second edition of which (published in 1836) is now before us. Even allowing that, on the first appearance of the former, there were some things which seemed questionable, and, if not justifying suspicion, yet calling for explanation, still common justice required that attention should be paid to subsequent publications, to discover whether such explanation had been given, whether directly or indirectly. We say that it has been given in both ways. What is the fact? In 1847 and 1848, certain charges, some twelve or fifteen years old, are brought forward against Dr. Hampden, as sufficient to prevent his present appointment to the see of Hereford. This is justified by the assertion, that the accused not only has not made any retractation, but that he has distinctly said, "I retract nothing." The public are thus, by this adroit method of proceeding, left to conclude that the original charges remain in all their force. Undoubtedly, in one sense this is true, that is, in no force at all. Whatever suspicion might attach to Dr. Hampden on other grounds, his Bampton Lectures afford none. We can easily conceive that, in a time of high political excitement, when one long-ruling party had been defeated, and their opponents had been triumphantly elevated to power, whatever suspicion attached to the entire party so conquering, might, in the warmth of contention, be applied to an individual adherent. Many English Whigs of the school of Locke have undoubtedly been exceedingly lax in regard to the fundamental doctrines of Christianity. We only mention this as an historical fact, important in its bearing on the present case. To this party the Socinians have generally belonged. And in our own times, it is well known that many persons, both politicians and Divines, have been notorious for their heterodoxy. Bishop Watson and Dr. Parr may be mentioned. The "Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, by his Sons," puts his own religious views beyond all doubt. No one suspects Lord Brougham of anything like an approximation to a bigoted orthodoxy. Even Lord John Russell, in his historical work, reviewing the state of religious parties at the beginning of the last century, evinces (or did evince when the book was written) a decided favour for such of the Clergy as were openly carrying out the religious principles of Locke. Now, considering all these things, we can easily conceive, that in times like those which were seen in 1832, and a few years subsequently, some of the old Tory school, in their eagerness to damage their opponents in public estimation, might say of such a one as Dr. Hampden, whom they would call a Whig, "He is a Socinian;" and having advanced the charge, that they should look over his "Lectures" to see whether something could not be found in them to support it. Such occurrences are too common, on all sides, in strong party controversy, to excite surprise, however much they are to be deplored by all who care not for party triumph, and only desire the establishment of truth. But this excuse, if excuse it be, is only available so far as it may be referred to the heat of present discussion. When this has subsided, the arms which fury furnished to the combatants ought to be thrown away, and truth sought by instruments agreeing with its own nature, by reason and honesty. Supposing, therefore, that such a thing were said in 1832, and that when the "Bampton Lectures" came out soon after, expressions were found in them which, by a little management, might be made to seem to support the charge, surely it ought not to be repeated, fourteen years afterwards, with no reference to works published since. Above all, the public ought not to be left to suppose, by the vague assertion, “ He has retracted nothing," that nothing had been said in explanation. Were we even engaged in controversy with Dr. Hampden, and had we in him an uncompromising opponent, 66 we should say that this conduct is not just; it is not common honesty. Dr. Hampden has strongly disclaimed the inferences drawn from his "Bampton Lectures." To his second edition of them, published a dozen years ago, he has prefixed a long explanatory "Introduction," of ninety octavo pages, in which he not only distinctly disclaims the meaning charged on him, but clearly shows what was his real object. In his “Inaugural Lecture," published about the same time, he most solemnly and unequivocally asserts the unchanged orthodoxy of his religious belief, according to the teaching of the Anglican Church. He has retracted nothing! True. That would have been to plead guilty. But he has denied, as plainly as it could be done in language, the entire accusation. He has pleaded, Not guilty; and having thus put himself manfully on his trial before God and his country, so far as we ourselves are concerned, after examining the evidence, we convert his plea into the verdict which truth demands, and unhesitatingly say, Not guilty! We have carefully read his "Parochial Sermons ;" and as these were published not so long after the "Bampton Lectures," no charges ought to have been repeated in 1847, with the cry of, "He has retracted nothing," without taking these among the documents to be examined. Dr. Hampden was parish Clergyman as well as Bampton Lecturer. And how did he speak to his village congregation? Socinianism is such a system, that, wherever held by a Preacher, some proofs of its existence will be found in his pulpit exercises, whether of a negative or of a positive character,-in what he says, or in what he does not say, and ought to have said. But in these Sermons nothing of the kind is to be found. Undoubtedly, they are not what we think such sermons ought to be. They are not what they would have been, had the Preacher received, and practically carried out, the principles of Mr. Faber, in his Treatise on Justification. But, had they been sound according to our own Wesleyan views of soundness, this would only have been matter for new accusations with his unrelenting opponents. The very things of which we should disapprove, they would select as the best portions of the volume. Thus far, therefore, these Parochial Sermons would not at all help them. But there is something else. Of every scheme of preaching at all deserving the name of Christian, there is a foundation, on which the Wesleyans, and not only the Churchman, but the very Romanist, are agreed. On this foundation, the Romanist, according to the Creed of Pius IV., builds what we believe to be wood, and hay, and stubble; but there is the foundation; for before the Tridentine articles comes the Creed of the ancient church. Now, according to this fundamental orthodoxy, such are these Sermons, that their author might truly say, manfully appealing to every one who knows what genuine Christian orthodoxy is,-"For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God, speak we in Christ." They are devout, earnest, and serious, breathing a strong desire to promote the spiritual and eternal welfare of his hearers, always implying, on all proper occasions asserting, the grand verities included in the wonderful scheme of redemption revealed to us in holy Scripture. They often approach very nearly to what would be termed evangelical; and while Bishops like Daniel Wilson, or Clergymen like Henry Martyn or Charles Simeon, would not be satisfied with them, yet by the bulk of serious Clergymen they would be thought excellent. In comparison with the preaching that we fear was only too common in our own younger days, they show a decided and vast improvement. We remember once hearing a sermon at St. Mary's, Oxford, by a Preacher whose name we find among the earliest opponents of Dr. Hampden, which, if it suggested any notion of what was his regular mode of addressing his parishioners, would place him every way far below the Rector of Ewelme. At all events, the points in these Sermons in which we should consider Dr. Hampden mistaken and defective, are those in which he approaches nearest to the Tractarians: these, therefore, may be dismissed from consideration in the present controversy, as altogether irrelevant. On those which concern the common belief of Christians, the unbroken faith of the catholic church from the beginning, we will only say, that he who can read these discourses, and charge Dr. Hampden either with actual heresy, or with keeping the fundamental truths of Christianity in the background, and not employing them in all his doctrines and exhortations, ought to blush for either his ignorance, or something worse. In coming to Dr. Hampden's" Bampton Lectures," it is not our intention by any means to institute a full examination of all his religious teaching. The remarks we have already made on his "Parochial Sermons," also apply to these. The question for the present discussion is not, whether this teaching be sound in the sense in which a Wesleyan congregation would expect a Wesleyan Minister to be sound; but whether it be sound in the common sense of orthodoxy, as admitted equally by us, and by his opponents. We say thus much, that we may not be mistaken by our readers, and that our support of Dr. Hampden on certain points may be considered only as referring to them, and not to all which his teaching includes. Does he, in these Lectures, appear as the orthodox believer in the scriptural doctrine of the Trinity? This is the question requiring investigation and reply. Once for all, we may observe, that we have noticed in the "Lectures" mistakes and defects like those which we noticed in the "Sermons," and of which we have already spoken; and as we said before, so we say again, With these, his opponents, at least, have no right to find fault. His views of sacramental efficacy-for instance, in regeneration-lead him to speak as we cannot speak, and in a manner, as we think, inconsistent with the grand principles of justification by faith, as laid down by the leading Anglican Protestant Reformers; though not inconsistently, we acknowledge, with some of that phraseology which they brought with them from the erring school to which they had formerly belonged, and by which they were often made inconsistent with themselves. Though it is only justice to them to declare our full persuasion, at which we have not arrived without a long and extensive consideration of their writings, that so thoroughly had they received the principles to which we just now referred, that had they perceived the inconsistency in the clearness in which it has been placed by subsequent events, they would have lost no time in applying the remedy: they would have explained and rectified their phraseology by their principles, and not explained and modified their principles by their phraseology. As it is, they have left an heritage of melancholy error to their successors, and seeds were sown by them, the fruits of which they never anticipated. But these are not points at issue between Dr. Hampden and his opponents; and we again say, that we refer to them only that our own approval of the "Bampton Lectures" may not be misconstrued. There is another work written by Dr. Hampden, not perhaps so generally known as it deserves to be, in which the philosophical tendencies of his mind are strikingly disclosed. It is an 66 Essay on the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity; or, the Credibility obtained to a Scriptural Revelation from its Coincidence with the Facts of Nature." (8vo., pp. xxxi. 314. London, 1827.) As this was published before the delivery of the Bampton Lectures, of course, it was possible that his religious opinions might have undergone such a change, that the Lecturer and the Essayist, though the same man, would not sustain the same theological character. At the same time, if the principles of the first work were sound, and the second only furnished matter of mere suspicion, justice required that former orthodoxy should be allowed its weight in explaining what, at the worst, was only equivocal or ambiguous. The Essay brings before us one who had well studied the masterly work of Bishop Butler, and whose mind was so thoroughly imbued with the great argument of the "Analogy," as to be able to apply it under a different form, and for the production of a different result. The elaboration exhibits great power of thinking, and clearness of mental vision at once minute and wideranging. Full of compact thought, it will little interest either the superficial reader or the sciolist; but they who can understand and relish Butler, will learn much from the instructions of one of his ablest disciples. Viewed in relation to our present question, it contains no evidences, we will not say of doctrinal unsoundness, but of either the doctrinal misgiving, or the doctrinal rashness, from which the probability of future change might be inferred. On the contrary, where occasion required any reference to the fundamental doctrines of evangelical revelation,-to the Trinity, to the work of redemption by the incarnation and atonement of the Son of God, and the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, such references are precise and unmistakeable. He says, and no one having any Socinian tendencies would so speak,-"We know, for instance, certainly, that there is that in the nature of God which will prompt him to reward and punish mankind, according to the rules of distributive justice." Also: "When Christianity unfolds to us the high mystery of a Trinity in Unity, it enlarges our knowledge of God to a degree beyond the ken of human intellect." He thus, also, illustrates the application of the principle of analogy to a particular doctrine, showing that agreement with known facts proves absolute truths so far as the agreement goes, and renders the entire doctrine, as extending beyond the agreement, highly probable. "So the doctrine of an atoning Saviour agrees in evidence with those particular facts of experience, which show that vicarious punishment is a law of the divine administration in the present world: this general truth is the point of evidence in which such facts and the Scripture doctrine agree: so far, then, we may be sure that the doctrine in question has spoken the truth; not only verisimile, but verum: but finding it actually true thus far, we have ground for believing the whole complex notion of an atonement in its scriptural acceptation; the whole taken together is, as if it were true, or verisimile." No Socinian would write either thus explicity or thus cautiously. We just add the conclusion of the "Essay :". "Thus going on from strength to strength, in cooperating with that Spirit which is the efficient cause of all that is good, and wise, and powerful in man, through his gracious influence the believer may aspire to that height in the sublime philosophy of Christianity, which is a demonstration of its truth more divine than that resulting from mere argumentative discussions; where perfect love casteth out fear;' where the disciple becomes the saint; and the docility of the child of grace is consummated in the mature experience and the wisdom of the man of God." So far from leading to any suspicions of doctrinal unsoundness, the whole tendency of this Essay is, to prepare for that cautious examination of the language of human theology, which places revealed truth on its true scrip tural foundation, and which is the grand object of the "Bampton Lectures," delivered five years subsequently. At the We give the title of these Lectures in full,-" The Scholastic Philosophy considered in its relation to Christian Theology, in a course of Lectures, delivered before the University of Oxford, in the year MDCCCXXXII. Lecture founded by John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury. By R. D. Hampden, D.D., Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, and Canon of Christ Church. Second edition, with Introduction. 8vo., pp. xci, 548. London, 1837.” If to this title only three or four words were added, it would clearly exhibit the object and character of the work :-the scholastic philosophy, considered in its relation to Christian theology, in supplying the language by which, in the scholastic period, the dogmas of theology were formally expressed. The Lectures are not to be considered as popular discourses, addressed to an ordinary congregation, treating on topics designed to promote their spiritual edification. They were addressed to a learned audience, and contain such critical disquisitions as a learned audience alone would be able fitly to appreciate. They do not refer immediately to theological doctrine: their direct object is theological expression. They furnish one chapter-from circumstances a most important one-of the extensive history of the principles of theological language, with the modifications by which their development was influenced, and the changes which in different periods they underwent. Dr. Hampden does not so much inquire into the doctrines which God has revealed in his word,— these are rather assumed than sought out and systematized,—as into the manner in which man has described them since they came into his possession. This subject thus belongs, we again say, not to the history of divine truth in itself considered, but to the history of its treatment by human and uninspired agents. Had the Lecturer deemed it necessary, he might have strengthened his position by showing, at the outset, the necessity of that plenary inspiration with which the sacred writers were endowed, for the proper statement of the truth which they had to make known. They were to speak to men, and therefore it was necessary that they should be men; but they were to deliver truths whose origin was in the divine mind; they needed, therefore, the Holy Spirit, that what they spoke might still be God's truth, though thus coming to man through a human channel. The New Testament itself contains the most instructive proofs and illustrations of this. The Apostles dwelt with our Lord; they had the advantage of his divine teaching; but even that was not enough, either to enable them to receive the full communication of religious truth, or to deliver that truth without any mixture of error. Our Lord himself told them that he had many things to say, but they were not yet prepared for them. “Howbeit," he adds, most emphatically, "the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, he shall lead you into all truth." His very words they sometimes misunderstood, and without his own provident care, even apostolical tradition might have been the tradition of error. "If I will that he tarry till I come," he said, on one occasion; and immediately "the saying went abroad among the disciples, that that disciple should not die." He spoke most explicitly on the subject of the admission of the Gentiles to the benefits of church-fellowship, and of the official call and invitation that should be addressed to them. The Apostles were to go into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature: repentance and remission of sins in his name were to be preached to all nations; Jerusalem, indeed, was to be the starting-point, the centre; but the circumference was to widen continually, till |