GORE, CHARLES: Anglican bishop of Birmingham; b. at Wimbledon (8 m. s.w. of London), Surrey, Jan. 22, 1853. He was educated at Harrow and at Balliol College, Oxford (B.A., 1875), and was ordained priest in 1878. He was fellow of Trinity College, Oxford (1875-95), vice-principal of Cuddesdon College (1880-83), and librarian of Pusey House, Oxford (1884-93). His advanced theological views led to his resignation, however, and after being vicar of Radley, Oxfordshire (1893-1894), he was appointed canon of Westminster in 1894. He retained this position until 1902, being also honorary chaplain to the queen in 1898-1900, and chaplain in ordinary to her in 1900-01 and to the king in the latter year. In 1902 he was consecrated bishop of Worcester, and two years later was translated to the see of Birmingham. He was the editor of the famous Lux Mundi (London, 1890), to which he also contributed the chapters on The Holy Spirit and Inspiration, and wrote Leo the Great (London, 1880); The Church tend the Ministry (1889); Roman Catholic Claims (1889); The Mission of the Church (1891); The Incarnation of the Son of ("rod (Bampton Lectures, 1891); Dissertations (1896); The Creed of the Christian (1896); The Sermon on the Mount (1897); The Athanasian Creed (1897); Prayer and the Lord's Prayer (1898); The Body of Christ (1901); The Spiritual Efficiency of the Church (1904); The Permanent Creed (1905); and The New Theology and the Old Religion (1907). He commented on Ephesians (London, 1898) and Romans (1899), and edited G. Romanes' Thoughts on Religion (London, 1894); and Essays in Aid of the Reform of the Church (1898).

GORHAM CASE: -A well-known ecclesiastical litigation which agitated the Church of England in the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1847 the Lord Chancellor presented the Rev. George Cornelius Gorham (b. 1787; d. 1857; B.A., Cambridge, 1808; M.A., 1812; B.D., 1820, fellow of Queen's College, 1810-27) to the living of Brampford Speke, near Exeter. The bishop of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, a determined High-churchman, having doubts of Gorham's orthodoxy, required him to submit to a searching examination, and, finding that his views concerning baptismal regeneration were highly Calvinistic and not in accord with those of the Church of England, refused to institute him. Gorham took the case into the Court of Arches (see Arches, Court of), which sustained the bishop

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in a decision rendered Aug., 1849; he then appealed from the decision of the spiritual court to the judicial committee of the Privy Council, exercising the right of every clergyman of the Established Church in England to appeal from the judgment of an ecclesiastical court to a court of law. On this occasion the court, while essentially a lay tribunal deriving its authority solely from .the crown, had for assessors the archbishops of Canterbury (Sumner) and York (Musgrave) and the bishop of London (Blomfield). The decision here, Mar., 1850, was in Gorham's favor, and an order in council demanded its execution. The bishop of Exeter questioned the authority of the .judicial Committee in the courts of Queen's Bench, of Exchequer, and of Common Pleas, but without success. Gorham was instituted by the Court of Arches into the vicarage of Brampford Speke in Aug., 1851. The committee justified its decision by appealing to the fact that "many eminent prelates and divines had propounded and maintained" opinions practically the same as Gorham's " without ,censure or reproach," thus showing " the liberty which has been allowed of maintaining such doctrine." The judgment also declared that " devotional expressions, involving assertions, must not, as of course, be taken to bear an absolute and unconditional sense."

The case aroused intense interest and something like fifty works were published concerning it. Gorham's sympathizers reimbursed him for the heavy expenses of the litigation by public subscription. The decision was the first of several which have established the right of a clergyman of the Church of England to express opinions honestly held and have made heresy trials for deviation from traditional interpretations well-nigh impossible in the Established Church. On the other hand, the High-church party considered that the judgment had struck out what they believed to be an article of the creed, and had asserted afresh, as an inherent right, the supremacy of the crown in matters of faith. The decision was one of the causes leading to Manning's withdrawal from the Church of England.

Bibliography: The principal documents in the case are: Examination before Admission to a Benefice, by H. Phillpotts, Bishop of Exeter, ed. G. C. Gorham, London, 1848; Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter; a Report of the Arguments before the Privy Council, ib. 1850; Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter; the Judgment of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Mar. 8, 1860, reversing decision of Sir H. J. Fuat, ed. G. C. Gorham, ib. 1850; Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter; Arguments before the Privy Council, the Court of Queen's Bench the Court of Common Pleas, and the Court of Arches, ed. G. C. Gorham, ib. 1850; G. C. Gorham, The Great Gorham Case, a Hist. in Five Books, ib. 1850; idem, A Letter on the Recent Judgment, Gorham v. the Bishop of Exeter, ib. 1850. Consult also: DNB, xxiii. 243-245. A partial list of the literature evoked by the case is given in the British Museum Catalogue, under "Gorham, Geoige Cornelius."