THE

METHODIST QUARTERLY REVIEW.

JULY, 1856.

ART. 1.-JULIUS CHARLES HARE.

[SECOND PAPER.]

1. Guesses at Truth. By Two BROTHERS. First Series. Fifth Edition. Revised. London: 1855.

2. Guesses at Truth. By Two BROTHERS. Second Series. Third Edition. 1855. 3. Sermons preacht in Herstmonceux Church. By JULIUS CHARLES HARE, A. M.

Rector of Herstmonceux, Archdeacon of Lewes, and late Fellow of Trinity College. Cambridge: 2 vols. 1841 and 1847.

4. The Victory of Faith, and other Sermons. By JULIUS CHARLES HARE, &c. Second Edition. 1847.

5. The Mission of the Comforter, and other Sermons, with Notes. By JULIUS CHARLES HARE. Second Edition. Revised. 1850.

6. Essays and Tales. By JOHN STERLING. Collected and edited, with a Memoir of his Life. By J. C. HARE, &c. 2 vols. 1848.

7. The Means of Unity: a Charge. With Notes on the Jerusalem Bishopric, and the Need of an Ecclesiastical Synod. By J. C. HARE, &c.

8. Letter to the Dean of Chichester on the Appointment of Dr. Hampden. Second Edition. With Postscript. By J. C. HARE, &c.

9. The Better Prospects of the Church: a Charge. By J. C. HARE, &c.

10. The Contest with Rome: a Charge delivered in 1851, with Notes; especially in Answer to Dr. Newman's Lectures. By J. C. HARE, &c.

11. Archdeacon Hare's Last Charge. 1855.

12. Two Sermons on the Occasion of the Funeral of Archdeacon Hare. By the Rev. H. O. ELLIOTT, M. A., and the Rev. J. N. SIMPKINSON, M. A. 1855.

IN attempting to give a fair estimate of JULIUS CHARLES HARE as a religious teacher, we have two functions to perform; the former of minor importance, and which need not detain us long; the latter of main moment. First, we must endeavour to characterize the form and style of his pulpit addresses; then we must consider the quality of the theology which constitutes the substance of his teaching. We intimated in our former paper that we do not rate Hare among the most eloquent and powerful of preachers, though he is, unquestionably, among the purest and most gifted of English FOURTH SERIES, VOL. VIII.-21

writers. Many men have failed as preachers, because they were little aware of the necessary distinction between the style proper for the essay or treatise, which is to be read in private by the student, and that which is appropriate to the lecture or sermon, which is to be delivered before a listening congregation. It appears to us that Hare failed mainly because he had an exaggerated idea as to what should be the degree of this distinction. His sermons lack closeness and weight of thought; they are too diffuse in style, and too profuse in illustration. The rein is given too freely to all the caprices of the author's fertile fancy; and, at the same time, there is a want of the dignity and solemnity which, whatever may be the plainness of speech, befit the theme and office of the pulpit. Not that there is anything frivolous; not that the writer is not earnest and serious; yet there is, very commonly, a loose negligé style of too palpably condescending speech, which must have much diminished the preacher's weight and authority. Of course, this will be seen most distinctly and frequently in the "Parish Sermons," prepared for simple country folk; but something of it is also apparent in his sermons preached before the University, which, with all their learning and thoughtfulness, are very diffuse, rather careless in style, and somewhat juvenile in tone. The sort of eulogy which these college sermons have received, certainly does not impress one with the idea that profound and weighty theological thought is extensively in circulation in the English Universities. A part of Hare's fault in this matter is, no doubt, owing to that principle in his philosophy which we have had occasion to note that the imagination, in matters of religion, is to teach its truths, no less than the understanding; and that its culture, no less than that of the heart and mind, is a part of the office of a true, deep, and universal religion. We have no disposition to deny this principle; only we think that Hare, having supposed that it had been lost sight of, was tempted to make too much of it. The freshness and fertility of his fancy, and the poetic impulses of his nature, too, would naturally incline him to indulge and expatiate, where no necessity of argument, no cogency of a controlling purpose, or idea, compelled him, as in his criticisms and in his controversy, to urge on his forward course. Had Hare, indeed, been an orator-had passion ruled his intellect, and filled his heart, and prompted his tongue, or had the grand solemnities of revelation fully mastered and inspired his soul -his fancy would have been made subordinate and subservient. But Hare was not an orator, or a man of passion. The stream of his soul was not a strong river, but a fresh current, flowing, it is true, in a distinct channel, and toward a definite and

well-perceived issue, but loving, nevertheless, to meander, "at its own sweet will," among flowery meads and calm, fruitful prospects. We might, perhaps, not be far wrong in saying that Hare was too much of a poet to be an orator. He himself says, (Guesses, &c., First Series, p. 137,) or rather his brother said, and he adopted the sentiment: "Oratory may be symbolized by a warrior's eye, flashing from under a philosopher's brow. But why a warrior's eye rather than a poet's? Because in oratory the will must predominate." Hare, then, was too much of the poet, too little the man of combined will and passion, to be an orator.

It will not be supposed, from what we have said, that there is not much of eloquence, and more of beauty, in Hare's sermons. Passages of rare beauty abound in them; and not a few may be found of real power and eloquence. Still the texture of his discourses, however brightly coloured, lacks substance. There is not a little also of sameness in the pattern, if we may so speak, of his illustrations; while sometimes his fancies so outrun the natural and the beautiful as to become grotesque.

The following passage would, we should think, be more likely to make his parishioners admire the bright fancy of their minister, than feel the deadly and loathsome nature of that "evil and bitter" thing against which he was wishing to warn them:

"Satan, when he lures people into his prison-house of sin, always tries to make them forget that they are there. He tries, for a while, to make them think that they are in a very pleasant and goodly place. He dazzles their eyes, so that the walls seem to glitter with gold and precious stones; the poisonous plants, which are creeping along the ground, are covered with bright berries and gaudy flowers; and as all the inmates of the prison are beguiled, more or less, by the same delusion, there is no one in the whole company to admonish and warn them where they are."-Ibid., p. 23.

The conceit about to be quoted is worthy of the patristic age, or would, perhaps, suit better still the rhetoric of Roman hagiologists:

"Surely, if we will not even do thus much, we cannot be clusters of the true Vine; we cannot hope that our families will be among those clusters, with which the Vine will adorn itself, when it spreads out its branches through the firmament; and the stars shall drop from their spheres to crown the heads of Christ's saints."-Ibid., p. 382.

Not a few samples of the same sort of fruit might have been gathered with the least possible trouble, from the second volume of these "Parish Sermons," which, as a whole, indeed, is inferior to the first. At the same time, these volumes contain many fine specimens of homely, yet often beautiful practical preaching; and some of the more contemplative discourses, which treat of the ways of Providence, and the blessings and duties of life, have a quiet

power of thought, and a rich yet chaste beauty of illustration, which, in sermon-writing, we scarcely know where else to match. Among these we would particularly direct attention to the sermon on "Harvest Parables," in the second volume.

We alluded at the beginning of this paper to the form as well as the style of Hare's sermons. Those of our readers who are at all acquainted with the modern school of preachers in the English Church, will expect to hear that these sermons have no formal divisions or obvious plan. This is not so insignificant a point as might be supposed. As, in the ages when logical forms and methods ruled in the ascendant, divisions and subdivisions were multiplied, every truth affirmed was traced backward to its cause, and onward to its effect, and every kind was distinguished as to genus and species; so those who decry or slight logic, and who, above all, dislike its application to the science of theology, shun every appearance of division or formal distinction in their discourses. They preach the Gospel "broadly" and generally. They present its facts in a somewhat superficial way; they explain its narratives not too minutely, for this would not accord either with their doctrinal haziness and generality, or with their loose notions as to "inspiration;" they enforce its duties, but they do not preach its doctrines in their strict, mutual harmony, or in their precise adaptation to the condition and wants of man. To do this would involve the need of logical distinctions and deductions, and would bring them, before they were aware, within the forbidden circle of systematic theology. An outline or plan, distinctly stated, would suggest to their hearers, as one principle or position after another came forth to view, or as fact after fact was named, all sorts of questions as to the whence? the how? the why? the wherefore? to attempt to meet which would not agree with the views of those who belong to the "Broad Church," and who glory in a vague, unsystematized theology. Now, though Hare was far more logical and doctrinal, far less vague, and more evangelical, than most others of this school; yet to this school he did belong, as we are about to show forthwith. His sermons, accordingly, though they have generally a more obvious plan, and are more concerned in the statement and discussion of the great ground-truths of theology, and the gracious provisions of the Gospel, than most of those of his fellows, are yet, on the whole, theologically considered, somewhat superficial and unsatisfactory, and systematically avoid everything like express divisions and logical forms. Had this not been the case, they would, probably, have been less diffuse, and much more cogent and effective. After all, there is more in a method than is commonly supposed.

Had the preachers of the seventeenth century been less minute and multifarious in their logical distinctions and divisions, the world would have lost a vast amount of worthless quibbling, wearisome repetition, and irreverent conjecture and conclusion. So now, the absence of logical method from so much modern preaching, serves to hide the vagueness and slightness of its theology, and its deficiency of faith and feeling as to the most fundamental truths of the Gospel.

What was Hare's faith, and the substance of his teaching as to these fundamental truths, we now pass on to inquire. A priori, as we intimated at the commencement of our former article, we should seem to be warranted in coming to the conclusion that he was very far from being right in this matter. We are willing to leave out of account the laudatory way in which he often refers to Maurice, which may be well enough accounted for, without supposing him to be at all agreed with that writer on the points on which the latter is so widely astray, especially when we remember the relationship between the two, and that Maurice had not at all distinctly disclosed his heretical views at the time when Hare made those laudatory references. But, apart from this, Hare's frequent, distinct, emphatic mention of Coleridge, as his master, in regard to the highest aspects not only of philosophy, but of theology, would lead us very naturally and reasonably to infer that he was nearly, if not altogether, as far off from evangelical orthodoxy as that philosopher. We have seen, indeed, that, in reference to philosophy, however Hare might agree with Coleridge in general tone of feeling, in taste and tendency; however much he might admire his intuitive sagacity, his profound penetration, his piercing subtilty of distinction and insight, the moral dignity and purity of his tone as a teacher, his wide compass of inquiry, and his catholic sympathies; however heartily he might welcome his leadership against the materialist and utilitarian philosophies which had been in vogue; yet, in fact, he does not seem to have accepted, to their full extent, the special dogmas of Coleridge's metaphysics. And hence we might be disposed to infer beforehand, that, so far as the theological tenets of Coleridge were particularly dependent upon these dogmas, Hare would, probably, differ from him. On his doctrine of the Logos, for instance, as in some way identified with all men, and as being the light of reason in every man, and on those other subtile, abstruse, mystical, and incomprehensible doctrines, which, if they appeared at all, only just peeped out in his "Aids to Reflection," but were more fully dwelt upon-explained we can scarcely say-in notes and appendices to later works, we should have no right to assume that Hare agreed with Coleridge. Most men, indeed, if they differed