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THE CHURCHMAN.

"FEAR GOD: HONOUR THE KING."

JULY, 1838.

Original Papers.

THE RIGHT REV. DR. PHILPOTTS, BISHOP OF EXETER.

(WITH AN ENGRAVING.)

“THERE is a soul of goodness in things evil." It is in accordance with this sentiment of the great poet of humanity, that circumstances afflicting to the good are made to call out the talents and the virtues of the great -a truth that may be enforced with remarkable impressiveness, by considering the position now occupied by the BISHOP OF EXETER in the House of Lords, and the circumstances which have exalted the Right Rev. Prelate to that point of moral elevation.

In 1830 the frame of society in England was shaken to dissolution. "Thank God, we have a House of Lords!" is now a declaration almost proverbial among the many, but at that period it was the secret source of hope and confidence with the few. Many readers will not recognize-for they will neither remember, nor take the trouble to trace back, the course of events, even for a few years-the picture we are about to paint in the colours of truth. Some, however, who then shared our anxiety, will now rejoice with us in the retrospect, and perceive in the altered condition of the country signs of the mercy and long suffering of a gracious and Almighty Providence.

The demon of "the progress" had already begun his work on the continent: in France the farce of fifteen years' duration had been acted, and its catastrophe was the expulsion of the elder branch of the Bourbons. How the terrible aspect of revolution has been smoothed; whether its repose is temporary, or destined to be awfully and unexpectedly disturbed, or whether ultimate good is to be deduced from the evil of civil strife, remains to be seen. He that sat on the throne was too confident in the power of the throne, and deaf to example; it was, perhaps, necessary that he should learn from experience, that the hearts of kings are in the rule and governance of God, and that even they can do nothing of themselves; not foreseeing, with certainty, the consequence of one act which they call theirs.

From France, the wildfire of revolution spread to Belgium; and the sparks that have since been blown to flame, were kindled in Portugal,

VOL. IV.-U

and in Spain. Holland, prudent and happy, escaped with a slight scorch; and the fire rolled on to England. The moral plague assumed, at first, a palpable shape, and the misguided peasantry were led to fire the property of their masters, to destroy the produce of their own labour and the means of their own existence: their blindness brought on them the severity of punishment; directly, from the sword of justice, and indirectly, from the scarcity of the means of life, caused by the separation of interests between men and masters, and the dread entertained by the former class of the ingratitude and animosity of the latter. Many were the secret instruments of agitation then at work. One party laboured with determinate energy for a reform in Parliament and a transfer of power; their trusted agents, however, struggled rather for that section which sought the overthrow of the constitution, and the practical adoption of the principle practised in France. They desired, first, a republic by means of a revolution, and failing that, a change of dynasty, fixing their eyes on a Royal Duke, who, however liberal in his politics, was too good a brother, uncle, and subject, to have endured their suggestions, had they assumed such consistency as to reach his ears. Other factions, still more desperate, talked loudly of division of property, and hesitated not to avow infidelity in religion, while advocating anarchy in politics. Then not only the deliberately wicked, but the indifferent, and even the good, were tainted with these principles, and entertained hopes which they would now start from contemplating. When the extreme of liberality was so outrageous; that which assumed the name of moderation, possessed little of the quality: it was moderate not to vote the kingly office useless; it was moderate not to outrage decency in assailing and vilifying the Queen; it was moderate not to advocate the entire destruction of the Church; it was moderate to permit the existence of the House of Lords.

It was in such a period that the subject of our memoir was consecrated to the Episcopal office. It was in such a period that the firmness, the integrity, the enlarged mind, and the splendid talents of such a man were most needed. He had been an exemplary pastor, he had been an eloquent defender of the Church, and he had filled the sphere in which Providence had placed him, with the exertions he had made, and the fair fame they merited. But his abilities were worthy of a more extended sphere-his eloquence deserved a higher auditory, and that Power which guides the councils of the good, called him, in His own time, to a place in the noblest assembly of the world, and which he was destined to adorn. It was in 1830, and in the 53rd year of his age, that HENRY PHILPOTTS was consecrated BISHOP OF EXETER.

He was born in 1777, and educated at Gloucester, at the celebrated College School, up to his thirteenth year; but in 1791, before he was fourteen, he was elected a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The competitors for the scholarship were five, and we need hardly say that Henry Philpotts was the youngest of the number. Most men who have really deserved and gained distinction, have been early at college, and in this instance we find the first four years so spent, that in 1795, Mr. Philpotts took his Bachelor of Arts degree, and gained the Chancellor's prize for an English Essay, "On the influence of Religious Principles." This was in June, and in the same year, a Latin panegyric on the learned, devoted, and excellent Sir William Jones appeared from

the pen of Henry Philpotts, Fellow of Magdalen College, to which position he had been raised in July. The Latin essay obtained a prize from the Asiatic Society, of which the celebrated Orientalist, Sir William Jones, had been a distinguished member.

At school he had been associated with Dr. Mansell, the late Bishop of Bristol; at the University he was, with Dr. Copleston, the present Bishop of Llandaff, and other distinguished persons, appointed of the body of Examiners to carry into execution the new and reformed plan of examination for degrees. Dr. Mansell was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Dr. Copleston, Fellow and Tutor of Oriel College, Oxford; and in 1804, Mr. Philpotts was recommended by Dr. Cyril Jackson, Dean of Christ Church, to the Chancellor of the University, the Duke of Portland, and by him appointed to the Headship of Hertford College. Mr. Philpotts was now a married man, (he married in 1834 a niece of Lady Eldon,) and his Fellowship was of course abandoned. It was not, therefore, without great interest that he saw himself ready to sit down in the University to which he was strongly attached, in the honourable situation of Head of a house, but we feel very happy in recording the fact-on looking into the statutes, he found that he could not conscientiously take the oath required to govern the College on the unreasonable system prescribed-rather than bring himself to obey the vexatious and frivolous provisions of the statute, he declined the office; and by his example prevented its being accepted by any other man of honour and conscience; so this short-lived foundation soon became extinct, and its endowment reverted to the heir at law. There are men, no doubt, among the revilers of the Bishop of Exeter, who would not have scrupled to take the oaths, and then reform the statutes to their purpose; but this conscientious horror of an oath, founded on the conviction of its sacredness, having marked the early period of the Bishop's carcer, gives a dignity and solemnity to his charges against the systematic oath-breakers, which cannot be otherwise than overwhelming to them.

The next testimony to the talents of Mr. Philpotts was his appointment, by Shute Barrington, Bishop of Durham, to the office of Chaplain to his Lordship. This was in 1806; and for twenty years the subject of our memoir continued to enjoy the friendship of that exemplary Prelate. The selection of the Bishop of Durham was an honour to the chosen; Dr. Burgess, late Bishop of Salisbury and Chancellor of the Garter, and Dr. Randolf, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, were also his Chaplains, and did equal honour to his judgment. The origin of the appointment on the part of Bishop Barrington was, we believe, the able reply of Mr. Philpotts to a rude assailment, by Dr. Lingard, of a charge delivered by the Bishop, and published at that time. This first step in the anti-Catholic controversy was marked by that zeal, mingled with independent feeling and a liberal spirit of concession, which have marked, throughout, the speeches and the writings of the Bishop of Exeter, and which have received more justice at the hands of his direct antagonists, than has been allowed by statesmen and literates professedly engaged in the same cause. He has, indeed, sustained a persecution from those who would brand him as a persecutor. Mr. Philpotts now filled a space in the public eye; he was made Prebendary of Durham in 1809, and held that preferment in conjunction with the cure of a populous parish in the city itself; a position to which

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