The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1850-06-04 00:00:00

GORHAM v. BISHOP OF EXETER.

The Arches Court was crowded on Friday in anticipae
tion of a final decision. Dr. Addams, on behalf of the
Bishop, asked for further time for making the return to
the monition, and prayed the court to allow it to stand
over till the next court day, Monday, June 10th. The
Bishop bad not any desire to slight the authority, or to
show disrespect in not complying with its order, but he
wished to obtain the opinion of Sir Fitzroy Kelly and
Mr. Baddeley whether, after the decision of the Courts of
Queen Bench and Common Pleas, an application for pro-
hibition should be made to the Court of Exchequer.
That opinion, it was expected, would be obtained during
the day, (Friday,) and, if no proceedings were taken on
those opinions, he (Dr. Addams) would undertake that,
before next court day, the return to the monition should
be made.

Sir H. Fust asked Dr. Addams if he was to understand
that if no proceedings were taken in the Courts of Ex-
chequer, that the order of the courts would be obeyed.
Dr. Adams replied, most certainly."
Mr. Toiler, the Bishop's Proctor, stated that if no pro-
ceedings were taken, he would undertake, on behalf of
the Bishop, to make a return to the monition at the proper
time.

Mr. Bowdler, proctor of Mr. Gorham, did not oppose
the motion, and the case was ordered to stand over ac-
cordingly.

Tho Bishop of London has quite recovered.
The Rev. Thomas Gamier, Chaplain of the House of
Commons, has been appointed to the living of Trinity,
Marylebone, vacant by the promotion of the Rev. Gilbert
Elliot to the Deanery of Bristol. Patroness, the Queen.
The parish church of St. Paul's, Derby, which has been
erected by.voluntary subscription in memory of the late
Dr. Shirley, Bishop of Sodor and Man, and formerly
Archdeacon of Derby, being completed, was consecrated
on Wednesday week, by the Bishop of Lichfield.
The Archbishop of Canterbury has exercised his power
of conferring degrees independently of the universities, by
granting the degree of M.A. to the Rev. H. T. Fletcher,
chaplain to the Duke of St. Albans, and late incumbent
of St. George's Church, Chorley.
The Bishop of Durham, who is a warm advocate of the
doctrine of baptismal regeneration, says, in a recent letter
to the Rev. Dr, Gilly : "As the language of the articles
differs in some degree from that of the baptismal service;
and as eminent divines, whose orthodoxy has not been
impeached, appear occasionally to have expressed them-
selves in a way not very dissimilar to what Mr. Gorham
has held, I cannot but agree with you, and with the sub-
scribers to the declaration, that the sentence of the judicial
committee was an honest and enlightened sentence; and
that it leaves little or no cause for dissatisfaction at the
constitution of the court by which such sentence was
passed."
THE ECCLESIASTICAL APPEALS BILL.—A declaration,
signed by a number of clergymen of the Established
Church of various shades of theological opinion, has been
forwarded to members of the Legislature against the
Bishop of London's bill for altering the constitution of
the Judicial Committee of Privy Council, whose recent
decision has been so favourably received by the great
body of the members of the Church of England. Among
the names attached we observe those of Archdeacon
Browne, Chancellor Raikes, the Rev. W. Short of
Bloomsbury, the Very Rev. the Dean of Bristol, the
Rev. Messrs. Gurney, Baring, Stanley Faber, Dr. Gilly,
of Durham, the Rev. Messrs. Auriol, Wilson, Hayward
Cox, Gamier, Watts, the Rev. Dr. Marsh, F. Close,
M'Neile, the Rev. Lord Wriothesley Russell, &c.
REV. G. S. FABER ON THE GORHAM DECISION.—In
a letter just published, this talented divine says, " I see
no reason why Infants as well as Adults may not possess
the prerequisites of Faith and Grace, as specified in the
27th Article. No doubt, according to the right judgment
of those great divines4infants could only possess them, as
the schoolmen speak, juxta modum recipientum : but no
objection to such a view can be consistently made by the
Bishop of Exeter, since his very principle is, that all in-
fants, as infants, or while infants, receive the morally
transforming grace of regeneration in baptism. At all
events, our Church in her demand of a Prerequisite
Worthiness, no where, as far as I know, makes any dis-
tinc'ion between adults and infants. She requires all to
receive baptism with a Prerequisite Worthiness, under
the declared penalty of deriving no beneficial effect from
it if they receive the sacrament unworthily. In absolute
strictness of speech, this is not denied ; but rather in the
declaration that all infants, as such, are worthy recipients,
it is virtually admitted. Here, however, there is a diffi-
culty of no ordinary magnitude, in which, so far as I can
see, the Bishop of Exeter has, somewhat gratuitously,
eueangled himself. He denies the need of Prevenient
Grace to make infants worthy recipients, contending that
they are already worthy, as Infants contrasted with
adults. But our Church soundly rules from Scripture
that all infants are, by nature, born in sin, and the child-
ren of wrath. Yet, in the Bishop's doctrinal scheme,
for the non-reception of which he has pronounced Mr.
Gorham to be a heretic, and has refused him Institution,
the same individual infant, requiring no Prevenient Grace
to make him worthy, may be, simultaneously, both a child
of wrath and yet a worthy recipient. I have riot suffi-
cient skill to disjoin this dogma of the Bishop from a con-
tradiction in terms : for it strikes me as requiring us to
believe, that the same person, at the same moment of
time, may be both worthy and unworthy. The Bishop,
by denying the need of Prevenient Grace, has cut him-
self off from the power of asserting, that all infants, being
made worthy recipients by the act of Prevenient Grace,
are, therefore. without any exception, regenerated in bap-
tism ; and should any one (I will not say the Bishop) at-
tempt to cut the knot by a bold denial of original sin, he
at once enrols himself in the black list of Pelagian Here-
tics. On these grounds, I perceive not how the decision
of the Court tends to unsettle all belief, to destroy the
fidelity of subscriptions, and to produce general suspicion,
uncertainty, and scepticism ;' and I feel assured, that our
two exemplary and conscientious Primates would never
have declared their approbation of the judgment.
had they anticipated any such baneful effects from it as
the authors of the paper suggest. lam not much in the
habit of pinning my faith upon any man's sleeve ; but I
cannot lightly regard the deliberate opinion of two such
divines as the Archbishops of Canterbury and York."

COURT AND FASHION.
The Earl and Countess of Sefton entertained the Duke
of Devonshire, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, the
Duke and Duchess of Montrose, the Earl and Countess of
Wilton and Lady Elizabeth Egerton, the Hon. Colonel
Cecil Forrester, Sir William Fraser, Mr. Henry Grenfell,
and a distinguished circle to dinner on Thursday evening,
at their splendid mansion in Belgrave-square. The
countess subsequently had " a carpet dance," to which a
brilliant party was invited, the lower suite of rooms being
thrown open as the invitations were limited.