awful judgment of being "given up to strong delusion, that they may believe a lie." And when the mental stagnancy in some, the unmanly submission in others, the credulous belief of any monstrous prodigy in only too many, and the bigoted opposition to all who differ from them in all, is considered, where are there such marks of this awful condition as in Popery and Tractarianism? But of these the very foundation is taken from under their feet by Dr. Hampden. By his principle this stronghold is undermined. They are attacked, not in detail, but in the very key of their position. Their defeat is total, if Dr. Hampden has stated the truth. No wonder that they have assailed him so recklessly. Thus did the Papists assail Luther. Look at Maimbourg. What is there of falsehood in doctrine, what of viciousness of life, with which Luther is not charged in his pages? And still is it thus. Wherever Popery reigns in its triumphant solitude, having made desolation, and called it peace, the credulous dupes of priestcraft regard all Protestants as men destitute of religion, Manichees, atheists; so that they are surprised if they meet with anything like Christian devotion. It is on this plan that Dr. Hampden has been opposed. He made the worthlessness of the grand assumption of the party undeniably apparent, and was, therefore, to be crushed by a bitter and unrelenting hostility. Only, as this happens to be a country of free discussion, and in which, with all its faults, there is an honest love of fair play in controversy, some show of reason had to be found; his opponents, therefore, went to his Lectures, and sought out passages that might seem to afford a colour for the charge of heresy. But they have gone too far. The character of the persecution was too obviously apparent. Their attacks have recoiled on themselves.

That Dr. Hampden does not inquire into scriptural doctrines themselves, but into the origin and history of those human forms in which they have been arranged, and those human terms by which they have been expressed, subsequently to their original delivery, will be evident from what he himself says. We only premise, that the distinction is here vitally important. It supplies often the sufficient answer to charges, in which it is attempted, with an unfairness which has roused the honest indignation of Archdeacon Hare, (as it must of every man who compares the quotations as given in the indictment-paper, with the passages as they stand in the Lectures,) to apply to the doctrines what Dr. Hampden says of the human terms in which they have come to be expressed. Speaking of the influence of the Aristotelian philosophy, out of which, in conjunction with Christian doctrine, the scholastic philosophy proceeded, he says: "Being employed as an instrument of disputation, it has not been confined, like Platonism, to certain leading points of Christianity, as, for instance, to the doctrines of the Trinity and the immortality of the soul, but has been applied to the systematic development of the sacred truth in all its parts. That complete discussion, which the minutest points of Christianity obtained under the discipline of the Aristotelic philosophy in the hands of the schoolmen, has fixed our technical language in every department of theology. I consider it therefore necessary for the perfect understanding of those terms of our religion which an established usage has now made the unchangeable records of religious belief; which both the orthodox and the heretic, the catholic and the schismatic, alike employ in all their religious statements and arguments; to examine to some extent how far their history"—the history, be it observed, not of the doctrines, but of the terms, the technical language, in which they have come to be expressed-"may be traced in the Aristotelic theories of scholasticism." (Bampton Lectures, p. 13.)

The mature form of the scholastic philosophy refers to two facts, and the struggle between them. "It was by its artful combination of these two ingredients of the human judgment,—the positiveness of dogmatism, and the waywardness of private reason,-that its umpire was decided. To this combination we owe the precision and the compass of our theological language. No thought was left unexpressed, which the captiousness of real or imaginary objection might obtrude on the sacred subject; no authority was passed by without being taxed for its contribution to the exact definition of each point examined." (Bampton Lectures, p. 14.) Every one who has read Bernard and Aquinas will feel the correctness of these observations.

After tracing the historical development of these movements, he comes to their issue in the hands of the leading scholastic Doctors. What in the Scriptures had been announced as facts, given in an insulated form, though involving truths intimately connected, and existing in the divine mind in the order of a most perfect wisdom, came to be arranged, by rigid logicians, into a formal system, adopted at length by the church, and made obligatory, in their technical arrangement and expression, on all her members. What Dr. Hampden means by these scriptural facts, as the expression supplies matter of accusation against him, we shall afterwards have to examine. At present, we notice his reference of the scholastic philosophy to the numerous discussions on the subject of the Trinity. Of these he says, evidently speaking historically of what occurred among the uninspired teachers of the church in the middle ages,-"The controversies on the Trinity, accordingly, if we view them in their result, were a determination in precise terms of that account of the divine Being which the Scripture revelation involved: those terms being drawn from the analogies of nature, in which the mysterious truth was conceived to be veiled. But in their progress and formation,-in the views taken of those analogies on which the reasonings are founded,-us -use is made of all existing theories, in the different branches of science, whether physical, metaphysical, or moral, as then understood and received." (Bampton Lectures, p. 113.) The reference here, it will be seen, is not to the doctrine of the Trinity, as revealed in Scripture, and held by the church in all ages, but to the human controversies concerning it, the human determination of them in precise terms, and the sources whence these precise terms are derived. The doctrine may surely be held, in proper deference to the revealing authority, even while doubts may be entertained. as to the propriety of the methods of illustration, philosophical or otherwise, employed by those who did not possess the revealing authority, or of the correctness of the language in which these latter chose to express their views. Here, as indeed throughout the Lectures, wherever the subject is mentioned, the existence of the doctrine itself, as a fact of scriptural authority, is always presupposed. We repeat, what every one who reads the Lectures without the intention of searching for support for an accusation against their author previously determined, will not fail to perceive, that the object of the Lecturer is not to inquire into a divinely-revealed doctrine, but into the way in which it has been treated by one class of its human recipients since the closure of the inspired canon. Of this class Sir James Mackintosh has said, "The Schoolmen were properly theologians, who employed philosophy only to define and support that system of Christian belief which they and their contemporaries had embraced." (Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy. Miscellaneous Works, vol. i., p. 39.) And in the same Dissertation, he afterwards says, speaking of the revival of the moral sciences in the sixteenth century, "that some part of the method

and precision of the Schools was lost with their endless subtleties and barbarous language.” (Ib., p. 55.) Mr. Wesley refers to the same subject, and in reference to the same doctrine. We give the entire sentence, as it will be found in the third section of his Sermon on the Trinity: "I do not mean that it is of importance to believe this or that explication of these words." ("There are three that bear record in heaven," &c.) "I know not that any well-judging man would attempt to explain them at all. One of the best tracts which that great man, Dean Swift, ever wrote, was his Sermon upon the Trinity. Herein he shows, that all who endeavoured to explain it at all, have utterly lost their way; have, above all other persons, hurt the cause which they intended to promote; having only, as Job speaks, darkened counsel by words without knowledge.' It was in an evil hour that these explainers began their fruitless work. I insist upon no explication at all; no, not even on the best I ever saw; I mean, that which is given us in the Creed commonly ascribed to Athanasius. I am far from saying, he who does not assent to this, shall without doubt perish everlastingly. For the sake of that and another clause, I for some time scrupled subscribing to that Creed, till I considered, (1.) That these sentences only relate to wilful, not involuntary, unbelievers; to those who, having all the means of knowing the truth, nevertheless obstinately reject it: (2.) That they relate only to the substance of the doctrine there delivered; not the philosophical illustrations of it." In the same Sermon, he several times refers to the Trinity as a fact made known to us in Scripture. Thus, “The Bible barely requires you to believe such facts; not the manner of them. Now, the mystery does not lie in the fact, but altogether in the manner." Mr. Wesley thus speaks of the Trinity as a scriptural fact, and strongly questions the propriety of some of its human explications and illustrations. Is it to be inferred that he was, even in the slightest degree, a Socinian? that he did not, with all his soul, believe in the Trinity? Undoubtedly not. Now, all that we claim for Dr. Hampden is, similar justice. He, too, speaks of certain doctrines as being divinely-revealed facts, and shows to demonstration, that certain illustrations and explications of the admitted fact had a human origin. This, by itself, no more proves him to be a Socinian than similar statements (though not so largely extended) prove that Mr. Wesley was one. It will not be necessary to examine all the "heretical propositions" professedly extracted from Dr. Hampden. We confine ourselves to two, one of them put in the foreground in the paper entitled "Propositions from Dr. Hampden's Works," and which furnished the basis of the Oxford proceedings issuing in the celebrated vote of censure. It is thus given:"1. Dialectical science......established that peculiar phraseology which we now use, in speaking of the sacred Trinity as three Persons and one God." (P. 130.) We turn to the page, and find the following paragraph, which we give entire; marking the important words omitted from the last sentence, which, in its garbled form, is quoted as proof of the heresy of the Lecturer:-"The disputation, in its progress, turned upon the point, how far difference might be asserted, consistently with that sameness which constituted the divine unity of being or substance. It was inquired, whether the difference could be rightly expressed by hypostasis or persona; whether the difference involved in one or the other of these terms did not import too express and real, or too shadowy, a distinction. The difficulty here was to avoid distinguishing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in such a way, as to represent them differing, as three angels, or three men, differ from each other; and yet to preserve the real distinctions.

Dialectical science furnished the expedients in this difficulty, and established that peculiar phraseology which we now use in speaking of the sacred Trinity, as three Persons and one God." The next quotation we give (No. 7, in the indicting paper) has the same reference: "The orthodox language, declaring the Son begotten before all worlds of one substance with the Father,' was settled by a philosophy wherein the principles of different sciences were confounded." (P. 137.) With this professed citation, let Dr. Hampden's own sentences be compared ; ought we not rather to say, contrasted? To us it seems impossible to pronounce the quoter guiltless of the charge of dishonest quotation: "If we compare, with these general disputations respecting the Trinity, the particular controversies connected with the incarnation and the procession of the Holy Spirit, we shall find them following the same method. The discussions on the incarnation were, in like manner, partly physical, partly logical. It was attempted to be explained, in what way the Son might be said to be generated of the Father; whether out of the substance of God, or out of a common divinity, of which each participates; or by division of the paternal substance as a portion separated from the Father; whether, further, He is the Son of God by nature, or necessity, or will, or predestination, or adoption. The confusion of principles of different sciences in these promiscuous inquiries, is sufficiently apparent. But it was by such a philosophy that the orthodox language was settled, declaring the Son begotten before the worlds; of one substance with the Father.' Here, again, Dr. Hampden is not speaking of the scriptural statement of a fact, revealed for orthodox belief, but of the "explications " (as Mr. Wesley terms them) of mere men, and of the manner in which "orthodox language was settled" by them. Take away these references to human explications and language, and not a single residuum is left, out of which to construct a charge of heresy; while not only do all these statements imply an orthodox belief of the scriptural fact, but in his other writings, before and since, that orthodox belief is sufficiently declared. This is our firm persuasion, at which we have arrived in perusing Dr. Hampden's works; and when we add that Dr. Hampden is nothing to us, nor his appointment to the see of Hereford, and that we are neither his followers nor advocates, but are equally free to approve or disapprove, as truth may require, we trust we may claim for our judgment the credit of being an impartial one.

One other ground of objection we shall just mention, as little deserving of censure as others, but which confirms the opinion we had formed as to the true source of the opposition which has been directed against him. The accuser says, "8. The divine part of Christianity is its facts: the received statements of doctrines are only episodic additions, some out of infinite theories which may be raised on the texts of Scripture." (P. 390.) Now, this sentence is not Dr. Hampden's. It is made up out of expressions occurring in pages 390 and 391. Archdeacon Hare rightly says, "This is evidently intended to convey the impression, that Dr. Hampden regarded the received statements of truth as merely some out of infinite theories which might be raised out of the Bible, and, the reader would of course suppose, as not materially differing in value from the rest." Dr. Hampden clearly enough shows his own meaning. The Bible is a collection of real facts,-the existence of a God, the Trinity, incarnation, atonement, intercession, provision and gift of the Spirit, salvation, the obligations to obedience, future judgment, rewards, and punishments ;-these are all facts actually existing. Christianity is not a set of metaphysical abstractions, mere philosophical

statements of doctrine. We have long, quite independently of anything Dr. Hampden has said, thought this one view, that Christianity rested on real, positively-existing facts, was one of the most important aspects in which it could be considered, requiring to be proposed to all, simple or learned. It is this which makes its obligations universal, its promises and threatenings most certain. Heathenism is falsehood. Christianity is truth. The Bible is not a logical concatenation of doctrinal propositions, as some of the works of Aquinas,—of metaphysical, à priori reasonings, like Dr. Samuel Clarke's Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God. It tells us facts, and man's relations to them; and thence is its whole system of practice deduced. Very correctly, therefore, does Archdeacon Hare speak of Dr. Hampden's statements as urging "that essential characteristic of the Scriptures, whereby they differ so greatly from the religious books of other religions, and from all the theological systems founded upon them, that they are not a dogmatical treatise, that they do not set forth the truths which they reveal under the form of abstract propositions, but in their living power."

Why, then, all this opposition? Simply because, if Dr. Hampden's position be safe, Popery and Puseyism are radically unsound. Of each system, the fundamental principle is, that the church is THE TEACHER, using the Bible for proof; and that men, therefore, are not primarily to "search the Scriptures," but to "hear the church." If, then, the church, even when teaching substantial truth, has yet, in different ages, invested the truth with a human clothing, given it an outward form which has varied with her own views of philosophy and science, she ceases to be a changeless and infallible teacher; and while men are to listen with respect to them who speak to them in the name of the Lord,-a respect increasing with the clearness of the evidence of the true ministerial character, and due to them thus for their work's sake,-they are still to recollect that their highest allegiance is owing to Christ, speaking in his word. "They must take heed what they hear," "searching the Scriptures whether these things be so." Christ's sheep hear the voice of the Shepherd; and they who teach not " as the truth is in Jesus," are "false Prophets," of whom they are to "beware;" hirelings, whom it is their duty to avoid. If Scripture, as the early Reformers, in England as well as Germany, taught, is the only infallible teacher, the perfect and supreme standard, to which Ministers and people are all to refer, and on which alone a true faith can be based, Tractarianism, and every similarly-constructed system, falls at once and altogether. Hence these attacks on Dr. Hampden. Indeed, this is now as nearly admitted as from such a quarter could be expected. In "The Times" newspaper, which helped on the full cry of the Doctor's opponents, in a leading article, (Feb. 2d,) are these expressions, in one view memorable, as decisive of the true state of the controversy: "The objections chiefly urged against him are, not direct denials of Christian doctrines or heretical statements, but an offensive, a scoffing, a sceptical tone." We reply, first, that the objections are, that he directly denies Christian doctrine, and puts forth heretical statements,-language cannot be plainer than that in which these charges are made; and, secondly, what is said about the tone is utterly false. If ever man wrote seriously, and with the deep earnestness of sincerity, it is Dr. Hampden. But the truth comes out at last. "The three Creeds are not merely the opinions, they are the faith, of the church. Dr. Hampden has put them on a footing which takes from them all pretence of authority." In the sense in which Tractarians use them, he has done so;