracted. The proof of Dr Colenso’s heresy is stated to be, that in 1863, forty-two Bishops asked him to resign his see: that, also, in 1863, his writings on certain books of the Old Testament were condemned by Convocation ; that the Bishop of Cape Town condemned him for heresy ; and that the validity of the sentence of deposition was accepted by the Convocations of both Provinces, by a General Convocation of the Church of the United States, by the Provincial Synod of the Church of Canada, by the Episcopal Synod of the Scotch Church, and by fifty-six Bishops assembled in Conference at Lambeth in 1867. On this Mr Westlake, who was Di Colenso’s counsel before the Privy Council, replies that his trial by Bishop Gray at Cape Town was characterised by vices of which the public has never been fully informed. Bishop Gray, in citing passages from Dr Colenso in his judgment, omitted words which vitally affected the sense ; again, Bishop Gray expressly refused to be bound by the judicial decisions of the Gorham case, and decided special points in direct opposition to those decisions. And Mr Westlake adds that when the Bishop of Lincoln uses his power of inhibition “ in support of a condemnation pronounced in flagrant and avowed defiance of law,” he commits just such a breach of trust as a magistrate who should use his power for the purposes of a political faction. Surely Episcopal trials and condemnations are apt to be gross mockeries of the very notion of justice. We observe with the sincerest pleasure that the Bishop of Exeter (Dr Temple) has not inhibited, and states that he does not intend to inhibit Dr Colenso from preaching in his diocese.