Bishop of Oxford

“ I accompanied his Lordship, next day, into Oxford, where he preached at St. Ebbe’s to a very large congregation. This Church is very plain and countryfied—astonishingly so for Oxford; but the worshippers were devout and earnest in their attention. The sermon was suited to the Service for the day, and I was not disappointed in the manner, nor yet in the matter, of it. The Bishop is a truly eloquent man. His voice is sweet, and often expressive of deep feeling, or of tender emotion. He uses more action than most English preachers, or rather he has much less of inactivity in his preaching. ”

“ Moreover, while at Paris there was a resident chancellor of Notre-Dame, ever ready to assert his authority, there was no episcopal see of Oxford; the diocesan lived at a safe distance, and the archdeacon was the highest resident functionary of the Church. About the beginning of the thirteenth century, Edmund Rich, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and Robert Grosteste, afterwards bishop of Lincoln, became pioneers of Aristotelian study in Oxford, and were among the earliest graduates in divinity, a faculty then in its infancy. ”

“ It is remarkable that we do not find any High Church Bishops with the King at Oxford. Even Skinner, Bishop of the diocese, had retired from the city to the rectory of Taunton. The absence of others may be attributed to personal restraint, or the dangers of travelling in a time of civil war, or a sense of duty towards their scattered flocks, or a disinclination to throw themselves into a military camp. But some other prelates and clergymen of a different character come under our notice, as present at Oxford at this critical period. ”

“ Mackarness, the late Bishop, is very much better both in colour and design. Further west another medallion in statuary marble, set in giallo antico, commemorates Sarah Acland, the wife of Sir Henry Acland, who is an Honorary Student of the House, and was for many years Regius Professor of Medicine in the University; the Sarah Acland Home for Nurses keeps her pious memory fresh in Oxford.
The late Tudor monument to the first Bishop of Oxford, Robert King, has been removed from its former place under his window to the bay between the aisle and St. ”

“ He was also chosen as 'supporter' bishop at their coronations by both Queen Alexandra in 1902 and Queen Mary in 1911. His administration of the diocese of Oxford was marked by the same anxious care which he had devoted to his college. He was eager to do everything himself ”

“ Hence we find that almost all the bishops and dignitaries who have joined in the Oxford Movement have belonged decidedly to the first class, and have always tried to hold the second class in check. {37} The few who have belonged to the second class, such as Bishop Ives and the Archdeacons Manning and Wilberforce, have eventually found allegiance to the Anglican Church incompatible with the paramount claims of the Church Catholic, and have openly renounced it. ”

“ We are attacked at Oxford by many kinds of outside influence, and you know enough of young men, madam, to realize that there is no influence which appeals to them so strongly as that which is outside, what I must call, constituted authority. The Bishop, in short, if I judge him with accuracy, thinks that Oxford is the finest playground for the East-end of London which can be imagined by the wit of man. ”

“ Wise was ordained deacon by the bishop of Oxford at Cuddesdon on 3 Sept. 1721, and priest at the public ordination at Oxford on 24 Sept. 1721. He took pupils at this time, and among them was Francis North (afterwards Baron and Earl of Guilford) , who conferred on him in 1723 the curacy of Wroxton in Oxfordshire, and bestowed on him early in 1726 the small donative of Elsfield, about three miles from Oxford, where he much improved the residence and laid out the grounds in a fantastic manner. ”

“ They thought and spoke much of Christian antiquity, and, like the Oxford leaders of a century later, sought in that venerable past a rule and an authority co-ordinate with Scripture. They read Thomas à Kempis and Bishop Taylor and the great High Church mystic of their own day, William Law. This Oxford Methodism, with its almost monastic rigours, its living by rule, its canonical hours of prayer, is a fair and noble phase of the many-sided life of the Church of England, and, with all its defects and limitations, claims our deep respect. ”

“ When the High Churchmen found their way to the Bench, as they did very largely under Lord Derby’s and Mr. Gladstone’s rule, they showed as much theological zeal as the Evangelicals, and perhaps more talent for administration. The popular idea of what may be expected from a bishop rose, and the bishops rose with the idea. As Bishop of Oxford, Dr. Samuel Wilberforce was among the first to make himself powerfully felt through his diocese. His example told upon other prelates, and prime ministers grew more anxious to select energetic 199 and popular men. ”

“ The appointment, we are told, was regarded at Oxford as a reward for his zeal for 'the new system of examinations.' His promotion was mainly due to Lord-chancellor Eldon, who, writing to his daughter soon after the consecration, said: 'My new bishop has been to see me today; he is a stout fellow, and sound upon the catholic bill.' Both as dean of Bristol and as bishop of Peterborough he rendered effectual aid in the establishment and promotion of the 'National Society' for the education of the poor. In conjunction with Provost Eveleigh he actively promoted its interests at Oxford ”

“ At an early age he taught in the high school at Ashton, Cheshire, and was already married when in 1891 he went to Christchurch, Oxford, where he graduated in 1895 in the honours school of modern history. He had gone to Oxford with the intention of becoming a clergyman in the Church of England, but in spite of the influence of Bishop Gore, then head of the Pusey House, and of Dean Paget (afterwards bishop of Oxford) , his Scottish and Irish Nonconformist blood was too strong, and he abandoned the idea in order to take up work in the Congregational ministry. ”

“ When the king visited Oxford in 1687, he was lodged in the Deanery, and a chapel fitted up for his use. He summoned the fellows of Magdalen, who had refused to admit Bishop Parker as their president, into Christ Church Hall, and said:—"Is this your Church of England loyalty? Get you gone. Know that I, your King, will be obeyed. Go and admit the Bishop of Oxon. Let those who refuse look to it. They shall feel the whole weight of my hand." They refused, and twenty-five of them were expelled. James, by-the-way, touched for the King's Evil in the cathedral about the same time. ”

“ He also resigned the archbishopric of Dublin, and was nominated bishop of Oxford, his election to that see being confirmed by the queen on 8 Oct., and he having restitution of the temporalities on 3 Dec. ”

“ Now and then eminence in learning or literature raised a man to the bench: there were, for instance, the “Greek play” bishops, such as Dr. Monk of Gloucester, whose fame rested on their editions of the Attic dramatists; and the Quarterly Review bishops, such as Dr. Copleston, of Llandaff, whose powerful pen, as well as his wise administration of the great Oxford College over which he long presided, amply justified his promotion. So even in the eighteenth century the illustrious Butler had been Bishop of Durham, as in Ireland the illustrious Berkeley had been Bishop of Cloyne. ”

“ The Oxford masters, however, were annoyed at the attack made upon a distinguished member of their body, and they resented, as a threatened infringement of their privileges, the order of the Archbishop and Bishop of London, which commanded the Oxford divines to hold an enquiry and to send Wycliffe to London to be heard in person. ”

“ Another eminent preacher whom we may also describe as exhibiting all the characteristics of Oxford culture is Dr. Horton of Lyndhurst Road Congregational Church, Hampstead. Possessed, like the Bishop of Stepney, of a remarkably sympathetic voice, he modulates and varies it to suit the subject and the words, and his gesture, never redundant, has lately been reduced almost to extinction. ”

“ He considerably enlarged the warden's lodge, and was otherwise so great a benefactor to the college as almost to be considered its second founder. Among other reforms he procured an enactment that no one admitted into the society should be ordained till he had completed his regency in arts, the object being to remedy the ignorance of candidates for holy orders. In 1511, being at that time bishop of London, he was appointed by the university to inquire into its privileges, and the relation in which it stood to the town of Oxford. ”

“ He held the see for nearly thirty years, residing at Eccleshall Castle, the country seat of the bishops, the palace at Lichfield having been destroyed in the days of Henry VIII. He had the reputation of being ‘genial, hospitable, and kind to the poor,’ and it is added that ‘he kept his house in good repair, which married bishops were observed not to do.’ Bishop Overton is gibbeted by Martin Mar-Prelate as an ‘unlearned prelate,’ but this is hardly consistent with his known antecedents at Oxford. ”

“ He came under the influence of the Oxford movement, and continued a high churchman to the end of his life. In 1837 he was made examining chaplain to his friend the Bishop of Salisbury, and in 1841 left Oxford with some reluctance to become a canon in Salisbury Cathedral. At Salisbury he threw himself into the duties of his new position with characteristic energy. ”

“ A few lines dropping out of the Life of Robert Owen, the parallelogram Communist, were hustled, as the nearest place of refuge, into the biography of his closest alphabetical neighbour—"Oxford, Bishop of." The consequence is that the article begins as follows: [76] —
"Oxford, the Right Reverend Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of, was born in 1805. A more kind-hearted and truly benevolent man does not exist. A sceptic, as regards religious revelation, he is nevertheless an out-and-out believer in spirit movements." ”

“ In 1651 his son was admitted a scholar of University College, Oxford, then under presbyterian rule, but while there he consorted with royalists and adherents of episcopacy. He proceeded B.A. in July 1655, and having, in 1656, received orders at the hands of an Irish bishop, he performed the Anglican service for some years at Weston-in-the-Green, Oxon. ”

“ The object of the royal party was then to obtain what was called a ‘voluntary’ surrender of their property from the members of each religious [Pg 116] community; and among those who had the courage to offer opposition were many houses of Franciscans, ‘with hom,’ writes the Bishop of Dover, ‘in every place I have moche besynes’ [773] . But among these we cannot reckon the convent at Oxford.
In 1535 Cromwell sent his agent, Layton, and others, to Oxford to reform the University. After abolishing the study of the schoolmen [774] , the visitors proceeded to deal with the religious students [775] . ”

“ Well, I think you may say that the candidates for ordination have been more numerous of late, partly owing to the fact that the Bishop and others have visited Oxford and Cambridge and addressed members of the Universities in college halls, with the result that many good men have been brought into the Diocese. Ordsal Hall has been established for the purpose of inducing graduates to continue their study under a well-qualified principal. At the same time, complaints are sometimes heard from the clergy that it is difficult to get curates to serve in some of the overgrown parishes. ”

“ In 1452, Thomas of Beckington, Bishop of Bath and Wells, consecrated a tomb which he had made for himself, and said mass, in full pontificals, for his own soul, for the souls of his parents, and all the faithful departed, in the presence of a vast congregation. [531]
The Commonalty of Oxford was required to found an anniversary for the souls of the clerks and others, about forty in number, killed in a Town and Gown riot on St. Scholastica’s Day, 1354, and to make an offering, to be distributed 1d. to each of forty poor scholars, and the rest to St. Mary’s Church. ”

“ Our Church is not at one with itself, there is no denying it." That was at first the disaster before him. His thought for himself began to turn, not to Rome, but to a new life without office and authority, but still within the English Church. "You see, if things come to the worst, I should turn brother of charity in London." And he began to prepare for a move from Oxford, from St. Mary's, from his fellowship. He bought land at Littlemore, and began to plant. ”

“ This was the requirement of subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles from young men at matriculation; and a strong pamphlet advocating its abolition, with the express purpose of admitting Dissenters, was published by Dr. Hampden, the Bampton Lecturer of two years before.
Oxford had always been one of the great schools of the Church. Its traditions, its tone, its customs, its rules, all expressed or presumed the closest attachment to that way of religion which was specially identified with the Church, in its doctrinal and historical aspect. ”

“ If one might use words that must seem a paradox, Oxford, once made and fashioned by the church, has in our days herself influenced the church. We mean that the university has given to the Catholics of England that unrivalled body of priests who stand alone in Europe for their indomitable energy, their self-sacrificing earnestness, and their gentle and truly Christian refinement. ”

“ Both in Oxford and in the country were men whose hearts burned within them for something less speculative and vague, something more reverent and less individual, more in sympathy with the inherited spirit of the Church. It did not need much searching to find in the facts and history of the Church ample evidence of principles distinct and inspiring, which, however long latent, or overlaid by superficial accretions, were as well fitted as they ever were to animate its defenders in the struggle with the unfriendly opinion of the day. ”