Trinity Papers No. 18 - 'The 1850 Bishops Conference and the Strange Birth of Australian Synods'

The 1850 Bishops Conference and the Strange Birth of Australian Synods

by Bruce Kaye

Trinity Papers Number 18

Trinity College University of Melbourne

Dr Bruce Kaye is General Secretary of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia. This paper was delivered at Trinity College as the Anglican Historical Society’s Sydney Smith Lecture on 15 November 2000.

This paper represents the eighteenth in a series prepared by Trinity College which focuses upon broad issues facing the community in such areas as education, ethics, history, politics, and science. Copies are available upon request from the Tutorial Office, Trinity College, Parkville, Victoria 3052 Australia.

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(1) Introduction On 26 May 1852 William Tyrrell, the Bishop of Newcastle, wrote to the ageing Joshua Watson, for many years a driving force in the SPG and the Hackney Phalanx. Tyrrell gave Watson an extensive account of the diocese and then went on to give his reflections upon the conference of bishops held in October of 1850 in Sydney. He described the closing aspects of the conference and then in brief summary form describes what happened subsequently in each of the dioceses.

In addition to the great difficulty of keeping dioceses under different governments acting together, the real circumstances of the six dioceses, their wants and means, are so essentially different that it would seem to me unwise and unreasonable to expect from them any great uniformity of enactment or union of action. New Zealand with its native population, Tasmania with its convict population, Adelaide without any government support and Melbourne with its wish for isolation cannot be expected to have the same wants and wishes, to require the same laws and regulation as Sydney and Newcastle, united under the same government and receiving the same government aid for religious and educational purposes.

A very astute observation. Tyrrell identifies not only that there were different social circumstances in each of the separate dioceses but also that there were emerging different legal environments within which each of the dioceses had to work out their diocesan arrangements. It is not entirely clear whether Tyrrell’s reference to Melbourne wanting to be isolated is a reference to the views of Perry the bishop or of the colonists in the Port Phillip area.

Whatever his intention, the thesis which I want to argue in this lecture is similar to this point which Tyrrell made in 1852 and which cuts across some elements in the received traditions about the origins and significance of the different diocesan constitutions which emerged in the middle of the nineteenth century.

I suggest that, what happened was shaped significantly by contemporary political and social forces which the bishops at their conference had not seriously considered but which Tyrrell points to. Already by the middle of the nineteenth century the colonies were beginning to develop different social, cultural and political characteristics.

Those differences contributed significantly to the different kinds of ecclesiastical arrangements which emerged following the 1850 conference. It is these forces rather than the manipulation of the Royal Supremacy theory by the bishops, or influences of the bishops individual theological views which shaped events, and that in itself is of some interest for a formulation of Australian Anglican ecclesiology.

However, this is to anticipate and I want to go back first to the beginnings of this conference and to set it in its ecclesiastical and social context.

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The Lead-Up to the Conference

The Church of England came to Australia with the First Fleet in the role of chaplain. An archdeaconry was established with the appointment of Thomas Scott in 1825 and Broughton in 1829, who later became Bishop of Australia in 1836. In 1825 Tasmania was separated from NSW as a colony and the Diocese of Tasmania was established in 1842. In 1847 the diocese of Australia was divided by the creation of the Dioceses of Adelaide, Melbourne and Newcastle and Broughton was made bishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of Australasia, New Zealand being brought into the province at this time. Broughton had planned to gather his bishops together in a conference in September or October 1848 but the conference did not happen at that time. 1849 was a fateful year for Broughton when he almost died from an illness and his wife who had been nursing him herself died while Broughton was still ill. This devastation delayed the proposed conference until October 1850.

Broughton was no doubt influenced by the development of the Roman Catholic Church in NSW. In 1842 Polding had been appointed Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan of Australia and in 1844 had summoned the first Roman Catholic synod in Australia.

Not only that, the colony of NSW was itself developing and growing in political and commercial sophistication. In 1841 New Zealand was proclaimed a colony independent of NSW within whose boundaries it had been defined since 1839. 1842 saw partly elected representative government come to NSW and Van Dieman’s Land.

It is important to recall the different ways in which the four colonies had developed. Tasmania was established as a colony essentially to receive convicts, in much the same way as NSW had originally been established. On the other hand, Victoria began as the result of private initiative of Batman and others who came as free settlers in 1834. Port

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Phillip was settled as part of the desire to find more extensive lands for commercial development. South Australia was formed on a commercial basis with the support of the Imperial Government by colonising interests in England. These founders were people deeply affected by political and religious dissent in England and who sought to create a colony free from any established religion.

Originating in different ways, inhabited by different kinds of populations, the colonies of NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania dioceses set within these emerging different contexts. Each of the bishops had been appointed in 1847, Tasmania in 1842, and by 1850 had acclimatised themselves to their environment. When therefore they came to Sydney for their conference in October 1850 they came from different environments with different possibilities and different problems. Those differences lie beneath the surface of the debates that are recorded in the private correspondence of the participants and in the diary which was kept by Charles Perry. They also, in a different way, are hinted at in the spiritual journal kept by Tyrrell throughout this period. The conference Minutes represent the public statement of the best that could be achieved by way of agreement for common action.

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The Conference Happens

(a) The Pattern of Meeting The gathering of bishops began on Tuesday 1st October 1850 with a service at St Andrews Church in Sydney. This was followed by a preliminary meeting at which procedures and orders of operating were agreed upon. The conference proper convened on the morning of Wednesday 2nd October. The pattern for the day appears to have been 9 o’clock prayers, 10 o’clock commencement of the conference until 1pm, an evening session beginning at 4 until such time as business was completed. Charles Perry kept a diary about the debates. That diary covers in some detail the conversations that took place at the conference sessions from the period October 2 to October 11.

Tyrrell’s journal notes his significant reflections, and his devotional reading. There were further meetings and other activities until the conclusion of the conference on Thursday 24 October. At that point the final Minutes of the conference which had been agreed in stages by the bishops were read to an assembly of clergy and then subsequently published. (b) Issues Before the 1850 Conference Broughton had expressed his desires for the conference to a number of people in correspondence beforehand and not least to Gladstone, in a letter in July 1850. Clearly with Gladstone’s encouragement, he wanted to see the question of baptism and the implications of the Gorham case in England addressed, but his real concern was with the question of authority and the legal institutions for the governance of the church in the colonies together with certain local matters to do with church discipline. The Minutes of the conference indicate that they had consulted about the various difficulties in which they were at present placed “by the doubtful application by the church in this province of the ecclesiastical laws which are now in force in England, and to suggest such measures as may seem to be most suitable for removing our present embarrassments”. They also wanted to consider questions about the development and progress of religion in Australia and how the gospel might be propagated amongst the “heathen races of Australasia and the adjacent islands of the western Pacific”.

The published Minutes refer to several broad issues with which they were preoccupied. The 1604 Canons of the Church of England were regarded by the bishops as part of their understanding of the church and its orderedness and they “must be, as far as possible, complied with in substance”. They addressed the question of synods and conventions for the purposes of church governance, church membership and the discipline of bishops and clergy as well as laity. They also addressed some more particular issues to do with liturgy, baptism, education and the establishment of a board of missions.

In both categories issues of contextualisation are present. The bishops were stewards of a religious faith which had grown up in England with particular Church institutions related to that society. Now, however, they found themselves in a society which lacked those institutional frameworks, a society which was nonetheless still linked to England not only by ties of sentiment but by certain legal obligations.

However, there is a third issue which does not really appear in the debates in Perry’s diary and is reflected certainly in the public arguments which took place subsequent to the bishops’ conference, namely the contemporary mentality which shaped the way in which people were prepared to think about questions of authority and institutionality. This mentality can be seen in the public reactions in some of the colonies.

(4) Church Governance Clearly Church governance was an important issue before the bishops. The practical questions which they discussed hung underneath the shadow of this question.

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According to Perry’s diary the key people in the debate on governance were Broughton and Perry, Selwyn and Short. Tyrrell was relatively quiet on this subject and Nixon’s few contributions on the subject reveal his concern with the special circumstances of Tasmania as a convict colony.

They focused on the significance of the Royal Supremacy and its importance to the colonial Churches. The ecclesiastical law aspects of the Royal Supremacy had no mode of operation in the colonies and were inoperative.

However the bishops implied that the Royal Supremacy contained within itself a theory of Church governance.

They attempted to interpret the theory of the Royal Supremacy to produce conclusions as to how they might proceed in the colony. They were divided on the question of whether priority should be given to the diocese or to the province and there was significant debate as to the nature of synods which for most of them meant an assembly of the bishop and clergy.

They were divided also about the way in which discipline should be exercised under any kind of constitutional arrangement in the colonies but they were all clear that the financial implications of the colonial situation for the churches created significant problems for them in the area of governance.

The argument reflects a very considerable knowledge of ancient sources and the standard text books. They also seemed very well aware of contemporary debates. They were aware of what was going on in the United States and indeed appeared to have records of the constitution of the various conventions of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA. Tyrrell’s Journal reveals that he spent days preparing for this conference. Perry’s diary suggests a similar effort for all of the bishops. From time to time it is clear that they wrote papers on topics which they read to each other trying to develop their own position.

There are clear perspectives which come out from the different bishops during the course of the debate.

Broughton took a leading role in the debate. He argued very strongly that in the colony they were free from the operation of the Royal Supremacy because there was no mode for its operation. He emphasised very strongly that they were a province and thus in terms ecclesial polity they were an independent and self sustaining entity. Indeed Broughton described any intervention by Canterbury in the affairs of the province of Australasia in regard to the appointment of bishops as a kind of Papal intrusion. Broughton is very conservative in his view of the structure of governance. The laity clearly need to have a voice and they can have a convention which is separate from the meeting of the clergy whom he says should be consulted when they have an interest. Laity involvement is needed for the exercising of discipline at the parochial level but that is put forward as a purely practical argument. The mode of his arguments in this conference tends to be practical and based upon legal theory and the legal situation in which they found themselves.

Perry on the other hand focused strongly on the diocese and was not really interested in pursuing the question of the governance of a province. He underlined that it was important to maintain a relationship with Canterbury for reasons of orthodoxy and unity. In the morning of 3 October he even went as far to record his own comment that “Romish provincial bishops refer in all proceedings to Rome - so we should to Canterbury”. The laity he believed should have specific roles in regard to clergy and parishes, particularly in appointments. In this concern he is reflecting agitation earlier in the year in Melbourne particularly emanating from Geelong when he had promoted a clergy discipline bill. In regard to finance he considered the lay people had an entitlement to see how their funds, were actually being used since they were being held on trust. He appealed to the practice of the ancient church in matters of governance, the practice of the Church of England and to what he described as those things which are desirable in the present circumstances.

Augustus Short as presented in Perry’s diary constantly appeals to scripture. The power of the bishop and the presbyter he says is of the same order except that the bishop ordains. The presbyters should therefore probably have a role in any judicial proceedings and bishops who are responsible for the administration of money which has been given from whatever source should be required to give an account. “Autocratic Episcopacy” is in Short’s view a relic of popery and he supported the view that the laity should have a fair claim to present any clerk for consideration in a parish because they are actually paying. In the matter of discipline the clergy have no other authority to act on except their inherent internal authority as presbyters in the Church. The same he says goes for bishops because of the disconnectedness of Church and State and South Australia. It is remarkable how much Short appeals to scripture. Repeatedly he used the Council of Jerusalem as a model for synodical process and from it he infers that laity and clergy should all be involved. Indeed he says the Church of England rediscovered this scriptural principle of church governance at the Reformation.

Tyrrell on the other hand regarded the Church of England as having been wrong at the time of the Reformation and particularly in the legislation where the church appears to be thought of as the clergy. The Church is not just

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the clergy in Tyrrell’s view. It was more scriptural to admit Presbyters into the governance structure and the Royal Supremacy in his view “overstrained” the laity principle by the controlling place that it gave to the Crown and to Parliament in the life of the Church. He was unhappy about a juridical approach to discipline and believed that the preliminary issues of what he calls “training” were more urgent and important.

Nixon does not contribute extensively to this debate and when he did so he generally referred to the advice that had been given to him by the Colonial Secretary, and legal advisers. Lay involvement in his view was very difficult in Tasmania because it was a convict colony. Like Broughton he tends to appeal in his arguments to the legal framework.

An inspection of Perry’s diary read in conjunction with some of the relevant sections of Tyrrell’s spiritual journal suggest that the public Minutes of the conference which were agreed section by section represent significant compromises for some of the participants. Indeed Perry later in Melbourne said as much in response to public discussion about the Minutes and suggested that some of these compromises might need to be reconsidered in the Victorian context.

In the Minutes a synod is a meeting of bishop and representatives of the clergy. The function of such a synod is to consult and agree on rules and practices of ecclesiastical order and to institute and conduct the processes necessary to give effect to these things. What such synods may not do is alter the Thirty Nine Articles, the Book of Common Prayer or the Authorised Version of the Bible. Representatives of the laity might meet in convention simultaneously with a meeting of the synod. They can consult upon temporalities and any acts of a diocese would need the consent of both the lay convention and the synod. Changes in the constitution of a diocese would need to be proposed first by the synod and then the approval of the lay convention should be sought.

Clearly this is a very cautious statement. It does not go as far by any means as some of the bishops would have wished. The role given to the laity in these Minutes is significantly restricted and reflects the influence of Broughton who at one point in the conference declared that the bishops had to have an eye to the future particularly in any thought of committing to the present lay population any significant decision making. He declared ‘colonial bush population absolutely without religious education - what feeling of Church membership have they? The population is erratic, registration inoperative - subscription to articles and prayer book as at Adelaide too stringent - the laity will not submit to discipline wielded by the clergy … The laity has no right to sit in a proper convocation; nor a provincial, nor a diocesan synod. For parochial work let them be employed to the full by voluntary association of parishioners” (8 October). It is also interesting that the direction of the arguments used by Augustus Short in regard to the Council of Jerusalem as a model for the whole Church are completely eclipsed in these Minutes.

(5) What then Happened Tyrrell appears to be correct in saying that there was no agreement as to what should be done by the bishops when they each return to their diocese and in fact they each did their own thing. However all of them made the Minutes available. They were published in Victoria, and made available in South Australia. Newcastle presented them to his clergy and also in Tasmania where the bishop received responses from various people. In Sydney, nothing was done to invite comment on them and indeed after the conference Broughton went off on a tour of his diocese which took him out of Sydney for several months. An angry negative initiative was taken in Adelaide by the South Australian Church Society at a meeting on 16 January 1851 when Short was not present. Only in Melbourne was any real effort made to seek responses. In the Messenger in Melbourne several articles prepared the way for the publication of the Minutes and there were clear steps to encourage responses. A number of letters from groups of clergy were published and Perry responded to them. The tone of the responses in Melbourne was much less critical than in Adelaide.

Broughton received a curt and brief response from the Archbishop of Canterbury in the second half of 1851. He decided to consult with his clergy about the contents of the Minutes and to seek to formulate a petition to England to seek some solution to the problems as he saw them. In February 1852 he met with Tyrrell and documents and the draft petition were circulated to parishes. A series of meetings took place throughout Sydney which led to considerable opposition to aspects of the Minutes, particularly the role of the laity in governance.

Broughton invited the clergy to come to a meeting on 14 April and 41 lay people turned up uninvited and sat behind the clergy at the meeting. In a difficult situation Broughton was lucky to escape with a compromise out of that meeting that the laity would meet ‘in connexion’ with the synod of bishop and clergy. That clearly did not satisfy, because a counter petition went from a group of lay people to the Queen and in August Broughton himself went to England in order to lobby for some kind of solution to the colonial problem. He never returned, dying in England on 20 February 1853. Nothing effectively happened in Sydney until Barker arrived in 1855 and even then the progress towards a NSW constitution was complicated and difficult and nothing emerged until

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1866 when a bill was passed in the NSW Parliament to provide for the control of Church property according to a constitution which was attached to the bill as an appendix. In Tasmania a council of clergy and laity met in 1857 and the following year the Church of England Constitution Act came into effect. Newcastle of course was caught up in the difficulties associated with Broughton’s handling of the Sydney situation and the complication of the formation of the diocese of Goulburn in 1863.

The two places where things actually happened with more expedition were Melbourne and Adelaide and in quite different ways. In the end the first synod to be established on any constitutional basis took place in October 1855 just four years after the bishops conference in South Australia.

In Melbourne Perry had encouraged discussion of the Minutes. From 24 June to 9 July in 1851 a conference of clergy and laity took place and resolved that they should meet again and a legal committee was established to advise on the legal situation. The conference was held again three years later in 1854 and a bill passed through the Victorian Legislative Council in November of that year. Perry went to England to lobby for royal assent which after some difficulties, was given on 12 December 1855.

It is interesting to observe that at almost the same time as royal assent was given to the Victorian bill a similar request from Canada was rejected in London on the grounds that the Canadian bill went too far.

In Adelaide the South Australian Church Society met on 16 January 1851 protesting vehemently that the Minutes reflected too much episcopal authority. The statement by the bishops on baptism was very ill regarded in Adelaide because it appeared to narrow the membership of the Church of England and to constitute a significant change in the range of opinions which were legitimate on the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. It is clear that in Adelaide there was a strong sense that the Protestant character the Church of England was compromised.

Similarly they were greatly concerned that there should be a continuing strong connection with England and the Ecclesiastical authorities there. The same complaint about the baptismal declaration appears in the Melbourne reactions but Perry’s dissenting view blunted any criticism of him. The significant turning point in Adelaide was the decision of the Legislative Council to abolish all Church aid within weeks of the election of the Legislative Assembly in 1851. This created a dire financial situation for the Church of England in South Australia and Short initiated a conference in order first and foremost to deal with financial questions. The financial question was dealt with at a conference in December 1852 but issues to do with a constitution which had been prepared by a prior meeting of the Church Society were also discussed. A constitution was drawn up and a petition to the Queen to give effect to the constitution was formulated. In February 1853 Short went to England where he was advised that no legislation was needed and so it was that in early 1855 a diocesan conference agreed to a constitution for a synod on the basis of voluntary agreement amongst the parties concerned and that synod came into effect in October 1855.

The resulting constitutional patterns in the different colonies differ significantly. Here I focus on the South Australian Constitution and the Victorian Constitution.

The South Australian Constitution contains a recital and a declaration that this constitution is going to be based on a ‘consensual compact’. In the declaration the constitution declares that this Church is part of the United Church of England and Ireland and retains the doctrine and sacraments and the Book of Common Prayer and Ordinal of that Church. There is to be a synod made up of bishop, clergy and elected lay representatives from parishes provided that the parish has paid the synod expenses contributions. The synod may make regulations and will be the proper court for trying offences of the clergy. The synod may hold property, and is to meet annually. A vote will be taken by orders on all matters except questions of finance. All clergy and synodsmen will be obliged to sign a declaration which is contained in the appendix of the constitution. This last aspect of the constitution reveals the continuing consensual character of this arrangement.

The Melbourne Constitution shows a different pattern though the ecclesiology reflected is very similar. The synod is to be a synod of clergy and laity and may be convened by the bishop. Regulations and acts of the synod are to be binding on the clergy and lay members insofar as they concern their membership of the Church or their ministry in the Church. Any resolutions of this synod require a majority of the laity and the clergy and to be voted for by the bishop. The synod can establish a commission and its acts are to be sent to the Metropolitan and to the Archbishop of Canterbury who may comment to the Crown about any actions of the synod or its rules and those rules may on the advice of the Archbishop, of Canterbury be disallowed. Synod members are to make a declaration that they are communicant members of the Church of England. There is reference in this constitution as well to patronage and advowson, an issue which had been a running sore in Melbourne since 1850. The Victorian constitution clearly was cast in the terms of an act of the Victorian legislature. It also contains a very strong connection with the Archbishop of Canterbury reflecting Perry’s own personal views and his disinclination

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to commit himself to a province or to the authority of a province on the grounds that a local province would open up the way for declension from Church of England orthodoxy. The then Archbishop of Canterbury was John Bird Sumner, a convinced evangelical, an opponent of the Oxford Movement and a supporter of the theology of the Gorham judgement.

It is interesting to notice how these two constitutional patterns emerged from local influences and circumstances.

The arguments in Melbourne appealed to ancient usage for example in regard to the appointment of any new bishop by the synod. In the Melbourne debate there was to be no provincial synod because it would weaken the ties with England and would interfere with the bishop’s and the diocese’s independence.

In Adelaide the laity complained about the absence of any consultation. They argued that the bishops’ statement narrowed the conception of Church membership and they did not want any tractarian or anti-protestant section of the Church of England to be given any kind of encouragement. There should be no authority given for other bishops to intrude upon what happened, or might happen, in Adelaide. The clergy also complained that there had been no proper consultation and that in fact it was the clergy’s responsibility to appoint bishops according to ancient practice. They agreed with their lay colleagues about the Gohram judgement because it left the range of legitimate opinions open. Short is remarkable in this whole process for a combination of pragmatic common sense and an openness to what the South Australian Church Society was saying. At the conference in 1852 be defended the report of the South Australian Church Society as being in accord with the principles of the Church of England.

What is remarkable in both these contexts is the democratic temper of the argument both from the clergy and the laity. One can see this in the arguments for consultation and participation in decision making.

The circumstances in these two places differ as well. In Melbourne the focus was legal, the local parliament, and royal assent. The constitution which was prepared and presented was modelled on Archbishop Sumner’s unsuccessful bill in England. On the other hand in Adelaide the legal steps were taken not via the local Parliament where they clearly would not get any satisfaction but by means of a petition to the Crown with regard to their agreed constitution. The financial circumstances in Victoria were not as hardly felt as they were in Adelaide where State aid was abolished early in 1851 and where the acceptance of State aid by the bishop and the clergy have been criticised and contested even before 1851.

In both Melbourne and Adelaide senior public figures were involved in these debates and they revealed both a high level of legal acumen and social awareness. The context in Victoria reflects the newly separate and independent status of the colony and identification with it. In Adelaide one has the feeling that the issue of loyalty to the Crown and to the Royal Supremacy by the members of the Church of England reflects something of their nostalgia for the English establishment in a colony where Church and State were separate and in which members of the Church of England perceived themselves to be just one among others in the denominational stakes. Loyalty to the crown was also a way of protecting the protestant orthodoxy of the Church of England in the colony.

(6) Conclusions I have borrowed the terminology of my title from the book by John Hirst called, The Strange Birth of Colonial Democracy. Hirst concentrates on NSW whereas we have had to note the separate development of South Australia and Victoria. However, his analysis of the particular situation has a number of echoes in the church debates. He underlines that democracy came in the middle of the nineteenth century by a series of pragmatic steps rather than an idealistic struggle. Self-government was reasonably easily granted by England and the egalitarianism which became part of the Australian culture was an egalitarianism of opportunity which was largely created by social forces outside of politics. An important element in this analysis was the way in which the franchise was at first restricted in 1856 with open voting and gerrymandering of electorates in favour of country districts. After 1857 a series of introductions changed the whole operation of the existing constitution, the city population was given more electorates. There was secret ballots universal manhood suffrage and, as a result, significant change in the kinds of people who were elected to parliament. The critical issue in this was who was represented in the decision making processes.

Some similar things can be said in regard to the strange birth of synods and church governance in Australia. Local social, political and institutional circumstances were crucial. This is clear in South Australia and Victoria during the 1850’s and, because of the delays in NSW into the 1860’s, the changed political circumstances gave quite a different constitutional arrangement.

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The practical issues faced by the church created the movement towards governance structures and synods. The need for finance after State support had been removed. The need for systems of discipline for clergy and bishops where there were no church courts established by law. In other words in a voluntarist environment people in the church needed each other both for finance and coherent cooperation. Two consequences followed from these forces. First, regional differences were embedded in the institutionality of Australian Anglicanism, and secondly, synodical governance became the determining mark of the church polity and lay power moved to centre stage in Australia, whereas in England it was in the process of being eclipsed.

One might say in the spirit of Hugh Collins, that this simply reflects the pragmatic Benthamite character of Australian society. That I think begs too many questions about Australian society generally, but also significantly misses a better interpretation of what was going on in the Anglican community in the middle of the nineteenth century. It is clear from the arguments within that community that they were much preoccupied with their own religious and historical tradition. The appeal to scripture, the example of the early church and the practice of the Church of England were all accepted as powerful considerations. There is therefore an important theological issue that is high-lighted by this mid nineteenth century process.

In general the participants were essentially conservative in their approach to central doctrines and theology.

However, in relation to institutions there was clearly a diversity of argument. Underlying that diversity was a common issue of their being in a place to which providence had led them. Broughton thought it to be an ecclesiastical province which is independent and sufficient to itself. Perry answered, a continuing connection with the Church of England’s institutions particularly their ecclesiastical legal institutions. In fact what was finally influential was both regional and democratic in character. That was what it turns out providence effectively provided in the middle of the nineteenth century.

However, within that sense of “what has providence provided” was a qualifying sense of what works for the good. The good, of course, is related to the two perceived priorities for those involved; the moral issues highlighted by the question of discipline and the provision of the ministry of word and sacraments to all. What works in regard to those priorities had to be related to the regional institutions that existed at the time, and that was Bishop Tyrrell’s point in 1852.

It is clear that the participants involved in these discussions appealed to a wide range of arguments. Short consistently appealed to scripture, Broughton to the historical tradition, Perry to the legal precedents, and the lay voice to democratic sentiment and the broad strongly Protestant identity of the Church of England.

However, there is a key point in regard to Anglican ecclesiology which is illustrated by the mid nineteenth century birth of synods. Anglican ecclesiology is first and foremost theologically determined. However, that theology is based upon a notion of providence. That is to say a Doctrine of the Providence of God in creation which underlines the reality and the shaping significance of that presence. It is that Doctrine of Providence which underlies the arguments of the middle of the nineteenth century. What from another philosophical point of view might be described as pragmatic decisions can within a theological context properly be described as seeking to respond to the providence of God. However, the influence of that providence is qualified, and the qualification relates to morals and the provision of word and sacraments. Those two qualifications are well represented in the debates in the middle of the nineteenth century, and they show how the qualification is worked out in the context of argument about precedent and about the authority of history and ultimately of scripture.

In the ecclesiology to which I am drawing attention the synods are one part of the life of the church community.

They seek to provide for the ministry of word and sacrament and for the discipline of bishops, priests and deacons.

The strange birth of Australian synods in the middle of the nineteenth century raised significant issues about the nature of Anglican theology and the foundation and practice of an Australian Anglicanism. What that birth produced was a polity, theologically conceived as an ecclesiology which was both synodical and democratic in character.

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