CHAPTER II.

Charles James Blomfield-His Birth and Parentage-Early Educacation-Academical Career-Diaconate-Curacy of ChesterfordPresbyterate-Rectory of Quarrington-Rectory of Dunton-Visitation Sermon-Views of the Clerical Office-Hesitating tone respecting Schism-Deep Sense of Ministerial ResponsibilityPresentiment of the coming Conflict-United Benefices of Great and Little Chesterford-Rectory of Tuddenham-Domestic Chaplain to Bishop Howley-Sermon on Canonical Adherence to the Ritual-Importance of the Externals of Religion-Familiarity of Preaching-Mutilation of the Baptismal Office-Rectory of St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate-Archdeaconry of Colchester-Archidiaconal Charge-View of the Archidiaconal Office-Extent of Visitatorial Power-Sense of the Church's Danger-Exhortation to Unity of Spirit-Consecration to the Episcopate-Bishopric of Chester.

C

HARLES JAMES BLOMFIELD was born on

the 29th of May, 1786, at Bury St. Edmund's, where his father kept a school, in which he received the first rudiments of his education. At the age of eight years he was entered in the grammarschool at Bury, the headmaster of which at that time was the Rev. Michael Thomas Becher, Fellow of King's College, Cambridge, under whose able tuition he continued for ten years, and laid the groundwork of that solid and critical scholarship which gained for him early academical distinction, and a lasting reputation in classical literature. In October, 1804, he left the grammarschool of his native town for Trinity College, Cambridge, where, in the next year, he was elected scholar of his

COLLEGE CAREER.--ORDINATION.

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college, and gained Sir William Browne's gold medal for the Latin Ode, on the death of the Duke of Enghien. The year after he gained the same prize for the Greek Ode, on the death of Nelson, and was elected Craven Scholar. In 1808, he took his B.A. degree as Third Wrangler, and First Chancellor's Medallist; and in 1809, he was elected Fellow of Trinity College. His subsequent degrees are—M.A. in 1811; B.D. in 1818; and D.D. in 1820.

At the close of his brilliant academical career, he obtained Holy Orders on his fellowship from the Head of his college, Bishop Mansell of Bristol. After his ordination to the diaconate, he served the curacy of Chesterford, in the diocese of London; and, having taken priest's Orders, he was, in October, 1810, presented by the present Marquis, then Earl, of Bristol to the rectory of Quarrington, Lincolnshire. In December of the following year, Earl Spencer presented him to the rectory of Dunton, in the diocese of Lincoln, which he continued to hold for upwards of five years. Of the light in which, at this early period, he viewed the clerical office, we have an interesting record in a sermon preached by him in June, 1815, at Aylesbury, on the occasion of the visitation of the Bishop of Lincoln, Dr. Tomline, in which, among other topics, he thus urged the necessity of a learned ministry :—

"It is the divine institution of the priesthood and the legal collation of it upon us, which alone can render it, spiritually speaking, an accountable office, and make us debtors to God for the talents entrusted to our keeping. From which truth arise two important considerations. We ought not, on the one hand, to be suspected of selfishness, in endeavouring to establish this point: because, if we succeed in doing so, we place ourselves in a predicament of great labour, difficulty, and danger: of labour, from the multiplicity and magnitude of those duties which an office of this nature must impose upon us; of difficulty, in

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VIEWS OF THE CLERICAL OFFICE.

qualifying ourselves to perform them in an edifying and effectual manner; and of danger, in proportion to the difficulty. On the other hand, it is not to be wondered at, if we lift up our voice against the intrusion of those who call themselves ministers, being such neither by divine institution, nor by legal collation; because, even were we to allow that the responsibleness of this office is not necessarily dependent upon regular ordination to it, yet the extreme danger which must result from misinterpreting important texts of Scripture to simple and unlearned people, places in a strong point of view the temerity of those men who, without any previous qualifications, undertake the exposition of those sacred mysteries which even we, who have been brought up in the 'schools of the prophets,' venture upon with diffidence and fear. For although there can be no doubt but that the Scriptures are a book intended for the comfort and instruction of all Christian people without distinction; and that to debar them from the perusal of it, is to prevent their access to the wellspring of life; although the main doctrines of the Gospel be laid down in so plain and perspicuous a manner that to understand them requires no other qualifications than a sound head and a sincere heart; yet it is no less certain that many parts of the Sacred Volume, which have a peculiar reference to the circumstances of time and place under which they were written, are for that reason necessarily obscure and ambiguous to the unlearned reader, and, of consequence, liable to be perverted to a mischievous sense. Of many passages in the Apostolical Epistles, in particular, no man can reasonably pretend to develop the exact drift and application, who has not previously qualified himself for the task, by obtaining an accurate knowledge of the language in which the originals were written, of the particular objects which the writers had in view, of the circumstances and opinions of those whom they addressed. The methods of acquiring this

LEARNING A NECESSARY QUALIFICATION.

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knowledge it would be presumptuous and useless for me to specify; but an endeavour to acquire it is evidently a most essential part of his duty who undertakes to be an expositor of Scripture; and it is one which demands no trifling expenditure of time and mind; for there is no compendious road in divinity; no extraordinary way, nor short cut to knowledge is now to be trusted; we have no reason to suppose that men in these days grow wise by special inspiration, nor by any other method than that of treading, with the assistance of God's grace, in the beaten paths of reading and meditation."

In these remarks it is evident that the scholar predominates over the churchman; and that the sense which the preacher had, not unnaturally, of the advantages of learning, was, at least, on a par with his appreciation of the Divine commission of the Christian ministry. The question at issue between the Church and dissent does not appear to have been thought out by him with sufficient clearness for him to venture decidedly to affirm the unlawfulness of schism. The same hesitating tone recurs in a sermon preached four months later at the first annual meeting of the Aylesbury District Committee of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, in the formation of which he took an active part. In arguing for the necessity of aids derived from the studies of the learned for the right interpretation of Holy Scripture, he observes:

"To say that the Bible, when put into the hands of the unlearned, requires no comment, nor explanation, is to say that no important passage of Scripture can be misunderstood by the sincere inquirer after truth; and yet all the numberless sects into which the Christian world is divided, if questioned as to the authority on which they ground their contrary doctrines, refer us to the Bible. It is not for us to determine whether the mansion of heaven be a palace with many gates; but of the countless variety of

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VIEWS OF THE CLERICAL OFFICE.

qualifying ourselves to perform them in an edifying and effectual manner; and of danger, in proportion to the difficulty. On the other hand, it is not to be wondered at, if we lift up our voice against the intrusion of those who call themselves ministers, being such neither by divine institution, nor by legal collation; because, even were we to allow that the responsibleness of this office is not necessarily dependent upon regular ordination to it, yet the extreme danger which must result from misinterpreting important texts of Scripture to simple and unlearned people, places in a strong point of view the temerity of those men who, without any previous qualifications, undertake the exposition of those sacred mysteries which even we, who have been brought up in the schools of the prophets,' venture upon with diffidence and fear. For although there can be no doubt but that the Scriptures are a book intended for the comfort and instruction of all Christian people without distinction; and that to debar them from the perusal of it, is to prevent their access to the wellspring of life; although the main doctrines of the Gospel be laid down in so plain and perspicuous a manner that to understand them requires no other qualifications than a sound head and a sincere heart; yet it is no less certain that many parts of the Sacred Volume, which have a peculiar reference to the circumstances of time and place under which they were written, are for that reason necessarily obscure and ambiguous to the unlearned reader, and, of consequence, liable to be perverted to a mischievous sense. Of many passages in the Apostolical Epistles, in particular, no man can reasonably pretend to develop the exact drift and application, who has not previously qualified himself for the task, by obtaining an accurate knowledge of the language in which the originals were written, of the particular objects which the writers had in view, of the circumstances and opinions of those whom they addressed. The methods of acquiring this