Page:Remarks on Some Late Decisions Respecting the Colonial Church.djvu/8

 in the eye of the law, on precisely the same footing as a voluntary religious association (such as a Dissenting community) stands on here. To the apprehension of a lawyer this is clear and satisfactory, so far as it goes. The principle on which the Court of Chancery acts when called on to deal with a dispute among the members of a Nonconformist body is settled by a line of decisions: the only difficulty which might be anticipated lies in applying the principle to the facts.

Bishop Gray had in that case assumed to deprive a clergyman of his spiritual charge, which carried with it the right to officiate in a particular church and receive the income of a trust-fund appropriated to the support of that church. It was conceded that by the terms of the trust, coupled with Mr. Long's own acts, the Bishop was authorized to do this for any cause which would have warranted the deprivation of a beneficed clergyman in England; but it was held that Mr. Long's offence was not such a cause. 2. In "the matter of the Bishop of Natal the Judicial Committee held that Bishop Gray did of not stand to Bishop Colenso in the relation of Metropolitan to Suffragan, and had not authority to deprive or depose him. The decision, however, was much more extensive than this. For the Committee excluded from consideration both the nature of a Metropolitan's powers (which had been chiefly discussed in argument), and the alleged cause of deprivation, and founded their conclusion on the broad ground that no power to deprive for an ecclesiastical offence could exist except by grant of the Crown, and that no such power could be granted by the Crown to be exercised in a colony possessing, at the time of the grant, an