"I am glad that any opportunity for your coming forward as a public speaker has occurred, I mean an opportunity proper for you to embrace, in which you were rather a drawn (though not a pressed) man and not a volunteer. We have had the great pleasure of having dear Robert officiate twice, both in the reading-desk and the pulpit. The apparent, as well as real, simplicity of his whole performance must have impressed every observant and feeling hearer with a very favourable view of his character. His language remarkably simple, much every way in his sermon to esteem and love. It suggested one or two important topics for consideration, which I shall be glad to talk over with you hereafter, as well as with Robert himself. One is, whether he did not fall into what I have often thought an error in the sermons of sound divines, and in those perhaps of Oxonians more than Cantabs—that I mean of addressing their congregations as being all real Christians—children of God, &c.—who needed (to use our Saviour's figure in John xiii.) only to have their feet washed. Whatever may be the right doctrinal opinion as to baptismal regeneration, all really orthodox men will grant, I presume, that as people grow up they may lose that privilege of being children of God which we trust they who were baptised in their infancy did enjoy, and would have reaped the benefit of it had they died before, by the gradual development of their mental powers, they became moral agents capable of responsibility. And if so, should not their particular sins of disposition, temper, or conduct be used rather to convince them of their being in a sinful state, and as therefore requiring the converting grace of God, than as merely wanting a little reformation?"
"November 20, 1828.
"Has Sargent[56] heard of the fresh explosion in the British and Foreign Bible Society? I truly and deeply regret it. It has proceeded from a proposal to print the Septuagint. In the discussion that took place on that topic it was perhaps unwarily said there was no proper standard of the Holy Scriptures. No standard!!!!! Then we have no Bible! You see how a little Christian candour would have prevented this rupture. Oh that they would all remember that the end of the commandment is Love. I fear this is not the test by which in our days Christians are to be ascertained: may we all cultivate in ourselves this blessed principle and pray for it more earnestly. I am quite pleased myself, Robert is delighted, by the appointment to the Professorship (Hebrew) of Pusey—above £1,200 per annum. Pusey had opposition, and is appointed by the Duke of Wellington, solely we suppose on the ground of superior merit."
"February 20, 1829.
"Legh Richmond,[57] though an excellent man, was not a man of refinement or of taste. I cannot deny the justice of your remarks as far as I can fairly allow myself to form a judgment without referring to the book. I entirely concur in your censure of Richmond's commonplace, I had almost termed it profane, way in which he speaks of the Evil Spirit. This falls under the condemnation justly pronounced by Paley against levity in religion.
"When I can spare a little eyesight or time, I feel myself warranted to indulge the pleasure I always have in the exercise of the domestic affections, and in gratifying you (as I hope it is not vanity to think I do) in writing to you at a time when you are in circumstances of more quiet than usual, though I am aware that a man of your age, who is spending his first year of married life with a partner, between whom and himself there was great mutual attachment, grounded on esteem, and a mutual acquaintance with each other's characters and dispositions, can never be so happy as when he is enjoying a tête-à-tête with his bride. By the way, do you keep anything in the nature of a journal? A commonplace book I take it for granted you keep; and speaking of books, let me strongly urge you to keep your accounts regularly, and somewhat at least in the mode in which we keep ours—under different heads. If you have not the plan, tell me and I will send it to you. Its excellence is that it enables you with ease to see how your money goes; and remember we live in days in which a single sovereign given by an individual is often productive of great effects. Where is it that a single drop (stalactite) from a roof, falling into the ocean, is made to bemoan itself on being lost in the abyss of waters, when afterwards it became the seminal principle of the great pearl that constituted the glory of the Great Mogul? And now also, remember the Church Missionary Society is so poor, that it will be compelled to quit some fields whitening to the harvest, unless it can have its funds considerably augmented."
SAMUEL WILBERFORCE, Aged 29.
The next letter refers to the offer of the vicarage of Ribchester, near Preston, in Lancashire, made by the Bishop of Chester to Samuel Wilberforce.