The Sun.
London, England, 1848-02-16 00:00:00

Wit ErWiIiNDAY EVEN 1 Pii rti rittiihVAßY
.16'2 18404

considered his recantations, frequent 53 they were
whilst a hope of life remained, were Inu,l) more tk.s,:rv-
ing of condemnation than the denial of his mast,r by
Peter. Crammer, however, nobly redeemed his errors by
his death. The book to which he ha:l rcf,rred, and
which was published after the 25',11 llcnry VIII., and
revised by the King himself, plainly showed confirma-
tion to be a judicial act, and that the archbishop might
reject any improper person presented to him for conse-
cration. The Right Rev. Prelate concluded by presenting
the petition.
The LORD CHANCELLOR said the Right Rev.
Prelate had hoped the power of the Cronin in the nomi-
nation of bishops nsight be retained, and he also said
thathewould not refer to a recent event. _ . .

The Bishop of EXETER interposed, and said that he
did not intend to allude to the Bishop of Hereford.
The LORD CHANCELLOR said the Right Rev.
Prelate was ready, then, to discuss everything connected
with the proceedings, except the individual to whom they
related. His (the Lord Chuncolli,r's) object was to st-,te
what the law cow was, and what it would be if the pray, r
of the petitioners should be granted, or if what the Right
Rev. Prelate suggested should he adopted. As the 11w
n.,,w stood, the right of the appointwent of bbliovs was
absolute in the Crown, anal the Right Rev. Prelate
wanted it to be altered.

The Bishop of EXETER—NO, no.
The LORD CHANCELLOR, said that such appeared
to be the prayer of the petition. At present the Crown
appointed bishops without reference to any other power
having the right to intervene. That was so by the Act
of 25 Henry VIII. He did not sly anything in fevour
of the manner in which it was enforced, but it was quite
clear that it was intended the power shoal I be in the
Crown, otherwise why subject those who did not obey
the letters missive from the Crown to the per allies of
prantunire?—(Hear, hear.) The form of the el, ction
might be inconsistent and absurd, as many other forms
were; but what did the petitioners ask? Why, that the
penalty of preenzunire might be taken away; or, in other
words, that the dean and chapter might do as they
Why,
Why was the penalty of pratnunirc enacted?
Why, surely, in order that the power of the Crown
might be preserved intact, and that the dean and chap-
ter might not have the power of putting, as it erre, a veto
on the nomination of the Sovereign. The petitioners said
it was very hard that the deans and chapters should
be obliged to elect the persons nominated, which meant
"give us (the deans and chapters) the power of electing
the bishop, or, at any rate, of saying., we will not elect
the person named by the Crown." The Right R-v.
Prelate said, he was satisfied the peace and safety of the
Church depended on the preservation of the royal pre-
rogative in the appointment of bishops; and yet, some-
how or other, he had pointed out the way he wanted the
Church to interfere and take the power from the Sove-
reign.--(Hear, and a laugh.) The nomination of the
Crown, before the Act of Henry VIII., was only formal,
and the power of the Church absolute; but by that Act
the state of things had been reversed; and he thought
their Lordships would not be prepared to say that one
of the bulwarks set up at the Reformation, and which
was necessary for the preservation of the principles then
struggled for, should no longer be supported As they
valued the Reformation and the blessings which the Act
of Henry VIII. secured to this Protestant country, he
trusted they wculd not consent to alter the provisions of
that Act.—(Hear, hear.)
The Bishop of CHICHESTER said the Noble and
Learned Lord had simply regarded the Act of Henry
VIII. as one to uphold the prerogative of the Crown,
but they had high legal authority for saying that its
principal object was to exclude the p..wer of the Pr pe of
Rome, and any one who attempted to construe it other-
wise would not give effect to its object and spirit. If he
understood the Noble sad Learned Lord to lay down
the doctrine that the nomination of the Crown was
absolute, and that no consideration could prevent con-
secration of a bishop so named, he thouelit they had
arrived at a most important crisis in the history of the
Church. and he could rot subscribe to such an hit( rpre
tatioe, for he felt that if such a doctrine prevailed there
would be great risk of a schism in the Church.—(hear.)
Lord DENMAN said, it did not appear to him a very
expedient course to enter, in this place, into discussions
respecting the execution of the laws.—(Cheers) lie
could only say of this case, that upon no occasion in his
recollection had he ever devoted so much time, or con-
sidered with so much anxiety, any subject coming before
him. If he had erred in any way, it was not without the
most painful and anxious endeavours to arrive at the
truth ; and he had a most perfect conviction of having
had the good fortune to arrive at it. It was under the
severest sense of responsibility he ever experience,: that
he pronounced that opinion which a judge had no right
to withhold. However great the respect he felt for his
Learned Brethren, and the extreme pain with which on
every occasion one judge differed from another, still that
judge must pronoun:ie the dictates of his own conscience
and give full effect t. his own opinion. He was far from
thinking that all that fell from him on that occa-ion
could stand the text of the admirable sagacity with
which the Right Reverend Prelate had observed upon
it,; but he might say, with regard to the particular
passage on which the flight Rev. Prelate had most en-
larged, referring tc the alternative of the Archbishop's
resigning, that it was not exactly what he had stated.
Ho had mentioned that as an alternative, but lie Led
said also, it was a thing not to be supposed that the
Crown would present any person to the Archbishop
who was unfit to be confirmed in the office. The bishop
is to be nominated by the Crown, and brought before
the Archbishop for confirmation ; and it seemed >temp
to him (Lord Denman) that all the world should then
be allowed to come forward, and throw any scandal
upon the Bishop elect. He would only add, with respect
to the decision of the Court of Queens Bench, that it
must be recollected what the judges of that court were
required to do. They were asked to issue a writ of
mandamus to the Archbishop, to hear any prson
who chose to come forward to object to the new
Bishop, on the ground of an ancient form of cone
firmation, in which proclamation was made once in the
church, and once at the door of the church, that all per
sons might come forward and state their objections—a
form which had never been known in any country or
in any ago, except as a form, and it was a one-sided
form, as had been stated by Bishop Gibson. Now, he
was of opinion with his Noble and Learned Friend (the
Lord Chancellor), that it would be attended with evil
consequences if the archbishop were to have the power
of hearing objections and discussions as to the fitness of
the person nominated to be a bishop. One expression
had dropped from the Right Rev. Prelate (the Bishop of
Exeter) as to the opinions of his (Lord Denman's) two
Learned Brethren on the bench who had differed from
him, which the Right Rev. Prelate seemed to think it
would confer a benefit upon the Church if they should
become the law of the land. He (Lord Denman)
thought that no one who had an opportunity of con-
sidering the subject could doubt that his Learned Bro-
ther, Mr. Justice Erle, and himself had conferred a
great benefit upon the Church by putting a stop to the
issue of the writ of mandamus.—(hear, hear.) The
Right Reverend Prelate had read a document said to be
written by Archbishop Cranmer, about the year 1537,
which showed that he considered that some special
power ought to be given to prevent improper appoint-
ments. But it appeared to him that this document had
no weight whatever; it only showed that at that time
there was an idea that there should be some special
check to the exercise of the prerogative in the appoint-
ment of bishops; but none was interposed. With respect
to the archbishop resigning in case of his disapproving
of the nomination by the Crown of an improper person,
he maintained that not any man, in
any
office, when
called upon to slo an act contrary to what he considered
to be his duty, should hesitate to resign his office; he
must resign, he ought to resign, for nothing ought to
induce him to offer violence to his own conscience. lie
had not referred to the case of an archbishop, but the
remark applied to every ease.
The archbishop had an
opportunity of previously conferring with the Crown
respecting the person about to be promoted ;
and ho might object, and the archbishop
would not be called upon to do what he
thought wrong. With respect to the petition which
had been presented by the Right Rev. Prelate, he
did not think so harshly of it as his Noble and Learned
Friend the (Lord Chancellor). He looked at it us merely
seeking the repeal of the penalty of praossunire, ris affect-
ing certain of the clergy; and
as in
his (Lord Denman's)
opinion the archbishop was imperatively called upon to
confirm the election of a bishop, he should be very glad
to seer the abolition of the penalty of prantunire.
Ile thought it very objectionable that persons should be
put, as that penalty placed them, out of the protection
of the law. He should not object to see that penalty
entirely expunged from the statute-book. But he thought
he could suggest a much better mode of proceeding, and
he was going to refer to an Act of Parliament which
appeared to have been passed with the same view,
namely, the Act Ist of Edward VI., e. 2 (afterwards
repealed), passed some years after the document of Cran-
mer was written, which enaeted that the dean and
chapter should confer the episcopal once, by
virtue of
letters patent, upon the person the King should think
most meet. To this extent he should be most happy to
join in an amendment of the law.
Lord CAMPBELL most highly approved of the line
of conduct adopted by his Noble and Learned Friend
(Lord Denman), for it would be singular and derogatory
in the highest degree to the character of his office if,
upon the complaint of any one, ho should present him-
self before their Lordships, in an irregular manner, to
justify his conduct in a judicial capacity. No judge who
consulted the dignity of his character would do so. He
(Lord Campbell) would abstain from entering into that
question, but he could not help saying that he considered
that the Court of Queen's Bench had decided the ques-
tion. It was true the judges were equally divided ; but
the rule of law was, that, in that case, there was a de-
cision. The validity of marriages in Ireland without
the presence of a priest was so
_decided. Upon that
question their Lordships voted, and were equally divided;
but the judgment of this House was against the validity
of that marriage, and such marriages were now held by
the law of England as invalid. The object of his pre-
senting himself to their Lordships was to answer the
observations of the Right Rev. Prelate with respect to
the pernicious consequences which would follow if the
law should turn out to be as had been decided by the
Court of Queen's Bench. In the first place, the Act of
Parliament, though called the 25th of Henry VIII., and
passed at a time when the Reformation was only begin-
ning, must be considered as an Act of the Ist of Eh:sa-
teen), when the Reformation was completed, and when it
was considered fit that this course should be adopted.
But the Right Rev. Prelate had compared this course to
that which was employed in Scotland in the appointment
of a minister of a congregation; and he had referred to
an Act introduced by a Noble Earl (the Earl of Aber-
deen), by which a p. wer was given to object to the
sufficiency of any person appointed to a living in Scot-
land. Both in Scotland and England there was, and
ought to be, a power to object to the sufficiency of a per-
son nominated by
a lay patrols, against his morality, his
doctrine, or his learning; but when the Right Rev.
Prelate said that a Jew, or a Turk, or an itifieel, might
be made a:prelate of the Church of England, that was an

exaggeration. His Noble and Learned Friend had an- ;
swered this objection, by saying that a bishop must have
been previously ordained, end must be nominated by the
heed of the Church; and, as his sufficiency must be deter-
ruined in some quarter, he (Lord Campbell) said, with
great respect, that it was as possible that the Sovereign
might come to a right conclusion as any other authority,
wail respect to the learning, morality, and orthodoxy of
the party nominated. The Right Rev. Prelate laboured
ceder a mistake in supposing that the subject under
consideration by the :judges of the Court of Queen's
Bench was whether all mankind assembled in Bow ,
Church should be at liberty, at the confirmation of a
bishop elect, to bring forward all objections they thought
proper. All that was to be done on the :occasion of a
confirmation was to see whether the election had been
properly conducted. But there was another ceremony
which the bishop elect passed ;through, that of conse
oration, which the Legislature thought a sufficient test,
and, unless the bishop elect could go through it, he
would net be competent to assume the functions of a
bishop. The Church and the Legislature had come to
the cotedusion that, with a Christian ruler of the land,
there were sufficient guaiffs against the consequences to
which the Right. Her. Prelate referred.—(The Noble
and Learned Lord here read parts of the office for con-
secration of bishop,:.) Did not this afford a guard
aeaiiist the consequences to which the Right
verend Prelate referred ? And was a new system
new to be intr ,duced, contrary to the notions
of the Church in former times, and contrary
to the practice of three hundred years? His Noble and
Learned Friend (Lord Denman) and Mr. Justice Erle,
by refusing the rule for a mandamus, had been the
saviours of the Church. With respect to the penalty of
prannunire, he thought it might be repealed, leaving the
law substantially as it was; but if any attempt was made
to alter the law in this matter, it would be productive of
the most mischievous consequences.
The Bishop of ST. DAVID'S did not think that their
Lordships should be impressed with the belief that all
the objections urged by the Right Rev. Prelate met with
the unanimous concurrence of every Prelate on that
bench. There were many parts of the Right Reverend
Prelate's argument in which he most fully and heartily
concurred; but he could not take the same view of his
arguments as the Noble and Learned Lord on the Wool-
sack, or consider them of so alarming a character. It
was unavoidable that he should take some exceptions to
the remarks of his Right Rev. Friend. He might even
say that in the whole of his Right Reverend Friend's
address there was something which he (the
Bishop of St. David's) had regarded as the
sinister augury of an approaching storm, which
might, perchance, unless averted by the firmness and
wisdom of Parliament, shake the Church, and even the
State, to their very foundations. There might be
reasons why an alteration in the direction pointed out
would be advisable; but though the evil pointed out re-
mained precisely as it was, he could not see that the
epithets " tyrannical," " monstrous," or " oppressive,"
would be at all applicable. If the petition had gone no
further than to express a wish for an alteration in the
law so far as regarded the appointment, election, con-
firmation, and consecration of a bishop, he should have
opposed no objection to the prayer. Such a petition
would probably have had the concurrence of the great
body of the members of the Church. The time had
come when circumstances required a decided change in
the law, and he was glad that his Noble and Learned
Friend (Lord Campbell) seemed to be of that opinion.
Some persons were loud in their demand to sweep away
all sorts of "factions," constitutional and ecclesiastical;
and if, indeed, a " fiction" were proved to be mis-
chievous and troublesome, it was high time to alter it,
and to supply an effective substitute. So far, there-
fore, in desiring an amendment in the law, he ap-
proved of the petition, and agreed with his Right Rev.
Friends; but they went much farther than this—they
proposed the remedy. The inevitable tendency of that
which they now proposed was, to make a transfer of the
power which now rested with the Church to some other
body.
The Bishop of EXETER—No, no.
The Bishop of ST. DAVID'S did not mean to say
that his Right Rev. Friends had mentioned the parties
to whom they would entrust such a power; but the real
tendency of their suggestions based upon the petition
had undoubtedly been, and it was pointed out by the
Noble and Learned Lord ou the Woolsack, to effect some
such object. They asked that the power of the Crown
should be taken from the Crown, and the only point in
their recommendation which they reserved was, as to
the body in whom they would invest such authority.
The alteration which he, however, contemplated was,
that the power which now substantially resided in the
Crown should be really secured to it; he was not at pre-
sent prepared to go one step further. He trusted and
believed that it was not desired, among the great body of
the community, whether laymen or ecclesiastics, that the
Legislature should attempt more than this, and he did
not et all think that there was abroad that deep discon-
tent with the institutions under which they lived hinted
at in the course of this debate. His Right Reverend
Friend was undoubtedly right in his condemnation of
the anomaly in question, but a great number of modify-
ing circumstances had been entirely overlooked. His
Ilieht Reverend Friend had spoken as if the power
which had hitherto been exercised, in substance, by the
Crown had been an absolute and irresponsible power.
Now, it was not by any means a power of that descrip-
tion. His Right Rev. Friend had forgotten this very
important feature in the case, that when the Crown
exercised this power it was strictly limited as to the
object selected for nomination. It was not a power to
nominate anybody whom the Crown might think proper;
but it was a poster limited to a certain known class of
persons, who in the eyes of the law were equally well
qualified to be the object of nomination. His Right
Rev. Friend, in arguing this point, had made much too
greet a distinction between the inferior and superior ,
orders of the Church; he appeared, at the moment, to '
have forgotten that g there was no ulterior qualification
required for the functions of a bishop which was not
equally required for the functions of a presbyter. The
qualifications required for the presbyter, and which fitted
the presbyter for the after functions of a bishop, were
the main qualifications; all others were secondary and
comparatively immaterial. His Right Rev. Friend had
given imaginary cases of unfitness, and, no doubt, there
were various degrees of unfitness. The choice of the
Crown in every instance might not fall upon the
best qualified and most suitable individual; but, being
one of a class, those qualities in which he was found
deficient were of a very inferior and comparatively incon-
siderable moment. The law presumed, until the case be
preyed to be otherwise, that all presbyters, the only
class from which bishops could be selected, were all
equally well qualified to fill that high office. In in-
vesting the head of her Majesty's Government with such
a power as this, the Church, therefore, was not sub-
mitting to a state of things of which any of her members
had reason to complain as a great grievance or a grinding
tyranny. And this was not the only limitation to which
the license of the Government was subjected. His
Right Rev. Friend would surely acknowledge that the
force of public opinion frequehtly directed the nomina-
tion. There never, in fact, was a period in which the
power of the Crown in the appointment of a bishop was
more subjected to:the wholesome and legitimate iefluence
of public opinion, and—he would go one step further—
there never was a time in the history of this country
when there existed more probability of the public exer-
cising a wholesome and legitimate opinion on such
a matter. The petition now before their Lord-
ships was for a radical and fundamental al-
teration in the law, and it was certainly a
remarkable circumstance that in this particular epoch in
the affairs of the Church such a demand should have been
made. The petitioners, it was quite clear, laboured
under an exaggerated fear of the evils of the present
state of the law, and it was only natural that the reme-
dies they proposed should be excessively imperfect and
confused. lie was ready to admit that their present
position was not the best possible; he might see as clearly
as another man the wide difference which separated the
present form of procedure from that which prevailed in
the primitive ages; but this was not the point for con-
sideration. The evil being pointed out the Legislature,
in inquiring for a remedy, would have to compare the
present state of things,: not with one which existed
in a time long past, but with any which existed in
their own day, or which by any legislative enactment
they would be able to bring about. And, however I
bad might bo the state of things in the Church of
England in this respect, when he compared the cir-
, cunestances with those in other religious communities,
he did not see the difference was at all so disad-
vantageous or so humiliating to the faithful members
of the Church of England as would appear on the face
of the statement made by his Right Rev. Friend. Ho,
for these reasons, did not wish to see the power of the
Crown transferred either to an ecclesiastical conclave
or to a popular assembly; he preferred to retain exist-
ing institutions, with all their admitted anomalies and
inconveniences, to the evils which such remedies would
produce. He would leave the question with perfect
tranquillity in the hands of the Legislature, and, even
it they should do nothing, even if the law should re-
main unaltered, his Right Rev. Friend might find con-
solation in the fact that, then, they would only continue
to suffer from grievances which had been endured un-
complainingly for some centuries past. He entertained
strong hopes that they would be able to accomplish some
wise and cautious change in the form of the law, but at
the same time he would prefer things being permitted
to remain as they were, rather than open the door to an
invasion of which no man could foresee the legitimate
results, but which clearly threaten both the Church and
the State with consequences the most calamitous.
The Bishop of EXETER replied. His Right Rev.
Friend had mistaken his object in presenting and sup-
porting this petition. No one thought it of more im-
portance than he did that the Crown should retain
this
power of appointment. He desired no change in
s thnoapt e ;I
rbeustp
whatect ; heha wishede
rtheuCg
hr ot wwna
sabsolutelytha that
the
Atorcnhobini
Canterbury in the province of Canterbury, and that the
Archbishop of York in the province of York, should
have a right to decide if they would consecrate the party
nominated, and in the event of substantial charges being
brought against him, to exercise the privilege of pro-
nouncing him unfit as uncanonica 1. Ile regretted their
Lordships had been so long detained upon the presenta-
tion of a petition, but hoped that some good might arise
if lie had been able to lay before her Majesty's Govern-
Merit u practical mode of getting oat of the difficulty
which now prevailed,
Their Lordships then adjourned, at a Quarter to
Eght o'clock.

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TO THE SECRETARY OF THE
BRADFORD REFORM ASSOCIATION.
Sir,—On Monday, the 14th, the New Zealand Bill
went into Committee. New lights are brought out
in the progress of debate. I request to correct an
inaccuracy in my earlier reports. It was not for the
office of town-councillor, but for the exercise of the
elective franchise, that reading and writing were re-
quired in a New Zealander. Out of sixty-seven
natives employed in. the Ordnance department, the
whole could read in their own language, and all but
one could write. This is the missionaries' doing,
who are manifestly going to be the founders of an
empire at the Antipodes. The state of things is extra-
ordinary ; and was explained, between joke and
earnest, in a most amusing manner by Sir Robert
Peel. The Governor of New Zealand holds
his ground by the assistance of one half
of the native inhabitants against the other half,
his own strength being barely sufficient to turn the
scale; and he writes very deliberately to the Govern-
ment, to intimate that there can be no such thing as
taxing his native friends without their consent.
Would that the nations of Europe had their Govern-
ments at this hay ! What is clear at the same time
is, that the Governor of New Zealand has made up
his mind to be the father of free institutions with
their feet towards ours, and he and the i'ope must go
down to posterity together.
On Tuesday, the 15th, in reply to a motion by Dr.
BOA ring for correspondencc, the Secretary fi.r. Fo-
reign Affairs repeated the scene in w: ich he gave so
much satisfaction to the House and the country on
the question of Switzerland. lie gave the most une-
quivocal assurance Gf the interest felt by the Govern-
ment in the progress of liberal institutions in Italy,
and added the agreeable intimation that within
twenty-four hours he had received distinct informs-
tioa that it was not the intention of the Austrian
Government to attempt any forcible interference.
The House adjourned at nine o'clock.
I am_ , Sir, your obedient servant,
T. PERRONET THOMPSON.
Blackheath, London, Feb. 16, 1848.