The Sun.
London, England, 1848-01-25 00:00:00

:Ant

LONDON, TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 1343

Yesterday the case of the Lord Bishop of HERE-
FORD was again brought under the consideration of
the Court of Queen's Bench—the different Counsel
for the defence maintaining that the Archbishop of
CANTERBURY was not only justified in refusing to
listen to the opposers of the confirmation of the said
prelate to the same episcopal see, but that his Grace
would, by so doing, have inevitably subjected himself
to the extreme penalties of pr2munire. Nothing
could be sounder than the basis of reasoning upon
which the advocate of the Primate and Metropolitan
established his right to reject the objections raised by
certain ecclesiastical dissentients. Instead of quib-
bling in any irrelevant manner over this exceedingly
abstruse and entangled point of politico-religious
authority, the law officers of the Crown contended at
once that the ceremony as performed at Bow Church
was valid in every essential particular, because the
whole of the proceedings, as ordained by the enact-
ment, are nothing less than the solemn forms of a
ridiculous farce and the syllabus of a hollow pa-
geantry. The Solicitor• General, indeed, had :moral
courage enough to declare as much before the assem-
bled judges, both lay and clerical. " Such statutes,"
said he, "are only a shadow and a sham." In a
similar tone of candour, the Attorney-General as-
serted that the conduct of Dr. BURNA BY and the
other Commissioners in proceeding with the confir-
mation of the Bishop Elect was in the strictest ac-
cordance with the law of the land as enforced since
the latter days of HENRY VIII. In the first place,
the Right Hon. and Learned Gentleman maintained
the validity of the celebration upon the ground that
both the election by the Dean and Chapter and the
confirmation by the Archbishop or his Vicar-General
were simply matters of form—matters of form, too,
which were preserved up to the present time with a
view to demonstrate the connexion between the Church
of England and the ancient rites which had
prevailed before the period of the Reformation. As to
the act of confirmation, he contended that. the Pri-
mate only acted in it in a ministerial capacity. All
discretionary power had been abstracted from him by
the decree of Parliament, and since the communica-
tions between the SOVEREIGN of this country and the
Supreme PONTIFF had ceased, the whole of the elec-
tive power was actually concentrated in the hands of
the English Monarch. " The King or Queen Reg-
nant," he observed, " is put in the place of a judge,
in the room of the Bishop of Rome, who formerly ex-
ercised that authority." The conga d'elire, therefore,
which indicated the Regius Professor of Divinity at
Oxford as a person eminently qualified to succeed
Dr. MUSGRAVE, in consideration of his piety,
wisdom, and learning, was literally a royal mandate
elevating him to the episcopacy, rather than a
suggestion to the judgments of Dean MEREWETHER
and the canons residentiary of the cathedral of He-
reford. In like manner, the voice of the Apparitor-
General was as idle and profitless as that of the mad
king on the moorland babbling to the winds of
heaven ; or, rather, as treacherous as those of the
syrens, luring the clerical adventurers upon the crags
of the law. In the second place, the Attorney-
General argued, that supposing the Vicar-General of
the Archiepiscopal diocese of Canterbury had acted
illegally in this matter, the remedy would have been
by an appeal, and not by a writ of mandamus. Sup-
posing, therefore, that this plea alone were shown to
be good, the present proceedings against the appoint-
ment of Dr. Itistrnsx would thereupon fall to the
ground. In the third place, Sir JOHN JERVIS in-
sisted that, even taking for granted that it were
definitively proved the matter then before the Lord
Chief Justice was one for inquiry in that Court, it
should have been instituted in a very different manner,
namely, in conformity with the provisions of the Church
Discipline Act. And, fourthly, he insisted that this was
not a case in which a mandamus would lie. Such were

the grounds of the opposition raised by the Attorney-
General, and subsequently enforced by the declara-
tion of many distinguished authorities—by the
statements of FERRARIS in his " Bibliotheca Cano
nici," of LAUNCRLOT in his " Institutes," Of BURNET
in his "History of the Reformation," and of,.AYLIFs•r
in his "Parrergom." The arguments advanced by

the Solicitor General were of a kindred character,
and went even so far as to assert his sincere belief,
as a member of the Church of England, that " if this
rule should be made absolute, there would be an end
to the Church of England." As a decided " clincher" to
the arguments propounded by the Attorney-General,
the Learned Recorder of Hull quoted the declaration of
one of the most illustrious juri,iconsults of England—
Sir WILLIAM BLACKSTONE—who, alluding to the
statute of lIENKII VIII, has observed that it vests the
nomination of a bishop in the Crown. In which case
the votes of the Dean and Chapter are virtually nul-

lified, and the share taken by the Archbishop in the
confirmation is rendered altogether and exclusively

ministerial.

From what has been already observed, whether by
ourselves, by our Contemporaries, by letter-writers, or
by advocates in court, it is sufficiently manifest that the
stltute-book in this, as in a thousand other instances,
requires a rigid and deliberate revision. Its provi-
sions are not merely contradictory to an extent that
is absolutely preposterous, but they have just placed
his Grace the Archbishop of CANTERBURY in a de-
cidedly unpleasant dilemma. Whichever way he
might resolve upon moving he is threatened by a

terrible chastisement. If he refused to listen to the
dissentients—behold, he subjected himself to the
penalties of prenzunire (see the arguments of Sir
FITZROY KELLY). If he consented to listen to them
—behold, he placed himself and his possessions in
exactly the same jeopardy (see the arguments of Mr.
MATTHEW DAVENPORT HILL). Lord JOHN was
his Charybdis, and Dean MEREWETHER his
Scylla. Fortunately for him, the threatened
punishments were as fictitious as the elective
prerogatives of the Prebendaries of Hereford.
As a reverend pamphleteer* has just observed,
" although this statute looks so formidable on paper,
it becomes comparatively harmless in fact." Let us
hope, however, that its harmlessness will not lead to
its retention on the statute-book, but that it will be
forthwith removed, with the rest of the legislative
rubbish with which the Constitution is encumbered,
and by the preservation of which the movements of
the political machine are impeded. It appears to us
not less irrational to cherish such antique brutalities
as prthminure and the penal enactment, than it would
be to keep, as remembrances of the past, a scaffolding
and block outside Whitehall, a pillory at Charing-
cross, and a ducking-stool on the banks of the Ser-
pentine.

The correspondence
on
of -imp,
the vitally important
subject
ENthileocl ICurrency. between Mr. COBDEN
and Mr.
Bs
yesterday,
wcaenn:tr oe rejoiced to find that the former
gentleman has, at length, directed his attention to
the question ; and that he has
rtehquee ‘sted information
as to the views and object
of
:,\ . BEbiNOCII.
League," from a personsinnocaoa i
competent
Gold-la went as their
respected and talented cha
It is at least a proof that the person Whobh. s
zeal,
at:tivity, and intelligence, gave the dean.): blow
to
one description of monopoly, and Obtained the
removal of the obnoxious imposts, which restricted
the freedom of our commerce, and subjected the
nation to a heavy tax fur the benefit of a particular
class, is convinced of the impolicy of the present
system, and is anxious to ascertain whether wise and
more equitable laws cannot be substituted for the

crona"tt Cpoenrcioisde
oifli si
ttso rey
oomf
rut been
clelmameriptd,ciini ClBo3n2.tr:ovtoertshy(;
Present Time ; with all the Documents which have
been Published atld a brielExamination of the Bampton
Lectures' 101.1832, and of the Observations on Dissent.'
By the Rev. Henry Christmas, M.A. F.R.S., &c." Pp.
172. Loudon . Swith, Elder: and CO. 18-18.