The Oxford Movement and The Gorham Judgment of 1850

 


The Privy Council, a secular Court, announced a decision on the case of the Reverend George Gorham in 1850. The Anglican Bishop of Exeter Henry Phillpotts had refused to allow him to become vicar of St. Peter's in Bramford Speke, Devon because of Gorham's theology of Baptism, which Philpotts regarded as not conforming to the doctrine of the Church of England. Reverend Gorham held that Baptism was not sacramentally effective and that an adult decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour was necessary. Bishop Phillpotts, however, was a High Church Anglican who could not accept what he regarded as a denial of Article XXVII of the Thirty-Nine Articles:

Baptism is not only a sign of profession and mark of difference whereby Christians are discerned from other that be not christened, but is also a sign of regeneration or new birth, whereby, as by an instrument, they that receive baptism rightly are grafted into the Church; the promises of the forgiveness of sin, and of our adoption to be the sons of God, by the Holy Ghost are visibly signed and sealed; faith is confirmed, and grace increased by virtue of prayer unto God. The baptism of young children is in any wise to be retained in the Church as most agreeable with the institution of Christ.

This decision had a great impact on Henry Edward Manning, one of the leaders of the Tractarian movement with connections to William Gladstone. The Gorham Judgment, with a secular institution becoming involved with ecclesiastical matters, convinced Manning to become Catholic, which he did in 1851.

The Gorham matter, like the appointment of Renn Dickson Hampden as Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1836, was a great controversy in the Church of England, contributing to further departures of people to the Church of Rome like Manning. It could be an example for some of the Erastian nature of the Church of England. When the authority of the local Bishop to teach and uphold Christian doctrine is rejected by the authority of the State it is an Erastian position. For some such as John Henry Newman it was difficult to maintain the notion that Anglican bishops are successors of the Apostles, if they are appointed by the state. John Henry Newman responded to this crisis with his series of lectures on Anglican Difficulties.

This lecture series was ad­dressed specifically to Anglo­-Catholics to show them that if they wished remain true to their principles - specifically, those of the Oxford and Tractarian Movement, born in 1833 they would have to join the Roman Catholic Church. Newman knew all the Tractarian arguments for not going to Rome, and he considered them in detail. He tries to illustrate the weakness of the Tractarian position for those who remained in the Church of England.

Re­garding the Privy Council decision, Newman commented "The giant ocean has sud­denly swelled and heaved, and ma­jestically yet masterfully snaps the cables of smaller craft...and strands them upon the beach.... One vessel alone can ride those waves; it is the boat of Peter, the ark of God." Newman joined the Church of Rome, leaving the Church of England with the question that persists today about the level of involvement of the State in the affairs of the Church.



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