The Sun.
London, England, 1847-12-14 00:00:00

THE APPOINTMENT OF DR.
HAMPDEN.

In addition to the letters we published yesterday,
:ho following correspondence has taken place :
TO THE RIGHT HON. LORD J. RUSSELL.

London, Dec. 10, 1847.
My Lord,—l had last night the honour of receiving
your Lordship's letter of the Bth inst., addressed to my-
self, in common with the other bishops who had pre-
sumed to represent to you their apprehensions of the
evil consequences which must be expected to result from
the nomination (if persisted in) of Dr. Hampden to tke
vacant see of Hereford.

As the remonstrant bishops have now for the most
part returned to their several dioceses, it is not possible
for them, within any reasonable space of time, to meet
together for the purpose of making a common reply to
those parts of your Lordship'. letter which may seem
especially to demand reply. I therefore feel it due to
your Lordship, no less than to myself, that I should
state frankly, and without waiting for communication
with others, the reasons which compel me to withhold
my assent from the arguments which you have addressed
to us.

Your Lordship is pleased to remark, first, on our
" not having stated any want of confidence on our own
part in the soundness of Dr. Hampden's doctrine."
My Lord, in abstaining from such statement, we took
that part which, I venture to submit, manifestly was

most becoming.
We had hardly a right to obtrude upon you, unasked,
our opinion on that point; for such opinion would hare
been only that of individuals, whereas the judgment on
which we rested our representation was the judgment of

a body eminently qualified to judge, and accustomed, in
the best times, to be listened to on such subjects with

respect and attention by all. But, my Lord, is our si-
lence on this particular is considered by your Lordship
as an omission which lessens the force of our represen-
_

tatation, I will not, myself, be silent any longer; I hesi-
tate not, therefore, to state, that I have no confidence in
the soundness of Dr. Hampden's doctrine.
The decree of the University to which we referred,
passed," as your Lordship truly observes, " 11 years
ago; and was founded " (in part—doubtless a principal
part) " upon lectures delivered 15 years ago."
Why was it, your Lordship seems by implication to
ask, that the long interval of four years was suffered
to elapse between the publication of the offensive doc-
trines and the decree which condemned them?—For a

reason which I venture to think your Lordship will, on
reflection, deem quite sufficient to explain, if not to jus-
tify the delay.
During those four years Dr. Hampden was in no
position specially and immediately connected with theo-
logical teaching; his errors, therefore, however grave,
were not so formidable as to demand the unusual inter-
position of the University, as a body, to vindicate the
sacred truths which he had impugned.
If it be asked, why the lesser and ordinary tribunal—
the Vice-Chancellor's Board—was not resorted to, I

frankly answer that Ido not know. It may have pro-
ceeded, and probably did proceed, from the natural,
perhaps culpable, reluctance of men in authority to
exorcise that authority penally against one of their own
number, and from the unwillingness of men not in
authority to place themselves, without very special
call, in the invidious and painful position of public

accusers.
At the end of those four years, however, the state of
things was greatly altered. Dr. Hampden had ceased
to bo in the comparatively private station which he had
before occupied. He had been appointed to the highest
chair of divinity in Oxford. His influence, therefore, on
its theological teaching, and on the future character and
usefulness of the University, could not but be dreaded
and deprecated, and the duty of resistance to that in-
fluence had become most manifestly, most imperatively
urgent. Accordingly, the heads of the University are
understood to have presented in the highest quarter,
through his Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, their
strong objections to the appointment; and our then most
gracious Sovereign, Ring William IT., was generally be-
lieved to have expressed his desire that the appointment
should not be completed.
But, even the expression of the Royal wish having
bee❑ found to be in vain, the University was compelled
to have recourse to its own unquestioned powers of
judging is such a cause, and to take those steps which
might not only lessen the power of mischief in the now
professor's teaching, but should also vindicate its own
character before the world.

Sueh, my Lord, is, I believe, a brief history of the
decree to which the remonstrant bishops referred your
Lordship.
But, yen add, that " since the date of that decree,
Dr. Etampden has acted as Regius Professor of Divinity,
the University of Oxford, and many bishops, as I am
told, have required certificates of attendance on his lec-
tures 'from candidates for holy orders,' who had received
their education at Oxford."

My Lord, that " the University of Oxford has ever
required certificates from any persons under its authority
of attendance on Dr. Hampden's lectures " I have never
before heard] nor, till I had the honour of receiving

your Lordship's letter, have I had the slightest reason to
believe.

With regard to the course taken by bishops in this
respect, I may be allowed to say that it had been the
universal rule of every diocese in England to require the
certificate of attendance on the Regius Professor's lec-
tures for a very long period before that chair was filled
by Dr. Hampden. If any bishops abstained from re-
voking that rule, although a professor was appointed
whom they night greatly disapprove, it would not much
surprise me; nor should I think that they thereby pre-
cluded themselves from the right of testifying their ad-
verse judgment of him on any grave occasion, as the
present must pre•eminently be held to be.
Bo this as it may, if any of the remonstrant bishops
are justly open to this remark (I know not that any of
them are), lam not in the number. Immediately after
the passing of the academic statute in question I deemed
it right to inform Dr. Hampden, as, doubtless, if he has
made any communication to you on this head, ho has
informed your Lordship, that I could not regard him as
a safe guide to.students in theology, and could not there-
fore require certificates of attendance on his lectures
from candidates for holy orders. I made this commu-
nication in terms as little offensive to Dr. Hampden's
feelings as I could devise; and I had the satisfaction of
receiving from him, if my memory does not deceive me,
an acknowledgment to that effect.
That "Dr. Hampden has likewise preached sermons,
for which he has been honoured with the approbation of
several prelates of our Church," I most unhesitatingly
believe on the authority of your Lordship; but the re-
levancy of such a fact to the matter now in question, in
any but an infinitesimal degree, I must profess my in-
ability to perceive.
Your Lordship proceeds to say, " Several months be-
fore I named Dr. Hampden to the Queen for the see of
Hereford I signified my intention " (not, I am confident,
of naming him to the see of Hereford, for that see was
not then vacant nor likely to be vacant, nor to the next
see which might be open—for another has been since
open, to which Dr. Hampden was not named ; and
more than one eminent person is known to have had the
offer of it from your Lordship ; but, it may have been,
that you signified your intention of naming Dr. Hamp-
den to some see, at some time or other) "to the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury, and did not receive from him any
discouragement."
My Lord, your Lordship will, I am confident, pardon
my inquiry (for the question is manifestly most impor-
tant to the fair understanding of the merits of the case).
Did you ask his Grace whether he thought Dr. Hampden
a fit person to be recommended to a bishopric ? It you
did not ask his opinion, few persons will be at all sur-
prised that he abstained from giving it.
Your Lordship better knows than I can presume to
guess what are the relations between his !Grace and
yourself—what your habits of consultation with him on
this and kindred questions. But thus much I must say,
that unless these relations be most intimate, these habits
most unreserved, it would seem to be almost a matter of
course that our aged Primate, one always distinguished
by his delicacy and reluctance to obtrude, without ab-
solute necessity, the expression of any;opinion adverse to
the interests of another—it would seem to me, I repeat, a

matter of course that his Grace should forbear to tell
your Lordship that your intention of recommending Dr.
Hampden at some period, which might never arrive
during the continuance of your Lordship's power of re-
commending, or during his own valuable life, would in-
volve you in the difficulty of having named a person
whose appointment would be regarded by the Church at
large as an act either of wanton insult or of official reck-
lessness beyond all precedent.
After all, it is satisfactory to see, on the authority of
your Lordship's own words, to how small dimensions the
swelling statement at first made of this matter has at
length dwindled. The story—which was put forth in a
tone only not official, and circulated by those who
spoke as on the authority of your Lordship—that
the Archbishop had given " his cordial assent " to
Dr. Hampden's appointment to the now vacant see
of Hereford, turns out to be Nothing more than
that the Archbishop gave " no discouragement," when,
several months before the see of Hereford was vacant,
you signified to his Grace your intention of naming Dr.
Hampden, at some time or other, to some bishopric or
other.
And the importance even of this intimation of the
Archbishop's supposed " assent " to Dr. Hampden's
appointment, small as it is, sinks into absolute insignifi-
cance—or, rather, is converted into something much
more nearly resembling "dissent "—when it is stated,
on authority too respectable to admit of question, that
your Lordship actually received a letter from the Arch-
bishop some days before that of ;the Bishops, in which
his Grace apprised you of the ferment which the an-
nouncement of Dr. Hampden's promotion was exciting
in the Church, and of the certainty of legal steps being
taken in order to defeat it.
My Lord, I have said that the appointment of Dr.
Hampden is an act "beyond all precedent. And this,
I believe, is strictly true. Never before was any person
recommended by the Crown to a bishopric against whom
there stood a formal legal judgment affirming the un-
soundness.
distinction
his
ss
case. Short
instances, not dissimilar,
The first is the case of two persons nominated by
King James 11., in the year, 1686, to fill the sees of
occur to
othofist
mh ises , the
winh rieeeealdi ; onothe
wBonPF
te
itcnni
ga.0.1
e
er.
Oxford was given to Dr. Parker. These two persons
iCnhite,hsteawrr
towarndrdisg
00h
ftx
wufoaursdr
np;ertoamtnhdon
promoted
diwnotmuo
ydcohrwae rather give The
h teh e
see case
a so ef
fwo we pitched
among
othneacsletrhgeyfittotehsettirnasytrauimidernutishtthhaet
Cehouurld be
ch.”
My Lord, I most unfeignedly disclaim the slightest in-
tention to insinuate that such is your object in naming
Dr. Hampden, or that he would be a fit instrument for
such a purpose. I believe you both to be utterly,inca-
pable of anything so dishonourable. But the preceding
inapposite words are necessary to introduce what is, I
submit, really apposite:—
" Some of the bishops brought to Archbishop Sancroft
articles against them, which he desired they would offer
to the King in Council, and pray that the mandate for