The light thrown by the Bible upon the whole matter seemed
somewhat dubious, for whereas the baptism of St. Peter's
disciples at Jerusalem and St. Philip's at Samaria was followed
by the gift of the Spirit, in the case of Cornelius the sacrament
succeeded the gift. St. Paul also was baptised; and as for the
language of St. John iii 5; Rom. vi 3, 4; I Peter iii 21, it
admits of more than one interpretation. There could, however, be
no doubt that the Church of England assented to Dr. Phillpotts'
opinion; the question was whether or not she excluded Mr.
Gorham's. If it was decided that she did, it was clear that
henceforward, there would be very little peace for Evangelicals
within her fold.

But there was another issue, even more fundamental than that of
Baptismal Regeneration itself, involved in the Gorham trial. An
Act passed in 1833 had constituted the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council the supreme court of appeal for such cases; and
this Committee was a body composed entirely of laymen. It was
thus obvious that the Royal Supremacy was still a fact, and that
a collection of lawyers appointed by the Crown had the legal
right to formulate the religious doctrine of the Church of
England. In 1850 their judgment was delivered; they reversed the
decision of the Court of Arches, and upheld the position of Mr.
Gorham. Whether his views were theologically correct or not, they
said, was not their business; it was their business to decide
whether the opinions under consideration were contrary or
repugnant to the doctrine of the Church of England as enjoined
upon the clergy by its Articles, Formularies, and Rubrics; and
they had come to the conclusion that they were not. The judgement
still holds good; and to this day, a clergyman of the Church of