143¢ THE CHURCH IN THE DOMINIONS [PART VII 
of the Church of England, the Sovereign is the head of the 
Church ; and in substance (for the congé d’élire is nothing 
more than a form) no bishop can be lawfully nominated 
except by the Sovereign, nor, as I apprehend, could any 
person be legally consecrated a bishop of such Church unless 
by the command of the Sovereign. “If the members of the 
Inns of Court were to present one of their preachers to the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, saying that they had elected him 
Bishop of the Inns of Court, and prayed that he might be 
consecrated, although the most reverend prelate might feel 
disposed to accede to such prayer, I apprehend that he could 
not lawfully do so, and that upon application a prohibition 
would issue from the Court of Queen’s Bench to prevent such 
a consecration. So, in like manner, the members of the 
Church in Natal might elect a divine and call him Bishop of 
Natal, or invest him with any other title ; but even if the 
Archbishop of Canterbury could be induced to consecrate 
such a person in due form, he would, T apprehend, have no 
legal authority to exercise any of those functions which 
belong exclusively to a bishop of the Church of England. 
What his peculiar status in the Catholic Church of Christ 
might be, I do not profess to state ; but I apprehend that he 
would not be a bishop of the Church of England, and that, 
when the validity of his ordinations and consecrations came 
to be contested in a Court of law, they would not appear to 
have made the persons ordained priests or deacons of the 
Church of England, nor would the places consecrated by him 
belong to that Church. 
He pointed out that the view which he took was in accor- 
dance with the legislation on the subject in England with 
regard to the consecration of bishops in countries not within 
the dominions of the Crown, or for service in the Colonies, 
quoting the Acts of 1786, 1819, 1840, 1852, and 1853. The 
members of the Church in South Africa might make an 
agreement for an ecclesiastical tribunal to try ecclesiastical 
matters between themselves, and might agree that the 
decisions of such a tribunal should be final whatever their 
nature or effect. This civil tribunal would enforce the 
decisions against all persons who had agreed to be members 
of such an association without questioning the propriety of 
their decision, but such an association would be distinct from, 
and form no part of, the Church of England, whether it did 
or did not call itself in union and full communion with the