Occasioned by the controversy respecting Dr. Hampden's appointment to the Divinity Chair at Oxford in 1836.

Abstract

We feel obliged to confess, that, in looking over the controversial tracts which the appointment of Dr. Hampden to the theological chair of Oxford has called into being, our minds have been crossed by feelings, which we scarcely know how to reconcile together, or even to analyse, with satisfaction to ourselves. On the one hand we see learned and zealous, and we have reason to believe, in some instances, amiable men, contending, in the spirit which belongs to a better Church and a better cause, in favour of a rigid adherence to principles and doctrines which we must approve ; yet, thereby departing from the consistency of their professed faith, and betraying how powerless they are in wielding the weapons which it has long since blunted, and then , thrown aside. On the other side, we see the professor elect accused; not unjustly, of rash and dangerous opinions in his earlier works, but yet most unjustly cited to answer for them, upon principles which his accusers themselves had no right to adopt. For he is charged not so much with heterodoxy in faith, as with violating articles, that can pretend to no power of binding the internal belief... [Excerpt]