The Henson Journals

[88]

Tuesday, September 20th, 1927.

Being at Gilmarton, where David Hume was on a visit, Sir David Kinloch made him go to Athelstaneford Church, where I preached for John Howe. When we met before dinner, "What did you mean," says he to me, "by treating John's congregation today with one of Cicero's academics? I did not think that such heathen morality would be passed in East Lothian."

v. Dr Alex. Carlyle Autobiography p. 290

The excellent minister evidently felt flattered at the Atheist's compliment. It was, perhaps, the highest compliment that a cultivated man of the 18th century could pay to a sermon to say that it was "one of Cicero's academics". The reaction against the doctrinal and controversial preaching of the 17th century ran to the length of banishing doctrine almost altogether from the preaching of the 18th. Deism had so exalted what it called "natural religion", of which even Butler would say that Christianity was but the "republication", that the exclusion of distinctly Christian elements from moral teaching seemed even to add to its impressiveness. The idea of sin as a moral enfeeblement and the consequent need of redemption seems absent from the mind of the preacher.

[89]

At length Mr Pitt rose, & with that commanding eloquence in which he excelled, he spoke for half an hour, with an overpowering force of persuasion more than the clear conviction of argument. He was opposed by several speakers, to many of whom he vouchsafed to make an answer, but to James Oswald of Dunnikier, who was a very able man, though not as able a speaker. With all our admiration of Pitt's eloquence, which was surely of the highest order, Robertson and I felt the same sentiment, which was the desire to resist a tyrant, who, like a domineering schoolmaster, kept his boys in order by raising their fears without wasting argument upon them. This haughty manner is necessary, perhaps in every leader of the House of Commons: for when he is civil and condescending, he soon loses his authority, and is trampled upon. Is this common to all political assemblies? or is it only a part of the character of the English in all ordinary political affairs, till they are heated by faction or alarmed by danger, to yield to the statesman who is most assuming?

v. Dr Alexander Carlyle. Autobiography. p. 352

He describes a visit to the House of Commons in 1758.

Does the amiable & conciliatory Baldwin illustrate the truth of this acute Caledonian's speculation?

[90]

The Times contains several letters in reply to the Baptist's onslaught on the Revised Prayer Book. Of these mine is the first and the longest. The following letters from Murray and Emery Barnes supplement it well enough.

Dr Carnegie Simpson, Moderator of the Federal Church of the Evangelical Free churches of England, made an important pronouncement on Prayer Book Revision yesterday. He spoke very fairly, and insisted on some assurances from the Episcopate as a whole that the Revised Book would be enforced.

"Meanwhile, It was for Parliament to see that the nation had such guarantee. A member of Parliament was not only entitled, but bound, to make this a condition of his support of the sanctioning of the Prayer book Measure by Parliament in the name of the nation."

It is, however, difficult to see how the Bishops can give any effective guarantee of this kind?

I walked round the Park with Lionel, and then gave tea to the Archdeacon of Cleveland and his friends who had come to look at the Chapel – a dull set. I tried to start a sermon for the Congress but could not determine what to preach about! In 1868 Dean Church preached a very fine sermon on Christianity and Civilization. He evidently supposed that the situation then was bad enough to suggest the worst fears, that there was nothing worse than Irish Disestablishment in prospect. Now everything seems crumbling. There are no fixed points anywhere.