Foundations of the Anglican Church CXXIX

George Cornelius Gorham

Well, back to the Anglicans for a posting or two.  I had mentioned that the Oxford Movement did not begin about liturgical practices but about a return to patristic theology and doctrinal orthodoxy as opposed to the influences of 19^th century skepticism and liberalism which were threatening the Church.  Gregory XVI and Pius IX were able to control these threats by decree (and vindictive punishment) in the Catholic Church, but the Church of England had only the Sovereign (and, for practical purposes, that meant Parliament, a religiously heterogeneous assortment of miscreants at best) to preserve its doctrinal integrity.  The voices of Oxford were an internal “from the grass-roots up” reform of the Church and it was, overall, quite successful when you consider the odds it was facing.  As a result of the Oxford push for a High Church polity that went far beyond where Laud would have ever dared, the Church of England polarized a bit between the High Church patristic theologians and the Low Church Evangelical theologians, but liberalism (the nasty sort represented by the Earl of Shaftsbury and the rationalists) was effectively purged from the Church for almost a century and a half. 

An interesting occurrence in the Church of England at this time gives us a glimpse of the theological liberalism from which the Oxford Movement was able to preserve the Church of England. 

George Cornelius Gorham was a priest of the Church of England.  He had graduated from Queen’s College, Cambridge, with honors in Mathematics in 1805 and was ordained priest for the Church of England in 1811 despite the Bishop’s (Thomas Dampier of Ely) concern for his orthodoxy.  In particular Gorham denied the doctrine of Baptismal regeneration—that the newly baptized, by virtue of the Sacrament, was “reborn” and incorporated into the Body of Christ, the Church.  Gorham’s objections were based on a curious mixture of Calvinism and rationalism.  The theological implication of his view is that sacraments are only what we make of them and are not God’s promise and deliverance of grace.  This is the problem with the ambiguities of the Anglican tradition—the pacific avoidance of clear doctrinal stands leaves open the possibilities of un-orthodox interpretations.  Gorham didn’t have a particularly successful career in the Church, he was almost 60 years old when he was finally given a parish of his own, St. Just in Penwith and that was in Cornwall.  Bishop of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts (of whom we heard in the surplice riots) seemed to have no reason to refuse him a pulpit despite his liberal theology.  However, only a year later when Gorham was presented for the living of Saint Peter’s Church, Bramford Speke, Phillpotts refused to institute him parish on account of Gorham’s theological stance.  Gorham appealed to an ecclesiastical court which upheld Bishop Phillpott’s decision. Gorham then appealed over the Church to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.  This was a dramatic move because it took a matter of doctrine from the jurisdiction of the Church and appealed to a governmental body for a decision.  Gorham was vindicated by the Privy Council but almost a score of prominent Anglicans left the Church of England—mostly for the Catholic Church—as a result, rejecting the idea that the temporal power had authority in matters spiritual.  Bishop Phillpott was so incensed that he threated to excommunicate any bishop—including the Archbishop of Canterbury—who might come to institute Gorham in his new living.  Instituted or not Gorham took up the living and remained there the remaining nine years or so of his life.  He carried out considerable restoration work in the Church, a project for which “no hard feelings” Phillpott contributed. 

The Gorham case gives us insight into various issues that troubled—and some which continue to trouble—the Church of England.  As a State Church the Government has immense influence over the Church—appointing bishops and, at least in the past, needing to approve changes in the Liturgy.  Given that all members of the Cabinet, much less Parliament, are not required to be Anglicans this becomes rather bizarre.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church CXXVIII

Saint Sidwell's, Exeter before it
was destroyed in WWII.

A reader recently asked me if I were going to continue my series on the Church of England. I had left off with the Oxford movement and, frankly, thought it was as good a place as any to finish up.  But the Church of England has continued beyond the Oxford Movement—some might say in spite of it—so maybe a few more entries are in order. 

There was a High Church movement in the Church of England long before the famous Assize Sermon preached by John Keble at the University Church of Saint Mary Oxford on July 14, 1833 triggered the Tractarian movement.  Originally the High Church movement was concerned not so much with questions of ritual as much as doctrinal orthodoxy and patristic sacramentology.  But the romanticism of the early 19^th century led some of the High Church party into a desire to restore medieval—i.e. Catholic—practices into the Church of England.  This move did not fail to meet with opposition. 

In 1844, 11 years after the famous sermon that triggered the Oxford Movement, three years after the final tract appeared, and one year before John Henry Newman was received into the Catholic Church, Henry Phillpotts, bishop of Exeter, along with his Cathedral chapter issued an edict that the priests of his diocese were—in accordance with the rubric in the Prayer Book—to wear the surplice while officiating at the altar or preaching.  Even the most Puritan-influenced Prayer Book, Elizabeth’s 1559 Book, had required the surplice but it had, in practice, all but fallen out of fashion.  Priests typically worn the black preaching gown with tabs over the cassock rather than any sort of vestments.  One January Sunday in 1845 the Reverend Francis Courtenay, perpetual curate of Saint Sidwell’s Church in Exeter, mounted the pulpit in a surplice, per the bishop’s directions.   John Henry Newman describes the ensuing scene:

"The uproar commenced," says a contemporary account, "with a general coughing down; several persons then moved to the door making a great noise in their progress; a young woman went off in a fit of hysterics, uttering loud shrieks, whilst a mob outside besieged the doors of the building. A cry of 'fire' was raised, followed by an announcement that the church doors were closed, and a rush was made to burst them open. Some cried out, 'Turn him out,' 'Pull it off him.' In the galleries the uproar was at its height, whistling, cat-calls, hurrahing, and such cries as are heard in theatres, echoed throughout the edifice. The preacher still persisted to read his text, but was quite inaudible; and the row increased, some of the congregation waving their hats, standing on the seats, jumping over them, bawling, roaring, and gesticulating, like a mob at an election. The reverend gentleman, in the midst of the confusion, despatched a message to the mayor, requesting his assistance, when one of the congregation addressed the people, and also requested the preacher to remove the cause of the ill-feeling which had been excited. Then another addressed him in no measured terms, and insisted on his leaving the pulpit. At length the mayor, the superintendent of the police, several constables, also the chancellor and the archdeacon, arrived. The mayor enforced silence, and, after admonishing the people, requested the clergy-man to leave the pulpit for a few minutes, which he declined to do,—gave out his text, and proceeded with his discourse. The damage done to the interior of the church is said to be very considerable."  

Surplice riots took place not only in Exeter but in several places throughout England as High Church clergy tried to reintroduce the vestment, but it needs to be contextualized. 

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a time when the ancestors of today’s prim and placid Englishmen were rife for trouble.  Lord George Gordon had incited riots in 1780 when there was a move in Parliament to remove civil disabilities from Catholics.  As Catholicism was growing in England there was a strong reaction on the part of the Protestant working class who resented any social change that benefited those other than themselves.  The Industrial Revolution in England had created an enormous working class living in poverty and a small but rising bourgeoisie who were finding their way into parliament and power  There was political turmoil as well.  The young queen, Victoria, had incurred considerable unpopularity because of her dependence on Lord Melbourne even when Melbourne was out of power.  Two attempts (both unsuccessful, of course) were made on Victoria’s life between 1840 and 1842.  Riots would break out again when Pius IX restored a Catholic hierarchy to England in 1850.  All in all politics, religion, economics would provide tinder for any explosion.  Despite the fuss over surplices, Catholic practices such as vestments, altar ornaments, and incense, would find themselves at home in (many) Anglican churches very quickly.