I employed the compelled and most unwelcome leisure of severe
indisposition in reading _The Confessions of a fair Saint_ in Mr.
Carlyle's recent translation of the _Wilhelm Meister_, which might, I
think, have been better rendered literally _The Confessions of a
Beautiful Soul_.[171] This, acting in conjunction with the concluding
sentences of your Letter, threw my thoughts inward on my own religious
experience, and gave the immediate occasion to the following
Confessions of one, who is neither fair nor saintly, but who--groaning
under a deep sense of infirmity and manifold imperfection--feels the
want, the necessity, of religious support;--who cannot afford to lose
any the smallest buttress, but who not only loves Truth even for
itself, and when it reveals itself aloof from all interest, but who
loves it with an indescribable awe, which too often withdraws the
genial sap of his activity from the columnar trunk, the sheltering
leaves, the bright and fragrant flower, and the foodful or medicinal
fruitage, to the deep root, ramifying in obscurity and labyrinthine
way-winning--
In darkness there to house unknown,
Far underground,
Pierc'd by no sound
Save such as live in Fancy's ear alone.
That listens for the uptorn mandrake's parting groan!
I should, perhaps, be a happier--at all events a more useful--man if
my mind were otherwise constituted. But so it is: and even with regard
to Christianity itself, like certain plants, I creep towards the
light, even though it draw me away from the more nourishing warmth.
Yea, I should do so, even if the light had made its way through a rent
in the wall of the Temple. Glad, indeed, and grateful am I, that not
in the Temple itself, but only in one or two of the side chapels--not
essential to the edifice, and probably not coeval with it--have I
found the light absent, and that the rent in the wall has but admitted
the free light of the Temple itself.
I shall best communicate the state of my faith by taking the creed,
or system of _credenda_, common to all the Fathers of the
Reformation--overlooking, as non-essential, the differences between
the several Reformed Churches--according to the five main classes or
sections into which the aggregate distributes itself to my
apprehension. I have then only to state the effect produced on my mind
by each, of these, or the _quantum_ of recipiency and coincidence in
myself relatively thereto, in order to complete my Confession of
Faith.
I. The Absolute; the innominable Αυτοπατωρ et _Causa Sui_, in whose
transcendant I AM, as the Ground, _is_ whatever _verily_ is:--the
Triune God, by whose Word and Spirit, as the transcendant Cause,
_exists_ whatever _substantially_ exists:--God Almighty--Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost, undivided, unconfounded, co-eternal. This class I
designate by the word, Στασις.
II. The Eternal Possibilities; the actuality of which hath not its
origin in God: _Chaos spirituale:_--Αποστασις.
III. The Creation and Formation of the heaven and earth by the Redemptive
Word:--The Apostasy of Man:--The Redemption of Man:--the Incarnation of
the Word in the Son of Man:--the Crucifixion and Resurrection
of the Son of Man:--the Descent of the Comforter:--Repentance
(μετανοια):--Regeneration:--Faith:--Prayer:--Grace: Communion
with the Spirit: Conflict: Self-abasement: Assurance through the
righteousness of Christ: Spiritual Growth: Love: Discipline:
Perseverance: Hope in death:--Μεταστασις--Αναστασις.
IV. But these offers, gifts, and graces are not for one, or for a
few. They are offered to all. Even when the Gospel is preached to a
single individual, it is offered to him as to one of a great
Household. Not only Man, but, says St. Paul, the whole Creation is
included in the consequences of the Fall--της αποστασεως--; so also
in those of the Change at the Redemption--της μεταστασεως, και της
αναστασεως. We too shall be raised _in the Body_. Christianity is
fact no less than truth. It is spiritual, yet so as to be historical;
and between these two poles there must likewise be a midpoint, in
which the historical and spiritual meet. Christianity must have its
history--a history of itself, and likewise the history of its
introduction, its spread, and its outward-becoming; and, as the
midpoint above-mentioned, a portion of these facts must be miraculous,
that is, _phænomena_ in nature that are beyond nature. Furthermore,
the history of all historical nations must in some sense be its
history;--in other words, all history must be providential, and this a
providence, a preparation, and a looking forward to Christ.
Here, then, we have four out of the five classes. And in all these the
sky of my belief is serene, unclouded by a doubt. Would to God that my
faith, that faith which works on the whole man, confirming and
conforming, were but in just proportion to my belief, to the full
acquiescence of my intellect, and the deep consent of my conscience!
The very difficulties argue the truth of the whole scheme and system
for my understanding, since I see plainly that so must the truth
appear, if it be the truth.
V. But there is a Book, of two parts,--each part consisting of several
books. The first part--(I speak in the character of an uninterested
critic or philologist)--contains the reliques of the literature of the
Hebrew people, while the Hebrew was still the living language. The
second part comprises the writings, and, with one or two
inconsiderable and doubtful exceptions, all the writings of the
followers of Christ within the space of ninety years from the date of
the Resurrection. I do not myself think that any of these writings
were composed as late as A.D. 120; but I wish to preclude all dispute.
This Book I resume, as read, and yet unread,--read and familiar to my
mind in all parts, but which is yet to be perused as a whole;--or
rather, a work, _cujus particulas et sententiolas omnes et singulas
recogniturus sum_, but the component integers of which, and their
conspiration, I have yet to study. I take up this work with the
purpose to read it for the first time as I should read any other
work,--as far at least as I can or dare. For I neither can, nor dare,
throw off a strong and awful prepossession in its favour--certain as I
am that a large part of the light and life, in and by which I see,
love, and embrace the truths and the strengths co-organized into a
living body of faith and knowledge in the four preceding classes, has
been directly or indirectly derived to me from this sacred
volume,--and unable to determine what I do not owe to its influences.
But even on this account, and because it has these inalienable claims
on my reverence and gratitude, I will not leave it in the power of
unbelievers to say, that the Bible is for me only what the Koran is
for the deaf Turk, and the Vedas for the feeble and acquiescent
Hindoo. No; I will retire _up into the mountain_, and hold secret
commune with my Bible above the contagious blastments of prejudice,
and the fog-blight of selfish superstition. _For fear hath torment._
And what though _my_ reason be to the power and splendour of the
Scriptures but as the reflected and secondary shine of the moon
compared with the solar radiance:--yet the sun endures the occasional
co-presence of the unsteady orb, and leaving it visible seems to
sanction the comparison. There is a Light higher than all, even _the
Word that was in the beginning_;--the Light, of which light itself is
but the _shechinah_ and cloudy tabernacle;--the Word that is light for
every man, and life for as many as give heed to it. If between this
Word and the written Letter I shall any where seem to myself to find a
discrepance, I will not conclude that such there actually is; nor on
the other hand will I fall under the condemnation of them that would
_lie for God_, but seek as I may, be thankful for what I have--and
wait.
With such purposes, with such feelings, have I perused the books of
the Old and New Testaments,--each book as a whole, and also as an
integral part. And need I say that I have met every where more or less
copious sources of truth, and power, and purifying impulses;--that I
have found words for my inmost thoughts, songs for my joy, utterances
for my hidden griefs, and pleadings for my shame and my feebleness? In
short whatever _finds_ me, bears witness for itself that it has
proceeded from a Holy Spirit, even from the same Spirit, _which
remaining in itself, yet regenerateth all other powers, and in all
ages entering into holy souls maketh them friends of God, and
prophets_. (Wisd. vii.) And here, perhaps, I might have been content
to rest, if I had not learned that, as a Christian, I cannot,--must
not--stand alone; or if I had not known that more than this was holden
and required by the Fathers of the Reformation, and by the Churches
collectively, since the Council of Nice at latest;--the only
exceptions being that doubtful one of the corrupt Romish Church
implied, though not avowed, in its equalization of the Apocryphal
Books with those of the Hebrew Canon,[172] and the irrelevant one of
the few and obscure Sects who acknowledge no historical Christianity.
This somewhat more, in which Jerome, Augustine, Luther, and Hooker,
were of one and the same judgment, and less than which not one of them
would have tolerated--would it fall within the scope of my present
doubts and objections? I hope it would not. Let only their general
expressions be interpreted by their treatment of the Scriptures in
detail, and I dare confidently trust that it would not. For I can no
more reconcile the Doctrine which startles my belief with the practice
and particular declarations of these great men, than with the
convictions of my own understanding and conscience. At all events--and
I cannot too early or too earnestly guard against any misapprehension
of my meaning and purpose--let it be distinctly understood that my
arguments and objections apply exclusively to the following Doctrine
or Dogma. To the opinions which individual divines have advanced in
lieu of this doctrine, my only objection, as far as I object, is--that
I do not understand them. The precise enunciation of this doctrine I
defer to the commencement of the next Letter. Farewell.
[171] _Bekenntnisse einer schönen Seele_.--H. N. C.
[172] _Si quis--(Esdræ primum et secundum, Tobiam, Judith, Esther,
&c.)--pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit, ... anathema sit._ Conc.
Trid. Decr. Sess. IV.--H. N. C.