conjectured that he was a negative theologian. But his distinct doctrinal views concerning the way of salvation are to be found in his “Five Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge.” In his Exposition of the Epistles to the Seven Churches, the reader will perceive his decided and increasingly strong sentiments concerning Church-Government. Archbishop Trench’s private relationships are all Huguenot. A descendant of the old Seigneurs de la Tranche, and the best known representative of Bishop Chenevix, he is a nephew of the first Lord Ashtown, also a cousin, and (through his wife, nee the Hon. Frances Mary Trench) a brother-in-law, of the present Lord Ashtown. [Before going to press, I have to add that the Archbishop died on 28th March 1886, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.]
Without attempting a chronological list of the Archbishop’s works, I may be allowed to call attention to their wide circulation. His eight lectures on “English, Past and Present,” originally delivered in King’s College, London, and collected into a volume, have reached a tenth edition, and a cognate manual on “The Study of Words” has attained its seventeenth edition; while there is a fifth edition of a “Select Glossary of English Words used formerly in senses different from the present,” and a seventh edition of “Proverbs and their Lessons.” A sixth edition is announced of his “Hulsean Lectures of 1845 and 1846.” There is a fourteenth edition of his “Notes on the Parables of our Lord,” an eleventh edition of the “Notes on the Miracles of our Lord,” and a tenth edition of the Synonyms of the New Testament.
I am inclined to say that his most eloquent passages are in his second course of Hulsean Lectures, which I have read twice, although I quote only the eloquent title-page of the first edition, “Christ the Desire of all Nations, or the Unconscious Prophecies of Heathendom — being the Hulsean Lectures for the year 1846. By Richard Chenevix Trench, M.A., Vicar of Itchenstoke, Hants, Professor of Divinity, King’s College, London, and Examining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Oxford.” Cambridge, 1846.
As specimens of his thoughts and of his style I give two extracts from the “Notes on the Parables.” The first extract describes the “Hid Treasure,” and the “Pearl of Great Price:”—
“The kingdom of God is not merely a general, it is also an individual and personal, thing. It is not merely a tree overshadowing the earth, or leaven leavening the word, but each man must have it for himself, and make it his own by a distinct act of his own will. He cannot be a Christian without knowing it. He may indeed come under the shadow of this great tree and partake of many blessings of its shelter; he may dwell in a Christendom which has been leavened with the truth, and so in a degree himself share in the universal leavening. But more than this is needed, and more than this, for every elect soul, will find place. There will be a personal appropriation of the benefit, and we have the history of this in these parables . . . Under one or other, as finders either of the pearl or of the hid treasure, may be ranged all who become partakers of the blessings of the Gospel of Christ.
“Of these, there are some who feel that there must be an absolute good for man in the possession of which he shall be blessed and find the satisfaction of all his longings, and who are therefore seeking everywhere, and inquiring for this good. Such are likened to the merchant that has distinctly set before himself the purpose of seeking goodly pearls, and making these his own. Such are the fewer in number, but are likely to prove the noblest servants cf the truth.
“There are others who do not discover that there is an aim and a purpose for man’s life, or a truth for him at all, until the truth as it is in Jesus is revealed to them. Such are compared to the finder of the hid treasure, who stumbled upon it unawares, neither expecting nor looking for it.”
The second extract is from the exposition of the parable of “The Prodigal Son:”— -
