S. A. Tipple.
If Mr. Tipple had been as unselfish as he is modest, and had considered
in anywise what was of consequence to the readers of Fors Clavigera,
as well as of consequence to himself, he would not have left them
without some explanation of his eagerness to disclaim the doctrine
attributed to him, however erroneously, in the passage he refers to. No
words, I beg him to observe, are attributed to him. In quoting actual
expression I always use inverted commas. The passage in question is
the best abstract I could write of a piece of sermon which occupied
some five minutes in delivery, and which I myself heard delivered in
Mr. Tipple's chapel, and not, certainly, by Mr. Tipple's substitute
in 1870, for my father and I had long talk over the passage when we
came out; and my father died in 1864. But I have ever since kept note
of this, now so hastily abjured, utterance, as the most perfect and
clear statement of the great Evangelical doctrine of salvation by
faith only which I ever heard from any English divine. My abstract
of it is more logical than eloquent, but I answer absolutely for its
accuracy, and for the specification of "thieves" and "devourers of
widows' houses" by the preacher: and I am sure that some at least of
the readers of Fors Clavigera will think it of consequence to know how
Mr. Tipple, disclaiming the statement even in this undecorated form,
can reconcile it with his conscience to remain the instructor of a
Protestant congregation.
For my own part, I can only say that I publish his letter with extreme
pleasure; and, recommending him, for the future, to examine more
accurately into the tenets of his substitutes, congratulate him on
his vigorous repudiation of a doctrine which the Church of England
most wisely describes as being "very full of comfort," but which,
she ought farther to have observed, is much more comfortable to rogues
than to honest people.