The history of this remarkable decision may be told in a few words. Dr Colenso was appointed to the See of Natal in the year 1853. In the same year, Dr. Gray, as Bishop of Cape Town, was invested by royal letters patent with metropolitan jurisdiction over Dr. Colenso and the diocese of Natal. Ten years passed away, and each in his own sphere exercised the authority which he was supposed to have received from the crown. At length Dr. Colenso's book appears, and a charge of heresy is preferred against him. The charge is entertained by the supposed metropolitan, who sets up a court, proceeds to try the cause, and finally, in December, 1863, delivers his sentence. By this sentence Dr. Colenso is deprived of his see, and forbidden to exercise his sacred functions within the ecclesiastical province of Cape Town. The deposed bishop refuses to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court, and appeals to the privy council. The controversy was thus reduced to a simple question of law,—was Dr. Gray legally possessed of those metropolitan rights to which he laid claim? To this question the judicial committee of the privy council has given a clear and decisive answer. When a colony is once endowed with legislative institutions of its own, the crown no longer possesses any authority to create sees or to confer ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Now in the two colonies of Cape Town and Natal an independent legislature had been established in the year 1850; and therefore the letters patent of 1853 were null and void in law. Hence it follows that, according to English law, Dr. Gray was never in point of fact the Metropolitan of Cape Town; but neither was Dr. Colenso the Bishop of Natal.
Thus has Dr. Colenso pulled down the whole edifice of the English colonial episcopate. Like Sampson of old, he has been, indeed, avenged upon his enemies, but he has been himself crushed beneath the ruins he has made. Yet, though his jurisdiction [pg 364] as a bishop may be taken away, his moral power and his influence are increased. He now appears not only as an eminent leader of the free-thinking and infidel school of theology, but as a martyr who has suffered in the cause; and this new character gives him an additional claim to the sympathy and veneration of his followers. When the youthful plant is checked in its upward growth by the skilful knife of the gardener, it puts forth new branches on every side, and flourishes with increased luxuriance. And so, according to every human probability, the check which Dr. Colenso has received will but promote the rapid expansion of his views, and their dissemination throughout the Protestant Church. It is therefore all the more important for those who defend the cause of truth to refute his charges against the Bible, and to lay bare the sophistry of his arguments. Let us take the following example:—
“ ‘And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, ... Gather thou the congregation together unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Moses did as Jehovah commanded him. And the assembly was gathered unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation’—(Lev., viii. 1-4).
“First, it appears to be certain that by the expressions used so often, here and elsewhere, ‘the assembly’, ‘the whole assembly’, ‘all the congregation’, is meant the whole body of the people—at all events, the adult males in the prime of life among them—and not merely the elders or heads of the people, as some have supposed, in order to escape from such difficulties as that which we are now about to consider. At any rate, I cannot, with due regard to the truth, allow myself to believe, or attempt to persuade others to believe, that such expressions as the above can possibly be meant to be understood of the elders only....
“This vast body of people, then, received on this occasion, and on other similar occasions, as we are told, an express command from Jehovah himself, to assemble ‘at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation’. We need not press the word ‘all’ so as to include every individual man of this number. Still the expression ‘all the congregation’, the ‘whole assembly’, must be surely understood to imply the main body of those who were able to attend, especially when summoned thus solemnly by the direct voice of Jehovah himself. The mass of these 603,550 men ought, we must believe, to have obeyed such a command, and hastened to present themselves at the ‘door of the tabernacle of the congregation’....
“Now the whole width of the tabernacle was 10 cubits, or 18 feet, ... and its length was 30 cubits, or 54 feet, as may be gathered from Exodus, xxvi. Allowing two feet in width for each full-grown man, nine men could just have [pg 365]stood in front of it. Supposing, then, that ‘all the congregation’of adult males in the prime of life had given due heed to the divine summons, and had hastened to take their stand, side by side, as closely as possible, in front, not merely of the door, but of the whole end of the tabernacle in which the door was, they would have reached, allowing 18 inches between each rank of nine men, for a distance of more than 100,000 feet, in fact nearly twenty miles”—(Part i. pp. 31,33).
Dr. Colenso revels in figures. When he sets about a problem he delights to look at it from every point of view, and to work out his sum in a variety of ways. By a very simple process of multiplication and addition he has here proved that the Scripture narrative is quite ridiculous and absurd. Yet he is not content. He must lead his readers to the same conclusion by another process:—
“As the text says distinctly ‘at the door of the tabernacle’, they must have come within the court. And this, indeed, was necessary for the purpose for which they were summoned on this occasion, namely, to witness the ceremony of the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priestly office. This was to be performed inside the tabernacle itself, and could only, therefore, be seen by those standing at the door....
“But how many would the whole court have contained? Its area (60 yards by 30 yards) was 1,800 square yards, and the area of the tabernacle itself (18 yards by 6 yards) was 108 square yards. Hence the area of the court outside the tabernacle was 1,692 square yards. But the whole congregation would have made a body of people nearly twenty miles—or, more accurately, 33,530 yards—long, and 18 feet or 6 yards wide; that is to say, packed closely together, they would have covered an area of 201,180 square yards. In fact the court, when thronged, could only have held five thousand people; whereas the able-bodied men alone exceeded six hundred thousand.... It is inconceivable how, under such circumstances, ‘all the assembly’, the ‘whole congregation’, could have been summoned to attend ‘at the door of the tabernacle’, by the express command of Almighty God”—(pp. 33, 34).
Before we proceed to examine this singular objection, put forward in so plausible and popular a form, it may be useful to describe, in a few words, the general appearance of the tabernacle, and of the court which surrounded it. Our readers will thus be placed in a position to form a clear and distinct idea of the difficulty which Dr. Colenso has raised. And we are satisfied that the more thoroughly it is understood, the more complete and satisfactory will the explanation be found.