which promotes, and to remove the divisions, corruptions, and blasphemies, which obstruct, the righteousness which exalteth a nation; but that pains, penalties, and disabilities, except in the case of actual crime, are the proper means, the Confession does not say, and we do not believe. The only means suggested are of a very different kind, namely, the calling of synods.* We do not think that this would now be a very expedient plan. But certainly, if the Government of the country should ever think that a convocation of Christian ministers would be a probable means of assuaging animosities, and promoting Christian union and usefulness, we think it would be their duty to obey the call, to state their principles and their grievances, and suggest measures conducive to the welfare of the Church and of the community; and we see not why the magistrate might not be present, not to force his own conclusions on them, nor yet implicitly to comply with their suggestions, but to judge of their transactions according to the Word of God, and with a view to the regulation

of his own measures.

In the second part of his discourse, Dr. Wardlaw quotes from the address of the Convocation a passage in which it is said, “You have read how your godly forefathers contended for the crown of Christ, as King of kings, and as King of saints, maintaining at once the right and duty of civil magistrates to establish, protect, and defend his Church by all means competent to them, &c., and yet the perfect liberty and exclusive spiritual jurisdiction of the Church," &c.; and in commenting on this passage, he observes, that we may "interpret the duty to establish the Church as meaning substantially the duty to endow it; and the duty to protect and defend as expressing the obligation to guard the Church from the assaults of opponents to maintain truth and suppress error by the enactment of laws, and the execution of civil pains and penalties against heretics, and even having recourse to arms to compel conformity to established professions and forms, all on the principle that insubordination to the Church is rebellion against the Statesuch a use of the sword being regarded as necessary to his 'not bearing it in vain." Now, though there is a reference in the "address" to the principles of our forefathers, Dr. Wardlaw must have known that the language which he is criticising is that of the members of the Convocation. With some of them he was well acquainted, and we would ask him whether he really believed that Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Brown, or Dr. Macfarlan, when they employed the language referred to, meant to employ it in the sense he has put upon it; and if he did not, as he could not believe any such thing, why did he seek to involve them in the odium of such an imputation?

We have resolved not to be drawn, in the present article at least, into the old Voluntary controversy, and therefore, we will only say, in a single sentence, that all that Dr. Wardlaw has urged respecting a We believe that it is not unnecessary to state, that the term "synods" does not refer to such provincial assemblies as are now regularly held in Scotland, but to special convocations of the elders of Churches summoned in peculiar emergencies. See the Act of Assembly prefixed to the Confession. We wish Dr. Wardlaw had consulted this Act before writing the observations in p. 18 of his discourse. It would have furnished a sufficient answer to his remarks-we will not say his cavils. Really it is easy, in the nineteenth century, when all kinds of meetings, short of the monster meetings of Ireland, are held without hindrance or notice on the part of the State, to deride the respectful but yet independent acknowledgment of the sovereign, made by our ancestors. When we remember the history of the Aberdeen Assembly, for example, In 1605, we trust the Congregational Union may never be put to such a trial, or if it be, that its members may behave as nobly.

law of Christ, restricting the support of Christian teachers to those who are taught by them, and about the Erastianism implied in receiving aid from Government, to be withheld at the discretion of Government, is equally forcible against all those whose ministers are partially supported by other Churches, or by the seat-holders (not members) of their own congregations. This does not prove Dr. Wardlaw's argument to be false; but he may excuse us for not admitting speculatively what is practically denied by our Voluntary brethren themselves.

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When it is acknowledged that Christ has instituted a visible Church-a society with laws, and officers, and government of its own-the question necessarily arises, In what light ought civil governments to regard it? Such an institution pervading a land, whatever its form may be, is, and must be, an imperium in imperio," an object which all Governments naturally view with jealousy. We see, accordingly, how worldly politicians have treated the Church. If endowed, they consider it as the creature of the State, bound to surrender its intrinsic powers when required, and to act according to the laws which the State may prescribe. If unendowed, it is regarded much in the same light as any common society-of Odd-fellows or Free-masons, for example-to be tolerated if peaceable, to be coerced if troublesome. But is this the light in which the institution of Christ ought to be regarded by the subjects of the King of kings? Has the Church no higher claim on the forbearance of earthly powers than may be asserted by the most contemptible of human societies? If He has made it the duty of all to whom his gospel comes, to "believe and be baptized"-to join the fellowship of his professed followers; and if He has at the same time authorized the Church to judge, to admit or refuse admission, or to exclude when admitted; are not the powers of earth bound to make way for the exercise of this power, and to do so because Christ has ordained its existence and exercise? When, for example, an individual has been judicially excluded from the communion of the Church in consequence of some heinous offence, and seeks redress in a civil court for the injury which he says he has sustained, with what plea ought his complaint to be met? It may be said that every society, and therefore the Church, has the right of excluding its members; that no civil harm has been inflicted; and that the individual, when he joined that society, knew, and voluntarily submitted to the law by which he has been cut off. This might be said to a power which avowedly denied and scorned Christianity, and it might be (though but partially) true. But is this all that can be urged in defence of the execution of Christ's laws, before Christ's creatures? If the solemn act of excommunication be an act of obedience to the authority of Christ, is it not on that account entitled to be regarded with reverence by those who, though they be the highest of earthly powers, are still subjects of him who is King of kings and Lord of lords? We cannot conceive it to be consistent with the reverence due to the Lord, that his Church should be merely regarded as one of the societies existing among men whose acts are allowed because they do no harm. The spiritual powers of the Church of Christ (and it has no other powers) are entitled to have full scope for their exercise, because it is his Church.

But this implies that the State shall recognise the Church of Christ where it exists, and shall accord

privileges to it which might be withheld at the discretion of the State from other institutions, even of a religious description. We are told, indeed, that civil rulers have no peculiar power of distinguishing the true from the false in religion; and we do not assert that they have. But they have the ordinary power which belongs to all that have access to the Scriptures, and which renders them all responsible for the acceptance or rejection of revealed truth. And though they have no such infallible gifts as would justify them in enforcing the profession of the truth on others, they have the means and faculties which oblige them to acknowledge and act upon the truth for themselves. Now, when the Church is publicly recognised by the State, and the powers which it holds from its divine Head are fully acknowledged, it is then virtually established, whether it be endowed or not. The State may proceed to endow it; as in the Scottish Reformation, after abolishing the Papal jurisdiction, the Parliament first referred to "those members of the blessed Evangel whom God had raised up among them, and declared" that they and the people connected with them were "the only true and holy Kirk of Jesus Christ within this realm;" and afterwards ordained that the admission to benefices should be only in the power of the Kirk. But the steps are quite distinct, and the question, whether the one should follow the other, is one which, we apprehend, must be determined with a wise consideration of the probable results. That it was beneficial, and therefore right in the period of the Reformation, we are confident, and we think that experience has justified the conclusion. On the other hand, to set up a form of Christianity, however pure, among a people, and to establish it with public funds, while the majority of the public are actively opposed to it, would seem the most likely method of defeating the object contemplated, by provoking the hostility of those whose benefit was intended. But if, on an enlarged view of the subject, the Government of a country had reason to think that the moral condition, and thereby the temporal comfort, of the masses of the people, would be improved by the establishment of a truly Christian worship, we have met with nothing to this day to convince us that they would violate any law of God, or do any injury to man, by carrying such a purpose into execution.

DR. HAMPDEN AND THE HEREFORD
BISHOPRIC.

ENGLAND, they say, has been on the brink of a tremendous ecclesiastical convulsion-its Church has narrowly escaped a disruption of its own. There have been memorials to her Majesty and to the Prime Minister, from thirteen bishops, from the Dean of Hereford, and from meetings of the provincial clergy. There have been letters and remonstrances of every kind, appealing, advising, threatening, supplicating, bewailing-the most urgent of these letter-writers being the Bishop of Exeter, and the above-mentioned Dean (the Rev. Dr. Merewether), Dr. Hampden, and Lord John Russell. There have been most solemn appeals to conscience, most alarming allusions to martyrdom, and most pathetic reminiscences of "deathbed injunctions," and of hopes awakened, fondly cherished, and about to be blighted for ever;—all these things have been agitating the heart of England with gloomy forebodings of some dreadful ca

lamity about to shake or overwhelm her trembling Church. But England may resume her tranquillity, and slumber on a little longer, so far as her Church is concerned-its hour of real trial has not yet come. During the non-intrusion and spiritual independence controversy, which agitated Scotland so long, it was found impossible to convey to the English mind a clear conception of what was called the Scottish Church question. The recent agitation about the Hereford Bishopric is very well fitted to furnish an explanation of that impracticable topic; and partly on this account, partly on account of its own importance, we think it right to present our readers with a tolerably full outline of the whole affair. In doing so, we must go back a little, so as to begin at the beginning, that we may make our outline intelligible. Some of our readers may need to be informed, that the Rev. John Bampton, canon of Salisbury, bequeathed a considerable property for the purpose of founding a lectureship at Oxford, the lecturer to be chosen annually by the heads of colleges, and to deliver eight lectures on the following subjects :-"To confirm and establish the Christian faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics-upon the divine authority of the holy Scriptures-upon the authority of the writings of the primitive fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church-upon the Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christupon the Divinity of the Holy Ghost--upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds." That these are important subjects, no one will dispute; and as little can it be denied that all due care was taken by the founder of this lectureship that no improper person should be chosen, if the university itself did its duty. We merely state, in passing, that many important works have been produced in consequence of the Bampton lectureship, which might not otherwise have been written. The Bampton lecture of 1832, was delivered by the Rev. Renn Dickson Hampden, M.A., and published in the following year. Its subject is, "The Scholastic Philosophy considered in its relation to Christian Theology." To some, the mere stating of this title will at once suggest the course which the lecturer must have followed; to others, some explanation may be necessary. By the phrase "scholastic philosophy," as used by Dr. Hampden, is to be understood the whole range of philosophical thinking employed in the defence and exposition of Christian truth, from the period of the Alexandrian Platonism of the primitive Church, down to the minute subtleties of the Aristotelian logicians immediately before the Reformation. And by the phrase "Christian theology," as used by Dr. Hampden, is to be understood, the strictly defined forms into which this philosophical thinking had gradually cast the great truths of the Christian revelation. Now, it must be plain to all who are in any degree acquainted with these topics, that to inquire into and perhaps disapprove of the phraseology into which scholastic philosophy had compressed the sacred truths contained in the Scriptures, is quite a different thing from disclaiming these truths themselves. But it is also very plain, that any man who ventures to disapprove of that phraseology, incurs the hazard of being regarded by some as disbelieving the truths so expressed. Of this Dr. Hampden was well aware; and while he had the courage to state fully his views in the lecture, he attempted, in an apologetical preface, to anticipate and guard against being misunder

DESTINATION

"My pur

The LECTURES are eight in number:-1. ORIGIN OF SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY-2. FORMATION OF THE SCHOLASTIC THEOLOGY-3. THE TRINITARIAN CONTROVERSIES-4. THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSIES, PREAND GRACE—5. THE PELAGIAN CONTROVERSIES, JUSTIFICATION-6. MORAL PHILOSOPHY OF THE SCHOOLS-7. THE SACRAMENTS-8. NATURE AND USE OF DOGMATIC THEOLOGY. The very titles of these lectures show that their author must have traversed a very wide range of discussion, and touched many a topic respecting which men are sensitively jealous of any thing like innovation. Dr. Hampden's primary position is, that "Christianity had its beginnings amidst obstructions of a twofold character-the self-righteousness of the human heart, and the presumption of the human understanding." "There is a resistance simply moral, and another simply intellectual-the force of vice, and the force of theory." pose in the following lectures is, to examine into the influence of one of these classes of principlesthose of the understanding; and to endeavour to present to your notice the force of theory in its relation to the divine truths of our religion." It is easy to see that, from such a primary position, or point of departure, Dr. Hampden was led to investigate very closely the force of theory in theological language, and to point out and prove, that both the theory and the language, springing from the presumption of the human understanding, might be separated from the truths of Christianity, and the human element examined without any disrespect to the divine. Following this examination, he proves that the scholastic philosophy was the result of a struggle between reason and authority; tracing its origin to the ascendency of the Latin clergy. Doctrines were successively stated in the most exactly defined and rigid forms, and enforced by the most despotic authority; but all the possible inferences which the most subtile logic | could deduce from these forms were the subjects of unlimited discussion. That arbitrary authority, therefore, which the Latin clergy (that is, those of Europe and Africa, swayed chiefly by the Bishop of Rome, and writing in the Latin language), exercised, was the cause of all the perversions of Christian truth which arose out of the scholastic philosophy. In the seventh and eight lectures, "On the sacraments," and "On the nature and use of dogmatic theology," the injurious consequences of arbitrary Church authority are very clearly traced and strongly stated. While we think some of Dr. Hampden's statements on these points somewhat questionable, especially if separated from the context, we at the same time regard the view which he has given as one of very great importance, deserving the serious consideration of every theologian.

From the contents of the last lecture, we transcribe the following indicative sentences:-"Truth of fact not to be confounded with truth of opinion in the scholastic method-No dogmas to be found in Scripture itself-Dogmas, therefore, to be restricted to a negative sense, as exclusions of unscriptural truth-Articles and creeds not necessarily to be dispensed with because imperfect-Their defence, however, not to be identified with that of ChristianityUse and importance of dogmatic theology to be drawn from its relation to social religion." The very passage to which this refers, we have seen used to

doctrines in the Scriptures, but merely a record of facts. In the passage itself he disclaims the existence of doctrines in the Bible far too broadly, as we think; still it is plain, from the tenor of his work, and even from the heading we have quoted, that the scope and aim of his argument is intended to bear against the harsh and rigid phraseology of those dogmas, the origin of which he has been engaged in tracing, and not against the simpler intimations of doctrinal truth manifestly contained in the Sacred Scriptures. Giving him, what he may fairly claim, the benefit of the general bearing of his whole work as the interpreter of separate passages, we feel ourselves at liberty to acquit him of intentionally disparaging the doctrinal statements of the Bible; while no charge has been, or can be, brought against him with regard to its statement of facts. But we must leave the Bampton Lecture, and trace the subsequent course of the lecturer.

The lectures were delivered before the University of Oxford, as we have said, in 1832, and published in 1833. Their publication did not attract much notice at the time; but there were some to whom they had given unpardonable offence. An opportunity of showing this implacable hostility soon occurred. During the administration of Lord Melbourne, Dr. Hampden was appointed regius professor of divinity in the University of Oxford. By this time the Puseyite or Tractarian party had increased considerably, and were rapidly rising into power. It had been their hope to obtain the professorship for Dr. Pusey, or Mr. Newman, as was hinted, it is said, to Lord Melbourne. Frustrated in this hope, they determined to prevent Dr. Hampden from obtaining that position. His Bampton lecture was now explored with lynx-eyed eagerness. Passages were wrenched from the context, placed in new positions, and constructions forced upon them which they were never intended to convey. Thus dismembered, and distorted, and misinterpreted, they were sent throughout England, to fill the minds of the country clergymen with prejudice and alarm. A convocation of University members was then summoned in 1836, Dr. Ilampden's Bampton lecture declared unsound, want of confidence in his orthodoxy expressed, and students discountenanced from attending his instructions. In all this, it is said, Mr. Newman was peculiarly active; and it is certain that the Tractarian party were Dr. Hampden's most keen and determined antagonists. But the hostility of the Univer sity could not annul the appointment. Dr. Hampden continued to hold his chair; students began to attend his prelections; his character, both as a man of extensive learning, and as a faithful pastor, began to be known, and there seemed fair reason to expect that the enmity which had so bitterly assailed him would soon disappear, if it had not already passed away.

When the archbishop of York died, a short time ago, conjecture was busy about the probable result. Ere long it appeared that the Bishop of Hereford was to be raised to the archbishopric, and that Dr. IIampden was to succeed him at Hereford. Great was the consternation and fierce the rage of the whole Tractarian party when this became known. It was resolved at once that the appointment of Dr. Hampden must be opposed, but it seems to have been a little difficult to rest the opposition on sufficiently plausible grounds. A memorial was addressed to Lord John Russell, sigued by twelve or thirteen

bishops, remonstrating against the appointment, and resting their opposition on the alarm felt by the clergy. Then the country clergy held meetings, and wrote remonstrances, resting their opposition on the memorial of the bishops. This was too manifestly absurd, and another ground was sought, and eagerly seized, in the previous condemnation of the Bampton lectures by the University. Lord John Russell had treated the reciprocal terrors and sympathies of the bishops and the clergy with no great ceremony; and Dr. Hampden, in a published letter, pointed out the inconsistent conduct of the bishops in requiring certificates of attendance on his lectures from students, if they really believed his teaching to be heterodox or heretical. The Dean of Hereford, Dr. Merewether, then stood forth as the champion of the cause, instigated, we might pretty safely say, by the Bishop of Exeter, whose fierce and haughty letter, or pamphlet, to Lord John Russell, we must not forget. The position taken by the Dean of Hereford arose out of the following point of English ecclesiastical law:

When a bishopric is vacant, the sovereign sends to the dean and chapter of that diocese what is called a conge d'elire, or permission to choose a successor, accompanying it with a recommendation of some person. But this permission to choose is equivalent to an imperative command to elect the person recommended by the sovereign; for if the dean and chapter were to choose any other person, they would subject themselves to the penalties of a pramunire. The penalties of a pramunire are, that the person incurring it is at once placed out of the protection of law, his whole property forfeited, and himself liable to imprisonment for life, or during the monarch's plea sure. The reason, in law, for subjecting the violators of a conge d'elire to a penalty so extremely severe is, that the refusal to choose the person recommended is regarded as a violation of that part of the royal prerogative which consists in the sovereign's supremacy over the Church, and that consequently it is a species of high treason. Referring to this penalty, the Bishop of Exeter had said, that the sovereign could not compel the dean and chapter to choose Dr. Hampden, but only to suffer the penalty. The Dean of Hereford petitioned the Queen to name another person, having, it is said, previously intimated privately that the nomination of himself, while it would be in accordance with the kindness, and even the "death-bed injunctions," of King William, would remove all difficulty. The only answer to this petition was, that it had been laid before the Queen, but that her Majesty had issued no command thereupon. The glories of martyrdom seemed now to shine brightly before the dean. Certain magnanimous clergymen, gazing with dilated eyes on the gulf which seemed yawning before their Church, boldly declared that there were a thousand Curtii ready to plunge into it." The dean himself again wrote to Lord John Russell, in a strain of stately and magniloquent language, declaiming about conscience, and declaring his firm resolve to obey its dictates, and brave all hazards. The Prime Minister replied laconically: "Sir, I have had the honour to receive your letter of the 22d instant, in which you intimate to me your intention of violating the law. I have the honour to be your obedient servant, J. Russell." This fine specimen of the imperitoria breritas put an end to the epistolary skirmishing. "To be or not to be" a martyr, was now the only question for the dean.

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The 28th of December came, big with the foreboded martyrdom of Dr. Merewether. Most unfortunately, the weather was cold, and so was the Dean. Fast fell the thermometer, and faster fell his courage. He had written "brave words," and he had still some brave words to speak; but to do a brave deed formed no part of his resolution. Well, the chapter was held, and the votes were taken. Fourteen voted for Dr. Hampden; and two-one canon and the dean himself-voted for deferring the election. But the dean made his brave speech, ending in a protest, resting on two merely technical points-1. That the non-residentiary prebendaries had no right to vote; and, 2. That no majority was valid unless the dean and three residentiary prebendaries were contained in it. These objections were at once shown to be futile, because there was a majority of the residentiary, and becanse an act of Parliament had declared a majority valid, whether including the dean or not. The dean's protest expired very harmlessly, and he himself directed due certificates of the election to be prepared and authenticated by the seal of the chapter. So closed the gulf, and not one Curtius had leaped into it;-so ended the martyrdom, leaving the dean of Hereford unscathed; -so terminated what we apprehend many will regard as nothing better than a solemn farce.

It may still be asked, Why was all this hostility directed against Dr. Hampden? Avowedly, it was on account of the unsoundness of his Bampton lectures. Yet the bishops did not venture to say that they had studied them, and were prepared to prove their unsoundness. Such a charge was, indeed, insinuated by reference to the University decree, and by the re-production, even in the newspaper press, of the garbled extracts formerly used. The Bishop of Oxford lent, for a brief time at least, his sanction to a suit against Dr. Hampden in the Court of Arches, implying such an accusation, but withdrew it in the critical juncture, as if aware that it would prove futile; declaring, also, that having carefully studied the work, with the help of Dr. Hampden's recent statements, he did not any longer think it warranted those suspicions of unsoundness to which it had given rise, and in which, so long as he trusted to extracts, he had himself shared. The charge of unsoundness was, therefore, evidently a pretence, and not the real cause of the hostility directed against Dr. Hampden. Dr. Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, tries to misdirect us, we are persuaded, by his reference to the "Observations on Dissent," which had offended the High-Church clergy. To the Bampton lectures we still must turn for the real cause. If our readers will re-peruse with thoughtful attention the account of that work which we have already given, they may perceive the germ of Dr. Hampden's crime. By his profound and elaborate investigation of scholastic philosophy and theology,he clearly proved that the patristic and mediæval theolo gians had been the corrupters of Christianity; that the arbitrary authority of the Church of Rome had been grievously detrimental to its growth and purity; and that the Sacred Scriptures are the only standard of saving truth, and not the authority of the Church or the writings of the fathers. But, if this be true, the whole Puseyite or Tractarian theory is false. If Dr. Hampden's work be sound, then the whole Church principles of the Puseyites are unsound. Either his book must be destroyed, or it will tend to the destruction of all their hopes of perverting the Church

and people of England. But why did those very learned men, as they are said to be-Dr. Pusey and Mr. Newman-not answer and refute Dr. Hampden? Perhaps they were well aware that this was no easy task-that it was much easier to calumniate the author than to answer his work. About two centuries ago, a party with whom the Tractarians have much in common, began by burning Gillespie's "English Popish Ceremonies;" did the same with Rutherford's Lex Rex," and Guthrie's "Causes of God's Wrath;" and followed these brave refutations up by the deadly persecution of all who held the sentiments contained in these books. It is not yet in the power of Tractarians to burn either books or men. They have shown, however, that they have the will; and England may rejoice that they have not yet the power. When we take this view of the recent controversy, we perceive it to be one of far greater importance than it would otherwise appear. It is a warning to England what she may expect, should the Tractarians obtain the ascendency; and when we see thirteen bishops giving countenance to the hostile movement against Dr. Hampden, we are constrained to believe that the Tractarian party among the clergy is vastly more numerous than most people apprehend. Should it increase for a few years more with as great rapidity as it has done for fifteen or sixteen years past, it will be able to command where it can now only memorialize and

threaten.

We have heard people say, that the principle on which the mimic martyrdom of the Dean of Hereford was enacted, bore a close resemblance to the principle involved in the non-intrusion controversy. Those who say so manifest that impracticability with reference to the Scottish Church question, of which we had so frequently to complain. The Church of England admits, nay, glories in, the Royal supremacy, on which its existence as a National Church is based. From this principle flows the writ of conge d'elire, and the penalties of a pramunire. When the Dean of Hereford intimated his determination to refuse to elect the person nominated, he intimated his determination to violate a law of which he was perfectly aware when he accepted the office of dean, and with which he bound himself to comply when he accepted that office. But the Church of Scotland (we do not, of course, mean the Aberdeen Bill Establishment) never admitted the Royal supremacy, nay, contained in the very heart of its constitution a strong and explicit denial of that supremacy. No guile, no force, no persecution could ever bring its true defenders to submit to civil domination over things in their own nature spiritual. When, therefore, the Non-intrusionists refused to obey the commands of the civil court, in the ordination of ministers, they were acting in perfect conformity with both the laws of the land and the constitution of the Church. Their conduct was most directly consistent with, and in consequence of their principles; but the threatened conduct of the Dean of Hereford was most directly inconsistent with, and contrary to his principles, as a clergyman of the avowedly Erastian Church of Eng- | land. This essential and primary distinction between the two Churches, we never could get Englishmen to comprehend. They had regarded the ideas of Establishment and Erastianism as inseparable, or rather identical, and this error confounded all their reasoning. And we fear the malevolent and absurd conduct of the Tractarian party in this Hereford affair will

not be very likely to enlighten them; as they will be led to think that the recent exercise of the Royal supremacy has been very beneficial in saving them from clerical bigotry and despotism. We may add, that the position and conduct of the present Scottish Establishment has also a tendency to mislead the English mind, Lord Aberdeen's Bill having brought it under the yoke of Erastianism, and, consequently, into such a degree of conformity with their own Church, that it could not now perform any more noble or dignified part than a feeble imitation of the mimic martyrdom of Dr. Merewether. How striking the contrast between such mummery and the conduct of the Free Church of Scotland!

The conduct of the Bishop of Oxford is, to our apprehension, the most discreditable of all that have taken any prominent part in the transaction. Since his elevation to this bishopric of Oxford, two years ago, he has been in a position which rendered it his duty to know whether the opinions of Dr. Hampden, not only as a divinity professor, but as the rector of a parish in his diocese, were sound or not. If he had not done so, he had discharged his duty very negligently; if he satisfied himself with garbled extracts, he acted contrary to justice; if he did not believe the accusation, and yet lent the sanction of his station and name to crush the accused, he acted most wrongfully. He is regarded by the Tractarian party, we understand, as their main hope; not only on account of his admitted abilities, not only because his position in connection with the Court, and his skill in the courtier craft, seem to secure to him an influence which others cannot attain, but also because his quick penetration and wary sagacity may enable him to avoid difficulties, and seize opportunities with such promptitude and dexterity, as almost to ensure success. If this be so, it is well for the kingdom that he has overacted his part, and overreached himself in the present instance. His readiness to support the accusation, so long as there was any probability that Lord John Russell might yield; his adroit management in avoiding to be himself the raiser of the suit in the Court of Arches, which he could allow to be prosecuted or quashed as he saw fit; his sudden change of tactics when he perceived that continued opposition could no longer be of any avail;-all combine to mark him as a man whose principles, character, and conduct the community would do well to watch with the quick eye of awakened and vigilant distrust.

With regard to the Church of England, we do not feel disposed at present to say much. Its worst enemy could not have wished to see it placed in a more humiliating position, or acting in a manner more completely proving its deep and almost hopeless degradation. Not even the Tractarian party seem to have either prudence or courage. The Church of England has been so long accustomed to wear the chains of political thraldom, that its utmost effort is but to rattle those chains aloud, enabling all Christendom to mark its hopeless slavery. This is a mournful spectacle, from which we turn away with mingled shame and pity. Nor do we congratulate Lord John Russell on his successful Erastianism. He may live to find, or some later statesman will, that there is no more certain and thorough way of ruining a country, than by enslaving and degrading the Christian Church in that country. There is no gain in checking Puseyism, and by the same act destroying spiritual liberty. That will be a great