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Cardinal Morton procured authority from the pope to visit the religious houses, the abominations of which had become notorious; and in a provincial synod held on the 24th of February, 1486, he laid the condition of the secular clergy before the assembled prelates. Many priests, it was stated, spent their time in hawking or hunting, in lounging at taverns, in the dissolute enjoyment of the world.
Later on, 1811, Helmuth, in the name of the Pennsylvania Synod, wrote a letter to Paul Henkel, then on his missionary tours in Ohio, warning him not to participate in camp-meetings, "if he should come into contact with similar aberrations from our Lutheran ways." But even at this time Synod did not take a decided stand against revivalistic enthusiasm.
Some weeks were occupied in fruitless negotiations, but at length, through the influence of the aged Bishop Harper, a way was discovered out of the thicket. Bishop Hadfield resigned his claims to the primacy, and Bishop Suter, whose position was now uncontested, summoned a special meeting of the General Synod. It met in Wellington on April 23rd, 1890.
Report accordingly was made to the prisoner. He had advised them to continue in their opposition to the National Synod. He had sought to calumniate and blacken his Excellency by saying that he aspired to the sovereignty of the Provinces. He had received intelligence on that subject from abroad in ciphered letters.
He wished to consult him concerning a certain statement in regard to the Synod which he desired him to lay before the States of Holland. The preacher did not find his friend busily occupied at his desk, as usual, with writing and other work. The Advocate had pushed his chair away from the table encumbered with books and papers, and sat with his back leaning against it, lost in thought.
The method followed by Bishop Selwyn was that which he derived from the primitive Church. The bishop and his clergy formed a "synod" which could enact "canons" for the regulation of the faithful. But something more was evidently needed; and this, too, seemed to spring into existence in the memorable year 1850, which marked in so many ways the turn of the tide in the New Zealand Church.
For some years various English and American reviews had been charging him with bigotry, cruelty, hypocrisy, and, indeed, with nearly every hateful form of political crime; but the fact remained that under Alexander III he was the most influential personage in the empire, and that, though bearing the title of "procurator-general of the Most Holy Synod," he was evidently no less powerful in civil than in ecclesiastical affairs.
As long as the Inner Council held office they were, of course, empowered to enforce their will; but the final court of appeal was the Synod, and by the Synod all questions of doctrine and policy were settled. The doctrine was simple and broad.
He was known to the whole Chinese Church in and about Amoy for a circuit of a hundred miles. He sat at its cradle. He watched its growth until within two years of the day when it went forth two bands united in one Synod with twenty organized, self-supporting churches, nineteen native pastors, upwards of two thousand communicants and six thousand adherents.
The soldiers were not disbanded, as the States of Utrecht were less occupied with establishing the soundness of their theory than with securing its practical results. They knew very well, and the Advocate knew very well, that the intention to force a national synod by a majority vote of the Assembly of the States-General existed more strongly than ever, and they meant to resist it to the last.
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