DR. JENNER AND THE DUNEDIN BISHOPRIC.

Southland Times, Issue 1519, 5 January 1872, Page 2

DR. JENNER AND THE DUNEDIN BISHOPRIC.

We publish the followii:<r letter, which may be considered a farewell adlress from Bishop Jenner to those who will' always regard him with sympathy and respectS aa having been the first Bishop of Dunedin :— To Messrs M'Culloch, Gibps, Butts, and other lay members of the G^urch in Invercargill and the neighborhood" Deab Sib 3, — I have Qjliy received your memorial, the perusal of which has given me pleasure and satisfaction, el beg to be permitted 'to make a few remarks thlfteon by way of reply.

1. You rightly assert that the Rural Deanery Board, at its meeting held February 21, 1867, did elect — T should racier say, accept — me as Bishop of Dunedin. Tub is admitted by the Bißhop of Ohriatchurch, who, writing in Jane, 1867, says : — " It seems to me impossible to read the resolutions without accepting the conclusion that the Rural Deanery Board, representing as it did the Church in the Provinces of Otago end Southland, acquiesced, to say the lea't, in the appointment of Dr Jenner ;" and it is not denied that the Rural Deanery Board wis at that time clothed with the powers of a Diocsan Synod, n&reeably to the provision? of statute 3, § 7. by the Bishop of Christchurch, who presided. Therefore, the nomination having been stntutably completed, there was no standing-ground for those who subsequently objected to my appointment on the pretence that there had been no nomination. Moreover, the Rural Deanery Board having formally expressed its opinion, the case was no longer before itj and it was surely an unheardof proceeding to' submit the question to the Board for re -consideration, more especially as such an opportunity had already been offered, viz., in September, 1867. when the former decision of the Board was deliberately re-affirmed. 2. In your second paragraph you hit a palpable blot. At the time of my nomination, at whatever period that, event be dated, the General Synod was certainly not in session. Therefore, by section 23 of the Constitution, it did not belong to that bo'ly at all to " sanction" tho appointment, but to the standing committees of the several dioceses ; and it must, I cannot but think, have been somebody's business to bring the matter before such standing committees, in order that their sanction might be given or withheld. Can anyone seriously maintain that if this had been done, say, immediately after the "Rural Deanery Board meeting of February, 1867, the standing committees would hare hesitated to sanction the nomination ? But it is thus that I have throughout been made a sufferer by the laches of others. At the same time 1 must remind yoa that, strong as I believe the agreement to be, I have not myself relied so much' upon the due fulfilment of the requirements of the Constitution as regards my nomination, aa upon the incontrovertible fact that, no provision having at that time been made for the appointment of a Bishop to a new Diocese, there were in point of fact no such requirements to fulfil. As Bishop Abraham has clearly shown in the Guardian newspaper of June 7, 1871, I was "as duly elected and nominated for the see of Dunedin, as Bishops Abraham, Hobhouse, and Williams were for their several sees : tho General Synod having encouraged the Bishop of New Zealand to proceed in the same way as he had in those cases, there being no other authorised mode of proceeding." Of the accuracy of this last statement, the recent amendment of section 23. in order to made it applicable to the case of a first appointment, is surely sufficient proof. 3. That the Primate of New Zealand and the Bishop of Christchurch acted as if I were duly appointed, is undeniable. They not only allowed me to be styled Bishop of Dunedin, but invariably addressed me so themselves, the then Prinate having commenced the practice as early as April, 1866, in the belief that the Archbishop of Canterbury, acting on hia representations, had already consecrated me. 4 I am glad to observe that you are duly sensible of the unaccountable discourtesy (to us« no stronger expression) exhibited by those on whom the duty properly devolved, in returning no answer, formal or informal, to my demand for possession of my diocese. The injustice, also, of once more delaying the settlement of the case until the General Synod should again assemble, is sufficiently obvious. A reference to dates may here be useful: — In April, 1869, the Bishop of Christchurch, being then, as now, Primate, received my formal refusal to accede to the request of the General .Synod that I would with Iraw my claim to the position of Bishop of Duriedin ; together with a demand that I might be forthwith put in actual possession of the see for which I was consecrated. Not until the meeting of the General Synod in February, 1871, was the slightest notice taken o( my letter ! . 5. In conclusion, I must reluctantly advert to the election and consecration of the Rev. S T. Nevill, to be Bishop of Dunedin. Long before this reaches you, you will have learnt that I have at last resigned my bishopric. My resignation was dated June 16. Mr Neriil's consecration took place on June 4. It follows, therefore, that he commences his episcopal career in the character of an intruder into the see of another Bishop, aa.l that both he and bis consecrators are implicated in a proceeding plainly schismatical. I cannot tell you how deeply I lament this unhappy stop. You justly protest against the " hurried election "of iVEr Nevill. Dunedin correspondents speak of it as having been marked by "indecent haste." Certainly, on the most obvious principles of propriety, there ought at least to have baen some communication with me, before the extreme measure of consecration was resorted to. As soon as I heard of the election, through the news--papers, I sent a special protest to the Primate. I was too late (as it proved) owing to the excessive haste with which the matter was pre93ed on. Still, my protest of Nov. 18, 1870, was before the Church, and it was directly in the teeth of that that Mr Nevill was consecrated. Et was no doubt wisely determined that the ceremony should be performed surreptitiously in the colony. Th*t it never could have taken place in England, is -very certain. My chief reason for regretting Mr Nevill's consecration is the conviction fchat tlie rectification of a step so essentially wrong and false, will ba, if not quite impossible, yet a matter of extreme difficulty. Among Canonists at horne — indeed among those who know anything at all of the principles by which the Church has from the beginning been guided (principles which it is not com* petent for any mere branch of the Church to set aside) there is no difference of opinion a 9 to tha uucanonical character of such a consecration ; and it is clear that the resignation of the rightful occupant of a see into which an intruder ha* been thrust, cannot ipso facto convert the intruder into the rightful occupant. For, as has been observed by one who is perhap3 our greatest living authority in such matters — "An intruder is nihil, wad ex nihilo nihil fit."J£b»~^o^r Z»»---land bishops have only tW2Z2S^'* Kr ~ thank {ot i this difficulty. If they2Si«ot been in such a violent Murry, it would not have arisen. It is hard «> say how the mischief is to be remedied. myself I can only declare that lam ready to do everything in my power, short of ignoring the fundamental principles of ecclesiastical jurisdiction which are here involved, and which, were certainly set at naught when Mr Nevill wa> consecrated for the charge of a non* vacant see, to strengthen the hands of my successor. If anything that I can do or say can impart to my resignation a retrospective force, and so give to Bishop Nevill's seat that security which on Catholic principles it must now be held to lack, that measure Bhall be cheerfully, nay eagerly, adopted by me. The welfare of the Diocese cannot but be a matter of the deepest interest to me. I earnestly trust and daily pray that the Great Head of the Church will bring order out of the existing confusion, and that a sound and healthy progress may ba the sequel of the unhappy controversies by which, the peace of the Diocese has so long been disturbed. Begging you to accept my warm thanks for the kindly tone of your memorial towards myself, as well as for ail the tokens of goodwill with which Invercargill will ever be associated in my mind, I remain, Dear Sirs, Your faithful friend and servant in Christ, Henbt Lasoeixes Jekneb, D.D., Late Bishop of Dunedin. Preston Vicarage, Sandwich, August 23rd, 1871.