BISHOP PHILPOTTS VERSUS THE PRIMATE. [From the "Daily News."]

New Zealander, Volume 6, Issue 467, 5 October 1850, Page 3

BISHOP PHILPOTTS VERSUS THE PRIMATE. [From the " Daily News."]

A Publication by Bishop Philpotts on the Gorham case was a calamity not to be avoided by any propitiatory sacrifice. Like an east wind in March it was sure to come at last ; and to bring with it a moral and social influenza. Disappointed in a legal inveitigalion needlesily provoked by himself, so inTeterate a polemic could not remain silent after defeat. A phamplet from this pamphleteer of thirty years' standing was, therefore, certain. The utmost in point of time that could be hoped wai, that a prelate of such high ecclesiastical pretensions would not disturb the solemn festival of Eailer by his wrangling, that he would allow the church to perform in peace her, appointed services of Passion Week. For this respite we should have been content to have paid a'somewhat high price as to style and matter. As the Ethiopian cannot change his colour, nor the leopard his spots, so cannot Philpotts touch the most sacred subjects, except after the fashion of his uncharitable and intolerant nature. From his remorseless pen a phamplet, we knew, most be full of wrath and gall. But, for a piece of episcopal discord at this season, and for such a Letter as Bishop Philpotts has addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury, even those who knew him beit— -or rather knew him worst— could hardly be quite prepared. It exceeds anything his presumption, his virulence, and his bitterness ever before perpetrated. The solemnity of the subject— the almost in scrutable mystery of the theme to be treated— the danger of the crisis in which the church is placed— the excitability of partisansjsure to be exasperated by any episcopal en* couragement— the serious responsibility on the Most Reverend Primate addressed— -the meekness with which he betrs his " great faculties"—- to say nothing of the "due revert&ce and obedience," that provincial pishops owe him : these, it might have hoped, would for a setson have toothed a mind even so constitutionally wrathful and have infused decency into language so habitually vehement as even Bishoy Philpotts'. Vain and idle hope . A half-clad virago from the top of an Edinburgh wynd does not shriek more hoarsely at her drunken companions, a disappointed wolf does not howl more hungrily after exhausted travellers, a vulture does not scream more wildly as it descends on its desert prey, than does Bishop Philpotts at and over the Archbishop of Canterbury. He dunces around llie venerable and inoffensive Primate with all the fierce* ness of a savage Mohawk ; and eyes him with all the cananiblism of an unreclaimed New Zealander. j Contrast the two men. Of about the same age of the like sacred profession, or almost equal dignity in the church ; how opposite in mental conformation, in usefulness of life, in Christian bearing and practice t Mildness, gentleness, the manners of a court tempered and subdued by a career of humble piety, consideration for the teuderest feelings of those most opposed to him —characterise the Primate. He has no intellectual robustness or high moral courage, and not much perlonul activity ; but he is a prelate of unsurpassed sneetness of disposition, and in liberality in what he deems non-essentials most comprehensive. His very virtues extort applause even from his ruthless and irreverent assailants. "In your grace," says Bishop Philpotts, after one of his bitterests invectives, "we admire courtsey, modesty, and cluriyt," Yet neither these high qualities, nor hit elevated position, have saved Dr. Sumner from one stnging sentence, one t vindictive accusation, or one uncharitable inuendo. All that the Archbishop is, the Bishop is not. In holy scripture, Dr. Sumner has found a blessed scheme of human redemption, Dr. Philpotts an armoury of polemical strife. In tha office of the church Dr. Sumner reverently beholds & Book of Common Prayer,

Dr. Philpotts n springe for tender consciences. In ritual and pi notices of the church Dr. Sumner sees room a id ver?e enough for all orthodox Christians, Dr. Philpofts only meles and bounds for sectarian exclusion. The writings of the Primate, though occasion* ally of doubtful merit, are on all subjects of the highest and holiest interest ; the pinr.phlets of the Bishop arc all question! of eclesiastical persecution or of po* litical disquiet. Personal piety has elevated the one to the primacy; by party bigotry the other scrambled to a mitre. Age, reflexion, and experience have 6omewliHt qualified the opinions originally propounded by th« Primate ; whereas more than seventy years 1 knowlcHge of human vanities, and the nothingness of earthly wisddora, has only exasperated the temper and rendered ruder the manners of the Bishop. Life it closing; on Dr. Sumner with regret : the tomb ia opening for Dr. Philpotts with reproaches. Not content with originating rashly a discutiion which at one time threatened to rend the Church of England in twain .• unpacified by a judgment which arrested a rupture without yielding n doctrinal triumph lo either party in the church, and only excited to greater violence by the example set him by the Primate through the preis, to unite the more moderate and earnest of the clergy; Dr. Philpotti, the common barrator of the Church, ruches savagely at the Archbishop, assails him with abuse, reproaches htm with heresy and schism, and charges him with falshood and tieachery. With libellious prayers and slanderous griefs, he firnt fears that Dr. Summer is " uncomcious" of the meaning and tendency of what he deliberately published; he censures him usin» "uncertain and perplexing language;" then upbraids him for " shrinking fromjthe exp essio*n of the great property of baptism," snd at last charges him with propagating views as to tbe necessity of faith making that sacrament efficacious, " little short if indeed short, of heresy." Nayiising in passbn and in fury, Biihop Philpotti thus audaciously addrenes the primate, to whGm he hai plighted " due reference and obedience :" " Your srrace flings to the winds these declarations of Scripture, and of the church interpreting Sctiptuic." * * * My lord, there is one observation which i& forced on my mind by this your teaching. It is rank popery, and worse Jhan popery, * * * My lord, I stand aghast when I hear such teaching from such a place. 1 ' Not much "due reverence and obedience" in language luch as this; but abominable as even it is, he follows it up by and accusation far more serious. He accuses the Primate of supporting his peculiar heresies by wilful preversions of the text of Scripture : " My lord,|lJhope I shall not be deemed to write with needless diicourtesy, if I call upon your grace to produce any text of Scripture which justifies this statement. The text which you have produced in the passage I am considering, has been, I grieve to be obliged to say, perverted by you, and " added to" most awfully." Than this there could hardly, it might be thought, be any grosser insult offered to, or more serious accusation made against the Piimateof the Church ot England. But even this insult Bishop Pilpotti excels, even this accusationn he exceeds. He pictures the inoffensive and guileless old man whose whole life has devoted to the practices of Christian virtue', and almost spent in the House of God, as spreading infidelity. Dr. Summer has, it seems, referred to Gibbon in support of his statement that some of the early Christians abused the sacrament of baptism ; Gibbon being on matters of fact an authority which all sub« sequent investigations has proved to be most depend* able. The opportunity inuendo was too tempting to be disregarded ; and the vulture of Exeter thus screams over the authoritaye reference ; " Why do you send your readers to an infidel historian, and to the very portion of his work of which almost every eentance is a sneer against your holy faith t" Why, indeed, but to promote the infidelity, to participate in the sneers, and not to leain the truth to ba found in Gibbon? ■ Having thus detected the Primate in propagating heresy, in perventing the text of Scriptuie, in promulgating something "worse 'than popery," and ia gi"ing encouragement to the most peducfive infidelity, Bishop Philpotts enlarges tbe field of his discoveries. Turning to tbe proceedings bofore, and the private deliberations of the judicial committee, of which he can know nothing, the right, reverend libeller, notwithstanding this ignorance, thus describes the part which the Primate "must" have taken therein : "Jnstead of learning, you must have misled the men, you weie there there to instruct, not only by miss'ating tbe matter on which you advise, but also toy misquoting all the authors cited by you in conformity Vtith your stalemeut." " And, so acting, the Piimate, has, he declares, done all that in him lies to seperat ilhe Church of England from the Church of Christ.'' Into the stream of wruth which he pours on the judicial committee we will not at present en er. What we want to draw attention to, is the vindictive uncharitableness of this bad man towards the Primate. Not one generous thought, not one liberal interpretation, not one charitable construction, not one kind word, not a civil lenience has he for the Archbishop of Canterbury. For such a torrent of invective there is but one excuse : too much wiath hath driven him mad. But will he resist the sentance ? Will he oppose the judgment ? Will he risk deprivation 1 Will he loave the Church ? Not he ; jhis duty is to remain —in receipt of the revenues of the diocese of Exeter and of the canonry of Durham. Here his the blasphemous bathos of all his spring: •'Meanwhile, I htve one most painful duty to perform, I have to protest not only against the judgment pronounced in the reacent case, but also against the regular consequences of thafjjudgment. I have to protest against your grace doing what you Trill be speedily called to do, either in person or by some other exercising your authority. I have to protest, and Idobe eby solomn'y protest, before the Church of England, before the holy Catholic Church, befoie Him who is the Divine Head, aganst your giving mission to exercise cure of souls, within my diocese, to him who proclaims himself to hold the heresies which Mr. Gorham holds. I protest that any one who gives mission to him till he retracts is a favourer and suppottor of those heresies. I protest in conclusion, that 1 cannot without lin— and by God's grace I will not— hoM communion with him, be he who he may, who shall so abuse the high commission which he bears." 11 Well, iir," as Lord Ellenborough said to poor Hone when he indulged in a similar exclamation, " now that you have protested, go about 3'our business !" Amidst the contempt and indignation which tint outrage on the Primate must produce, let it not, however, be overlooked that thi iss the spirit, this ths temper, these the objects for which it ia sought to revive convocation : and thut the ttrugg'e whioh it is attempted to piovoke is far less one for the settlement of doctrinal differences than to regain supiemacy for the priestcraft over the rijjlit of private judgment. The comprehension of the Church of England is the fiotross to be stormed. Tlut in the hands of the Philpotts, Heaven help the country. We should eitlie t have to quii en matse, or to— lock the lunatics up,