1428 THE CHURCH IN THE DOMINIONS [PART VII 
offence as justified the sentence against him. The bishop 
had convened a synod, and Mr. Long was required to procure 
the election of a delegate for the parish. The Judicial 
Committee held that the bishop had no power to convene 
a synod without the sanction of the Crown or the Colonial 
Legislature, and therefore Mr. Long was justified in refusing 
to help to call the body into existence. The oath of obedience 
only referred to lawful commands. In giving judgement 
the Court said: ‘The Church of England, in places where 
there is no Church established by law, is in the same situation 
with any other religious body—in no better but in no worse 
position ; and the members may adopt, as the members of 
any other communion may adopt, rules for enforcing disci- 
pline within their body, which will be binding on those who 
expressly or by implication have assented to them.” The 
Court also held that even if Mr. Long had an appeal under 
the letters patent to the archbishop, which they did not 
decide, as the matter in respect of which the appeal was 
brought had to do with a temporal right, he was at liberty 
to resort to the Supreme Court of the Colony. 
This case was followed by the case in re The Lord Bishop of 
Natal! in which Dr. Colenso presented a petition to Her 
Majesty in Council alleging the nullity of a sentence of dis- 
possession for heresy pronounced against him by the Bishop 
of Cape Town as metropolitan of that diocese. 
In that case it was held by the Judicial Committee that 
the Letters Patent of 1853, which purported to subject the 
Bishop of Natal in ecclesiastical matters to the jurisdiction 
of the Bishop of Cape Town were ultra vires and of no effect 
whatever. Their decision was based on the fact that except 
in the case of a Colony in which the Crown had power to 
legislate, whether by the prerogative to legislate for a con- 
quered or ceded Colony, or whether it had power to legislate 
under such an Act as that of 18432 regarding the West 
African settlements and the Falkland Islands, the King could 
not set up by letters patent a metropolitan see or province, 
or create an ecclesiastical corporation, whose status rights 
! 3 Moo. P. C. (N. 8.) 115. Cf. Bishop of Capetown v. Bishop of Natal, 
3P C. 1. * See now British Settlements Act, 1887.