The life and letters of Benjamin Jowett, M. A., master of Balliol college, Oxford.

Letters, 1846-180o

I53

To A. P. STANLEY.
August, i846... About publishing them1 in your book I scarcely know
what answer to give. It would be pleasant to have them put
with your Sermons and would, perhaps, get them readers, and
might give me some note, good or evil. I have often dreamed
of this, and feel most sincerely that it is truly kind of you
to give me a chance I might never have again of putting
myself 'in oculis hominum.' But, for reasons that do not in the
least degree apply to you, I must, however reluctantly, say No.
I do not ever wish or desire or think it possible that the
clergy should be done away; their institution is 'a supply
to the imperfection of our nature,' and though essentially
imperfect may ever approximate to something better. The
Woods and Hansards must give up sectarianism, keep their
common sense, and get more if they can. A sort of instinct,
it may be hoped, will make them retire from debateable
ground. I think that the position of the clergy is only
melancholy where it is neither speculative nor practical. If
Biblical criticism spreads they will be driven, as many of
them have been by Puseyism, into the practical, and cease
to give such an account of the visitation of Ahab's sins on
his posterity as I heard last Sunday from Mr. Blomfield,
a true younger brother of the Bishop; or such an account
of the internal evidences of religion as he favoured us with
to-day. Really, I never hear a sermon of which it is possible
to conceive that the writer has a serious belief about thingsif you could but cross-examine him he would perjure himself
every other sentence. Morality is, for the sort of men you
speak of, a great light; they must bury themselves in their
parishes and learn humility and drink no more the dregs
of Orthodoxy. If they could get rid of Theology altogether
and learn the New Testament, especially the Gospels, by
heart, it would be well. From the side of Christian charity,
too, they are quite accessible. Politics, Maynooth Grants,
Education questions must with or without them be settled
1 His Theological Essays. Stevenage, Hants, Prebendary of
2 Rev. G. B.Blomfield, Rector of Chester, and Rural Dean.