“S. Wesley.”
Archbishop Sharpe, to whom these three letters were addressed, was born at Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1644. He was educated at Christ College, Cambridge, and for five years was private tutor to the four sons of Sir Heneage Finch, who afterwards became Lord Chancellor. In 1677, Sharpe became rector of St Giles’s, and had among his parishioners the celebrated Richard Baxter, who was a constant hearer of the rector every Sunday morning, and was consulted about his marriage. These two excellent men, notwithstanding their minor differences, lived together on the most friendly terms. In 1681, Sharpe was promoted to the deanery of Norwich. On the accession of King James, he preached so much against Popery, that he excited the royal displeasure, was obliged to leave St Giles’s, and to reside altogether at his deanery. In 1689, he succeeded Tillotson as Dean of Canterbury, and was nominated one of the commissioners for revising the liturgy. In 1691, he was consecrated Archbishop of York, and discharged the duties of his high office with great fidelity until his death, which occurred at Bath in 1714. He preached repeatedly before King William and Queen Mary. Some of these sermons are now before us, and display great ability and earnest piety. He delivered the sermon preached at the coronation of Queen Anne. His favourite studies, in his youthful days, were botany and chemistry. He was chaplain to King Charles and to King James. He was greatly esteemed by King William, and, in the reign of Queen Anne, the greatest attention was always paid to his advices. Dr Sharpe, says Bishop Burnet, was a very pious man, and one of the most popular preachers of the age. Sharpe left behind him seven volumes of sermons.[[149]] He was the grandfather of the celebrated Granville Sharpe, the distinguished philanthropist and the friend of slaves. A remarkable anecdote of the archbishop was inserted by John Wesley in the Arminian Magazine for 1785.
In the midst of all his pecuniary struggles, Samuel Wesley continued to write and to publish books. In 1700, he issued a small volume, entitled, “The Pious Communicant Rightly Prepared; or, A Discourse concerning the Blessed Sacrament: wherein the nature of it is described, our obligation to frequent communion enforced, and directions given for due preparation for it, behaviour at and after it, and profiting by it. With Prayers and Hymns suited to the several parts of that Holy Office. To which is added, A Short Discourse of Baptism. By Samuel Wesley, A.M., Chaplain to the Most Honourable John, Lord Marquis of Normanby, and Rector of Epworth, in the diocese of Lincoln. London: Printed for Charles Harper. 1700.”
This long title almost renders a description of the book unnecessary. The book, however, besides what is described in the title-page, contains as an appendix the “Letter concerning the Religious Societies,” from which quotations have been already made, and altogether consists of two hundred and ninety-three pages 12mo. A few extracts may be useful, as illustrating the writer’s opinions, and his mode of expressing them.
Speaking of the doctrine of transubstantiation, he says:—“It overthrows the very nature of a sacrament, and leaves nothing for an outward sign; it introduces the most monstrous absurdities, which, if granted, would render the Christian religion the most absurd and most unreasonable in the world; it involves the most horrid, as well as most ridiculous consequences, such as that our Saviour did eat His own body, and gave it to His disciples to eat; it makes Christians the worst cannibals to eat their God a thousand times over; and it contradicts the very nature of a body, which cannot be in two places at the same time, much less in earth and in heaven,” (p. 19 and 20.)
On the subject of baptism, he writes:—“In baptism, we are so far regenerate as to be grafted into the body of Christ’s Church, and to partake of its privileges by the operation of His Holy Spirit within us, who will never be wanting to us or forsake us, unless we ourselves put a bar to the divine assistance by confirmed evil habits, and by a wicked life. But since the divine image, which we there recovered, is very often obscured again by the temptations of the world and the devil, and the remains of sin within us, there is need enough for our being renewed again by repentance; nor has God here left us without hope or comfort, but has appointed a remedy even for those who sin after baptism, and that is this other sacrament of the body and blood of the Lord, wherein we renew our covenant with Him, and receive new strength to obey His commands,” (p. 37.)
In another place he writes:—“We say not that regeneration is always completed in baptism, but that it is begun in it; a principle of grace is infused, which we lost by the fall, which shall never be wholly withdrawn, unless we quench God’s Holy Spirit by obstinate habits of wickedness. There are babes as well as strong men in Christ,” (p. 205.)
The same view of baptism was substantially held by his son John. The latter, in his sermon on the New Birth, observes:—“It is certain our Church supposes that all who are baptized in their infancy are, at the same time, born again; and it is allowed that the whole office for the baptism of infants proceeds upon this supposition. Nor is it an objection of any weight against this, that we cannot comprehend how this work can be wrought in infants. For neither can we comprehend how it is wrought in a person of riper years.”[[150]]
It is no part of our task either to justify or condemn these opinions; but, perhaps, the following extract from an article, probably written by Samuel Wesley, and inserted in the Athenian Oracle, (vol. i., p. 457,) may with some find more favour, though there is nothing in it antagonistic to the other opinions of Samuel Wesley already given.
“Baptism is called by the apostle ‘the laver of regeneration,’ and accordingly our Church, not only lawfully, but commendably, uses the word regeneration for baptism; and, in the offices for that sacrament, more than once mentions the child’s being regenerate, which it explains by its being grafted into the body of Christ’s Church, and so admitted into the communion of saints. Children have then a federal holiness as children of believing parents; and, as the first-born among the Jews were dedicate, devoted, or holy in the Lord, so in that sense children of believing parents are holy—in that sense they are regenerate.”