PAST AND PRESENT STATEMENTS

COMPARED.

OXFORD,

PRINTED BY W. BAXTER :

SOLD BY J. H. PARKER; AND BY MESSRS. RIVINGTON,

LONDON.

1836.

Copious extracts upon the topics here touched on having been already given, together with the context, in " Dr. Hampden's "Theological Statements and the Thirty-nine Articles com"pared," it is thought sufficient once for all to refer to that pamphlet for such statements from Dr. Hampden's former works, as are not here particularly specified.

It will probably be expected, that those, who have so earnestly expressed their concern and alarm at the nomination of Dr. Hampden to the Regius Professorship of Divinity, should now again state whether his Inaugural Lecture has in any degree dissipated or mitigated those apprehensions. This, in itself, were no unreasonable expectation; for people naturally turn to a writer's last publication, to see whether the impressions made by the former are still conveyed by this. Dr. Hampden's advocates also appealed beforehand in his presence to this Lecture; this was the hearing which they claimed for him.

Two ways apparently lay open to Dr. Hampden; either to re-affirm the statements of his former works, and to endeavour to shew that they were not inconsistent with the teaching of our Church, nor led to the perilous consequences which were anticipated; or openly to retract them, and to express regret for the scandal which they had given.

Dr. Hampden has done neither of these, but, instead, has set forth a general popular statement of religious teaching, portions whereof are indeed in direct contradiction with what he before stated, but which, in many cases, does not even touch upon the questions, his treatment of which had raised such serious apprehensions. This proceeding is the more alarming, in that it was by the like recurrence to general terms, and the use of language akin to that of the Catholic Church, that the Arian heresy for a while escaped condemnation in the Western, and the Pelagian in the Eastern, Church, which were respectively less familiar with the language of each class of heretics.

Things then in reality remain just as they were: no theologian ever cast any imputation on the direct personal faith of Dr. Hampden, although many feared