Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 12 - Section II
II. Archbishop of Dublin.
The Archbishop Trench of the present day belongs to the Ashtown line. Frederic, the first Lord Ashtown, was the eldest of seven brothers; the sixth of these was Richard Trench, Esq. (who died 16th April 1860), a barrister, whose wife, Melesina, was the heiress of her grandfather, Richard Chenevix, Bishop of Waterford (see my vol. ii). Richard and Melesina had four sons, of whom the second, Richard Chenevix Trench, was born on 9th September 1807. He graduated at Cambridge, and held benefices in England; he is also D.D. Having earned a brilliant reputation as a scholarly, elegant, and learned author, possessed of uncommon and varied information, he was rewarded with the Deanery of Westminster. And when the advisers of the Crown were in search of a worthy successor to the erudite and versatile Archbishop Whately, their choice rested upon Dean Trench, who was accordingly consecrated Archbishop of Dublin on the 1st of January 1864. In his early manhood, he first attracted attention as a poet, gleaning beautiful thoughts from romantic and oriental sources. He has issued many interesting publications on the English language viewed from every point. As a scholar, his distinction rests chiefly on his work on the Greek Synonyms of the New Testament, and on his Hulsean Lectures. In Biblical literature, his “Notes on the Parables,” and “Notes on the Miracles,” contain a rich apparatus of illustrative materials, compiled partly from the Fathers of the Christian Church. From his selection of synonyms he omitted the principal words which involve doctrinal controversies; and it was 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:”— -
“The prodigal though thus graciously received, with his sin not once mentioned against him, does not the less make the confession which he had meditated when the purpose of returning was first conceived in his heart [‘Father, I have sinned,’ &c.]. And this is well; for though God may forgive, man is not therefore to forget. It is after, and not before, the kiss of reconciliation that this confession is made; for the more the sinner knows and tastes of the love of God, the more he grieves to have outraged that love. . . . The truest and best repentance follows, and does not precede, the sense of forgiveness. Thus repentance will be a lifelong thing, for every new insight into that forgiving love will be as a new reason why the sinner should mourn to have sinned against it. It is a mistake to affirm that men — those, I mean, in whom a real spiritual work is going forward — will lay aside their repentance so soon as they are convinced of the forgiveness of their sins, and that therefore . . . the longer men can be kept in suspense about their forgiveness the better, as thus a deeper foundation of repentance will be laid. This is a preposterous view of the relation in which repentance and forgiveness stand to each other, their true relation being opened up in such passages as Ezekiel xxxvi. 31, and xvi. 60-63. The younger son, albeit with the clearest evidence that his father is pacified towards him, does not the less confess his shame. He does not, indeed, utter all that he had once intended. . . . In his dropping of these words [‘Make me as one of thy hired servants’] — in his willingness to be blessed by his father to the uttermost — there is evidence that the grace already received has not been received in vain.”