DISSENTERS' COLLEGES.-A LEARNED

MINISTRY.

IN the Congregational Magazine for August is the following information :

"The annual meeting of the supporters and friends of this excellent and venerable institution was held in the College Library, on Wednesday, the 26th of June, 1839-Henry Walker, Esq., the treasurer, in the chair. After prayer by the Rev. B. Hobson, of Welford, the senior student delivered an interesting essay on the "Invisible State." The Rev. Messrs. Gilbert, Eccles, J. Stratten, G. B. Kidd, Scarborough, R. Weaver, M'All, Stowell, Thomas Smith, James Bruce, J. Harrison, and other gentlemen addressed the meeting in brief but earnest and encouraging speeches.

The

character and attainments of the students, affording, as they do, unquestionable proof of the ability, learning, and piety of their excellent tutors, present the most encouraging prospects for the future prosperity and usefulness of the institution, which has already been so distinguishing a blessing to our churches throughout the British empire; and it is confidently hoped that its friends, and the friends of an educated and pious ministry generally, will be stimulated to renewed and persevering exertions on its behalf. The increased and increasing number of the students requires liberal aid, so that the tutors and committee may be able to conduct the affairs of the institution, and effectually help pious and devoted young men in their preparation for the difficult and important task of the ministry, free from the anxiety about funds, a deficiency of which is so serious an embarrassment to the due discharge of these duties.

"The junior class was examined in the Eclogues of Virgil, in portions of Valpy's Greek Dilectus, and in the Greek Testament. The translations from the Latin were partly literal and without premeditation, and partly written, with a view to comprise elegance of expression with correctness of rendering.

"The next class read in Cicero's first oration against Catiline, as well as in the Cyropædia of Xenophon.

"The senior class read, with constant attention to prosody, a considerable portion of the Prometheus Vinctus of Eschylus, and translated with a fluency, selection of words (?), and accuracy, which shewed that, with a little perseverance in the study of this language, they would soon be able to master its difficulties, to enjoy its beauties, and to possess themselves readily of its trea

sures.

"In Hebrew the junior class translated from the eighth chapter of Genesis; the senior class was examined in Isaiah, and in the Chaldee portion of Daniel: they also read the first chapter of Philippians in the Syriac tongue.

"The evening, to a late hour, was occupied by the theological class, of which there was an extensive examination on those subjects which had been treated in the lectures of the past session. Numerous questions were proposed to them on some of the most important and difficult doctrines of Christianity, and on the controversies with which they have been associated. To these inquiries they gave very ready replies, and such as to prove equally that their studies had been very skilfully directed, and the ability and willingness with which they had availed themselves of their advantages. examiners were exceedingly gratified with what they had witnessed during the day, and they entertain a sanguine anticipation that the talents and acquirements of the young men in the house will become an extensive blessing to the churches, and fully sustain and advance the reputation of this very respectable and longestablished institution."

The

On the 2d of July the students of Highbury College were examined. The theological examiner selected for this occasion was the Rev. W. Lindsay Alexander, M.A., of Edinburgh. His "testimony" is published in the Congregational Magazine, and speaks highly of the proficiency of the students in the Hebrew tongue. In divinity they were examined at considerable length upon the evidences of Christianity, and upon the arguments in proof of the existence, unity, and trinity of the Godhead.

Dr. Halley, the classical tutor of Highbury College, has resigned his office in that institution, in order to accept the pastorate vacant by the death of Dr. M'All, of Manchester.

Mr. Henry Rogers, the professor of logic and rhetoric, has also resigned, in order to occupy the chair of mathematical and intellectual philosophy at the new college of the Congregational Dissenters, at Spring-hill, Birmingham.

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The Rev. John H. Godwin, of Norwich, has accepted the situation of “ sident and philosophical tutor" at Highbury; and Mr. William Smith, late of University College, has accepted the department of classical tutor, vacant by Dr. Halley.

Here then there is abundant preparation to set up the wisdom and strength of man against "the foolishness and weakness of God" (1 Cor. i. 25). Nor does anything seem to have been omitted which could prepare "the students," by an acquaintance with the Greek and Latin poets, the Hebrew Scriptures, ancient mythology, modern divinity, Greek tragedies, "the most important and difficult doctrines of Christianity," mathematics, the Greek Testament, philosophy, metaphysics, logic, and rhetoric, to come forth to the world as "men of talent," and "by their talents and acquirements to confer extensive blessings on the churches."

The junior class begins with Virgil's Eclogues. The nascent clergy find their pabulum amongst the swains of Latium, with Tityrus* and Melibus, Damætas

and Palæmon, Menalcas and Mopsus. They learn to make the woods resound with the name of the beautiful Amaryllis, and declare in tender strains how Galatea is sweeter to them than the honey of Hybla and the roses of Pæstum, and they promiset the god Terminus that if their flocks increase they will raise a gilded statue to his honour. Little did Tityrus dream, when he was piping under his wide-spreading beech-tree, that within a century a sect should arise destined to throw down all his gods and goddesses, and to evert his mythology, root and branch, as a diabolical delusion; and still less could he anticipate that eighteen centuries afterwards the priests of that very sect should commence their clerical studies by reading his ditties, and passing examinations in his idolatrous elegancies.

Tityrus, Corydon, and Damætas have their revenge in the colleges of Rotherham, Highbury, and Spring-hill. Christianity overthrew Paganism, but Paganism is now undermining Christianity.

The senior class was examined in the Prometheus Vinctus of Æchylus; and, if we were here disposed to allegorise a little, we might say somewhat of Prometheus, as representing the Christian strong in the elements which are not of this world, and conferring benefits on mankind by the fire which he derived from heaven; but when a new idolatry came in vogue, as no longer able to resist the tyranny of the fashionable system, and therefore succumbing to its pressure, Force and Strength-Bin and Kparos-chain him down on the hard rocks, and insult over him, as the Philistines did over Samson, and tauntingly remind him that he can now do no more mischief; that he who was a man of popular arts—λεωργον—is now himself in servility, and "must give up all hopes of resisting the power of the gods of this world." Prometheus feels his thraldom, and the vulture is settled on his side; he beholds the tyranny every where predominant: nevertheless, he consoles himself that the days of this tyranny too are numbered, and that fate has fixed an irrevocable decree against the apostasy. "These new gods

Stoddart, that cost eighty-five guineas."See Inquirer, p. 418.

+"Nunc te marmoreum pro tempore fecimus; at tu

Si fætura gregem suppleverit, aureus esto."-Bcl. vii. 33.

think they dwell in habitations free from all approach of care: but they are mistaken; for I, who have already seen two dynasties ejected, shall see this third Lord of Heaven most miserably overthrown." (Prom. Vinct. 991.)

And what then has been the force which has chained down the strong one? We answer, it has been the principles of this world; the theory that the strength and wisdom of man is the strength and wisdom of the church; and that as men are made powerful in terrene philosophy by operose investigations and immense acquisitions of science, so they may also make themselves equally powerful in theology, by nursing the intended ministers of the Christian religion in classical lore, in heathen literature, in mathematics, rhetoric, and logic. And is there not a hard captivity in this system? Is there not weakness in it visible in the state of the churches? The land is now very well stocked with learned ministers; much the greater number of them, it is to be supposed, have by this time come forth from the discipline of the colleges, but what has been the result? Si monumentum quæris, circumspice. Examine the actual state of the churches, and make the report according to the abundance of facts which every where present themselves. Where there is one of these talented and well-informed ministers who "are conferring blessings by their talents on the churches," as they tell us, how great is the number, on the other hand, where, even according to the congregational estimate, matters are as discouraging as they well can be! But even where all to the outward eye seems in high prosperity, when the congregation is numerous, and the chapel revenue is flowing in with a full tide of opulence, and the church members are not a few,-how even then sometimes is there less cause for satisfaction than where, in a small village, an impoverished pastor is, with a heart full of care, labouring amongst a poor and weak flock! The worldly spirit is painfully apparent in some flourishing dissenting churches; it seems to be almost the bond of union between its members: worldliness in all their outward appointments, in all their actions, in the whole aim and bent of their lives. The acquisition of wealth, and the enjoyment of it; the art of rising in the world, not above it; the display of a formidable front to rival systems, by education, opulence,

fashion; politics; influence in elections, influence in newspapers, influence in town-councils, influence in intellect, influence in eloquence; these seem to be the prize of the high calling of those who name themselves members of a church of Christ, and who consequently are supposed, by courtesy, at least, "to have crucified the flesh with the affections and iusts thereof." And what, then, is at the root of all this? Certainly the system of the priesthood, and the preparation supposed to be requisite for making a priest, is the most apparent cause to which all may be traced. The congregationalists have, through the Church of England, from the Church of Rome, inherited the apostasy. That apostasy began in distrusting God the Holy Spirit as the governor of the church (compare 1 Cor. xii. 11 with verse 18), and in setting up a "regularly ordained" caste of priests to take the functions of the whole body of believers. Rome for many centuries laboured to bring this system to its full perfection according to carnal wisdom, and left, as a legacy of death, to her rebellious daughter the Church of England, the parish priest, the one man, the only person (persona, hence parson: in Popery, the parson is the only acknowledged person of the church) to represent believers. The dissenters omitted many evils of the Anglican church, but to give up the one person of the church, and for the church, was beyond their courage, or knowledge, or faith. Hence they must have a distinct clerical body; and if they have clergymen, then must they supply by learning and talent in them the deficiency of strength which was intended to be, and for a season indeed was, in all the saints. Having now become identified with the clerical heresy, they are obliged to uphold it as their very life; and all that they can do, now that they are in this terra incognita (this land unknown in the Gospel charts), is to make the best of it, and to burn their ships, lest, peradventure, some should wish to return. As a learned ministry is now indispensable with them, then the more learning they can acquire, the stronger they will or ought to be, according to their theory. And thus they keep advancing in the path of error, till they have reached the very navel of the labyrinth. For a while they were content with the Heathen poets and prose writers, but now they have added mathematics, and have un

dertaken to drive all the clerical students over the Pons Asinorum, the Asses' Bridge of Euclid. Having threaded their weary way through the angles and circles of the mathematician of Alexandria, they dash into dialectics, and run through rhetoric, and then, last of all, are turned out into the interminable region of "philosophy," which may mean either metaphysics, according to its classical import, or all the ologies" of the modern school!

These, then, are the only acknowledged teachers of the Congregational churches; these are the monarchical pastors whose mouths may alone utter knowledge amongst "the holy brethren;" these are the speaking monitors amongst the chosen though silent generation the royal though lay priesthood—and the holy though speechless nation. Is it then to be expected, by any one who understands the theory of the gospel, that teachers of these pretensions, and with such an education, should place their joy and strength in those doctrines in which there is life and power for the Church? The answer may be taken in the fact; for if we enquire into the preaching of the doctrines of grace (which, however, is only one important fact in this enquiry), it is notorious that they are but very faintly acknowledged in the Congregational Churches; and in some Churches are never mentioned at all. There may be more than one explanation of this phenomenon: but one is obvious. The students who prepare for the ministry in the colleges, are moral young men, who have received by education the orthodox scheme of evangelical tenets: these tenets are further scholastically inculcated in the collegiate discipline, and by rhetoric and logic, and by close reasoning, the fundamentals of the protestant faith are fortified in the minds of the academicians. They write themes upon faith and grace, and compose orations on similar topics, and all difficult and abstruse questions of technical theology they learn with the most precise accuracy, so as to be able to answer logically all opponents. But all this while their hearts are not taught; the teaching of the Lord's people (John vi. 45, Eph. iv. 21, 1 Thess. iv. 9) cannot be administered by this system; the sense of perdition under unpardoned sin, and the joy of salvation when grace is revealed, through the spiritual knowledge of Christ, no tutors, no lecture-rooms, no professor's

chair, no doctor of divinity, can possibly reveal. They may talk about it, and the students may talk about it; but to speak in it is not an art to be obtained in a college. "I believed, and therefore have I spoken," is the result of an erudition from the Great Teacher, whose chair is above the schools of mortality, and in whose training this truth is first to be learned, "that no flesh shall glory in his presence;" for those who are his disciples "are of God in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto them wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that according as it is written, He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord."

But the students are taught in the college; and in their college-learning they have their strength. They receive a call to a Church; they are duly ordained by imposition of hands; they mount the pulpit; and they preach such things as they have scholastically acquired: an oration they duly produce on any imaginable subject within the range of theology -on the attributes-on Christian virtues -on "difficult questions." A difficult question is their delight, that they may build on it a "splendid argument." They dazzle, they sparkle, they blaze, they pour forth torrents of rhetoric; they deliver their studied harangues with something like enthusiasm; they astonish their hearers, and the people are delighted with the abilities of their pastor. Sometimes, in the course of their ministry, the doctrines of grace are unlocked, and brought out of the strong box; but it is with caution and timidity: for nothing the minister so much dreads as that his people should not be practical in their views-(which has a deeper meaning with the minister than we care to analyse in this place) and so he takes care to be practical and metaphysical, and logical and rhetorical: but all this time he has never known by experience what it is to flee from the pursuer of his soul to the city of refuge; he cannot, in the grateful remembrance of his own salvation, say, "O taste and see that the Lord is good-blessed is the man that trusteth in him;" he cannot utter one word more than he has learned in his education, though he never would so far forget himself as to state anything opposed to the creed of the orthodox. To preach the gospel in the sense of life received, and not in word only, but with power, is the gift of those who have been in the good