The Sun.
London, England, 1833-06-10 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

For the conduct of certain of the Bishops there
appears to be no possible palliation but insanity.
Whoever listens to the discourses of some of these
learned persons will agree 'with us (hat they are
more characteristic of -simeesiewhen feudal Barons,
nay anointed Kings, trembled at the thunderbolt of
excommunication, than of a period when the sacer-
dotal vestment is honoured only for the Christian
virtues of the wearer, and the interests and autho-
rity of an established church are so well understood
to be in their political nature subservient to the
well-being and amenable to the powers of the state.
The Bishop of Exeter's attempt to frighten the
King into a total misapprehension of his most sacred
duties to the nation, of which he is the chief ma-
gistrate, and apart from his duties, to which his Ma-
jesty can have no functions as a Sovereign to per-
form, has been regarded everywhere as among the
most disgusting exhibitions of priestly quackery. It
wanted but one or two such offens:ve efforts to
bring to a point the conspiring opinions and feelings
of society in relation to the proper sphere and ser-
vices of the whole bench of Bishops. The vote of
the previous evening was a suitable preface to
" Phillpotts on the Coronation Oath." It pushed
forward once more the Right Rev. Fathers before
their countrymen in the character of aliens to the
universal spirit of the people, and disposed men to
act eagerly upon that conclusion at which a great
majority of sound thinkers had long since arrived—
viz., that Bishops have obligations to discharge
which are wholly incompatible with their posses-
sion of seats in a legislative assembly as Barons; and
that from one or the other they ought to be en-
joined to retire without further ceremony. This ge-
neral assent of temper and opinion was strikingly
fortified by the intrusion of Dr. Phillpotts between
the King and the body of his subjects. The im-
pression against the Bishops has now ripened into a
moral certainty, that ere long some decided mess
sure will be proposed to Parliament for disembar-
rassing its councils of their presence. What public
good, indeed, hare they ever effected there? What
improvement of the law of England has ever been
indebted to these pious and unworldly pastors for
its adoption by King, Lords, and Commons ? Irt
what struggle between constitutional right and arbi-
trary power have they not taken part against the
cause of liberty ? As for any support of the
church of Christ—that is, of religion—afforded by
the Right Reverend Bench in Parliament, such,
we grieve to say, has been their general conduct,
as to create a belief in the public mind, that a Mi-
nister who bribed high enough might gain their
votes for any the most ruinous measure that ever was
thought of, short only of abstracting more titan
an equivalent for the said bribe from the privi-
leges or property of Bishops. We hope the feel-
ing against their Right Rev. Lordships, carried
to that extreme length, was unfounded; but the
odium produced by their habitual acts, as legi.-
latois, against their whole order, is matter of
notorie'y not worth further discussion. Look-
ing to the Parliamentary history of Bishops
and their votes, we should say that they have
hung together, on most questions, after a fashion
extremely unusual—indeed, unexampled—among
temporal Peers. A single Bishop may now and then
have separated from the herd in a particular case;
but his segregation could always be accounted for
by circums'ances or motives which made the rule
derive strength from the exception. The collective
votes of the Bench itself were seldom if ever trace-
able to political reasoning upon the merits of the
question : they were the votes of a body influenced
by an esprit de corps, else why should not Bishops,
like other Lords, have been distributed between Go-
vernment and Opposition ? But they have not
been so. The power of translation has enabled the
Minister of the day to command, in most instances,
the votes of my Lords the Bishops, and where the
Minister has not commanded them, it was because
he was supposed by those rev. calculators to be at
the head of a fragile and short-lived administration,
about to be succeeded by another party, to which
accordingly, as a sounder speculation, the:Right Rev.
Lords attached themselves. Whether the vot. sof
the bench of Bishops have recently—that is, during
the last year or two—been governed by any such
provident, though happily fallacious, computation of
Political contingencies, is more than we shall at
present argue ; but servile or factious partisans
it is unquestionable that they have in the long
run proved, and in both shapes they have
shown themselves unworthy to sit in Parlia-
ment. But besides this sin of legislative dependence
and unworthiness, there is another and still graver
consideration,—in order to make them bad Lords of
Parliament, they have fiist been made either bad or
inefficient clergymen. There never was a more
monstrous crime against the church, considered as,
what she professes to be, the handmaid of religion,
than the withdrawal of the Bishops from their sees
for full half the year, during their attendance on
Parliament, unless we fiad one in their indifference
to the clergy and local interests of their sees, induced
of necessity by the corrupt system of translation. If
an expedient had been advertised for to destroy the
establishment in the minds of the people, none
could have been hit upon more ingenious or success-
ful than these two—lst, the compelling the non-re-
sidence of Bishops, while we were insisting on all
hands that non-residence in the case of other
clergymen ought to be put an end to by law, as
fatal to the interests of religion ; and, 2d, encou-
raging in every Bishop the hope of a removal to some
more lucrative see, as a recompense for political
baseness. Can anything be more shocking than
such a complex system of anti-religious legislation?
If the church be to be reformed, begin at the tip—
reform the. Bishops. Withdraw those temptations
to political guilt, which are likewise covers for hy-
pocrisy in matters of religion, and hardeners of the
heart against the purest spirit and most sacred obli-
gations of Christianity. Relegate each diocesan to
his see, enforce his residence as strictly as that of
the poorest incumbent; and to us, indeed, it seems
Iv no means evident that, as a security for the
ishoie9 of the best and worthiest men for Bishops,
they ought not to be elected by the clergy them-
selves from amongst their own body. Something
analogous "to this election prevails in the Scottish
etburch. But we set out with saying that the con-
srietinn against the legislative capacity of Bishops
has of )ate been exceedingly strengthened; we now
tezpresi our belief that a serious effort will shortly
be made to exclude their spiritual Lordships from

Parliament : and of this more anon.—Tinzer.
The late division in the House of Lords has had
the effect of extracting from the hitherto thick-and-
thin supporters of Ministers an unwilling acknow-
ledgment that they have become unpopular ; and
fqr this change in public opinion the writers in
ques:ion have also the candour to assign the true
cause—viz., that it is owing to Ministers not having
realized those expectations which the passing (Attie
Reform Act had, naturally enough, given rise to.
All this is well, as far as it goes. The acknowledg-H
rnent of error is the first step towards correcting.
lout when these very persons, in the same breath,
%accuse the people of having beeorne unreasintat,le
and impatient, and allege that Ministeri hate not
had time to fulfil their engagements to,the country,
they either deceive themselves, or attempt to im-
pose grossly upon the country. The truth is, that
Ministers, to say nothing of the- want of abili y be-
trayed by some of them, have forfeited the confi-
dence of the country by a weak and unworthy en-
deavour to pander to and propitiate a party, who
have taken the first opportunity of rewarditg this
t►uckliug subserviency in the way in which every
honest man must always wish to see it heated,
whether in public or private life. They must
have known, unless they were blind alike
to the past, the present, and the future,
that, in the eyes of the party we allude to,
they had sinned past all hope of forgiveness, and
that the sufferers by schedule A would be sure to,
omit no opportunity of wreaking their vengeance
upon those who had broken in upon and di•,tioyed
a craft which, like of irnage-making a 01 1,
brought no. small .gain" to its professoie. Yet it