"THE SHAVER'S SERMON." 125 cations relative to this extraordinary affair. The pamphlets of Mr. Hill were extensively circulated, and produced a strong feeling in favour of the youths whose cause he so generously espoused. But the most popular of all the things written on the subject was the "Shaver's Sermon," certainly a witty satire on the leading men at Oxford, but not calculated to leave such an impression on the mind, as the awful darkness and enmity against true godliness of the times rendered. needful. This was the grand mistake of most of the writers on topics of so serious a nature, in those days. The spirit in which the "Shaver" sent forth his "Sermon" may be judged of from the fact that he took a quotation from a newspaper as "a text;" the least that can be said of which is, that it was a most inconsiderate levity. He, however stated fairly, though quaintly, "1. I pretend not to justify any part of the Methodists' conduct, besides praying to God, reading and expounding the Scriptures, and singing of hymns, &c. "2. I censure none of the clergy but such as are against praying, reading, and expounding the Scriptures, and singing of hymns. "3. Whoever this coat is found to fit, I would have the gentleman put it on, and wear it as his own, assuring himself that it was made for him, and that, though a shaver, I am his tailor." This mode of attacking the persecutors of Oxford, was not calculated to awaken serious inquiry into the character of the times and the blindness of churchmen, which ought to have been solemnly pointed out; and it is also much to be lamented that Mr. Hill did not combine more serious remonstrance with his unanswerable facts and arguments, instead of dwelling on his own peculiar views, and dealing too largely in ridicule, of 126 DIALOGUE BETWEEN A DOCTOR AND A PROCTOR. which, if needful at all, the newspapers were the proper vehicles. Nor, indeed, was it wanting in them, both in rhyme and prose. The following is a specimen sent to the Public Advertiser : A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A DOCTOR AND A PROCTOR. Doctor. All hail, my good friend! we have carried the day, Proctor. This prating of Faith and Regeneration Is spreading its poison all over the nation. Doctor. I ne'er knew the like since I've been a Doctor. Proctor. Towards all of this way no mercy I shew, For I feared all along whereunto it would grow. We talk and we preach of good works, it is true; Against true Gospel zeal it is that we fight, For we must be wrong if these young men are right. Whether these lines came from the pen of Mr. Hill or not I have no means of positively determining, but he has elsewhere charged the Proctors with most unjustifiable conduct. These officers sheltered themselves under a profession of zeal to put down "illicit conventicles," which, after all, could not be proved to be so, but the very reverse; yet their real object is too apparent in proceedings thus exposed by Mr. Richard Hill in one of his addresses to Dr. Nowell: "But, however the natural enmity of the carnal mind would shelter itself under the notion of suppressing illicit conventicles, PROCEEDINGS OF THE PROCTORS. 127 yet that the same enmity is equally predominant against all experimental religion, whether in private or in a church, was very discernible when the Reverend Mr. Haweis was Curate of Magdalen parish at Oxford, into which church the Reverend Proctors have frequently come during the time of divine service, and irreverently driven out before them all the young men, who were weak enough to imagine that they were spending a leisure hour much better in the house of God, than at the coffee house or billiard table. Mirabile dictu! Egomet hisce oculis vidi." When a person of such high respectability as Mr. Hill, declares that he saw these proceedings with his own eyes, and when we know that Mr. Higson received the thanks of the vice-chancellor of Oxford for his conduct towards the expelled students, we can only tremble at the recollection of the awful danger our Church was in from such demonstations on the part of persons, who ought to have known that the very doctrines they so violently opposed, were what they had actually promised to defend as sons of their reformed Alma Mater. How singular does it seem also to us now, that one charge gravely brought against the young men was their connection with " reputed Methodists-Venn, Newton, and others!" For indeed, had not a gracious Providence raised up such enlightened and devoted ministers, to make known to the nation the real character of the Church, and to rouse its pastors from their lethargy, 1 The London Chronicle had these lines among others on this expulsion: Where Cranmer died, where Ridley bled, Martyrs for truth sincere, See Cranmer's faith and Ridley's hope, Thrust out and martyred there. 128 AN ANECDOTE. A HINT. there is too much reason to believe that our establishment and Oxford too, would long ago have had to mourn over the loss of those privileges which, by the divine blessing, it is trusted they will for ages to come, enjoy and adorn. Be it, however, remembered that their perils are not so much from threatenings without An anecdote of the cele as from unsoundness within. brated Laud will illustrate the meaning of this remark. That well-known prelate once inquired of a daughter of the Earl of Devonshire, who had turned Papist, the reason of the change. She replied, "It is chiefly because I hate to travel in a crowd." When pressed for further explanation, she said, "I perceive your Grace and many others are making haste to Rome, and therefore, to prevent being crowded, I am gone before you." There is a class of modern divines who may take a hint from this answer. The unsoundness of the last century which vented itself in acts of persecution, carrying with them their own palpable condemnation, was less likely to be prejudicial to the cause of truth, than the smooth and specious sophistry of the semi-Romanists, propounded with a winning gentleness by men of so much virtue and zeal, that it would be unjust to attribute to them any other spirit than that of sincerity. The many good personal qualities they possess, lead also to the indulgence of a hope that they will listen to the powerful remonstrances, that have recently appeared against the doctrines of the "Tracts for the Times," and that they will ere long be brought to see that different views are necessary to the consistency of those, who call themselves members of venerable and Protestant Oxford, and ministers of the Church of England. CHAPTER VI. THE OXFORD DIVINES OF THE LAST AND PRESENT CENTURIES. UNIVERSITY SYSTEMS. OXFORD TRACTS. Ir must be distinctly understood that the observations in this chapter, are not meant to apply to the foundations upon which the reformed and protestant superstructure of the venerable Oxford stands, it is hoped immoveably; but to certain incongruous deformities which a few of her sons have erected in the midst of her, and daubed with most "untempered mortar." Though widely dif ferent in its leading characteristics from the moral orthodoxy, so named, of the days of the expelled students, the semi-Romanism of these times has an equal tendency to impair the principles of the Reformation. The divines of that age warred against the spiritual tenets of the Reformers; the authors of the Oxford Tracts, though in a different way, are promoting the same end, by giving an undue efficacy to outward observances, and by disfiguring the spiritual worship of the sanctuary, with the uncongenial appendages of forms wisely rejected by the framers of our Liturgy. At the period referred to in the last chapter, the theologians of Oxford contended only with the light of the word of God; the writers of the Tracts impair its authority by traditions. K |