You are now, my dear Friend, in possession of my whole mind on this
point,--one thing only excepted which has weighed with me more than
all the rest, and which I have therefore reserved for my concluding
Letter. This is the impelling principle, or way of thinking, which I
have in most instances noticed in the assertors of what I have
ventured to call Bibliolatry, and which I believe to be the main
ground of its prevalence at this time, and among men whose religious
views are any thing rather than enthusiastic. And I here take occasion
to declare, that my conviction of the danger and injury of this
principle was and is my chief motive for bringing the Doctrine itself
into question;--the main error of which consists in the confounding of
two distinct conceptions, revelation by the Eternal Word, and
actuation of the Holy Spirit. The former indeed is not always or
necessarily united with the latter--the prophecy of Balaam is an
instance of the contrary,--but yet being ordinarily, and only not
always, so united, the term, Inspiration, has acquired a double sense.
First, the term is used in the sense of Information miraculously
communicated by voice or vision; and secondly, where without any
sensible addition or infusion, the writer or speaker uses and applies
his existing gifts of power and knowledge under the predisposing,
aiding, and directing actuation of God's Holy Spirit. Now--between the
first sense, that is, inspired revelation, and the highest degree of
that grace and communion with the Spirit, which the Church under all
circumstances, and every regenerate member of the Church of Christ, is
permitted to hope, and instructed to pray, for--there is a positive
difference of kind,--a chasm, the pretended overleaping of which
constitutes imposture, or betrays insanity. Of the first kind are the
Law and the Prophets, no jot or tittle of which can pass unfulfilled,
and the substance and last interpretation of which passes not away;
for they wrote of Christ, and shadowed out the everlasting Gospel.
But with regard to the second, neither the holy writers--the so called
_Hagiographi_--themselves, nor any fair interpretations of Scripture,
assert any such absolute diversity, or enjoin the belief of any
greater difference of degree, than the experience of the Christian
World, grounded on, and growing with, the comparison of these
Scriptures with other works holden in honour by the Churches, has
established. And _this_ difference I admit; and doubt not that it has
in every generation been rendered evident to as many as read these
Scriptures under the gracious influence of the spirit in which they
were written.
But alas! this is not sufficient; this cannot but be vague and
unsufficing to those, with whom the Christian religion is wholly
objective, to the exclusion of all its correspondent subjective. It
must appear vague, I say, to those whose Christianity, as matter of
belief, is wholly external, and, like the objects of sense, common to
all alike;--altogether historical, an _opus operatum_,--its existing
and present operancy in no respect differing from any other fact of
history, and not at all modified by the supernatural principle in
which it had its origin in time. Divines of this persuasion are
actually, though without their own knowledge, in a state not
dissimilar to that, into which the Latin Church sank deeper and deeper
from the sixth to the fourteenth century; during which time religion
was likewise merely objective and superstitious,--a letter proudly
emblazoned and illuminated, but yet a dead letter that was to be read
by its own outward glories without the light of the Spirit in the mind
of the believer. The consequence was too glaring not to be
anticipated, and, if possible, prevented. Without that spirit in each
true believer, whereby we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of
error in all things appertaining to salvation, the consequence must
be--So many men, so many minds!--And what was the antidote which the
Priests and Rabbis of this purely objective Faith opposed to this
peril?--Why, an objective, outward Infallibility; concerning which,
however, the differences were scarcely less or fewer than those which
it was to heal;--an Infallibility, which, taken literally and
unqualified, became the source of perplexity to the well-disposed, of
unbelief to the wavering, and of scoff and triumph to the common
enemy;--and which was, therefore, to be qualified and limited, and
then it meant so much and so little, that to men of plain
understandings and single hearts it meant nothing at all. It resided
here. No! there. No! but in a third subject. Nay! neither here, nor
there, nor in the third, but in all three conjointly!
But even this failed to satisfy; and what was the final resource,--the
doctrine of those who would not be called a Protestant Church, but in
which doctrine the Fathers of Protestantism in England would have
found little other fault, than that it might be affirmed as truly of
the decisions of any other Bishop as of the Bishop of Rome? The final
resource was to restore what ought never to have been removed--the
correspondent subjective, that is, the assent and confirmation of the
Spirit promised to all true believers, as proved and manifested in the
reception of such decision by the Church Universal in all its rightful
members.
I comprise and conclude the sum of my conviction in this one sentence.
Revealed Religion (and I know of no religion not revealed) is in its
highest contemplation the unity, that is, the identity or
co-inherence, of Subjective and Objective. It is in itself, and
irrelatively, at once inward Life and Truth, and outward Fact and
Luminary. But as all Power manifests itself in the harmony of
correspondent Opposites, each supposing and supporting the other,--so
has religion its objective, or historic and ecclesiastical pole, and
its subjective, or spiritual and individual pole. In the miracles, and
miraculous parts of religion--both in the first communication of divine
truths, and in the promulgation of the truths thus communicated--we
have the union of the two, that is, the subjective and supernatural
displayed objectively--outwardly and phenomenally--_as_ subjective and
supernatural.
Lastly, in the Scriptures, as far as they are not included in the
above as miracles, and in the mind of the believing and regenerate
Reader and Meditater, there is proved to us the reciprocity, or
reciprocation, of the Spirit as subjective and objective, which in
conformity with the Scheme proposed by me, in aid of distinct
conception and easy recollection, I have named the Indifference.[181]
What I mean by this, a familiar acquaintance with the more popular
parts of Luther's Works, especially his Commentaries, and the
delightful volume of his Table Talk, would interpret for me better
than I can do for myself. But I do my best, when I say that no
Christian probationer, who is earnestly working out his salvation, and
experiences the conflict of the spirit with the evil and the infirmity
within him and around him, can find his own state brought before him
and, as it were, antedated, in writings reverend even for their
antiquity and enduring permanence, and far more, and more abundantly,
consecrated by the reverence, love, and grateful testimonies of good
men through the long succession of ages, in every generation, and
under all states of minds and circumstances of fortune,--that no man,
I say, can recognize his own inward experiences in such Writings, and
not find an objectiveness, a confirming and assuring outwardness, and
all the main characters of reality, reflected therefrom on the spirit,
working in himself and in his own thoughts, emotions, and
aspirations--warring against sin, and the motions of sin. The
unsubstantial, insulated Self passes away as a stream; but these are
the shadows and reflections of the Rock of Ages, and of the Tree of
Life that starts forth from its side.
On the other hand, as much of reality, as much of objective truth, as
the Scriptures communicate to the subjective experiences of the
Believer, so much of present life, of living and effective import, do
these experiences give to the letter of these Scriptures. In the one
_the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit_, that we have
received the _spirit of adoption_; in the other our spirit bears
witness to the power of the Word, that it is indeed the Spirit that
proceedeth from God. If in the holy men thus actuated all
imperfection of knowledge, all participation in the mistakes and
limits of their several ages had been excluded, how could these
Writings be or become the history and example, the echo and more
lustrous image of the work and warfare of the sanctifying Principle in
us?--If after all this, and in spite of all this, some captious
litigator should lay hold of a text here or there--St. Paul's _cloak
left at Troas with Carpus_, or a verse from the Canticles, and ask:
"Of what spiritual use is this?"--the answer is ready:--It proves to
us that nothing can be so trifling as not to supply an evil heart with
a pretext for unbelief.
Archbishop Leighton has observed that the Church has its extensive and
intensive states, and that they seldom fall together. Certain it is,
that since kings have been her nursing fathers, and queens her nursing
mothers, our theologians seem to act in the spirit of fear rather than
in that of faith; and too often instead of inquiring after the Truth
in the confidence, that whatever is truth must be fruitful of good to
all who _are in Him that is true_, they seek with vain precautions _to
guard against the possible inferences_ which perverse and distempered
minds may pretend, whose whole Christianity,--do what we will--is and
will remain nothing but a Pretence.
You have now my entire mind on this momentous Question, the grounds on
which it rests, and the motives which induce me to make it known; and
I now conclude by repeating my request--Correct me, or confirm me.