1
 
 v^ 
 
 A LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 REMONSTRANCE 
 
 TO THE VERY REV. 
 
 THE DEAN OF WESTMINSTER 
 
 ©n 6is recent 3[ntiitation to Dr. Colenso to PreacI) 
 in mestminster abtieg 
 
 BY THE REV. 
 
 HENRY M. INGRAM 
 
 UNDER MASTER OF ST. PETEr's COLLEGE, WESTMINSTER 
 
 a tt ir u 
 
 RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 HIGH STREET 
 
 ©xfortr 
 
 TRINITY STREET 
 
 ©ambrrtJge 
 
 1875
 
 A LETTER, &c. 
 
 Dear Mr. Dean, 
 
 As a clergyman of tile Claurcli of England, 
 entrusted with ttie moral and spiritual oversight, 
 as well as in some measure with the intellectual 
 training of the scholars of St. Peter's, Westminster, 
 and as holding an official stall in the Abbey, with 
 a pew, and seats for my family and household, I 
 write to protest against the offence offered to us by 
 your recent invitation to Dr. Colenso to preach in 
 the Abbey pulpit on St. Thomas' Day. 
 
 I have carefully read the correspondence on this 
 subject, published in the Times on the 19th of 
 this month, in which you state the grounds for 
 your action, which I take to be, in brief, — 1st, 
 your desire to do justice to Dr. Colenso ; 2nd, your 
 wish to deal a blow at (that which you are pleased 
 to call) clerical prejudice, and a spirit of insubordi- 
 nation to the judgments of the Supreme Court of 
 the realm. . 
 
 I do not pretend to discuss how far these con- 
 siderations can be deemed sufficient grounds for 
 such a course as you have pursued, in imposing a
 
 4 A Letter, &c. 
 
 burden upon the consciences of habitual wor- 
 shippers in Westminster Abbey, but I beg respect- 
 fully to lay before you certain facts, as to which I 
 can easily be set right if I do not state them 
 correctly. 
 
 1. Dr. Colenso was selected in the year 1853 for 
 consecration to the then new see of Natal — to go 
 forth on a mission, set on foot by Bishop Gray 
 (out of whose diocese that of Natal was formed), 
 to convert the natives of that country to the faith 
 of Christ, as Dr. Colenso had himself preached it 
 at Forncett St. Mary's, Norfolk^ and as that faith 
 is set forth in the whole Bible, and in the reformed 
 Prayer Book of the Church of England, as by law 
 established. 
 
 Most assuredly it was on this understanding (I 
 speak as a contributor to the funds for the Natal 
 diocese) that sums of money were raised and given 
 for the endowment of the see of Natal, and for the 
 support of clergy under the new bishop. 
 
 2. In consequence of certain difficulties (whe- 
 ther real and insuperable, or only so to Dr. Co- 
 lenso, it is not my purpose to decide) suggested 
 by one of the Bishop's own catechumens, and 
 which Dr. Colenso felt his inability to solve, as 
 to certain portions of Holy Scripture, the views 
 and teaching of Dr. Colenso underwent a great and 
 essential change ; which change of views and teach- 
 ing he avowed and published to the world, and in 
 consequence of which, "in the year 1863, forty-one 
 bishops of the Church of England concurred in an 
 
 UIUC J.
 
 A Letter, &c. 5 
 
 address urging Dr. Colenso to resign bis bishopric ; 
 and in the same year, certain of bis pubKsbed 
 writings were condemned as erroneous and per- 
 nicious by tbe bisbops and clergy of tbe Convoca- 
 tion of tbe province of Canterbury. Tbe Bishop 
 of Cape Town, as MetropoHtan of tbe South 
 African Church, summoned Bishop Colenso before 
 himself and his suffragans ; when Bishop Colenso 
 appeared before them by his proctor, and was con- 
 demned for heresy, and sentence of deposition was 
 pronounced upon him. This act of the Church of 
 South Africa was approved by the bishops and 
 clergy in the Convocations of Canterbury and 
 York ; by the General Convention of the Church 
 of the United States in 1865 ; by the Synod of 
 Bishops of the Scottish Episcopal Church ; by the 
 Provincial Synod of the Church in Canada ; and the 
 spiritual validity of that sentence of deposition was 
 accepted also, as it appears, by fifty -six bishops of 
 the Lambeth Conference assembled in 1867."^ 
 
 3. That there was an action of appeal against 
 this sentence of deposition in the Supreme Court 
 of Law, by which the Bishop was preserved in 
 the enjoyment of the temporalities of the see of 
 Natal ; but no action has ever been taken to annul, 
 or to remove the spiritual censures and condemna- 
 tion under which the Bishop fell, in consequence 
 of the radical change of teaching which he adopted. 
 
 ^ See Bishop of Lincoln's Letter of December 3rcl, 1874, addressed to 
 his Archdeacons, &c., on this subject : and the Eeportof the Committee 
 appointed by the Lambeth Conference to consider the condition of the 
 Church in Natal.
 
 6 A Letter, &c. 
 
 But as he persevered, notwithstanding those 
 censures and condemnation, in promulgating the 
 same " erroneous and pernicious " doctrines, it 
 became a matter of painful, but absolute necessity 
 on behalf of the afflicted Christians in Natal, to 
 consecrate a new bishop in Dr. Colenso's room, 
 as of one spiritually deposed, however still pre- 
 served by the law of the State in the temporal 
 status of a bishop of the Natal Diocese. 
 
 The action which you have thought it incum- 
 bent upon you to take in inviting Dr. Colenso to 
 preach to us in the Abbey, in defiance of these judg- 
 ments of our spiritual superiors, is, I solemnly 
 protest, an offence of a very serious kind, affecting 
 every person who not merely on private grounds, 
 but also on the strength of that unrepealed sen- 
 tence of condemnation by bishops of the Anglican 
 Communion in almost all parts of the world, be- 
 lieves in his heart that Dr. Colenso is a teacher 
 of erroneous and pernicious doctrines, and as such 
 has no claim to be set by you in the position of a 
 preacher to us. 
 
 I respectfully submit, Mr. Dean, that you have 
 no right to use the influence of your own high 
 office, which was designed and instituted by our 
 Royal Foundress for the defence and advancement 
 of Christian truth, as an instrument of casting down 
 the truth, in the name and pretence of liberty and 
 toleration. 
 
 The Apostle St. John warns us in his Second 
 Epistle that there are circumstances in which we
 
 A Letter, &c, 7 
 
 must '^ look to ourselves, that we lose not those 
 things which we have gained, but that we receive 
 a full reward : " and adds, " "Whosoever trans- 
 gresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, 
 hath not God : " " He that abideth in the doctrine 
 of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son : '' 
 and, " If there come any unto you, and bring not 
 this doctrine, receive him not into your house, 
 neither bid him God speed ; for he that biddeth 
 him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds." And 
 St. Paul also likewise warns the Galatians, of 
 whom he marvelled " how soon they had removed 
 from Him that called them into the grace of Christ 
 unto another {erepov) Gospel,'' which was "not 
 another " (aXXo) ; but, as he says, " there be some 
 that trouble you, and would pervert the Gospel of 
 Christ." " But though," he adds, ^* we or an angel 
 from heaven preach any other Gospel than that 
 which ye have received, let him be accursed." ^ 
 
 Must we not sorrowfully add, that we now 
 owe it, not to any consideration on your part, of 
 sympathy or of delicacy for the feelings of very 
 many of the Abbey worshippers, but solely to 
 Dr. Colenso's forbearance and good taste, that the 
 grave scandal of his introduction into the Abbey 
 pulpit has not been consummated ? 
 
 If you hold your position, as others do theirs, 
 on the condition of conformity and loyalty to the 
 doctrine and discipline of the Church of England, 
 may I not venture to remind you that by the 
 
 ^ Gal. i. 6-9.
 
 8 A Letter, &c. 
 
 Church Discipline Act^ you are as amenable as 
 any of us to the censure of the Bishop of London 
 for any offence against the Church's laws, or for 
 causing a public scandal ; and is it too much to 
 ask you to pause before you proceed further in 
 this direction of persecuting and driving out the 
 members of the Church (for whom you appear to 
 have so little mercy), in order to instal in their 
 place the objects of your own special regard and 
 favour. 
 
 Kecognising, as I fully do, your high regard for 
 the historic features of the Abbey, in their illus- 
 tration of past national events ; as also your 
 anxiety to make the services in the Abbey avail- 
 able for the multitude of worshippers who throng 
 its courts, yet for all this I trust that it may not 
 appear presumptuous in me to declare my solemn 
 conviction, that the first and the last object, for 
 which our churches, and particularly our cathe- 
 drals and collegiate churches have been reared, 
 is not the pleasing of men, but the setting forth 
 of the glory and worship of the Most High, in all 
 their reverential fulness and beauty ; not the mere 
 worship of humanity, but the honoring of Grod, 
 the Father, the Son, and the Holy Grhost, in 
 spirit and in truth. 
 
 I beg to remain, dear Mr. Dean, 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 HENRY M. INGRAM. 
 
 Dec. 31, 1874. 
 
 / 3 and 4 Vict., cap. 86, sees. 3 and 22.