The Sun.
London, England, 1851-07-12 00:00:00

EVENING,

the question before the House. But the difficulties now
before them were nothing to what they would have unless
their Lordships took some means of restoring to the Church
its inherent right of deliberation.—(Hear, hear.) On the
whole, however, he was not satisfied with the present consti-
tution of convocation. He did not think the parochial clergy
who had greatly increased of late years in numbers,
and who had advanced in education and acquirements, were
adequately represented.—(llear, hear.) There were only 4t
representatives for about 15,000 clergy.—(Hear, hear. )
After all, however, he could not but think that great as
the difficulties were, the want of a deliberative body was
greater—(Hear, hear)—and, unless some such body were
appointed, in which all classes might assemble and deli-
berate, he thought those who were really interested in
the welfare of the Church would hardly know what way to
turn.— (Hear, hear.)
Earl NELSON expressed his regret that no member of
the Government had thought proper to speak upon that
which he considered a very important question. —(He sr,
hear.) With respect to the Bishop of Australia, to whom
some allusion had been made, all they had asked for was
the benefit of synodical action, in which the laity would
b 3 equally represented with the clergy. The greatest
danger of all at the present time was the neglect of the Go-
vernment of this country of that great question for the
security of the union of Church and State, which it was of
the utmost consequence should be preserved. He believed
the Church of England to be the greatest bulwark against
both infidelity and aggressions from Rome, and he would
warn their Lordships against doing anything that would de-
stroy her vitality.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE ( who was almost wholly
inaudible), said that the Right Rev. Prelate, in his very able
speech, had anticipated many of the observations which he
should have addressed to their Lordships on this subject. He
should therefore have remained altogether silent on the
occasion, were it not that by so doing it might be imputed
to him and to the Government that they were indifferent to
the great importance of the question and to the change in
the constitution—fur such a change it was—which the Noble
Lord had suggested for their consideration. With respect to
the subject before them he thought it would be found that
convocations had not their origin in this country in the
manner stated by the Noble Lord, but had arisen out of the
necessity of regulating certain services of the Church, and
that some of the most important acts for the govern-
ment and establishment of the Church had been effected
without the slightest appeal or reference to any convocation,
or any similar body. If their Lordships, therefore, were
called on now to create a body to be entrusted with the task
of deliberating on the doctrines of the Church, such a body
would be essentially different from any convocation
that had hitherto existed. He doubted whether the
present was a proper time to call on Parliament to introduce
so novel an element as that proposed into the constitution
of the Church. If he saw any prospect by the creation of
such a body of attaining unity and peace, he was not pre-
pared to say that he should' object merely on the ground of
innovation to any plan which appeared to him calculated to
effect so desirable an end. But when he looked to what the
conduct of convocations of the ecclesiastical body had been,
he found nothing to justify him in believing that unity and
peace would be the result. It was said that the Crown
would have a power of control, but he would ask whether
the exercise of such a power would tend, when parties
were nearly balanced, to the tranquillity which was
so mach desired. He was certainly surprised when he
heard the Noble Lord refer to the Council of Trent, for
they all had the advantage of having detailed to them by
its able historian the proceedings of that council, and of
knowing that it had been not only ineffectual for security,
unity, and peace, but that it had left the greater part of
Europe in a state of greater agitation than that which it
had met to tranquilise. He saw no hope of a more de-
sirable state of things from the adoption of the proposal
of the Noble Lord. If he saw any better means than now
existed for attaining objects which all members of the
Church desired to attain to the fullest extent, he should
be glad to embrace it, and to bring it to bear on the better
government of the Church. But until better assured on
that point he could not—and he believed he might also
answer for the other members of the government—be
a party to the making of an experiment so large, so novel,
and so perilous as that proposed.—(Hear, hear.)
The Bishop of OXFORD could not admit that the pro-
posal was of that novel kind which the Noble Marquis
seemed to think it was. He believed that the great and fun-
damental objection to granting the Church of England syno-
dical action, lay deeper in the minds of those opposed to it
than any objection which had that night been stated.—
(Hear.) He believed it arose from an entire want of faith in
the divine mission of that Church.— (Hear. ) He claimed
for that Church the right to assemble when necessary, not
merely because the Royal word had been pledged to grant
such a liberty, but because that Church was the representa-
tive of the Apostolic Church which had assembled at Jeru-
salem. A statement had lately been put forth by a paper
connected with a certain party in this country—(A cry of
"Name")—he alluded to the Globe newspaper, in which the
Church of England was spoken of as being emphatically the
creature of this world—as an essential machine for embody-
ing the spiritual element of the public opinion of the day, and
not as a contrivance for transmitting sacraments or defining
creeds. (The Right Reverend Prelate read the -rest of the
statement, the whole of which the Right Reverend Prelate
stated appeared as a leading article in the newspaper
referred to.) Now he thought that that article would not
have been put forth if it had not been in unison with the
opinions of the party which that paper was supposed to re-
present. Now it was quite natural, he contended, for those
who believed the Church of England to be merely a conve-
nient instrument—a better kind of police under the civil go-
vernment for keeping down troublesome people, to say that
she had no Divine truth for which to live—it might be for
which to fall—and to object to her meeting in synod for the
purpose of more effectually carrying out her, spiritual mission
upon earth.—(Hear.) The Church of England was either
what she professed to be, the representative of the Church
of Christ, or else she was the creature of the State. If it
was meant to make her the mere creature of the State, their
Lordships might depend upon it they would be doing that
which would give the Church of Rome absolute domi-
nion over her, spite of her connexion with the State.—
(Hear, hear.) Allusion had been made to synods and
councils as the sources of dissension and agitation.
But how had the truths of Christianity been pre-
served to them except by synods and councils? What
was the history of the Church but a strife against error.
Again, it had been said that the profane would interfere with
the peace of the Church. Now he would rather have truth
than that which was called peace, but which was no peace.
He only wished to have that peace which only could be got
by striving for :truth against error. They had been taken
back to the time of Elizabeth, when the Crown was the su-
preme lay head of the Church ; but power had since been
wrested from the Crown, and the laity had a certain 'power
over the Church. Measures were now discussed affecting the
Church in the House of Commons, but were the parties there
really the representatives of the laity of the Church of Eng-
land? They were not. The laity were wholly unrepre-
sented ; the great body of the laity had no means of making
themselves heard in the affairs of their Church. The con-
sequence was, that all power was concentrated in spiritual
hands, and most unconstitutionally in the hands of the
heads of the Church. He and they who thought with him
did not desire priestly domination or episcopal tyranny,
for they were ready to part with a portion of the
power they possessed to restore it to those who should
wield it. It never had been the condition of the Church of
Christ to have uniformity of opinion; and the office of the
Church was not to extinguish these differences of opinion,
but to make it possible that they should co-exist together.
If they attempted to handle that which had come down from
the time of the founding of Christianity as a theory of mere
common device, they might promise themselves peace, but
they would find death—they might hope for success, but they
would find themselves incompetent to administer the great
purposes of the Christian Church. _ _

The Marquis of LANSDO\VNE and the likihop of OXFORD
mutually explained.
Lord RE DESDALE replied.
The motion was put and carried.

The Bishop of 01FORD gave notice that he should move
on Monday next for copies of the correspondence with the
Ecclesiastical Commissioners on the subject of the Horfield
estate.

Their Lordships then adjourned.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE:
THE FLAG PROMOTIONS.
With the death of Admiral the Hon. Sir John Talbot
the new scheme of promotion commences, for although
Sir John Ross, C. 8., the distinguished Arctic voyager of
twenty-three years' service afloat in the Royal Navy, is
the senior on the active list of captains for promotion,
according to the new scheme or retirement ho is not
eligible for promotion to the active list of fhg.oflicers,
not having served a day under a commission as captain
since his promotion to that rank. This gallant and dis-
tinguished officer, therefore, is the first to be placed on
the reserved half-pay list of flag-officers, and the next
captain to him in seniority being eligible by service as
captain for promotion to the active flag list Sir James
Stirling (Dec. 7, 1818) becomes Rear-Admiral of the
Blue, vice Tucker, vice Loring, vice Talbot, deceased.
Rear-Admiral Sir James Stirling is the grandson of
Captain Sir Walter Stirling, R.N., and nephew of the
late distinguished Vice-Admiral Charles Stirling. Ho is
in the 60th year of his age, and has served during 48
years' career in the service-24 years afloat in war and
peace. The following sketch of his services is con-
densed from O'Byrne's " Biography:"—" This officer
enterei the navy on the 12th of August, 1803, on board
the Camel. store-ship, Captain John Apcough, fitting
for the West Indies. In the Glory, 98, he fought in Sir
Robert Calder's action under the flag of Rear-Admiral
Charles Stirling, whom he followed into the Sampson
and Diadem, 64's; and witnessing the fall of Monte
Video he was received, about April, 1808, on board the
Warspite, 74, Captain Hon. Henry Blackwood, stationed
at first in the North Sea and Channel, and then in the
Mediterranean. He obtained his first commission
August 12, 1809; was appointed April 1 and Oct. 27,
1810, to the Hibernia, 120, and Armide, 38, home ser-
vice; became in November, 1811, flag lieutenant in the
Arethusa, 38, to Admiral Stirling, on the Jamaica sta-
tion; was there Feb. 27, 1812, placed in acting command
of the Moselle, 18; and on June 19 in the same year
was confirmed a commander in the Brazen sloop, mount-
ing 28 guns. At the commencement of the war with
America we find him cruising for four months off the
Mississippi, where he succeeded in destroying a consi-
derable amount of the enemy's property. Although the
Brazen was on one occasion dismasted in a hurricane ho
maintained his station by cutting and framing masts and
spars from the neighbouring forests at Pensacola. In
1813 ho was sent to Hudson's Bay for the purpose of
affording protection to the settlements and shipping in
that quarter. On the conclusion of hostilities he was
nominated acting captain of the Cydnus, 38, owing to the
death of her captain; but returning soon to the Brazen,
and being re-appointed to her on the peace establishment
he continued to serve in that vessel in the West Indies
until paid off in Aug., 1818. Capt. Stirling's promotion to
post rank took place on the 7th of December in the same
year (1818). His next appointment was 23th of Ja-
nuary, 1826, to the Success, 28, and in this ship he was
sent to form a settlement at Raffles Bay, in Torres Strait
—a service which he accomplished in so able a manner
as to cause his being highly complimented by the naval
commander-in-chief and the Government of New South
Wales. In October, 1828, nine months after he had left
the Success, he was selected to take command of an ex-
pedition intended to form a colony in Western Australia,
where he remained until induced in 1839 to tender his
resignation, for the purpose of resuming the occupations
attached to his profession, having during that period,
surrounded a; he was with the difficulties inseparable
from the establishment of a new settlement, evinced a
degree of zeal and ability that procured him, April 3,
1833, the honour of knighthood, and ultimately the ac-
knowledgments of her Mejesty. On the prospect of a
war with France Sir James Stirling was appointed, Oc-
tober 30, 1840, to the Was, 78. Ho continued in that