The Henson Journals

[94]

Tuesday, November 25th, 1924.

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Caröe went off after breakfast: and I settled down to the Baxter Sermon, but beyond reading through his sermon before Charles II, and counting up the number of times he mentioned hell in it I did nothing effectual. It was an achievement to name Hell no less than 34 times in a single discourse. It was a public recognition of the "Merry Monarch's" personal concern with that locality! Baxter addressed the King and his courtiers in terms which would have suited his Kidderminster congregation, or indeed any congregation. Save for one "purple–patch" well garnished with Latin tags, there is nothing "special" about the sermon. His reference to the case of the Nonconformists is limited to a brief and guarded allusion at the end of it. He could certainly have taken no less than an hour and a half to deliver it, and may well have been longer. Cranmer warned Latimer not to exceed half an hour in preaching to Henry VIII.

I went in to Durham after tea, and examined 5 deacons in Jewel, Hooker, and Butler. They had all read the books except the evangelical Horstead, who is far too eloquent and spiritual to need illumination from such sources! After this function, I returned to Auckland.

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