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 $Inspiration and Interpretation:$

 SEVEN SERMONS PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD:
 WITH PRELIMINARY REMARKS:

 BEING AN ANSWER TO A VOLUME ENTITLED

 "Essays and Reviews."

 BY THE
 REV. JOHN WILLIAM BURGON, M.A.,
 FELLOW OF ORIEL COLLEGE, AND SELECT PREACHER.

       *       *       *       *       *

I CANNOT HOLD MY PEACE, BECAUSE THOU HAST HEARD, O MY SOUL,
THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET, THE ALARM OF WAR.

 Oxford & London:
 J. H. and Jas. PARKER.
 1861.

 $Printed by Messrs. Parker, Cornmarket, Oxford.$


 TO THE REVEREND

 WILLIAM SEWELL, D.D.,

 FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE: LATE PROFESSOR OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE
 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD; AND LATE WARDEN OF ST. PETER'S COLLEGE, RADLEY.

       *       *       *       *       *

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Let me have the satisfaction of inscribing this volume to yourself. I
know of no one who has more faithfully devoted himself to the sacred
cause of Christian Education: no one to whom those blessed Truths are
more precious, which of late have been so unscrupulously assailed, and
which the ensuing pages are humbly designed to uphold in their integrity.

Affectionately yours,

JOHN W. BURGON.


       *       *       *       *       *

ΔΕΙ ΓΑΡ ΚΑΙ ἉΙΡΕΣΕΙΣ ἘΝ ὙΜΙΝ ΕΙΝΑΙ, ἹΝΑ ΟΙ ΔΟΚΙΜΟΙ ΦΑΝΕΡΟΙ ΓΕΝΩΝΤΑΙ ἘΝ
ὙΜΙΝ.

Ac si diceret: Ob hoc hæreseôn non statim divinitus eradicantur
auctores, ut probati manifesti fiant; id est, ut unusquisque quam tenax,
et fidelis, et fixus Catholicæ fidei sit amator, appareat. Et revera cum
quæque novitas ebullit, statim cernitur frumentorum gravitas, et levitas
palearum: tunc sine magno molimine excutitur ab areâ, quod nullo pondere
intra aream tenebatur.--VINCENTIUS LIRINENSIS, _Adversus Hæreses_, § 20.





PREFACE.


I am unwilling that this volume should go forth to the world without
some account of its origin and of its contents.

I. Appointed last year, (without solicitation on his part,) to the
office of Select Preacher, the present writer was called upon at the
commencement of the October Term to address the University. His Sermon,
(the first in the volume,) was simply intended to embody the advice
which he had already orally given to every Undergraduate who had sought
counsel at his hands for many years past in Oxford; advice which, to say
the truth, he was almost weary of repeating. Nothing more weighty or
more apposite, at all events, presented itself, for an introductory
address: nor has a review of the current of religious opinion, either
before or since, produced any change of opinion as to the importance of
what was on that first occasion advocated.

Another, and another, and yet another preaching turn unexpectedly
presented itself, in the course of the same Term; and the IInd, IIIrd,
and IVth of the ensuing Sermons, (preached on alternate Sundays,) were
the result. The study of the Bible had been advocated in the first
Sermon; but it was urged from a hundred quarters that a considerable
amount of unbelief prevailed respecting that very Book for which it was
evident that the preacher claimed entire perfection and absolute
supremacy. The singular fallacy of these last days, that Natural
Science, in some unexplained manner, has already demolished,--or is
inevitably destined to demolish[1],--the Book of Divine Revelation,
appeared to be the fallacy which had emerged into most offensive
prominence; and to this, he accordingly addressed himself.--It will not,
surely, be thought by any one who reads the IInd of these Sermons that
its author is so weak as to look with jealousy on the progress of
Physical Science. His alarm does not arise from the cultivation of the
noblest study but one,--viz. the study of GOD'S Works; but from the
prevalent _neglect of the noblest study of all_,--viz. _the study of
GOD'S Word_. His quarrel is not with the Professors of Natural Science,
but with those who are mere _Pretenders_ to it. Moreover, he makes no
secret of his displeasure at the undue importance which has of late been
claimed for Natural Science; and which is sufficiently implied by the
prevalent fashion of naming it without any distinguishing epithet,--as
"Science," absolutely: just as if _Theology_ were not a Science also[2]!

It is not necessary to speak particularly of the contents of the next
two Sermons; except to say that the train of thought thus started
conducted the author inevitably over ground which was already occupied
in the public mind by a volume which had already obtained some
notoriety, and which has since become altogether infamous. Enough of the
contents of that unhappy production I had read to be convinced that in a
literary, certainly in a _Theological_ point of view, it was a most
worthless performance; and I recognized with equal sorrow and alarm that
it was but the matured expression of opinions which had been fostering
for years in certain quarters: opinions which, occasionally, had been
ventilated from the University pulpit; or which had been deliberately
advocated in print[3]; and which it was now hinted were formidably
maintained, and would be found hard to answer. Astonished, (not by any
means for the first time in my life,) at the apathy which seemed to
prevail on questions of such vital moment, I determined at all events
not to be a party to a craven silence; and denounced from the University
pulpit with hearty indignation that whole system of unbelief, (if system
it can be called,) which has been growing up for years among us[4]; and
which, I was and am convinced, must be openly met,--not silently ignored
until the mischief becomes unmanageable: met, too, by building up men
in THE TRUTH: above all, by giving Theological instruction to those who
are destined to become Professors of Theological Science, and are about
to undertake the cure of souls.... In this spirit, I asserted the
opposite fundamental verities; and so, would have been content to
dismiss the "Essays and Reviews" from my thoughts for ever.

But in the meantime, the respectability of the authors of that volume
had attracted to their work an increasing share of notice. An able
article in the 'Westminster Review' first aroused public attention. A
still abler in the 'Quarterly' awoke the Church to a sense of the
enormity of the offence which had been committed. It was not that
_danger_ was apprehended. There could be but one opinion as to the
essential impotence of the attack. But the circumstances which aroused
public indignation were twofold. First,--Here was a _conspiracy_ against
the Faith. Seven Critics had _avowedly combined_ "to illustrate the
advantage derivable to the cause of Religious and Moral Truth from a
free handling, in a becoming spirit, of" what they were pleased to
characterize as "subjects peculiarly liable to suffer by the repetition
of conventional language, and from traditional modes of treatment[5]."
They prefixed to their joint labours the expression of a "hope that
their volume would be received as