The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-06-07 00:00:00

OXFORD AND DR. HAMPDEN

(From the Cambridge Chronicle.)
Oxford is once more in a state of discord and excitement.
A contest is at this moment going on in that university, pro-
bably quite as anxious and earnest as the late struggle for
the Poetry Professorship, which was so much deprecated by
many sober-minded persons.
It seems the Board of Heads of Houses propose to rescind
the state which was passed in 1836, conveying a censure
upon Dr. Hampden, then recently appointed Regius Pro-
fessor of Divinity. In pursuance of this proposal the follow-
ing form of statute will be submitted to convocation, on
Tuesday next, the 7th instant :
" Quurn per Stat. Tit. XVI. s. 8. 11. publicatum et con-
firmatum in domo Convocationis die Vto rhensis Maii A. D.
1836, sancitum sit, ut Theologise Professor Regius munerum
quorundum in eodem Statuto memoratorum expers sit donee
aliter Universitati placuerit: Placuit Universitati Statutum
istud abrogare."
A strong and determined opposition to the re-instatement
of Dr. Hampden in certain privileges attached to his office,
but of which he was deprivel by the statute of the sth of
May, 1836, on the ground of his unsound theological opini-
ons, immediately manifested itself upon the determination of
the Hebdomadal Board becoming known. A protest was
signed by 30 or -10 resident members of convocation, who
urged the withdrawal of the proposition. The Hebdomadal
Board, however, are inflexible in their resolution to submit
the matter to convocation, and the university is consequently
again in the midst of a contest which can scarcely be regarded
without regret and alarm.
It is contended, by those favourable to the abrogation of
the censure, that Dr. Hampden, although he has in no man-
ner explained or retracted the objectionable passages in his
published sermons, which in 1836 were held to justify the
ban then placed upon him, has, nevertheless, so conducted
himself, in his high office, that the repeal of the statute is
only an act of common fairness. To 'this it is replied, that
the original offence remains in stain quo—that unsound doc-
trines are not disavowed merely because they are not re-
peated—that if there were reasons for the censure passed by
an overpowering majority in 1836, those reasons exist in
equal force in 1842—and that, therefore, to repeal the statute
will be either to aokno'vledge injustice in 1836, or tc, stultify
the university in the eyes of the world, by retracting a formal
decision in the one point on which it professes to be the espe-
cial depository of truth.
Again, it is said that the university has already committed
itself in principle to the repeal of the censure by its accept-
ance of the statute relating to the two fresh theological pro-
fessorships founded in Oxford, by which a prominent place
in the new arrangement of the duties is assigned to the regius
professor. The university, by passing that statute, acknow-
ledged Dr. Hampden a fit, person to he entrusted with a
theological office, and therefore he is not liable to theological
censure.

On the other hand it is contended that the Convocation
which passed this statute did not legislate about Dr. Hamp-
den, but about the Regius Professor of Divinity ;it did not
regard the individual, but the office—and that, inasmuch as
to pass a general statute, which happens obliquely, and quite
apart from its object, to include some objectionable point,
and to pass a particular one which has for its very object the
formal establishment of that points, are obviously two differ-
ent things, the Convocation, because it has done one, is not
at all committed to the other. Certain regulations, it is
urged, were made affecting all the four Divinity Professor-
ships ; the Regius Professor as one of the four came under
these regulations, but it cause under them purely in the ab-
office, distinct from the accidental
Since tire foregoing was in type we have received the shtorladcetr character of i
t pro
e ofm pother e.
fol-
lowing extract from Dr. Hampden's lecture delivered in the
Divinity School on Wednesday last :
Y around me. I have not sought
to
e stood alone, except so far as my
ranilley(. 1 noI
have
teaching might associate me with other members of our com-
mon faith and common church. Look to those
‘Pr loshealvyatiz formed
by whom I
am opposed ; there you see a compact body, understanding
each other, ready to act with each other, and to join their
names and their hands at the first signal from their leaders.
Look to my case on the other hand ; I make no boast of it,
but I have quickly gone about the functions of my office.
Some may say, 1 have been comparatively' silent on it ' • but
I have not been silent in my place, nor have I shrunk from
the labour and responsibility of publishing what from time
to time seemed to me proper. But I have formed no party.
I have given no name to my followers, Then I pray you,
test me by this
criterion, and test my adversaries too, and
~1,
discern who are the disturbers of the
you will then reaoy
who are the innovaters—who are the
peace of the
and dreaded.
church—
persons to be suspcted
you could call before, you the many bun-
" I would that
who have attended my lectures
hun-
dreds of this universitynd ask them what doctrine 1 have
during these six years, '
taught them. They would tell you, I am sure, with one
the seductive
spirit which is now so
voice (unless, haply,
'unior members has drawn off
actively at work among our J.
any to partial sectarian, un-
scalled Catholic views)—theywould tell you that I have ever
spoken to them with affec-
tionchurch, its doctrines and
and reverence of our own •
practices, and all that belongs to
that I have trained
n it d
means, in the paths
them so far as I had opportunities
a
Reformers of that pure
of their forefathers, in the faith the
'
branch of the Catholic church plauted by Gods providence
and grace in this country.
* * * * *
" But though I may look for the censures and oppositions