Our Authorized Bible Vindicated - Benjamin G. Wilkinson

sentiment. The Bishop of Exeter, on the point of
ordaining a clergyman by the name of Gorham,
demanded that he subscribe to the doctrine of
baptismal regeneration. He refused. The Bishop
declined to admit him to the ministry. Mr. Gorham
carried his case to the highest court in the Church
of England, which decided against him. He then
appealed to the Privy Council, which reversed the
decision of the Ecclesiastical Court, and virtually
decided that no man could be excluded from the
Anglican ministry because he did not believe in
baptismal regeneration.
The effect on the country was tremendous.
Even Gladstone, who had been drawn into the
Oxford Movement, to whose thoughts and feelings
it gave a new direction, wrote to his wife that it
(the Gorham case) “may impose duties upon me
which will separate forever between my path of
life, public or private, and that of all political
parties. The issue is one going to the very root of
all teaching and all life in the Church of
England.”[35]
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