The Sun.
London, England, 1836-02-29 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

We are about to have a revival of the Inquisition at
Oxford. It seems that certain holy men of that seat
of learning having discovered what they deem hetro-
rodoxy in the Bampton Lectures of Dr. Hampden,

met on the Nth, and resolved on presenting a requisi-
tion to the Vice-Chancellor, praying
" That he would be pleased to convene a meeting of the
heads the Heads of Colleges and Halls, for the purpose of
considering the propriety of submitting to Convocation an
Address from the University of Oxford to the Most Re-
verend the Archbishops and the Right Reverend the
Bishops of the United Church, to the following effect :
" That their Lordships would be pleased to accept from
candidates for holy orders a certificate of attendance at the
Lectures a the Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity in
the University of Oxford, in lieu ,of the certificate of at-
tendance at the Lectures of the Regius Professor of Di-
vinity in the same University, so long as the chair of the
Regius Professor of Divinity continues to be filled by one
in the soundness of whose doctrinnal opinions the University

can place no confidence.
And at a meeting on the 25th, resolved on another
requisition to the Vice-Chancellor, praying
" That he would be pleased to summon a meeting of
Heads of Houses to take into consideration the best means
of giving Convocation an opportunity of disavowing and
condemning the evil principles and doctrines contained in
the Bampton Lectures, and other writings of Dr.

Hampden:"
The Spanish Inquisition always allowed a defence
and we presume that the Vice-Chancellor, before
taking the steps pointed out in these documents, will
allow Dr. Hampden an opportunity of defending him-
self. In the case of Whiston, if we are not mistaken,
there was something like a regular trial before con-
demnation. Hare, Bishop of Chichester, was led,
from the proceedings against Whiston, to write a
tract entitled, if we mistake not, " Difficulties and dis-
couragements attending the study of the Scriptures,"
the drift of which was to show that a Divine ought
to abstain from such study, as he was bound to
adopt the conclusions of the Church, and inquiry
was therefore not only of no use,. but might •expose him
to danger, by leading him to conclusions of his own,
different from those of the Church. Pot our part we
will not suffer ourselves, in imitation of the Tory papers,
to be dragged into a theological controversy. In truth,
we cannot say that we understand the meaning of some
of Vie extracts given by the Standard, and we leave it
to others to settle whether they are orthodox, or smell
of heresy. The proceedings at Oxford will no doubt
prove exceedingly instructive. The old organ of the
High Churchmen, John Bull, is quite furious on the
subject of Dr. Hampden's appointment, and assuming
to Ir>i the objections against him, " Lord Mel-
bourne has suggftted that he should succeed to the
seat on the Episcopal Bench, vacated by the death of
the pious and exemplary Bishop Van Mildert," ac-
tually recommends that the Government should be de-
prived of the power of nominating to the Episcopal
Bench. This would be innovation with a vengeance.
"If this be true," says Bull if this manifestation of
hostility to the faith of the country has actually been male
—we say to the Christians end Churchmen of England,
laymen as well as Clergymen, from one end of the nation
to the other, and as it were with one voice, end that a
mighty voice—Speak out ; nothing but the strongest cry
—the cry of desperation—can save us. From the love or
care of the precut Government the Church can expect
nothing. We can only defend her by showing that Mi-
nisters cannot attack the sacred principles and dearest
hopes of Christian men with impunity. They must be
made to feel that, after such a demonstration as that which
they have made. the Church will, to a man, turn from
them, and its whole weiet be thrown into die scale of
o; position. It is only to their fears we can now appeal.
The question is not whether a man he Whig or Tory—is
he a Christian ? Is he a Trinitarian 9—Let no time be
lost ; let every archdeacon call a meeting of his archdea-
eonry—let heresy be denounced—let petitions be addressed
to the King, imploring his Majesty not to receive the no-
mination of his Ministers to a bishopric, until it has re-
ceived the sanction of the Archbishop of Canterbury and
the Bishop of London, in whom, until Lord Grey's Ad-
ministration, the power of a veto was vested. Let. Ox-
ford set the example—let a convocation be immediatzly
summoned for this purpose, and to pass censure upon tLis
Dr. Hampden's writings. Christians of England ! be firm,
he vigilant, be active—your canary, your Church, your
God, demand that every man of ye should do his duty.
Tile crisis has arrived."
The Tories have already the Lord Lieutenancies of
Counties and Magistrates, and were lately exceedingly
indignant that the Magistrates of Corporations should
not also be Tory. They, no doubt, think it only rea-
sonable that they should also have the power of naming
to the Bench. " His Majesty's Ministers (exclaims
the -orthodox journal) having declared war against the
temporalities of the Establishment, arc now prepared
to strike a blow at the faith of the country." ono !
there is no alarm for the faith ; but there is alarm lest
the Bench should be filled with clergymen of distin-
guished talents and liberal political principles. The
'Tories care very little for the faith, but a great deal for
the temporalities of the Church ; and they have a
shrewd suspicion that if Ministers should have a few
bishoprics to dispose of, Toryism would soon be at a
discount in the- Church. Ministers will only laugh at
this impotent raving. They know better than to-allow
the Government to be deprived of the power of filling
up bishoprics. Indeed, it is to the influence
which the Government derives from its Church pa-
tronage that the Establishment is indebted for its ex-
istence. Were the Church to be independent of the
Government, its duration would be very brief. We
cannot, therefore, help thinking the Bull shows more
zeal than discretion in wishing to make the Church
independent of the Government. We must have no
imperizon in imperio revival of Popery in England.
The memory of the mischiefs produced by the Con-
vocation is too fresh to allow any wise and moderate
men to wish to see the Church in possession of more
power than it at present enjoys. In fact, we are in-
debted to the patronage of the Crown, and more es-
pecially to the power of naming Bishops, for our es-
cape from Jacobitism ; for it is well-known that the
spirit of the Church of England, during the reigns of
the two first Kings of the House of Hanover, was ge-
nerally bad ; and that if Government had not coun-
teracted that spirit, by bestowing its patronage on Libe-
ral men, the Stuart family would have been restored.
—Morning Chronicle.
It will be in the general recollection, that when his
Majesty, anxious to place the administration of the
Government in competent hands, summoned Sir It.
Peel from the continent, the Whigs and Radicals (for
the two were not then incorporated) exclaimed against
the provisional power exercised by the Duke of Wel-
lington, and denounced him as a Dictator. " How,"
said they, " is it possible for one man to discharge the
several functions of the Government ? The attempt
is presumptuous and unconstitutional." We are not
aware of any inconvenience that resulted to the public
service from the dictatorship thus denounced. How-
ever, dangerous or otherwise, it was not of long du-
ration. Sir Robert Peel arrived, and assumed the
Premiership, and lo another shout arose. The Right
Hon. Baronet was reproached as a political " all in all."
The Destructives became clamorous for a division of
labour, they of course being the- political operatives.
Well, this they have since obtained. They now pos-
sess a Prime Minister of active pliancy and unparal-
leled indifference—a Home Secretary of Lilliputian
energy—and last and least, a Foreign Secretary of most
meddling " non-intervention." This Minister was on
Friday last " trotted out" on the subject of Spanish
affairs, and a truly wonderful show of paces he made.
Differing as we do from his Lordship's political views,
we must no less dissent from his poetical illustrations.
He told the House that " the fogs were impartial."
This is not only unjust, but most ungrateful. Fogs
have always been partial to his Lordship, and never
was he more thoroughly mist-ified than on Friday
evening last. In that specimen of
" What the learned call rigmarole,"
with which he amused the House, he, with his accus-
tomed flippancy, pointed to the feats of his foreign
policy. The regenerated Greeks, under their Bavarian
King—the patriotic Belgians, under their freely.
elected Monarch—were offered as proofs of the
wisdom of our foreign policy, under the presi-
dency of the Noble Lord. Did we wish to *gene-
ralize after this fashion, we might speak of great
political considerations which we fear have been too
much subject btp the " non-intervention principle."
But we shall: warned by the example of the. Foreign
--.:
-.;Seerektri, and shall confine ourselves to the question,
AN4O is, whether the English people have adopted a
line consistent with the national honour in the " non-