The Hibbert Lectures

MEMORIAL FOR THE FOUNDATION OF

A HIBBERT LECTURE.

TO THE HIBBERT TRUSTEES :

Gentlemen, - We, the undersigned, beg to draw your attention to the following statement:

From the fact that all the chief divinity schools of this country are still laid under traditional restraint, from which other branches of inquiry have long been emancipated, the discussion of theological questions is habitually affected by ecclesiastical interests and party predilections, and fails to receive the intellectual respect and confidence which are readily accorded to learning and research in any other field. There is no reason why competent knowledge and critical skill, if encouraged to exercise themselves in the disinterested pursuit of truth, should be less fruitful in religious than in social and physical ideas; nor can it be doubted that an audience is ready to welcome any really capable and honest treatment of unsettled problems in theology. The time, we think, is come, when a distinct provision for the free consideration of such problems by scholars qualified to handle them may be expected to yield important results. Notwithstanding the traditional restraints which in 'England have interfered with an unprejudiced treatment of the theory and history of religion, a rich literature has poured in from the liberal schools of Germany and Holland, and has more or less trained and quickened the mind of the present generation, so that there cannot now be wanting qualified laborers in that reorganization of religious thought which is now taking place in our midst. Change of sentiment and feeling cannot be simply imported from abroad: till they pass through the minds of such men they have no local coloring and take no natural growth; and to modify English opinion and institutions there is need of English scholars. That need we think your encouragement can do something to supply. Such institutions as the Bampton Lect

ure at the University of Oxford, and the younger foundation of the Congregational Lecture among one branch of orthodox Nonconformists, have done much to direct the public mind to certain well-defined views of Christianity. We believe that a similar institution might prove of high service in promoting independence of judgment combined with religious reverence by exhibiting clearly from time to time some of the most important results of recent study in the great fields of philosophy, of Biblical criticism, and comparative theology.

We venture, therefore, to ask you to consider the expediency of establishing a "Lecture" under the name of the Hibbert Lecture," or any other designation that may seem appropriate. A course, consisting of not fewer than six lectures, might be delivered every two or three years in London, or in the chief towns of Great Britain in rotation. After delivery, the course should be published under the direction of the managers of the lecture; and thus by degrees the issues of unfettered inquiry would be placed in a compact form before the educated public.

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