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Mhg56 65

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS

UPON

DR. HAMPDEN'S
INAUGURAL LECTURE.

The Reader is requested to bear in mind, that the
following Remarks are intended to point out a few only
of the most obvious, and by no means all, the objections
to which Dr. Hampden's Inaugural Lecture is open.
Oxford, March 21 , 1836.

BRIEF OBSERVATIONS,
8fc.

Dc. Hampden, in his published writings, has made
many statements contrary to Scripture, and the Arti
cles of our Church. Is he entitled to the confidence
of the University because he has contradicted some of
those statements in his Inaugural Lecture ?
I. Speaking in his Bampton Lectures (p. 378.)
" not only of our Articles at large, but in particular of
the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds, as they stand in
our Ritual, or are adopted into our Articles," he ob
serves, that " if it be admitted that the notions on
which their several expressions are founded are both
unphilosophical and unscriptural, (what an admission!)
it must be remembered, that they do not impress those
notions on the faith of the Christian as matters of af
firmative belief. They only use the terms of ancient
theories of philosophy — theories current in the Schools
at the time when they were written — to exclude others
more obviously injurious to the simplicity of the faith. "
In another page he writes, " Orthodoxy was forced
to speak the divine truth in the terms of heretical spe
culation ... to employ a phraseology, by which, as

experience proves, the naked truth of God has been over
borne and obscured." (p. 376.)
Again: " Theological opinion, as necessarily mixed
up with speculative knowledge, ought not to be the
bond of union of any Christian society." (Observ. p. 21.)
But in his Inaugural Lecture he says of Creeds and
Articles, that "their value is relative to the Scriptures
and derived from the Scriptures. Have they guarded
and vindicated the truth as it is written? I fully
believe that they have done so." (p. 20.)
" I am satisfied in my own mind that they have been
of essential use for maintaining the Christian religion
in its integrity, in holding together the faithful in fast
communion, in keeping the unity of the Spirit in the
bond of peace." (p. 20.)
Is a man who thus contradicts himself to be trusted
as a teacher of theology ?
II. Again, in his Bampton Lectures, (p. 187.)
" We hear of grace operating and cooperating; grace
preventing and following. . . . But how erroneous is the
conception produced on the mind by these several
modes of speaking." But in his Inaugural Lecture,
(p. 12.) that " If we believe in the Atonement
of a Divine Redeemer, and the sanctification of a
Divine Comforter, we cannot but be cordially disposed
to receive the doctrines of justification by faith, of
preventing and cooperating grace, of the necessity of
repentance, &c." And again : " God by his prevent
ing grace putting into our hearts good desires ; by his
cooperating grace enabling us to bring the same to
good effect." (ib.)

III. There is another instance of self-contradiction
which must not be left unnoticed. Speaking of the
proper mode of studying Scripture, he says, " In
searching the Scriptures, private reason must pursue
the same method as in all other enquiries for ascer
taining the truth. It must compare Scripture with
Scripture, things spiritual with spiritual, and so gather
up the fragments of truth scattered throughout the sa
cred volume, and put them together. This is a per
fectly legitimate employment of reason ." (Inaugural
Lecture, pp. 22, 23.)
But what did Dr. Hampden think and say of this
" employment of reason" when he preached his
Bampton Lectures? " The Schoolmen had a high
veneration for the text of Scripture, — not inferior, I
should say, to that of the most zealous Protestant.
But it was an improperly -directed veneration . . . With
dutiful officiousness did they gather up the fragments
of revealed truth ; but, in the mean time, they lost
the opportunity of feeding on the bread of God which
came down from heaven."
IV. But there is an important objection which has
been made to Dr. Hampden's views, of which he has
taken no notice in his Inaugural Lecture. The
Arians have always objected to say of the Son of
God, that He was of one substance with the Father,
and this was the grand point at issue between them
and the Orthodox Fathers, assembled at the Council
of Nice*. Accordingly, so much importance has been
a See the Nicene Creed.

attached to this expression by our own Church, that
it occurs in no less than three of the Thirty-nine
Articles, namely, the three which embody the Faith of
the Holy Trinity. But the expression does not please
Dr. Hampden. On the contrary, he states, and has not
contradicted this statement, that it was by " the con
fusion of principles of different sciences, that the
orthodox language was settled, declaring the Son
' begotten before all worlds ; of one substance with the
Father.'" (B. L. p. 137.) Accordingly, he only says in
his Inaugural Lecture, that " to know Jesus as the
Christ indeed, is to know that sublime and ineffable
relation in which he stands to us, as the only begotten
Son of God, who was with the Father and the Holy
Spirit before all worlds, and coequal with Them in
majesty, and glory, and holiness." (p. 7.)
V. Again, Dr. H. says (Inaug. L. p. 7, 12.) of the
" Atonement of a Divine Redeemer," that " Jesus
Christ came into the world to save sinners by the
atoning merits of his death and sacrifice on the
Cross." But in what sense is our Saviour an Atone
ment? Our Articles say, that " He was crucified,
dead, and buried, to reconcile his Father to us;" but
Dr. Hampden, (B. L. pp. 252, 253,) that he is em-
" phatically said to be our Atonement ; not that we may
attribute to God any change of purpose towards man by
what Christ has done ; but that we may know (sic) that
we have passed from the death of sin to the life of
righteousness by Him (sic) ; and that our own hearts
(sic) may not condemn us." Of this obnoxious pas
sage he has offered no explanation.

In short, Dr. Hampden has retracted nothing.
Whatever opinions he held before, he holds now. He
has not called in one of his obnoxious publications ;
and, if he has been misunderstood, maintains that the
fault lies with his readers, or in " the ambiguity of
words and forms of expression." (In. L. p. 27.) Why
then should the University change their opinion of
Dr. Hampden -as a teacher of Theology, on account of
his Inaugural Lecture ?

CiXtEll, PRFNTEtt, OXFORD

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