"Christianity is to be considered as a trust deposited with us in behalf of others, in behalf of mankind, as well as for our own instruction. No one has a right to be called a Christian who doth not do somewhat in his station towards the discharge of this trust." PRINTED BY R. CLAY. SON AND TAYLOR. 1 Advertisements and Orders for Copies should NOT be sent to the Editor, but to the Publishers, Messrs. RIVINGTON. All Communications should be authenticated, privately, by the writer's name, and addressed (post-paid) to the Editor, to the care of Messrs. RIVINGTON, Waterloo Place, S.W. We shall be obliged to our readers if they will send to Messrs. RIVINGTON, Waterloo Place, any Copies of Nos. 3, 10, 139, and 142 (September, 1847, April, 1848, January and April, 1859) which they can spare, in order to make up Sets. NOPIES of the COLONIAL CHURCH CHRONICLE may be had Registered for Transmission Abroad, the Annual Subscrip tion for which, to the following places, is 78. post free : FRANCE, DENMARK, SWEDEN, RUSSIA, SOUTH AFRICA, AUSTRALIA, Demerara, NEWFOUNDLAND, Tasmania, New ZEALAND, WEST INDIES, UNITED STATES, and CANADA. To the following places the Annual Subscription is 8s. : GERMANY, ITALY, CEYLON, SHANGHAI, and HONG KONG. And to INDIA the Annual Subscription is 9s. In the press, to appear early in 1866, in one Vol. of about 600 pages, imperial 8vo. HE ANNOTATED BOOK of COMMON PRAYER. THE Edited by the Rev. By Several Writers. Edited by the Rev. JOHN HENRY BLUNT, Author of Directorium Pastorale," &c. &c, The design of this Volume is to produce a Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer er more complete than any work of the kind which has yet appeared, and one which will be acceptable to all Educated Readers. 1. The Prayer-book will be carefully printed from a collation of several sealed Books. 2. The originals will be set side by side with the English of the Prayer-book. 3. Historical, Ritual, and Expository Foot-notes will occupy a large portion of every page. 4. The Volume will contain separate Essays on important subjects. 5. The Holydays of the Church are illustrated with full Original Notes. 6. Some important unpublished contemporary Illustrations of the Revision of 1661 will be introduced. It is the wish of the Publishers, and of all concerned in the preparation of the Annotated Prayer-book, to make it a volume which will be worthy of the present state of Liturgical knowledge, and which may be depended on for giving sound information during the expected consideration of the subject of Revision. THE RIVINGTONS, London, Oxford, and Cambridge. Just published, price 6d. HE NEW LATIN PRAYER-BOOKS. A Letter to London: DORRELL & SON, Charing Cross. Brighton: GEORGE WAKELING, Royal Library. THE COLONIAL CHURCH CHRONICLE, Missionary Journal, AND FOREIGN ECCLESIASTICAL REPORTER. JANUARY, 1866. THE COLONIAL CHURCHES AND THE ROYAL THE fruits of the seed of liberty which the Judicial Committee has unwarily sown for the offshoots of the Anglican Establishment are making their appearance throughout the Colonial Churches, in various stages of ripeness. The most rapid and advanced growth of them is exhibited in the Church of New Zealand, whose Bishops, in Provincial Synod assembled, have respectfully invited the Crown to relieve them of the encumbrance of Letters Patent, declared by the highest judicial authority in matters ecclesiastical to be scarcely worth the parchment on which they are engrossed. There are those who have found fault with this decisive step, opining that the Bishops of New Zealand ought to have consulted with other branches of the Colonial Episcopate, and that they ought, moreover, to have fortified themselves with the advice and sanction of the Home Episcopate. We are free to confess that we do not see the force of either of these objections. If the step they resolved to take was substantially right, there appears to be no reason why they should not also take the whole responsibility of it on themselves, while there are many and good reasons why they should not endeavour to thrust part of that responsibility upon others. As regards the Home Episcopate, it is evident that, being hampered by its own connexion with the State, it could hardly feel at liberty to counsel the severance of that connexion to Churches planted through its instrumentality. And of the other Colonial Churches, there were none whose position was sufficiently analogous to that of the New Zealand Church to afford a precedent, or an opportunity of concurrent action, to the latter. The Churches of Australia are behindhand in the development of the Synodal element, and wanting in unity and clearness of purpose. The Churches of India are, by their origin and peculiar, though somewhat anomalous, relations with the political government of that portion of the Empire, precluded from the same freedom of action to which the Churches of New Zealand are rightfully entitled. The Churches of Canada have already obtained for themselves a formal recognition of their independence at the hands of the legislative bodies. of that colony. Lastly, the Churches of South Africa, whose circumstances resemble most nearly those in which the Churches of New Zealand are placed, are engaged in a conflict for the vindication of the Faith, with which it would be most unwise for the Churches of New Zealand to entangle themselves, seeing that their doing so could not strengthen the hands of their African sisters, while independent action in essentially the same direction will be of material service to them in the struggle for their lawful liberties. These considerations are abundantly sufficient to account for the determination of the New Zealand Episcopate to take its own course without reference to what others, differently situated, might do themselves, or, if consulted, might advise them to do. No one point or the common faith, no principle of ecclesiastical discipline, was touched, and consequently no danger of separation was incurred, by such separate action. The position of a Church circumstanced as is that of New Zealand, was clearly defined by the highest tribunal of appeal in matters ecclesiastical. To accept that position at once, fully and finally, would appear to be both the most respectful and the wisest Course- -the most respectful, because it involved a demonstration of deference, in the only way still possible, for the authority from which that definition emanated-the wisest, because it effected the change to which that definition pointed in the most peaceful manner, avoiding the risk of future conflicts by anticipating the result in which any such conflicts must necessarily terminate. Nor can it be said that there was any want of courtesy in their manner of doing that which the Bishops of New Zealand had such substantial reasons for thinking that they ought to do. They did not, as the matter has been somewhat invidiously represented, "send back" their patents, done up in a brown paper parcel, to the Colonial Office; neither did they pass any resolutions repudiating their contents. All they did was, in a petition to the Crown, to "humbly crave permission to surrender their Letters Patent, and to be allowed to rely in future upon the powers inherent in their office, both for its perpetuation and for the exercise of its functions." While the Bishops of New Zealand have thus acted in a way that places them above all just censure or cavil, they have rendered an immense service to the Church Catholic by vindicating, and in their own case reviving, one of the most ancient and most important features of her constitution,-the independent action of the several Provinces by their Synods under their respective Metropolitans. This, before the up-growth of patriarchal, and subsequently in the West of papal domination, was the great safeguard not only of the Church's liberties, but of the common faith. It did for the Church what municipal institutions have done for civil liberty, by providing a remedy against the evils incident to centralization, which in the Church Catholic is not only, through human infirmity, equally pernicious as in the body politic, but is in direct contradiction to the divinely-appointed centralization of the whole Church in Christ her Head, through the Holy Spirit. If ever the pious aspirations of those who desire to see Catholic intercommunion restored among the Churches of Christendom are to be realized, it will be effected by the concurrent action of Metropolitan and Provincial Synods in mutual recognition of their independence. Thus only can the sense of responsibility for the maintenance of the common Faith be rekindled in the hearts of all. Hence, as the Church at large owes a debt of deep gratitude to the Episcopate of South Africa for its bold and vigorous defence of the Faith, so the Episcopate of New Zealand has rendered her an important service by seizing upon the favourable opportunity presented by the judgment of the Judicial Committee in the Colenso case, for initiating the revival of independent Metropolitan and Provincial action. The example so set by the Church of New Zealand can hardly fail to produce a salutary effect upon the Australian Churches, where the Bishop of Newcastle is making a noble stand against the imminent danger of separate Diocesan action interfering with the guarantee provided by the Metropolitan organization against the aberrations of individual selfwill. It will encourage the Churches of Canada to carry on the work of Provincial organization and Synodal self-government in greater freedom than hitherto from political considerations. Above all, it will give a powerful moral support, much needed at this time, to the Metropolitan of Capetown and his Suffragans, in the assertion of the powers inherent in the Episcopate, and in the plenary exercise of those powers, forced upon them by the attempt of the deposed Bishop of Natal to create a schism based on open infidelity. At a moment when to the issue of the crisis thus brought about in South Africa the eyes of the whole Church are directed, it is cheering to find, from the letter recently published in this country by the Bishop |