The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-04 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.
TIMES.—The Bishop of London has not overrated
the earnest and reverential attention with which a very
large proportion of the thinking population of these
islands follows the important controversies and discus..
sions of a religious nature kindled or revived in our
times; and it is certainly a remarkable characteristic of
the age that an episcopal charge should be sought and
perused with as much avidity as the lest harangue of a
Prime Minister, chile popular meetings and addresses
are loudly expressing, in every parish in the realm, the
detestation of the nation for the foreign power which has
openly usurped a spiritual authority ever the minds ef
Englishmen. The vehemence with which such contro-
versies may be conducted, and the intolerance they may
engender, are, no doubt, just subjects of regret; but,
when. the Church of England is assailed as we see her
assailed by the direct aggressions of her worst enemies,
we cannot but rejoice to witness the earnest zeal of the
country for the truth and the authority committed to
her charge; and we are less afraid of the strong grasp
of conviction than of the nerveless touch of indifference.
On this ground, then, we may notice the charge de-
livered on Saturday in St, Paul's Cathedral by the
Bishop of London, as it partakes of the nature of a
political event. It contains the solemn opinion and
declaration of the prelate and ordinary of the most im-
portant diocese of England, not only on some disputed
points of doctrine, but on the most momentous questions
of church government; and it may be esteemed a fortu-
nate circumstance that the visitation of the clergy of
London coincided in point of time with the attempt to
place the metropolis under the spiritual jurisdiction of a
priest of the Church of Rome. If it were our purpose
to draw a contrast between these authorities, or if any
comparison could be instituted between the appropriate
language of an English bishop and the letter which
recently found its way to this country through
the Flaminian gate of Rome, we would simply
point to the vigorous logic, the terse diction,
and the Christian eloquence of the Bishop's
charge, in opposition to the gross assumptions, the rhe-
torical artifices, and the corrupt jargon of Cardinal
Wiseman's production. The Romish priests have
not yet learnt to speak to Englishmen in the
freedom of our vernacular tongue, and there is a
taint of impurity in the very expressions they
employ to emit the decrees of their outlandish authority.
The Bishop of London has thought it his duty to enter
very fully in this address to his clergy upon the theo-
logical questions which have recently been raised in the
Gorham controversy, and to support with great force of
argument and felicity of illustration from our elder
divines the doctrine which Mr. Gorham is said to have
impugned. Into this discussion we have no intention to
follow our Right Rev. Diocesan, and we certainly do
not regret that the doctrine of baptismal regeneration,
as held by the Church of England, should have been
defended and expounded with all the power of Bishop
Blomfield's authority and learning. But, as applied to
the judicial proceedings between Mr. Gorham and the
Bishop of Exeter, we venture to think that this recur-
rence to a matter now set at rest was not called for, and
may be regretted. The Bishop himself formally declares
that the doctrine he rightly upholds was never in any
degree impugned by the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council, and that the opinions ascribes by him
to Mr. Gorham were never senctioned or approved by
that body. Indeed, the discussion can never be brought
to an issue on this point, because, from the looseness of
the pleadings in the cause, it never was dis-
tinctly averred or proved what portion of Mr. Gor-
ham's opinions actually is heretical; and, while the
Judicial Committee extracted from the volume of the ex-
amination one statement of these opinions, the Bishop of
London adopts and argues upon another. With such a
divergency in the view taken of what must be called the
facts of the case, it is hardly possible that the same in-
ference should be drawn from two different impressions;
and, though the Bishop of London fastens with theolo-
gical zeal on doubtful passages as susceptible of confu-
tation, the minds of English judges were perhaps more
disposed to construe doubtful and obscure expressions in
tavour of the accused party, rather than against him.
We are now informed of the grounds on which the
Bishop of London withheld his approval from the report
of the Judicial Committee to the Queen, but we are not
aware whether he pressed the same arguments with equal
force on the Court of Appeal, which he was bound by
her Majesty's commands to assist with his counsel, and,
unless he actually failed in the attempt to render that
report more consistent with the opinions he now ex-
presses on the subject, it may be doubted whether a sort
of protest delivered nearly a year after the event in St.
Paul's Cathedral is entirely consistent with duty and
discretion. Looking to those essential principles and
paramount opinions which constitute the strength and
union of our national Church, rather than to the
controversies which divide it, it is satisfactory to
obtain from the Bishop of London a positive con-
demnation of those " histrionic practices" too
frequently introduced of late into the English service
under the form of innovations or pretended revivals of
ancient Church observances, which are eminently re-
pulsive to the great body of the laity in this country,
and the more so from the associations they now awaken
with the impure ritual and aggressive policy of the
Romish priesthood. Nothing is wore to be deprecated
than the introduction of any form or usage by the
clergy which tends to sever them from the lay members
of the church. Whatever is true, whatever is right, is
common to all classes of Christians, and it is impossible,
without the most fatal consequences to the whole eccle-
siastical body, for the clergy to indulge in flights of en-
thusiasm which the sense and piety of their countrymen
refuse to accept as the reformed religion of England.
In condemning those who have " advanced step by step
to the very verge of the precipice," and again, those
" who have thought it prudent to make some concessions
to the meretricious tastes" of a certain class of worship-
pers, the Bishop of London may not have called to mind
the ceremonies in which he himself consented to take a
part at the consecration of St. Barnabas, Pimlico; but it is
a matter of general regret that he did not avail himself of
that occasion to restore that and other churches of his
diocese to the simplicity which their character and pur-
pose seemed peculiarly to demand. No doubt these ex-
ternal departures from the habits and the worship of our
forefathers have materially contributed to embolden the'
Romish priesthood, and to deceive the world as to the
true religious spirit of the people of England ; and all
experience, from the first statute of Elizabeth down to
Cardinal Wiseman's last pastoral, shows that if this
country is to maintain the Church of England and the
Protestantism of England as the palladium of our free-
dom of thought, of action, and of government, we can-
not render a worse service to that sacred cause than to
mimic the histrionic ceremonies of Rome. The arrival
of a bevy of Bishops in all the pomp of their Romish
attire may seasonably remind some of our clergy that
these performances are the badges of a foreign allegiance,
or the marks of a degrading superstition. It has been
said that the secant edicts of the Pope are no more than
the customary acts of authority of a sovereign over his
spiritual subjects, and that, as we cannot re-enact per-
secuting laws, nothing is more impracticable than to
cope with this spiritual authority. We contest both
these propositions. The re-establishment of an
entire hierarchy by Papal authority, without the
assent of the existing Government of this nation, is
not one of those acts which the mere head of a sect
can reasonably take; it is an act of sovereignty, or it is
nothing; and we have greet doubts whether such sove-
reign power can be exercised with safety and impunity
by a foreign Court in this country, whether under pre-
text of religious supremacy or any other. Far from
yielding a blind and absolute submission to all the de-
mands and pretensions of Rome, there is no Catholic
State in Europe which has not insisted upon some con-
trol over these powers, and the French Government
especially enjoys and exercises that control by virtue of
the concordat, backed by strong repressive laws. Having
no terms of agreement with Rome, we lack these provi-
sions; but what we do not care to ask of her we can
exact for ourselves. Even where Acts of Parliament
are powerless, and Royal prerogatives set at nought,
there is another and a loftier barrier to the spiritual
despotism ot Rome in the public opinion of a free and
religious people. To that power wo are confident that
we do not appeal in vain. They will remember, to-
morrow, as the anniversary returns of the twofold deli-
verance of England from Popish conspirators and
Popish Court, that the annals of the country, and even
the pestinsee of our children, mark that day, in memory
of the great principle of national independence and reli-
gious liberty; and we repeat, as of old, the prayer, that
" such as turn religion into rebellion, and faith into fac-
tion, may never prevail against us or triumph in the
ruin of Thy Church among us."
POST.—It is a curious fact in the history of the Ro-
man See that the power of the Popes has been derived
more from the weakness of mankind than from its own
inherent strength. A tyrant with the defenceless, and
a cringing hypocrite with the bold, the Pope of Rome,
in his arrogated claim to universal rule, has occupied
the anomalous position of one %hose spurious rank is
rather, conceded by courtesy than recognized by right.
He has inherited honours which were clogged with con-
ditions at variance at once with the principles of Chris-
tianity and with the obligations ot temporal authority.
His accession to the triple crown may be said to devolve
upon him the necessity of promoting Divine truth by
usages which are consistent only with a barbarous and
savage age. Whatever his own opinions, the existent
I'opo has been always cut off by the acts of his prede-
cessors from exercising the right of private judgment in
secular affairs, to an extent almost as great as his own
subjects in matters purely spiritual. It is scarcely ne-
cessary to observe that no other Government in the his-
tory of the world has acted upon a principle so outra-
geously absurd and injudicious—a principle that no
reasonable man can contemplate without a smile at the
vanity from which it sprang, nor without a sigh
at the lamentable consequences to mankind to
which its universal adoption would inevitably
give rise. Examined by the established rules of phi-
losophy—although far be it from us to apply the wit of
man to things which are beyond mortal ken—the sys-
tem of the Papacy is a violation of every rule which holds
good in every other rank in society, for it seeks to apply
unchangeable laws to changing circumstances; or, in
other words, to adapt man to the law, and not the law
to man. No human institution founded upon so false a
basis can exist, but by an undue and most unhealthy
concession on the part of those who are called upon to
obey, nor without a gross and violent neglect of recipro-
cal responsibility by him who is called upon to govern.