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I read that the Reverend J. J. West (1805-1872), a graduate of Jesus College
Cambridge and Vicar of Winchelsea in Sussex from 1831 to 1872, once delivered a
sermon in which he proclaimed that Hell is paved with babies. This is alleged
by Thomas Brandon Brett (1816-1906), a local newspaperman and historian who
knew him. I cannot produce the sermon,
but it would be no more (and no less) than a one-step deduction from a
Calvinist belief in pre-destination, salvation either assured from the
beginning of life or not at all. Neither faith nor works can change the
outcome. Damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. The Reverend West spent a
lifetime preaching that message, both in Winchelsea and as guest preacher in
Anglican churches in London. Its chief drawback is that it conflicts with a
common and everyday sense of fair play.
A contemporary obituary in The Earthen
Vessel and Christian World tells us that “in one [London] church
after another during many years, he preached on the first Tuesday in every
month, to large and admiring crowds, gathered mainly from the congregations of
the hyper-Calvinistic order …. A great number of Mr West’s sermons were printed
in the Penny Pulpit”. A Gospel
press in Montana has helpfully reprinted them in modern paperback along with
sermons preached in Winchelsea where in 1858 the Reverend West stated his
position, “I maintain then the doctrines of Free Grace Salvation, I preach them
as a minister of the gospel, I declare them as an attached servant in the
Church of England. I proclaim salvation to be of and by grace alone, ‘not of
works’”. That summary is prosaic in comparison to his London style of hot gospelling,
“Professors – mere professors – are the greatest enemies of the church.
O yes! Here stands the Word of God! And nothing can alter, nothing can
undermine that word; - ‘My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they
follow Me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish,
neither shall any pluck them out of My hand’. Satan cannot do it; sin
cannot do it; self cannot do it; nothing can do it.”
(Preached at St Barnabas, King Square, 1865).
The Reverend West’s parishioners found his
views harder to tolerate than their pew seats and if not his views then his
habit of being drunk. Thomas Brett alleges the drink problem in the manuscript
history he wrote in retirement and adds, “This clergyman’s eccentricities – to
use a mild term – got him into disfavour with many of his parishioners, and so
disgusted the [prominent] Stileman family at the Friars, as to induce
them to worship at the church of Icklesham. Strange to say, that while Mr. West
was in disfavour of most of the Winchelsea people, he was in high favour with
some of the Hastings townspeople, whose infatuation was such that they almost
regularly walked eleven miles every Sunday to Winchelsea church to hear their
favourite preacher…. Although having an impediment in his speech, he was
otherwise a fluent preacher”.
In
1840 representations in the form of an address were made to the Bishop of
Chichester, and a couple of letters which survive in the archives show one
churchwarden, Samuel Cloud, writing in West’s defence (18th February
1840) and the other warden, David Laurence and responsible for the petition,
renewing the prosecution in terms which emphasise that it is the reverend’s
objectionable doctrines which are at issue (25th March 1840).
The letter I have dated 26th February 1840
is from West to his Bishop, William Otter in Chichester, and clearly just one
instalment from a correspondence destined to run and run. But the archives
won’t turn up more than one further letter from West to Otter dated February 17th
in which he scorns David Laurence “who denies the authenticity of many
parts of the Scriptures” and condemns “Mr Stileman, who has lately returned to
Winchelsea having been many years absent from imbecility of Mind”. Despite this
the Reverend West offers, in confidence, to move to another parish. That never
happened.
*
Transcription
Addressed to: The Lord Bishop of
Chichester Palace Chichester
Datelined: Winchelsea Feby. 26 1840
Docketing note: Revd. J. West Febry 26
1840 Ans [Answered]
My Lord
My letter dated Febr. 22 your Lordship will
perceive has in a great measure anticipated your’s (dated Febry. 24) received
by me this morning: consequently there will be less for me to reply to in this
which I now write to your Lordship.
The two great causes of the dissatisfaction
as set forth in mine of Febr. 22 will remain in the same position whether I
leave the parish or not; consequently – my appointing a curate would not have
the effect your Lordship desires.
I feel sensibly alive to your anxiety for
my respectability – and the spiritual interests of this parish neither of which
can be maintained or upheld by my leaving the place.
As to peace in the parish that has been
unknown since the death of Mr Hollingbery [Drake Holingberry died 1822]. The incumbents since having
been obliged to collect the Tithes on the houses which form a considerable part
of the income of the benefice. [£300 per annum according to an obituary
published in The Earthern Vessel]
It will, as it has ever been, my anxious
desire to seek the peace of the parish – altho’ it is a difficult path.
On Sunday last I faithfully corrected the
mistakes in the liturgy.
Doubtless my Lord your “remonstrance” to
the party addressing you & setting forth the statement of the catechism
& of my readiness to rectify the “mistakes” alluded to in the liturgy &
which I have already done – ought to have the effect of fully satisfying
the parties.
I fully concur with your Lordship that
“enquiries & examination” will at all times cause “more heats than they
allay”.
Feeling, my Lord, as I do that I have fully
answered & satisfied your enquiries as set forth in your first letter,
there is one part of yours, dated Feby. 24 (received this morning) which I
cannot comprehend, namely, that “much remains for discussion &
recrimination”.
I am my Lord Yrs. Faithfully J.J. West
References
West,
The Rev J J The Healing Light of the
Gospel in two volumes (undated, modern American paperback published by the
Old Paths Gospel Press).
Brett,
Thomas Brandon Manuscript History of Hastings and St Leonards, composed
around 1900 and now fully transcribed online at historymap.info
The
Earthen Vessel and Christian Record
was founded in 1845 by Charles Banks (1806 -1886), a Strict and Particular
Baptist preacher and edited by him for over forty years.
Photocopies
of the other letters quoted are held by The Keep, Brighton, a combined archive
for East Sussex, Brighton & Hove and University of Sussex materials. I made the visit.
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