published, and long controversy has rendered them a matter of notoriety. We may, without indelicacy, name another Head: Dr. Hawkins, the able and respected Provost of Oriel College; for his sympathy with, and support of, Dr. Hampden is put forward, as a matter of the highest commendation, in a work recently published, and to which he has himself contributed so many interesting materials, as to assure us against saying anything unacceptable to him in repeating what we find there. We may then assume, that his powerful influence at the Board is exerted in the same direction with that of Dr. Hampden.

We had rather weaken our argument than mention names, except in connexion with avowed published statements; and the fact cannot be concealed, that a publishing Head of a house is a rare phenomenon, as we have already seen to be the case with regard to preaching. We are content then to say, that two at least of the ablest members of the Board are publicly pledged to statements such as we have quoted.

6

And is this able and active minority an exception to the pervading influence commonly possessed by such bodies?-let facts answer. About ten years ago, when the Church and her institutions were the objects of fierce and open attacks in high quarters, an attempt was made in the House of Commons, and promised at one time to be successful, to force open for the entrance of dissenters, as such, the doors of the University of Oxford, and the degrees both there and at Cambridge. This attempt was quashed by the united opposition of all Oxford men. A paper, headed The Oxford Declaration,' lies before us, from which it appears that the protest of the resident Masters is dated, April 24, 1834; that of the non-residents, April 25; and that of the heads, May 2. It seems that, when the University moves to the rescue of the faith, it is not its head that goes first. There are other occasions, however, on which Heads are willing enough to lead the way. Dr. Hampden was then, as now, a Head; already, too, he had been honoured with a university professorship; he had been elected Professor of Moral Philosophy, the appointment being vested in a small section of the Heads; and having published much that was very objectionable in his lectures from that chair, he was elected, in 1832, Bampton Lecturer, the nomination being intrusted by the founder to the Heads of Colleges,-an appointment which produced the volumes so much spoken of. Thus empowered, as we must say, beyond any other to speak in the name of the Board, Dr. Hampden published, in the autumn of 1834, Observations on Religious Dissent, with particular reference to the use of Religious Tests in the University.' From this pamphlet and the Bampton Lectures, to which it refers

6

throughout, it appears that Dr. Hampden objects to tests, on the ground that religion consists of facts,' not in any degree of inferences from them; and that these facts are merely the very letter of the declarations of Scripture,-all doctrines whatever being but inferences-which men cannot help making because others have, although it would be much better that none should be made at all. It follows, that although the author himself adopted the doctrines of the Church, he adopted them not as doctrines, not as any part of his religion, but as mere theological opinions; -it was an infirmity of his nature, that he could not help forming some inferences from the facts of religion, and it chanced that those inferences coincided with the doctrines of the Trinity, Incarnation, and the like, which we hold as our life. Yet, God forbid that he should make these opinions any part of his religion, much more that he should think worse of any other man's religion because he denied them. Now, what was the conduct of the Heads when these doctrines were preached by one of their own body, from the University pulpit, and afterwards published both in sermons and pamphlets? Did they convene the preacher before a board of Six Doctors, or proceed to condemn him by such a board without convening or hearing him? Or did they, at least, issue a declaration against the pamphlet ? No; but yet they did feel it necessary to do something: and therefore they proposed to convocation a statute for removing the signature of the Articles at Matriculation; a proposal which was, of course, far from satisfying Dr. Hampden, but which was a most decided move in his direction. Moreover, a Letter to Lord Radnor' was published, which was universally attributed to an influential member of the Board, in which we are told, the question of the removal of subscription is gaining ground. It has been twice considered within the last two years' (this must mean at the Board,' for elsewhere it had not been proposed), and found many more supporters on the second occasion than on the first.' He concludes, therefore, Time is required: we may not move very quickly; but ought we to do so?"

It appears, then, that the effect produced upon the Board of Heads by the publication, by one of their own body, of repeated attacks upon all Christian doctrine, as doctrine not opinion, and specially on the creeds of the Church, was this, that they gave no sign of diminished confidence in him; and moved, slowly indeed yet decidedly, in their practical measures, in the direction to which he invited them.

But the power of the Heads was not supreme. They had left to convocation (that is, to the University) the right of saying, 'Yes,' or 'No.' And on the 20th of May, 1835, it did say No,' very unequivocally, by a majority of 459 to 57 against.

A few months past away, and the excellent Dr. Burton, Regius Professor of Divinity, was taken to his rest, from the strife of tongues. We are not going to weary the reader with the detail of those exciting events, which made 1836 a year so memorable in Oxford,-the appointment of Dr. Hampden,-the general burst of indignation and alarm with which it was met by all Oxford men,--the exertions made to induce Government to select some other name, the determination of the great body of the University to procure some authoritative condemnation of his works, the tardy concurrence of the Heads (now, as before, following, rather than leading),—the legislative measure proposed by them, instead of the formal trial demanded by the University at large, a measure valuable, because it contained a censure upon Dr. Hampden's theological writings; yet never satisfactory to those who had forced it from the Heads, and containing one expression, which subsequent events made men almost fear, must have been inserted to enable those who could not prevent the censure to watch for an early opportunity of procuring its repeal.

And now what impression were these things calculated to produce upon the minds of English Churchmen? Could they inspire confidence in the Board? Could they reconcile us to see the government of the University practically more and more engrossed by them, from the hands of the ancient and statutory authorities? We will speak plainly, thinking men could not but perceive, that no common qualities are needed by the rulers of a Christian university. Among these are sound theology and deep learning, together with high self-denying piety, giving a pledge for freedom from all secularity of spirit, and, moreover, for a fixed and definite' line of conduct of their own, independent of pressure from without. They saw these to be needed already, and they could not but anticipate times when they might become more urgently needful. But, withal, they could not but feel that (whatever might be the case with some of its members), it was not by these qualities that the deliberations of the Board were mainly influenced. And, therefore, there was a very extensive want of confidence in their fitness to maintain the very foundations of the Christian faith, of which we could not but feel the danger. It was not that men suspected the majority of the Heads of any conscious unsoundness of belief upon the chief mysteries of the faith; that

We allude, of course, to the phrase, Donec aliter Universitati placuerit ;' which, no doubt, might mean, until Dr. Hampden shall have recanted and vacated the chair,' but was afterwards explained by the framer of the statutes to mean, 'till the University shall change its mind'-that time, we are thankful to say, has not yet arrived.

they regarded them as Socinians or Sabellians,-nothing could be further from the truth. But it is not from any earnest proselyting by those who hold these heresies that we dread their success; it is from secularity of spirit in those who ought to maintain the purity of Christian doctrine. This is, perhaps, the chief source of heresy in every age; but most assuredly in none so much as in our own. Let us not forget our present circumstances. An age of coldness, of rebuke and blasphemy, fell, beyond all question, upon the English Church in the last century. It is within the memory of many now living, that a young man, of the highest character and qualifications, being reproved by a Bishop, who was believed to belong to the school of Hoadly, for preaching what was then called Methodism, pleaded in his defence the authorized declarations of the English Church; and received answer, that such as that was indeed formerly the doctrine of the English Church, but that the Church had tacitly changed her doctrines, and it was now exceedingly presumptuous for a young man to teach those which had been abandoned alike by the bishops and clergy of the existing Church. At a rather earlier period, when subscription was assailed in parliament, it was the boast of infidels and latitudinarians, that the Articles of the Church found no defender, -and, be it remembered, that the articles assailed were not those which refer to minor points,-the Christian's oath, the lawfulness of arms, and the like,-but the fundamentals of the faith-the three Creeds. Of the glorious Athanasian Creed it became a sort of proverb to say, 'I wish we were well rid of it.' And when this state of things was at last shaken by earnest (though, in some respects, mistaken) preaching, the cry from all quarters, high and low, was, 'Beware of enthusiasm.' Enthusiasm, however, was seldom talked down by cold caution; and it went on its way, and accomplished its victory, insomuch that the fashion of this changing world is now to praise and admire as efficiency,' 'evangelical preaching,' and the like; that which, a few years ago, it would have reviled as enthusiastic. But it is quite needless to say, that the world seldom patronises a religious school without receiving a payment for its patronage, -religion is secularized as often as the world made religious; and thus it has chanced that many of those who regard themselves as the legitimate successors of the earnest men of the last century, have, in truth, inherited from them very little more than their phraseology.

Now, in such a state of society, let us for one moment imagine the governing body of a great school of religion to be men of a low and secular spirit, men more engrossed by thoughts of professional advancement,-or, again, by mere comfort and ease,

and the gentle intercourse of society, or even by literary pursuits-than by study or meditation upon the great depths of theology; who are not, in any real sense of the word, living lives of self-denial-waiting, watching, and looking out for the coming of the Lord, living under the constant sense of His presence, and the contemplation of His sufferings. Suppose such a state of things, and by what outward symptoms would it be betrayed? We may be pretty sure that such a governing body would not be the energetic, practical preachers of Christian holiness, of Christian hopes, and Christian fears; that they would either avoid the duty, or perform it heavily. If great moral and social evils stalked the land, it would be by others, rather than them, that the alarm would first be sounded; and by others, rather than them, would great sacrifices be made to arrest their progress. They would not persecute indeed, rather they would gently encourage, a moderate profession of what was considered evangelical, while they would shrink from any extremes. And supposing the higher mysteries of the faith, or the creeds of the Church, to be treated with disrespect as mere scholastic subtleties, to which other ages had assigned undue importance, we should not expect to find them stirred by that deep and piercing pain with which saints and doctors have started at the touch of heresy. They would consider these as mere speculative errors, as abstract opinions; and, in truth, to such as them these great doctrines must ever be mere speculations and opinions; for it is by living upon them, by leaving all for them, not merely by that negative faith which consists in not disbelieving them, that they become to men more than mere opinions-even living and practical realities; and if the propagator of such sad opinions should be one of their own body, the sharer of their daily society, their weekly associate in business-they might go away shrugging their shoulders at his speculations, and there the matter would rest. Thus, then, it seems plain, that no deliberate heresy, no conscious abandonment of the faith, is necessary to make men most unfit to be its guardians and defenders. They need merely be comfortable, respectable, self-indulgent men of a secular spirit, and the cause will be no safer in their hands than in those of conscious traitors.

As often as the faith has been assailed, so often has God raised up some champion to beat back the invaders. These men, each in his day, have been reviled, suspected, denounced, and (where it was possible) persecuted; but they have done their work, and the truth has been handed down; they have suffered, and they have succeeded; and we reap the fruit of their sufferings and of their victory. But who have been the instruments in this blessed work? Holy bishops, worn with