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such synod; and on 8 Jan. 1861 the offending clergyman was suspended by [a consistorial

court presided over by Gray sitting with five assessors] from the cure of souls, and in March
following he was deprived by the withdrawal of his license. In an action brought by the

clergyman and his churchwardens before the supreme court of the colony, the judges decided
in favour of Gray, on the ground that though no coercive jurisdiction could be claimed by

virtue of the letters patent of 1853, when he was constituted metropolitan, because they were
issued after a constitutional government had been established at the Cape, yet the clergyman

was bound by his own voluntary submission to acquiesce in the decision of the bishop. From

this judgment Mr. Long appealed to the judicial committee of the privy council, who on 24
June 1863 reversed the sentence of the colonial court, the judicial committee agreeing with

the inferior court that the letters patent of 1847 and those of 1853 were ineffectual to create

any jurisdiction … . The dispute between Gray and Mr. Long was therefore to be treated as a
suit between members of a religious body not established by law, and it was decided that Mr.

Long had not been guilty of any offence which by the laws of the church of England would
have warranted his deprivation. Accordingly Mr. Long was restored to his former status.”

(Pocock, p. 18.)

John William Colenso

“In the same year (1863) Gray was engaged in another lawsuit. One of his suffragans, Dr.

Colenso, bishop of Natal, was presented to him by the dean of Cape Town and the
archdeacons of George and Graham’s Town, on the charge of [false teaching, based on his

book, The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined]. Bishop Colenso protested
against the jurisdiction of his metropolitan, and offered no defence of his opinions, but

admitted that he had published the works from which passages had been quoted, and alleged

that they were no offence against the laws of the established church. Accordingly on 16 Dec.
1863 Gray pronounced the deposition of the Bishop of Natal, to take effect from 16 April

following, if the bishop should not before that time make a full retraction of the charges

brought against him, in writing. The judgment, however, was reversed, on appeal to the
judicial committee of the privy council, on the ground that the crown had exceeded its powers

in issuing letters patent conveying coercive jurisdiction on its sole authority. The principal