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CONFESSIONS 
 
 AN INQUIRING SPIRIT 
 
CONFESSIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 AN INQUIRING SPIRIT 
 
 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE 
 
 EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S MS 
 
 BY HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE ESQ MA 
 
 ALDI 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WILLIAM PICKERING 
 1840 
 
CHISWICK : 
 
 PRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM. 
 

 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The following Letters on the Inspiration of the 
 Scriptures were left by Mr. Coleridge in MS. 
 at his death. The Reader will find in them a 
 key to most of the Biblical criticism scattered 
 throughout the Author's own writings, and an 
 affectionate, pious, and, as the Editor humbly 
 believes, a profoundly wise attempt to place the 
 study of the Written Word on its only sure foun- 
 dation, — a deep sense of God's holiness and 
 truth, and a consequent reverence for that Light 
 — the image of Himself — which He has kindled 
 in every one of His rational creatures. 
 
 Lincoln's Inn, 
 September 22, 1840. 
 
 263845 
 
Being persuaded of nothing more than of this, 
 that whether it be in matter of speculation or 
 of practice, no untruth can possibly avail the 
 patron and defender long, and that things most 
 truly are likewise most behovefully spoken. 
 
 Hooker. 
 
 283845 
 
Any thing will be pretended, rather than 
 admit the necessity of internal evidence, or 
 acknowledge, among the external proofs, the 
 convictions and experiences of Believers, though 
 they should be common to all the faithful in 
 every age of the Church. But in all super- 
 stition there is a heart of unbelief; and, vice 
 versa, where a man's belief is but a superficial 
 acquiescence, credulity is the natural result and 
 accompaniment, if only he be not required to 
 sink into the depths of his being, where the 
 sensual man can no longer draw breath. 
 
Faith subsists in the synthesis of the Reason 
 and the individual Will. By virtue of the 
 latter it must be an energy, and, inasmuch as 
 it relates to the whole moral man, it must be 
 exerted in each and all of his constituents or 
 incidents, faculties and tendencies : — it must be 
 a total, not a partial — a continuous, not a 
 desultory or occasional, — energy. And by virtue 
 of the former, that is, Reason, Faith must be 
 a Light, a form of knowing, a beholding of 
 Truth. In the words of the Evangelist, there- 
 fore, — Faith must be a Light originating in 
 the Logos, or substantial Reason, which is 
 coeternal and one with the Holy Will, and 
 which Light is at the same time the Life of 
 men. Now as Life is here the sum or collective 
 of all moral and spiritual acts, in suffering, 
 doing, and being, so is Faith the source and 
 sum, the energy and principle of the fidelity of 
 Man to God, by the subordination of his human 
 Will, in all provinces of his nature, to his 
 Reason, as the sum of spiritual Truth, repre- 
 senting and manifesting the Will Divine. 
 
THE PENTAD OF OPERATIVE 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Prothesis 
 Christ, the Word. 
 
 _ . Mesothesis, or the 4.4. 
 
 lhesis _ . Antithesis 
 
 Indifference,. 
 
 The Scriptures. The Holy Spirit. The Church. 
 
 Synthesis 
 The Preacher. 
 The Scriptures, the Spirit, and the Church, are 
 co-ordinate; the indispensable conditions and 
 the working causes of the perpetuity, and con- 
 tinued renascence and spiritual life of Christ 
 still militant. The Eternal Word, Christ from 
 everlasting, is the Prothesis, or identity ; — the 
 Scriptures and the Church are the two poles, 
 or Thesis and Antithesis; and the Preacher 
 in direct line under the Spirit, but likewise the 
 point of junction of the Written Word and the. 
 Church, is the Synthesis. 
 
 This is God's Hand in the World. 
 
LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION 
 OF THE SCRIPTURES 
 
Seven Letters to a Friend concerning- the 
 bounds between the right, and the superstitious, 
 use and estimation of the Sacred Canon ; in 
 which the Writer submissively discloses his own 
 private judgment on the following Questions : — 
 
 I. Is it necessary, or expedient, to insist on 
 the belief of the divine origin and authority of 
 all, and every part of, the Canonical Books as 
 the condition, or first principle, of Christian 
 Faith ?— 
 
 II. Or, may not the due appreciation of the 
 Scriptures collectively be more safely relied on 
 as the result and consequence of the belief in 
 Christ; — the gradual increase,— in respect of 
 particular passages — of our spiritual discern- 
 ment of their truth and authority supplying a 
 test and measure of our own growth and pro- 
 gress as individual believers, without the servile 
 fear that prevents or overclouds the free honor 
 which cometh from love ? 1 John iv. 18. 
 
LETTER I. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 I employed the compelled and most unwel- 
 come leisure of severe indisposition in reading 
 The Confessions of a Fair Saint in Mr. Car- 
 lyle's recent translation of the Wilhelm Meister, 
 which might, I think, have been better rendered 
 literally, The Confessions of a Beautiful Soul*. 
 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 ; — 
 
 * Bekenntnisse einer schonen Seele. Ed. 
 
4 LETTER I. . 
 
 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 
 
LETTER I. 5 
 
 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 com- 
 plete my Confession of Faith. 
 
 I. The Absolute ; the innominable AvToird- 
 Typ 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 sub- 
 stantially exists : — God Almighty — Father, Son, 
 and Holy Ghost, undivided, unconfounded, co- 
 eternal. This class I designate by the word, 
 Gravis. 
 
 II. The Eternal Possibilities ; the actuality 
 of which hath not its origin in God:- Chaos 
 spirituale : — "Kiroaramg. 
 
D LETTER I. 
 
 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 Com- 
 forter : — Repentance (/uETavoia) : — Regenera- 
 tion : — Faith : — Prayer : — Grace : Communion 
 with the Spirit: Conflict: Self-abasement: As- 
 surance through the righteousness of Christ: 
 Spiritual Growth: Love: Discipline: — Per- 
 severance: Hope in death: — Merdaraa-ig — 
 'Avdcrraotg. 
 
 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 — rrjg cwroora- 
 {tecjs — ; so also in those of the Change at the 
 Redemption — rrjg jUETaffTdveag, ical rrjg dvaa- 
 rdcreug. 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 mid- 
 point, in which the historical and spiritual 
 
LETTER I. 7 
 
 meet. Christianity must have its history — a 
 history of itself, and likewise the history of its 
 introduction, its spread, and its outward-becom- 
 ing; and, as the midpoint above mentioned, a 
 portion of these facts must be miraculous, that 
 is, phenomena 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 difficul- 
 ties 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 
 
8 LETTER I. 
 
 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 excep- 
 tions, 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 particulars et sententiolas omnes 
 et singulas recogniturus sum, but the com- 
 ponent 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 know- 
 ledge in the four preceding classes, has been 
 directly or indirectly derived to me from this 
 sacred volume, — and unable to determine what 
 
LETTER I. 9 
 
 I do not owe to its influences. But even on 
 this account, and because it has these inalien- 
 able 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 splendor of the Scriptures but as the re- 
 flected and secondary shine of the moon com- 
 pared with the solar radiance; — yet the sun 
 endures the occasional co-presence of the un- 
 steady 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 condemna- 
 
10 LETTER I. 
 
 tion 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 
 regenerateih 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 doubt- 
 ful one of the corrupt Romish Church implied, 
 
LETTER I. 11 
 
 though not avowed, in its equalization of the 
 Apocryphal Books with those of the Hebrew 
 Canon *, 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 con- 
 science. At all events — and I cannot too early 
 or too earnestly guard against any misappre- 
 hension 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 
 
 * Si quis—(Esdr<z primum et secundum, Tobiam, Ju- 
 dith, Esther, tyc.) — pro sacris et canonicis non susceperit, 
 * * * anathema sit. Cone. Trid. Deer. Sess. iv. Ed. 
 
12 LETTER I. 
 
 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 
 enuntiation of this doctrine I defer to the com- 
 mencement of the next Letter. 
 
 Farewell. 
 
LETTER II. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 In my'last Letter I said that in the Bible there 
 is more that JZnds me than I have experienced 
 in all other books put together ; that the words 
 of the Bible find me at greater depths of my 
 being ; and that whatever finds me brings with 
 it an irresistible evidence of its having pro- 
 ceeded from the Holy Spirit. But the Doctrine 
 in question requires me to believe, that not only 
 what finds me, but that all that exists in the 
 sacred volume, and which I am bound to find 
 therein, was — not alone inspired by, that is, 
 composed by men under the actuating influence 
 of, the Holy Spirit, but likewise — dictated by 
 an Infallible Intelligence; — that the writers, 
 each and all, were divinely informed as well as 
 inspired. Now here all evasion, all excuse, is 
 cut off. An Infallible Intelligence extends to 
 
14 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 all things, physical no less than spiritual. It 
 may convey the truth in any one of the three 
 possible languages, — that of Sense, as objects 
 appear to the beholder on this earth ; — or that 
 of Science, which supposes the beholder placed 
 in the centre ; — or that of Philosophy, which 
 resolves both into a supersensual reality. But 
 whichever be chosen — and it is obvious that 
 the incompatibility exists only between the first 
 and second, both of them being indifferent and 
 of equal value to the third — it must be employed 
 consistently ; for an infallible Intelligence must 
 intend to be intelligible, and not to deceive. 
 And, moreover, whichever of these three lan- 
 guages be chosen, it must be translatable into 
 Truth. For this is the very essence of the 
 Doctrine, that one and the same Intelligence is 
 speaking in the unity of a Person ; which unity 
 is no more broken by the diversity of the pipes 
 through which it makes itself audible, than is a 
 tune by the different instruments on which it is 
 played by a consummate musician, equally per- 
 fect in all. One instrument may be more capa- 
 cious than another, but as far as its compass 
 extends, and in what it sounds forth, it will be 
 true to the conception of the master. I can 
 conceive no softenings here which would not 
 
LETTER II. 15 
 
 nullify the Doctrine, and convert it to a cloud 
 for each man's fancy to shift and shape at will. 
 And this Doctrine, I confess, plants the vine- 
 yard of the Word with thorns for me, and 
 places snares in its pathways. These may be 
 delusions of an evil spirit ; but ere I so harshly 
 question the seeming angel of light — my reason, 
 I mean, and moral sense in conjunction with 
 my clearest knowledge — I must inquire on what 
 authority this Doctrine rests. And what other 
 authority dares a truly catholic Christian admit 
 as coercive in the final decision, but the decla- 
 rations of the Book itself, — though I should 
 not, without struggles and a trembling reluc- 
 tance, gainsay even a universal tradition ? 
 
 I return to the Book. With a full persuasion 
 of soul respecting all the articles of the Christian 
 Faith, as contained in the first four Classes, 
 I receive willingly also the truth of the history, 
 namely, that the Word of the Lord did come to 
 Samuel, to Isaiah, to others ; — and that the 
 words which gave utterance to the same are 
 faithfully recorded. But though the origin of 
 the words, even as of the miraculous acts, be 
 supernatural — yet the former once uttered — the 
 latter once having taken their place among the 
 phenomena of the senses, the faithful recording 
 
16 LETTER II. 
 
 of the same does not of itself imply, or seem to 
 require, any supernatural working, other than 
 as all truth and goodness are such. In the books 
 of Moses, and once or twice in the prophecy of 
 Jeremiah, I find it indeed asserted that not only 
 the words were given, but the recording of the 
 same enjoined by the special command of God, 
 and doubtless executed under the special guid- 
 ance of the Divine Spirit. As to all such 
 passages, therefore, there can be no dispute; 
 and all others in which the words are by the 
 sacred historian declared to have been the Word 
 of the Lord supernaturally communicated, I 
 receive as such with a degree of confidence pro- 
 portioned to the confidence required of me by 
 the writer himself, and to the claims he himself 
 makes on my belief. 
 
 Let us, therefore, remove all such passages, 
 and take each Book by itself ; and I repeat that 
 I believe the writer in whatever he himself 
 relates of his own authority, and of its origin. 
 But I cannot find any such claim, as the Doc- 
 trine in question supposes, made by these 
 writers, explicitly or by implication. On the 
 contrary, they refer to other documents, and in 
 all points express themselves as sober minded 
 and veracious writers under ordinary circum- 
 
LETTER II. 17 
 
 stances are known to do. But, perhaps, they 
 bear testimony, the successor to his predecessor ? 
 < — Or some one of the number has left it on 
 record, that by especial inspiration he was com- 
 manded to declare the plenary inspiration of all 
 the rest? — The passages, which can without 
 violence be appealed to as substantiating the 
 latter position, are so few, and these so inci- 
 dental*, — the conclusion drawn from them in- 
 volving likewise so obviously a petitio principii, 
 namely, the supernatural dictation, word by 
 word, of the book in which the question is 
 found ; (for until this is established, the utmost 
 that such a text can prove, is the current belief 
 of the writer's age and country concerning the 
 character of the books, then called The Scrip- 
 tures ;) — that it cannot but seem strange, and 
 assuredly is against all analogy of Gospel Reve- 
 lation, that such a Doctrine — which, if true, 
 must be an article of faith, and a most important, 
 yea, essential article of faith, — should be left 
 
 * With only one seeming exception, the texts in 
 question refer to the Old Testament alone. That ex- 
 ception is 2 Peter iii. 16. The word Xonrctg (ypa^ac) 
 is, perhaps, not necessarily so to be interpreted; and 
 this very text formed one of the objections to the Apos- 
 tolic antiquity of the Epistle itself. 
 D 
 
18 LETTER II. 
 
 thus faintly, thus obscurely, and, if I may so 
 say, obitaneously, declared and enjoined. The 
 time of the formation and closing of the Canon 
 unknown ; — the selectors and compilers un- 
 known, or recorded by known fabulists ; — and 
 (more perplexing still,) the belief of the Jewish 
 Church — the belief, I mean, common to the 
 Jews of Palestine and their more cultivated 
 brethren in Alexandria, (no reprehension of 
 which is to be found in the New Testament)^- 
 concerning the nature and import of the Oeoir- 
 vevotLcl attributed to the precious remains of 
 their Temple Library ; — these circumstances 
 are such, especially the last, as in effect to 
 evacuate the Tenet, of which I am speaking, of 
 the only meaning in which it practically means 
 any thing at all, tangible, stedfast, or obligatory. 
 In infallibility there are no degrees. The power 
 of the High and Holy One is one and the same, 
 whether the sphere, which it fills, be larger or 
 smaller ; — the area traversed by a comet, or the 
 oracle of the house, the holy place beneath the 
 wings of the Cherubim ; — the Pentateuch of the 
 Legislator, who drew near to the thick dark- 
 ness where God was, and who spake in the 
 cloud whence the thunderings and lightnings 
 came, and whom God answered by a voice ; — or 
 
LETTER II. 19 
 
 but a Letter of thirteen verses from the affec- 
 tionate Elder to the elect lady and her child- 
 ren, whom he loved in the truth. But at no 
 period was this the judgment of the Jewish 
 Church respecting all the canonical books. To 
 Moses alone — to Moses in the recording no 
 less than in the receiving of the Law — and to 
 all and every part of the five books, called the 
 Books of Moses, the Jewish Doctors of the 
 generation before, and coeval with, the Apostles 
 assigned that unmodified and absolute theo- 
 pneusty, which our divines, in words at least, 
 attribute to the Canon collectively. In fact it 
 was from the Jewish Rabbis, — who, in oppo- 
 sition to the Christian scheme, contended for a 
 perfection in the Revelation by Moses, which 
 neither required nor endured any addition, and 
 who strained their fancies in expressing the 
 transcendancy of the books of Moses in aid of 
 their opinion, — that the founders of the Doc- 
 trine borrowed their notions and phrases 
 respecting the Bible throughout. Remove the 
 metaphorical drapery from the doctrine of the 
 Cabbalists, and it will be found to contain the 
 only intelligible and consistent idea of that 
 plenary inspiration, which later divines extend 
 to all the canonical books ; as thus : — " The 
 
20 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 Pentateuch is but one Word, even the Word of 
 God; and the letters and articulate sounds, 
 by which this Word is communicated to our 
 human apprehensions, are likewise divinely 
 communicated." 
 
 Now, for ' Pentateuch ' substitute ' Old and 
 New Testament,' and then I say that this is the 
 doctrine which I reject as superstitious and 
 unscriptural. And yet, as long as the concep- 
 tions of the Revealing Word and the Inspiring 
 Spirit are identified and confounded, I assert 
 that whatever says less than this, says little 
 more than nothing. For how can absolute 
 infallibility be blended with fallibility ? Where 
 is the infallible criterion? How can infallible 
 truth be infallibly conveyed in defective and 
 fallible expressions ? The Jewish teachers con- 
 fined this miraculous character to the Penta- 
 teuch. Between the Mosaic and the Prophetic 
 inspiration they asserted such a difference as 
 amounts to a diversity; and between both the 
 one and the other, and the remaining books 
 comprised under the title of Hagiographa, the 
 interval was still wider, and the inferiority in 
 kind, and not only in degree, was unequivocally 
 expressed. If we take into account the habit, 
 universal with the Hebrew Doctors, of referring 
 
LETTER II. 21 
 
 all excellent or extraordinary things to the 
 great First Cause, without mention of the 
 proximate and instrumental causes, — a striking 
 illustration of which may be obtained by com- 
 paring the narratives of the same event in the 
 Psalms and in the Historical Books ; — and if 
 we further reflect that the distinction of the 
 Providential and the Miraculous did not enter 
 into their forms of thinking, — at all events not 
 into their mode of conveying their thoughts, — 
 the language of the Jews respecting the Hagio- 
 graphi will be found to differ little, if at all, 
 from that of religious persons among ourselves, 
 when speaking of an author abounding in gifts, 
 stirred up by the Holy Spirit, writing under the 
 influence of special grace, and the like. 
 
 But it forms no part of my present purpose 
 to discuss the point historically, or to speculate 
 on the formation of either Canon. Rather, such 
 inquiries are altogether alien from the great 
 object of my pursuits and studies, which is, to 
 convince myself and others, that the Bible and 
 Christianity are their own sufficient evidence. 
 But it concerns both my character and my 
 peace of mind to satisfy unprejudiced judges, 
 that if my present convictions should in all 
 other respects be found consistent with the faith 
 
22 LETTER II. 
 
 and feelings of a Christian, — and if in many 
 and those important points they tend to secure 
 that faith and to deepen those feelings — the 
 words of the Apostle *, rightly interpreted, do 
 not require their condemnation. Enough, if 
 what has been stated above respecting the 
 general doctrine of the Hebrew Masters, under 
 whom the Apostle was bred, shall remove any 
 misconceptions that might prevent the right 
 interpretation of his words. Farewell. 
 
 * 2 Tim. iii. 16. 
 
LETTER III. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 Having in the former two Letters defined the 
 doctrine which I reject, I am now to communi- 
 cate the views that I would propose to substitute 
 in its place. 
 
 Before, however, I attempt to lay down on 
 the theological chart the road-place, to which 
 my bark has drifted, and to mark the spot and 
 circumscribe the space, within which I swing at 
 anchor, let me, first, thank you for, and then 
 attempt to answer, the objections, — or at least 
 the questions, — which you have urged upon 
 me. 
 
 " The present Bible is the Canon, to which 
 Christ and the Apostles referred ?" 
 
 Doubtless. 
 
 " And in terms which a Christian must 
 tremble to tamper with ?" 
 
 Yea. The expressions are as direct as strong ; 
 
24 LETTER III. 
 
 and a true believer will neither attempt to divert 
 or dilute their strength. 
 
 " The doctrine which is considered as the 
 orthodox view seems the obvious and most 
 natural interpretation of the texts in question ?" 
 
 Yea, and Nay. To those whose minds are 
 prepossessed by the Doctrine itself, — who from 
 earliest childhood have always meant this doc- 
 trine by the very word, Bible, — the doctrine 
 being but its exposition and paraphrase — Yea. 
 In such minds the words of our Lord and the 
 declarations of St. Paul can awaken no other 
 sense. To those on the other hand, who find 
 the doctrine senseless and self-confuting, and 
 who take up the Bible as they do other books, 
 and apply to it the same rules of interpretation, 
 —Nay. 
 
 And, lastly, he who, like myself, recog- 
 nises in neither of the two the state of his 
 own mind, — who cannot rest in the former, and 
 feels, or fears, a presumptuous spirit in the 
 negative dogmatism of the latter, — he has his 
 answer to seek. But so far I dare hazard a 
 reply to the question, — In what other sense can 
 the words be interpreted ? — beseeching you, 
 however, to take what I am about to offer but 
 as an attempt to delineate an arc of oscillation, — 
 
LETTER III. 25 
 
 that the eulogy of St. Paul is in no wise contra- 
 vened by the opinion, to which I incline, who 
 fully believe the Old Testament collectively, 
 both in the composition and in its preservation, 
 a great and precious gift of Providence ; — who 
 find in it all that the Apostle describes, and who 
 more than believe that all which the Apostle 
 spoke of was of divine inspiration, and a blessing 
 intended for as many as are in communion with 
 the Spirit through all ages. And I freely con- 
 fess that my whole heart would turn away with 
 an angry impatience from the cold and captious 
 mortal, who, the moment I had been pouring 
 out the love and gladness of my soul — while 
 book after book, Law, and Truth, and Example, 
 Oracle and lovely Hymn, and choral Song of 
 ten thousand thousands, and accepted Prayers 
 of Saints and Prophets, sent back, as it were, 
 from Heaven, like doves, to be let loose again 
 with a new freight of spiritual joys and griefs 
 and necessities, were passing across my memory, 
 — at the first pause of my voice, and whilst my 
 countenance was still speaking — should ask me, 
 whether I was thinking of the Book of Esther, 
 or meant particularly to include the first six 
 chapters of Daniel, or verses 6 — 20 of the 
 109th Psalm, or the last verse of the 137th 
 
26 LETTER III. 
 
 Psalm ! Would any conclusion of this sort be 
 drawn in any other analogous case ? In the 
 course of my Lectures on Dramatic Poetry I in 
 half a score instances referred my auditors to 
 the precious volume before me — Shakspearerr- 
 and spoke enthusiastically, both in general and 
 with detail of particular beauties, of the plays of 
 Shakspeare as all in their kinds, and in relation 
 to the purposes of the writer, excellent. Would 
 it have been fair, or according to the common 
 usage and understanding of men, to have in- 
 ferred an intention on my part to decide the 
 question respecting Titus Andronicus, or the 
 larger portion of the three parts of Henry VI. ? 
 Would not every genial mind understand by 
 Shakspeare that unity or total impression com- 
 prising, and resulting from, the thousandfold 
 several and particular emotions of delight, 
 admiration, gratitude excited by his works? 
 But if it be answered, — 'Aye! but we must 
 not interpret St. Paul as we may and should 
 interpret any other honest and intelligent writer 
 or speaker,' — then, I say, this is the very petitio 
 principii of which I complain. 
 
 Still less do the words of our Lord* apply 
 
 * John v. 39. 
 
LETTER III. 27 
 
 against my view. Have I not declared — do I 
 not begin by declaring — that whatever is re- 
 ferred by the sacred Penman to a direct com- 
 munication from God, and wherever it is re- 
 corded that the Subject of the history had 
 asserted himself to have received this or that 
 command, this or that information or assurance, 
 from a superhuman Intelligence, or where the 
 writer in his own person, and in the character 
 of an historian, relates that the Word of the 
 Lord came unto priest, prophet, chieftain, or 
 other individual — have I not declared that I 
 receive the same with full belief, and admit its 
 inappellable authority? Who more convinced 
 than I am — who more anxious to impress that 
 conviction on the minds of others — that the 
 Law and the Prophets speak throughout of 
 Christ ? — That all the intermediate applications 
 and realizations of the words are but types and 
 repetitions — translations, as it were, from the 
 language of letters and articulate sounds into 
 the language of events and symbolical per- 
 sons? 
 
 And here again let me recur to the aid of 
 analogy. Suppose a Life of Sir Thomas More 
 by his son in law, or a Life of Lord Bacon by 
 his chaplain ; that a part of the records of the 
 
28 LETTER III. 
 
 Court of Chancery belonging to these periods 
 were lost ; that in Roper's or in Rawley's bio- 
 graphical work there were preserved a series of 
 dicta and judgments attributed to these illus- 
 trious Chancellors, many and important speci- 
 mens of their table discourses, with large 
 extracts from works written by them, and from 
 some that are no longer extant. Let it be 
 supposed, too, that there are no grounds, in- 
 ternal or external, to doubt either the moral, 
 intellectual, or circumstantial competence of the 
 biographers. Suppose, moreover, that wherever 
 the opportunity existed of collating their docu- 
 ments and quotations with the records and 
 works still preserved, the former were found 
 substantially correct and faithful, the few dif- 
 ferences in no wise altering or disturbing the 
 spirit and purpose of the paragraphs in which 
 they were found, and that of what was not 
 collatable, and to which no test ah extra could 
 be applied, the far larger part bore witness in 
 itself of the same spirit and origin ; and that not 
 only by its characteristic features, but by its 
 surpassing excellence, it rendered the chances 
 of its having had any other author than the 
 giant-mind, to whom the biographer ascribes it, 
 small indeed ! Now, from the nature and 
 
LETTER III. 29 
 
 objects of my pursuits, I have, we will suppose, 
 frequent occasion to refer to one or other of 
 these works ; for example, to Rawley's Dicta et 
 Facta Francisci de Verulam. At one time 
 I might refer to the work in some such words 
 as, — " Remember what Francis of Verulam said 
 or judged ;" or, — " If you believe not me, yet 
 believe Lord Bacon." At another time I might 
 take the running title of the volume, and at 
 another, the name of the biographer ; — " Turn 
 to your Rawley ! He will set you right ;" or, — 
 " There you will find a depth, which no research 
 will ever exhaust ;" or whatever other strong 
 expression my sense of Bacon's greatness and of 
 the intrinsic worth and the value of the proofs 
 and specimens of that greatness, contained and 
 preserved in that volume, would excite and 
 justify. But let my expressions be as vivid and 
 unqualified as the most sanguine temperament 
 ever inspired, would any man of sense conclude 
 from them that I meant — and meant to make 
 others believe — that not only each and all of 
 these anecdotes, adages, decisions, extracts, in- 
 cidents had been dictated, word by word, by 
 Lord Bacon ; and that all Rawley's own ob- 
 servations and inferences, all the connectives 
 and disjunctives, all the recollections of time, 
 
30 LETTER III. 
 
 place, and circumstance, together with the order 
 and succession of the narrative, were in like 
 manner dictated and revised by the spirit of the 
 deceased Chancellor? The answer will be — 
 must be ; — No man in his senses ! " No man 
 in his senses — in this instance ; but in that of 
 the Bible it is quite otherwise ;— for (I take it 
 as an admitted point that) it — is quite other- 
 wise I 
 
 And here I renounce any advantage I might 
 obtain for my argument by restricting the appli- 
 cation of our Lord's and the Apostle's words to 
 the Hebrew Canon. I admit the justice — I have 
 long felt the full force — of the remark — " We 
 have all that the occasion allowed." And if the 
 same awful authority does not apply so directly 
 to the Evangelical and Apostolical writings as 
 to the Hebrew Canon, yet the analogy of faith 
 justifies the transfer. If the doctrine be less 
 decisively Scriptural in its application to the 
 New Testament or the Christian Canon, the 
 temptation to doubt it is likewise less. So at 
 least we are led to infer ; since in point of fact 
 it is the apparent or imagined contrast, the 
 diversity of spirit which sundry individuals have 
 believed themselves to find in the Old Testa- 
 ment and in the Gospel, that has given occasion 
 
LETTER III. 31 
 
 to the doubt ; — and, in the heart of thousands 
 who yield a faith of acquiescence to the con- 
 trary, and find rest in their humility, — supplies 
 fuel to a fearful wish that it were permitted to 
 make a distinction. 
 
 But, lastly, you object, that — even granting 
 that no coercive, positive, reasons for the belief 
 — no direct and not inferred assertions, — of the 
 plenary inspiration of the Old and New Testa- 
 ment, in the generally received import of the 
 term, could be adduced, yet — in behalf of a 
 doctrine so catholic, and during so long a suc- 
 cession of ages affirmed and acted on by Jew 
 and Christian, Greek, Romish, and Protestant, 
 you need no other answer than ; — " Tell me 
 first, why it should not be received ! Why 
 should I not believe the Scriptures throughout 
 dictated, in word and thought, by an infallible 
 Intelligence?" — I admit the fairness of the 
 retort ; and eagerly and earnestly do I answer : 
 For every reason that makes me prize and 
 revere these Scriptures ; — prize them, love 
 them, revere them, beyond all other books ! 
 Why should I not ? Because the Doctrine in 
 question petrifies at once the whole body of 
 Holy Writ with all its harmonies and symme- 
 trical gradations, — the flexile and the rigid, — 
 
32 LETTER III. 
 
 the supporting hard and the clothing soft, — the 
 blood which is the life, — the intelligencing 
 nerves, and the rudely woven, but soft and 
 springy, cellular substance, in which all are 
 embedded and lightly bound together. This 
 breathing organism, this glorious panharmo- 
 nicon, which I had seen stand on its feet as a 
 man, and with a man's voice given to it, the 
 Doctrine in question turns at once into a colossal 
 Memnon's head, a hollow passage for a voice, 
 a voice that mocks the voices of many men, and 
 speaks in their names, and yet is but one voice, 
 and the same ; — and no man uttered it, and 
 never in a human heart was it conceived. Why 
 should I not ? — Because the Doctrine evacuates 
 of all sense and efficacy the sure and constant 
 tradition, that all the several books bound up 
 together in our precious family Bibles were 
 composed in different and widely distant ages, 
 under the greatest diversity of circumstances, 
 and degrees of light and information, and yet 
 that the composers, whether as uttering or as 
 recording what was uttered and what was done, 
 were all actuated by a pure and holy Spirit, one 
 and the same — (for is there any spirit pure 
 and holy, and yet not proceeding from God — 
 and yet not proceeding in and with the Holy 
 
LETTER III. 33 
 
 Spirit?) — one Spirit, working diversly*, now 
 awakening strength, and now glorifying itself in 
 weakness, now giving power and direction to 
 knowledge, and now taking away the sting from 
 error! Ere the summer and the months of 
 ripening had arrived for the heart of the race ; 
 while the whole sap of the tree was crude, and 
 each and every fruit lived in the harsh and 
 bitter principle ; even then this Spirit withdrew 
 its chosen ministers from the false and guilt- 
 making centre of Self. It converted the wrath 
 into a form and an organ of love, and on the 
 passing storm-cloud impressed the fair rainbow 
 of promise to all generations. Put the lust of 
 Self in the forked lightning, and would it not 
 be a Spirit of Moloch ? But God maketh the 
 lightnings his ministers, fire and hail, vapors 
 and stormy winds fulfilling his word. 
 
 Curse ye Meroz, said the angel of the 
 Lord; curse ye bitterly the inhabitants there- 
 
 * I use the adverb diversly from the adjective divers 
 in order to distinguish the Scriptural and Pauline sense 
 of the word — the sense in which I here use it — from the 
 logical usage of the term diversely from diverse, that is, 
 different in kind, heterogeneous. The same Spirit may- 
 act and impel diversly, hut, being a good Spirit, it cannot 
 act diversely. 
 
34 LETTER III. 
 
 of— sang Deborah. Was it that she called to 
 mind any personal wrongs — rapine or insult — 
 that she or the house of Lapidoth had received 
 from Jabin or Sisera ? No ; she had dwelt 
 under her palm tree in the depth of the moun- 
 tain. But she was a mother in Israel ; and 
 with a mother's heart, and with the vehemency 
 of a mother's and a patriot's love, she had shot 
 the light of love from her eyes, and poured the 
 blessings of love from her lips, on the people 
 that had jeoparded their lives unto the death 
 against the oppressors ; and the bitterness, 
 awakened and borne aloft by the same love, she 
 precipitated in curses on the selfish and coward 
 recreants who came not to the help of the Lord, 
 to the help of the Lord, against the mighty. 
 As long as I have the image of Deborah before 
 my eyes, and while I throw myself back into 
 the age, country, circumstances, of this Hebrew 
 Bonduca in the not yet tamed chaos of the 
 spiritual creation ; — as long as I contemplate 
 the impassioned, high-souled, heroic woman in 
 all the prominence and individuality of will 
 and character, — I feel as if I were among the 
 first ferments of the great affections — the pro- 
 plastic waves of the microcosmic chaos, swelling 
 up against — and yet towards — the outspread 
 
LETTER III. 35 
 
 wings of the Dove that lies brooding on the 
 troubled waters. So long all is well, — all 
 replete with instruction and example. In the 
 fierce and inordinate I am made to know and 
 be grateful for the clearer and purer radiance 
 which shines on a Christian's paths, neither 
 blunted by the preparatory veil, nor crimsoned 
 in its struggle through the all-enwrapping mist 
 of the world's ignorance: whilst in the self- 
 oblivion of these heroes of the Old Testament, 
 their elevation above all low and individual 
 interests, — above all, in the entire and vehe- 
 ment devotion of their total being to the service 
 of their divine Master, I find a lesson of humi- 
 lity, a ground of humiliation, and a shaming, 
 yet rousing, example of faith and fealty. But 
 let me once be persuaded that all these heart- 
 awakening utterances of human hearts — of 
 men of like faculties and passions with myself, 
 mourning, rejoicing, suffering, triumphing — 
 are but as a Divina Commedia of a super- 
 human — O bear with me, if I say — Ventrilo- 
 quist ; — that the royal Harper, to whom I have 
 so often submitted myself as a many -stringed 
 instrument for his fire-tipt fingers to traverse, 
 while every several nerve of emotion, passion, 
 thought, that thrids the flesh-and-blood of our 
 
36 LETTER III. 
 
 common humanity, responded to the touch, — 
 that this sweet Psalmist of Israel was himself 
 as mere an instrument as his harp, an auto- 
 maton poet, mourner, and supplicant; — all is 
 gone, — all sympathy, at least, and all example. 
 I listen in awe and fear, but likewise in per- 
 plexity and confusion of spirit. 
 
 Yet one other instance, and let this be the 
 crucial test of the Doctrine. Say that the Book 
 of Job throughout was dictated by an infallible 
 Intelligence. Then reperuse the book, and still, 
 as you proceed, try to apply the tenet : try if 
 you can even attach any sense or semblance of 
 meaning to the speeches which you are reading. 
 What ! were the hollow truisms, the unsunicing 
 half-truths, the false assumptions and malignant 
 insinuations of the supercilious bigots, who cor- 
 ruptly defended the truth: — were the impres- 
 sive facts, the piercing outcries, the pathetic 
 appeals, and the close and powerful reasoning 
 with which the poor sufferer — smarting at once 
 from his wounds, and from the oil of vitriol 
 which the orthodox liars for God were drop- 
 ping into them — impatiently, but uprightly and 
 holily, controverted this truth, while in will and 
 in spirit he clung to it ; — were both dictated by 
 an infallible Intelligence ? — Alas ! if I may 
 
LETTER III. 37 
 
 judge from the manner in which both indiscri- 
 minately are recited, quoted, appealed to, 
 preached upon, by the routiniers of desk and 
 pulpit, I cannot doubt that they think so, — or 
 rather, without thinking, take for granted that 
 so they are to think ; — the more readily, per- 
 haps, because the so thinking supersedes the 
 necessity of all after-thought. 
 
 Farewell, 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 You reply to the conclusion of my Letter : 
 " What have we to do with routiniers ? Quid 
 mihi cum homunculis putata putide reputan- 
 tibus ? Let nothings count for nothing, and the 
 dead bury the dead ! Who but such ever under- 
 stood the Tenet in this sense ?" — 
 
 In what sense then, I rejoin, do others under- 
 stand it ? If, with exception of the passages 
 already excepted, namely, the recorded words of 
 God — concerning which no Christian can have 
 doubt or scruple, — the Tenet in this sense be 
 inapplicable to the Scripture, destructive of its 
 noblest purposes, and contradictory to its own 
 express declarations, — again and again I ask : — 
 What am I to substitute ? What other sense 
 is conceivable that does not destroy the doctrine 
 which it professes to interpret — that does not 
 
40 LETTER IV. 
 
 convert it into its own negative ? As if a 
 geometrician should name a sugar loaf an 
 ellipse, adding — " By which term I here mean 
 a cone" — ; and then justify the misnomer on 
 the pretext that the ellipse is among the conic 
 sections ! And yet — notwithstanding the repug- 
 nancy of the Doctrine, in its unqualified sense, 
 to Scripture, Reason, and Common Sense theo- 
 retically, while to all practical uses it is intract- 
 able, unmalleable, and altogether unprofitable 
 — notwithstanding its irrationality, and in the 
 face of your expostulation, grounded on the 
 palpableness of its irrationality, — I must still 
 avow my belief that, however flittingly and 
 unsteadily, as through a mist, it is the Doctrine 
 which the generality of our popular divines 
 receive as orthodox, and this the sense which 
 they attach to the words. 
 
 For on what other ground can I account for 
 the whimsical subintelligiturs of our numerous 
 harmonists, — for the curiously inferred facts, 
 the inventive circumstantial detail, the comple- 
 mental and supplemental history which, in the 
 utter silence of all historians and absence of all 
 historical documents, they bring to light by 
 mere force of logic? — And all to do away 
 some half-score apparent discrepancies in the 
 
LETTER IV. 41 
 
 chronicles and memoirs of the Old and New 
 Testaments ; ; — discrepancies so analogous to what 
 is found in all other narratives of the same story 
 by several narrators, — so analogous to what is 
 found in all other known and trusted histories 
 by contemporary historians, when they are col- 
 lated with each other, (nay, not seldom when 
 either historian is compared with himself,) as to 
 form in the eyes of all competent judges a charac- 
 teristic mark of the genuineness, independency, 
 and (if I may apply the word to a book,) the 
 veraciousness of each several document ; a mark 
 the absence of which would warrant a suspicion 
 of collusion, invention, or at best of servile tran- 
 scription; — discrepancies so trifling in circum- 
 stance and import, that, although in some 
 instances it is highly probable, and in all in- 
 stances, perhaps, possible that they are only 
 apparent and reconcilable, no wise man would 
 care a straw whether they were real or appa- 
 rent, reconciled or left in harmless and friendly 
 variance. What, I ask, could have induced 
 learned and intelligent divines to adopt or 
 sanction subterfuges, which, neutralizing the 
 ordinary criteria of full or defective evidence 
 in historical documents, would, taken as a 
 general rule, render all collation and cross- 
 
42 LETTER IV. 
 
 examination of written records ineffective, and 
 obliterate the main character by which authentic 
 histories are distinguished from those traditional 
 tales, which each successive reporter enlarges 
 and fashions to his own fancy and purpose, and 
 every different edition of which more or less 
 contradicts the other? Allow me to create 
 chasms ad libitum, and ad libitum to fill them 
 up with imagined facts and incidents, and I 
 would almost undertake to harmonize Falstaff's 
 account of the rogues in buckram into a cohe- 
 rent and consistent narrative. What, I say, 
 could have tempted grave and pious men thus 
 to disturb the foundation of the Temple, in 
 order to repair a petty breach or rat-hole in the 
 wall, or fasten a loose stone or two in the outer 
 court, if not an assumed necessity arising out of 
 the peculiar character of Bible history ? 
 
 The substance of the syllogism, by which 
 their procedure was justified to their own 
 minds, can be no other than this. That, with- 
 out which two assertions — both of which must 
 be alike true and correct — would contradict 
 each other, and consequently be, one or both, 
 false or incorrect, must itself be true. But 
 every word and syllable existing in the original 
 text of the Canonical Books, from the Cherethi 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 43 
 
 and Phelethi * of David to the name in the copy 
 of a family register, the site of a town, or the 
 course of a river, were dictated to the sacred 
 amanuensis by an infallible Intelligence. Here 
 there can be neither more nor less. Important 
 or unimportant gives no ground of difference ; 
 2nd the number of the writers as little. The 
 secretaries may have been many, — the historian 
 was one and the same, and he infallible. This 
 is the minor of the syllogism ; and if it could 
 be proved, the conclusion would be at least 
 plausible; and there would be but one objection 
 to the procedure, namely, its uselessness. For 
 if it have been proved already, what need of 
 proving it over again, and by means — the re- 
 moval, namely, of apparent contradictions — 
 which the infallible Author did not think good 
 to employ ? But if it have not been proved, 
 what becomes of the argument which derives 
 its whole force and legitimacy from the assump- 
 tion ? 
 
 In fact, it is clear that the harmonists and 
 their admirers held and understood the Doctrine 
 literally. And must not that divine likewise 
 have so understood it, who, in answer to a 
 
 * 2 Sam. xx. 23. 1 Chron. xviii. 17.— Ed. 
 
44 LETTER IV. 
 
 question concerning the transcendant blessed- 
 ness of Jael, and the righteousness of the act, 
 in which she inhospitably, treacherously, per- 
 fidiously, murdered sleep, the confiding sleep, 
 closed the controversy by observing that he 
 wanted no better morality than that of the 
 Bible, and no other proof of an action's being 
 praiseworthy than that the Bible had declared 
 it worthy to be praised ; — an observation, as 
 applied in this instance, so slanderous to the 
 morality and moral spirit of the Bible as to be 
 inexplicable, except as a consequence of the 
 Doctrine in dispute? — But let a man be once 
 fully persuaded that there is no difference be- 
 tween the two positions — " The Bible contains 
 the religion revealed by God" — and—" What- 
 ever is contained in the Bible is religion, and 
 was revealed by God " — ; and that whatever 
 can be said of the Bible, collectively taken, 
 may and must be said of each and every sen- 
 tence of the Bible, taken for and by itself; — 
 and I no longer wonder at these paradoxes. 
 I only object to the inconsistency of those who 
 profess the same belief, and yet affect to look 
 down with a contemptuous or compassionate 
 smile on John Wesley for rejecting the Coper- 
 nican system as incompatible therewith ; or who 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 45 
 
 exclaim " Wonderful !" when they hear that 
 Sir Matthew Hale sent a crazy old woman to 
 the gallows in honor of the Witch of En dor *. 
 In the latter instance it might, I admit, have 
 been an erroneous (though even at this day the 
 all but universally received) interpretation of 
 the word, which we have rendered by witch ; — 
 but I challenge these divines and their adhe- 
 rents to establish the compatibility of a belief 
 in the modern astronomy and natural philo- 
 sophy with their and Wesley's doctrine respect- 
 ing the inspired Scriptures, without reducing 
 
 * He sent two, nor does it appear that the poor crea- 
 tures were at all crazy. 
 
 Rose Cullender and Amy Duny, widows, of Low- 
 estoff, Suffolk, were tried for witchcraft, on the 10th of 
 March, 1665, at Bury St. Edmunds. Sir M. Hale told 
 the jury, " that he would not repeat the evidence unto 
 them, lest by so doing he should wrong the evidence on 
 the one side or the other. Only this acquainted them, 
 that they had two things to inquire after: first, whether 
 or no these children were bewitched ; secondly, whether 
 the prisoners at the bar were guilty of it. 
 
 " That there were such creatures as witches, he made no 
 doubt at all. For, first, the Scriptures had affirmed so 
 much. Secondly, the wisdom of all nations had provided 
 laws against such persons, which is an argument of their 
 confidence of such a crime. And such hath been the 
 judgment of this kingdom, as appears by that Act of 
 Parliament, which hath provided punishments propor- 
 
46 LETTER IV. 
 
 the Doctrine itself to a plaything of wax ; — or 
 rather to a half-inflated bladder, which, when 
 the contents are rarefied in the heat of rheto- 
 rical generalities, swells out round, and without 
 a crease or wrinkle ; but bring it into the cool 
 temperature of particulars, and you may press, 
 and as it were except, what part you like — so 
 it be but one part at a time — between your 
 thumb and finger. 
 
 Now, I pray you, which is the more honest, 
 nay, which the more reverential, proceeding, — 
 to play at fast and loose in this way ; or to say 
 
 tionable to the quality of the offence. And desired them 
 strictly to observe their evidence ; and desired the great 
 God of heaven to direct their hearts in the weighty 
 thing they had in hand. For to condemn the innocent, 
 and to let the guilty go free, were both an abomination 
 to the Lord." 
 
 They were found guilty on thirteen indictments. 
 The bewitched got well of all their pains the moment 
 after the conviction ; " only Susan Chandler felt a pain 
 like pricking of pins in her stomach." 
 
 " The Judge and all the Court felt fully satisfied with 
 the verdict, and thereupon gave judgment against the 
 witches that they should be hanged." 
 
 " They were much urged to confess, but would not." 
 
 "They were executed on Monday, the 17th of March 
 following, but they confessed nothing." — State Trials, 
 vi. p. 700. Ed. 
 
LETTER IV. 47 
 
 at once, " See here in these several writings 
 one and the same Holy Spirit, now sanctifying 
 a chosen vessel, and fitting it for the reception 
 of heavenly truths proceeding immediately from 
 the mouth of God, and elsewhere working in 
 frail and fallible men like ourselves, and like 
 ourselves instructed by God's word and laws?'' 
 — The first Christian martyr had the form and 
 features of an ordinary man, nor are we taught 
 to believe that these features were miraculously 
 transfigured into superhuman symmetry ; but 
 he being filled with the Holy Ghost, they that 
 looked stedfastly on him, saw his face as it 
 had been the face of an angel. Even so has 
 it ever been, and so it ever will be, with all 
 who with humble hearts and a rightly disposed 
 spirit scan the Sacred Volume. And they who 
 read it with an evil heart of unbelief and an 
 alien spirit — what boots for them the assertion 
 that every sentence was miraculously communi- 
 cated to the nominal author by God himself? 
 Will it not rather present additional temptations 
 to the unhappy scoffers, and furnish them with 
 a pretext of self-justification ? 
 
 When, in my third Letter, I first echoed the 
 question, 'Why should I not?' — the answers 
 came crowding on my mind. I am well content, 
 
48 LETTER IV. 
 
 however, to have merely suggested the main 
 points, in proof of the positive harm which, 
 both historically and spiritually, our religion 
 sustains from this Doctrine. Of minor import- 
 ance, yet not to be overlooked, are the forced 
 and fantastic interpretations, the arbitrary alle- 
 gories and mystic expansions of proper names, 
 to which this indiscriminate Bibliolatry fur- 
 nished fuel, spark, and wind. A still greater 
 evil, and less attributable to the visionary 
 humor and weak judgment of the individual 
 expositors, is the literal rendering of Scripture 
 in passages, which the number and variety of 
 images employed in different places, to express 
 one and the same verity, plainly mark out for 
 figurative. And, lastly, add to all these the 
 strange — in all other writings unexampled — 
 practice of bringing together into logical 
 dependency detached sentences from books 
 composed at the distance of centuries, nay, 
 sometimes a millennium, from each other, under 
 different dispensations, and for different objects. 
 Accommodations of elder Scriptural phrases — 
 that favourite ornament and garnish of Jewish 
 eloquence — incidental allusions to popular no- 
 tions, traditions, apologues — (for example, the 
 dispute between the Devil and the Archangel 
 
LETTER IV. 49 
 
 Michael about the body of Moses. Jude 9.), — 
 fancies and anachronisms imported from the 
 synagogue of Alexandria into Palestine by, or 
 together with, the Septuagint Version, and 
 applied as mere argumenta ad homines — (for 
 example, the delivery of the Law by the dis- 
 position of Angels, Acts vii. 53. Gal. iii. 19. 
 Heb. ii. 2.) — these, detached from their con- 
 text, and, contrary to the intention of the 
 sacred writer, first raised into independent 
 theses, and then brought together to produce 
 or sanction some new credendum, for which 
 neither separately could have furnished a pre- 
 tence ! By this strange mosaic, Scripture texts 
 have been worked up into passable likenesses 
 of Purgatory, Popery, the Inquisition, and 
 other monstrous abuses. But would you have 
 a Protestant instance of the superstitious use of 
 Scripture arising out of this dogma ? Passing 
 by the Cabbala of the Hutchinsonian School as 
 the dotage of a few weak-minded individuals, I 
 refer you to Bishop Hacket's Sermons on the 
 Incarnation. And if you have read the same 
 author's Life of Archbishop Williams, and have 
 seen and felt (as every reader of this latter 
 work must see and feel,) his talent, learning, 
 acuteness, and robust good sense, you will have 
 
 H 
 
50 LETTER IV. 
 
 no difficulty in determining the quality and 
 character of a dogma, which could engraft such 
 fruits on such a tree *. 
 
 It will perhaps appear a paradox, if, after all 
 these reasons, I should avow that they weigh 
 less in my mind against the Doctrine, than the 
 motives usually assigned for maintaining and 
 enjoining it. Such, for instance, are the argu- 
 ments drawn from the anticipated loss and 
 damage that would result from its abandon- 
 ment; as that it would deprive the Christian 
 world of its only infallible arbiter in questions 
 of Faith and Duty, suppress the only common 
 and inappellable tribunal ; that the Bible is the 
 
 * ' Did not the Life of Archbishop Williams prove 
 otherwise, I should have inferred from these Sermons 
 that Hacket from his first boyhood had been used to 
 make themes, epigrams, copies of verses, and the like 
 on all the feasts and festivals of the Church ; had found 
 abundant nourishment for this humour of points, quirks, 
 and quiddities, in the study of the Fathers and glossers ; 
 and remained a junior soph all his life long.' * * * * 
 ' Let any competent judge read Racket's Life of Arch- 
 bishop Williams, and then these Sermons, and so mea- 
 sure the stultifying, nugifying, effect of a blind and 
 uncritical study of the Fathers, and the exclusive pre- 
 possession in favour of their authority in the minds of 
 many of our Church dignitaries in the reign of 
 Charles I.' Lit. Remains. III. pp. 175 and 183. — Ed. 
 
LETTER IV. 51 
 
 only religious bond of union and ground of 
 unity among Protestants, and the like. For 
 the confutation of this whole reasoning it might 
 be sufficient to ask : — Has it produced these 
 effects ? Would not the contrary statement be 
 nearer to the fact ? What did the Churches 
 of the first four centuries hold on this point? 
 To what did they attribute the rise and multi- 
 plication of heresies? Can any learned and 
 candid Protestant affirm that there existed and 
 exists no ground for the charges of Bossuet 
 and other eminent Romish divines? It is no 
 easy matter to know how to handle a party 
 maxim, so framed that, with the exception of a 
 single word, it expresses an important truth, 
 but which by means of that word is made to 
 convey a most dangerous error. 
 
 The Bible is the appointed conservatory, an 
 indispensable criterion, and a continual source 
 and support of true Belief. But that the Bible 
 is the sole source; that it not only contains, 
 but constitutes, the Christian Religion ; that it 
 is, in short, a Creed, consisting wholly of articles 
 of Faith ; that consequently we need no rule, 
 help, or guide, spiritual or historical, to teach 
 us what parts are and what are not articles of 
 Faith — all being such — , and the difference 
 
52 LETTER IV. 
 
 between the Bible and the Creed being this, 
 that the clauses of the latter are all uncon- 
 ditionally necessary to salvation, but those of 
 the former conditionally so, that is, as soon as 
 the words are known to exist in any one of the 
 canonical Books; and that, under this limita- 
 tion, the belief is of the same necessity in both, 
 and not at all affected by the greater or lesser 
 importance of the matter to be believed ; — this 
 scheme differs widely from the preceding, though 
 its adherents often make use of the same words 
 in expressing their belief. And this latter 
 scheme, I assert, was brought into currency by 
 and in favour of those by whom the operation 
 of grace, the aids of the Spirit, the necessity of 
 regeneration, the corruption of our nature, in 
 short, all the peculiar and spiritual mysteries of 
 the Gospel were explained and diluted away. 
 
 And how have these men treated this very 
 Bible ? — I, who indeed prize and reverence this 
 sacred library, as of all outward means and 
 conservatives of Christian faith and practice 
 the surest and the most reflective of the inward 
 Word ; — I, who hold that the Bible contains the 
 religion of Christians, but who dare not say 
 that whatever is contained in the Bible is the 
 Christian religion, and who shrink from all 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 53 
 
 question respecting the comparative worth and 
 efficacy of the written Word as weighed against 
 the preaching of the Gospel, the discipline of 
 the Churches, the continued succession of the 
 Ministry, and the communion of Saints, lest 
 by comparing I should seem to detach them; 
 — I tremble at the processes, which the Grotian 
 divines without scruple carry on in their treat- 
 ment of the sacred Writers, as soon as any texts 
 declaring the peculiar tenets of our Faith are 
 cited against them, — even tenets and mysteries 
 which the believer at his baptism receives as 
 the title-writ and bosom-roll of his adoption ; 
 and which, according to my scheme, every 
 Christian born in Church-membership ought to 
 bring with him to the study of the sacred Scrip- 
 tures as the master-key of interpretation. What- 
 ever the doctrine of infallible dictation may be 
 in itself, in their hands it is to the last degree 
 nugatory, and to be paralleled only by the 
 Romish tenet of Infallibility, — in the existence 
 of which all agree, but where, and in whom, it 
 exists stat adhuc sub lite. Every sentence 
 found in a canonical Book, rightly interpreted, 
 contains the dictum of an infallible Mind ; — but 
 what the right interpretation is, — or whether 
 the very words now extant are corrupt or 
 
54 LETTER IV. 
 
 genuine — must be determined by the industry 
 and understanding of fallible and alas ! more or 
 less prejudiced theologians. 
 
 And yet I am told that this Doctrine must 
 not be resisted or called in question, because 
 of its fitness to preserve unity of faith, and 
 for the prevention of schism and sectarian by- 
 ways ! — Let the man who holds this language 
 trace the history of Protestantism, and the 
 growth of sectarian divisions, ending with Dr. 
 Hawker's i*ftm-Calvinistic Tracts, and Mr. Bel- 
 sham's New Version of the Testament. And 
 then let him tell me that for the prevention of 
 an evil which already exists, and which the 
 boasted preventive itself might rather seem to 
 have occasioned, I must submit to be silenced 
 by the first learned Infidel, who throws in my 
 face the blessing of Deborah, or the cursings of 
 David, or the Grecisms and heavier difficulties 
 in the biographical chapters of the Book of 
 Daniel, or the hydrography and natural philo- 
 sophy of the Patriarchal ages. — I must forego 
 the means of silencing, and the prospect of 
 convincing, an alienated brother, because I 
 must not thus answer : — " My Brother ! What 
 has all this to do with the truth and the worth 
 of Christianity? If you reject a priori all 
 
LETTER IV. 55 
 
 communion with the Holy Spirit, there is in- 
 deed a chasm between us, over which we cannot 
 even make our voices intelligible to each other. 
 But if — though but with the faith of a Seneca 
 or an Antonine — you admit the co-operation of 
 a divine Spirit in souls desirous of good, even 
 as the breath of heaven works variously in each 
 several plant according to its kind, character, 
 period of growth, and circumstance of soil, 
 clime, and aspect; — on what ground can you 
 assume that its presence is incompatible with all 
 imperfection in the subject, — even with such 
 imperfection as is the natural accompaniment 
 of the unripe season ? If you call your gardener 
 or husbandman to account for the plants or 
 crops he is raising, would you not regard the 
 special purpose in each, and judge of each by 
 that which it was tending to ? Thorns are not 
 flowers, nor is the husk serviceable. But it 
 was not for its thorns, but for its sweet and 
 medicinal flowers that the rose was cultivated ; 
 and he who cannot separate the husk from the 
 grain, wants the power because sloth or malice 
 has prevented the will. I demand for the Bible 
 only the justice which you grant to other books 
 of grave authority, and to other proved and 
 acknowledged benefactors of mankind. Will 
 
56 LETTER IV. 
 
 you deny a spirit of wisdom in Lord Bacon, 
 because in particular facts he did not possess 
 perfect science, or an entire immunity from the 
 positive errors which result from imperfect 
 insight? A Davy will not so judge his great 
 predecessor. For he recognizes the spirit that 
 is now working in himself, and which under 
 similar defects of light and obstacles of error 
 had been his guide and guardian in the morning 
 twilight of his own genius. Must not the 
 kindly warmth awaken and vivify the seed, in 
 order that the stem may spring up and rejoice 
 in the light? As the genial warmth to the 
 informing light, even so is the pre-disposing 
 Spirit to the revealing Word." 
 
 If I should reason thus — but why do I say 
 iff — I have reasoned thus with more than one 
 serious and well-disposed Sceptic; and what 
 was the answer? — " You speak rationally, but 
 seem to forget the subject. I have frequently 
 attended meetings of the British and Foreign 
 Bible Society, where I have heard speakers of 
 every denomination, Calvinist and Arminian, 
 Quaker and Methodist, Dissenting Ministers 
 and Clergymen, nay, dignitaries of the Esta- 
 blished Church, — and still have I heard the 
 same doctrine, — that the Bible was not to be 
 
LETTER IV. 57 
 
 regarded or reasoned about in the way that 
 other good books are or may be ; — that the 
 Bible was different in kind, and stood by itself. 
 By some indeed this doctrine was rather implied 
 than expressed, but yet evidently implied. But 
 by far the greater number of the speakers it 
 was asserted in the strongest and most unquali- 
 fied words that language could supply. What 
 is more, their principal arguments, were grounded 
 on the position, that the Bible throughout was 
 dictated by Omniscience, and therefore in all its 
 parts infallibly true and obligatory, and that 
 the men, whose names are prefixed to the 
 several books or chapters, were in fact but as 
 different pens in the hand of one and the same 
 Writer, and the words the words of God him- 
 self; — and that on this account all notes and 
 comments were superfluous, nay, presumptuous, 
 — a profane mixing of human with divine, the 
 notions of fallible creatures, with the oracles of 
 Infallibility, — as if God's meaning could be so 
 clearly or fitly expressed in man's as in God's 
 own words ! But how often you yourself must 
 have heard the same language from the pul- 
 pit !— " 
 
 W T hat could I reply to this ? — I could neither 
 deny the fact, nor evade the conclusion, — 
 i 
 
58 LETTER IV; 
 
 namely, that such is at present the popular 
 belief. Yes — I at length rejoined — I have 
 heard this language from the pulpit, and more 
 than once from men who in any other place 
 would explain it away into something so very 
 different from the literal sense of their words 
 as closely to resemble the contrary. And this, 
 indeed, is the peculiar character of the doctrine, 
 that you cannot diminish or qualify but you 
 reverse it. I have heard this language from 
 men, who knew as well as myself that the best 
 and most' orthodox divines have in effect dis- 
 claimed the doctrine, inasmuch as they confess it 
 cannot be extended to the words of the sacred 
 Writers, or the particular import, — that there- 
 fore the Doctrine does not mean all that the 
 usual wording of it expresses, though what it 
 does mean, and why they continue to sanction 
 this hyperbolical wording, I have sought to 
 learn from them in vain. But let a thousand 
 orators blazon it at public meetings, and let as 
 many pulpits echo it, surely it behoves you to 
 inquire whether you cannot be a Christian on 
 your own faith ; and it cannot but be beneath a 
 wise man to be an Infidel on the score of 
 what other men think fit to include in their 
 Christianity ! 
 
LETTER IV. 
 
 59 
 
 Now suppose — and, belk'/e me, the suppo- 
 sition will vary little from the fact — that in 
 consequence of these views the Sceptic's mind 
 had gradually opened to the reception of all the 
 truths enumerated in my first Letter. Suppose 
 that the Scriptures themselves from this time 
 had continued to rise in his esteem and affection 
 — the better understood, the more dear ; as in 
 the countenance of one, whom through a cloud 
 of prejudices we have at last learned to love 
 and value above all others, new beauties dawn 
 on us from day to day, till at length we wonder 
 how we could at any time have thought it other 
 than most beautiful. Studying the sacred Vo- 
 lume in the light and in the freedom of j§ £aith 
 already secured, at every fresh meeting my 
 Sceptic friend has to tell me of some new 
 passage, formerly viewed by him as a dry stick 
 on a rotten branch, which has budded, and like 
 the rod of Aaron, brought forth buds, and 
 bloomed blossoms^ and yielded almonds. Let 
 these results, I say, be supposed, — and shall I 
 still be told that my friend is nevertheless an 
 alien in the household of Faith ? Scrupulously 
 orthodox as I know you to be, will you tell me 
 that I ought to have left this Sceptic as I found 
 him, rather than attempt his conversion by such 
 
60 LETTER IV. 
 
 means ; or that I V. vas deceiving him, when I 
 said to him : — \ 
 
 " Friend ! The truth revealed through Christ 
 has its evidence in itself, and the proof of its 
 divine authority in its fitness to our nature and 
 needs ; — the clearness and cogency of this proof 
 being proportionate to the degree of self-know- 
 ledge in each individual hearer. Christianity 
 has likewise its historical evidences, and these 
 as strong as is compatible with the nature of 
 history, and with the aims and objects of a 
 religious dispensation. And to all these Chris- 
 tianity itself, as an existing Power in the world, 
 and Christendom as an existing Fact, with the 
 no k.s evident fact of a progressive expansion, 
 ^\ve a force of moral demonstration that almost 
 supersedes particular testimony. These proofs 
 and evidences would remain unshaken, even 
 though the sum of our religion were to be 
 drawn from the theologians of each successive 
 century, on the principle of receiving that only 
 as divine, which should be found in all,— quod 
 semper, quod ubique, quod db omnibus. Be 
 only, my Friend ! as orthodox a believer as you 
 would have abundant reason to be, though from 
 some accident of birth, country, or education 
 the precious boon of the Bible, with its addi- 
 
LETTER IV. 61 
 
 tional evidence, had up to this moment been 
 concealed from you ; — and then read its con- 
 tents with only the same piety which you freely 
 accord on other occasions to the writings of 
 men, considered the best and wisest of their 
 several ages ! What you find therein coincident 
 with your pre-established convictions, you will 
 of course recognize as the Revealed Word, 
 while, as you read the recorded workings of the 
 Word and the Spirit in the minds, lives, and 
 hearts of spiritual men, the influence of the 
 same Spirit on your own being, and the con- 
 flicts of grace and infirmity in your own soul, 
 will enable you to discern and to know in and 
 by what spirit they spake and acted, — as far at 
 least as shall be needful for you, and in the 
 times .of your need. 
 
 " Thenceforward, therefore, your doubts will 
 be confined to such parts or passages of the 
 received Canon, as seem to you irreconcilable 
 with known truths, and at variance with the 
 tests given in the Scriptures themselves, and 
 as shall continue so to appear after you have 
 examined each in reference to the circumstances 
 of the Writer or Speaker, the dispensation 
 under which he lived, the purpose of the par- 
 ticular passage, and the intent and object of 
 
62 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 the Scriptures at large. Respecting these, 
 decide for yourself: and fear not for the result. 
 I venture to tell it you before hand. The result 
 will be, a confidence in the judgment and fidelity 
 of the compilers of the Canon increased by the 
 apparent exceptions. For they will be found 
 neither more nor greater than may well be 
 supposed requisite, on the one hand, to prevent 
 us from sinking into a habit of slothful, undis- 
 criminating, acquiescence, and on the other to 
 provide a check against those presumptuous 
 fanatics, who would rend the Urim and TTium- 
 mim from the breastplate of judgment, and 
 frame oracles by private divination from each 
 letter of each disjointed gem, uninterpreted by 
 the Priest, and deserted by the Spirit, which 
 shines in the parts only as it pervades and 
 irradiates the whole." 
 
 Such is the language in which I have addressed 
 a halting friend, — halting, yet with his face 
 toward the right path. If I have erred, enable 
 me to see my error. Correct me, or confirm 
 me. 
 
 Farewell. 
 
LETTER V. 
 
 Yes ! my dear Friend, it is my conviction that 
 in all ordinary cases the knowledge and belief of 
 the Christian Religion should precede the study 
 of the Hebrew Canon. Indeed with regard to 
 both Testaments, I consider oral and catechismal 
 instruction as the preparative provided by Christ 
 himself in the establishment of a visible Church. 
 And to make the Bible, apart from the truths, 
 doctrines, and spiritual experiences contained 
 therein, the subject of a special article of faith, 
 I hold an unnecessary and useless abstraction, 
 which in too many instances has the effect of 
 substituting a barren acquiescence in the letter 
 for the lively faith that cometh by hearing ; 
 even as the hearing is productive of this faith, 
 because it is the word of God that is heard and 
 preached. (Rom. x. 8. 17.) And here I mean 
 
64 LETTER V. 
 
 the written word preserved in the armoury of 
 the Church to be the sword of faith out of the 
 mouth of the preacher, as Christ's ambassador 
 and representative, {Rev. i. 16.) and out of the 
 heart of the believer, from generation to gene- 
 ration. Who shall dare dissolve or loosen this 
 holy bond, this divine reciprocality, of Faith 
 and Scripture? Who shall dare enjoin aught 
 else as an object of saving faith, beside the 
 truths that appertain to salvation? The im- 
 posers take on themselves a heavy responsibility, 
 however defensible the opinion itself, as an 
 opinion, may be. For by imposing it, they 
 counteract their own purposes. They antedate 
 questions, and thus in all cases aggravate the 
 difficulty of answering them satisfactorily. And 
 not seldom they create difficulties that might 
 never have occurred. But, worst .of all, they 
 convert things trifling or indifferent into mis- 
 chievous pretexts for the wanton, fearful, difficul- 
 ties for the weak, and formidable objections for 
 the inquiring. For what man fearing God 
 dares think any the least point indifferent, which 
 he is required to receive as God's own imme- 
 diate word miraculously infused, miraculously 
 recorded, and by a succession of miracles 
 preserved unblended and without change? — 
 
LETTER V. 65 
 
 Through all the pages of a large and multifold 
 volume, at each successive period, at every 
 sentence, must the question recur: — " Dare I 
 believe — do I in my heart believe — these words 
 to have been dictated by an infallible reason, 
 and the immediate utterance of Almighty God ?" 
 — No ! It is due to Christian charity that a 
 question so awful should not be put unneces- 
 sarily, and should not be put out of time. The 
 necessity I deny. And out of time the question 
 must be put, if after enumerating the several 
 articles of the Catholic Faith I am bound to add : 
 — "and further you are to believe with equal 
 faith, as having the same immediate and mira- 
 culous derivation from God, whatever else you 
 shall hereafter read in any of the sixty six books 
 collected in the Old and New Testaments." 
 
 I would never say this. Yet let me not be 
 misjudged as if I treated the Scriptures as a 
 matter of indifference. I would not say this : 
 but where I saw a desire to believe, and a 
 beginning love of Christ, I would there say : — 
 " There are likewise sacred Writings, which, 
 taken in connection with the institution and 
 perpetuity of a visible Church, all believers 
 revere as the most precious boon of God, next 
 to Christianity itself, and attribute both their 
 
 K 
 
66 LETTER V. 
 
 communication and preservation to an especial 
 Providence. In them you will find all the 
 revealed truths, which have been set forth and 
 offered to you, clearly and circumstantially 
 recorded; and, in addition to these, examples 
 of obedience and disobedience both in states 
 and individuals, the lives and actions of men 
 eminent under each dispensation, their senti- 
 ments, maxims, hymns, and prayers, — their 
 affections, emotions and conflicts; — in all which 
 you will recognize the influence of the Holy 
 Spirit, with a conviction increasing with the 
 growth of your own faith and spiritual experi- 
 ence." 
 
 Farewell. 
 
LETTER VI. 
 
 MY DEAR FRIEND, 
 
 In my last two Letters I have given the state 
 of the argument, as it would stand between a 
 Christian thinking as I do, and a serious well- 
 disposed Deist. I will now endeavour to state 
 the argument, as between the former and the 
 advocates for the popular belief, — such of them, 
 I mean, as are competent to deliver a dispas- 
 sionate judgment in the cause. And again, 
 more particularly, I mean the learned and 
 reflecting part of them, who are influenced to 
 the retention of the prevailing dogma by the 
 supposed consequences of a different view, and, 
 especially, by their dread of conceding to all 
 alike, simple and learned, the privilege of pick- 
 ing and choosing the Scriptures that are to be 
 received as binding on their consciences. Be- 
 tween these persons and myself the contro- 
 
68 LETTER VI. 
 
 versy* may be reduced to a single ques- 
 tion : — 
 
 Is it safer for the Individual, and more con- 
 ducive to the interests of the Church of Christ, 
 in its twofold character of pastoral and militant, 
 to conclude thus: — The Bible is the Word of 
 God, and therefore true, holy, and in all parts 
 unquestionable; — or thus, — The Bible, con- 
 sidered in reference to its declared ends and 
 purposes, is true and holy, and for all who seek 
 truth with humble spirits an unquestionable 
 guide, and therefore it is the Word of God ? — 
 
 * It is remarkable that both parties might appeal 
 to the same text of St. Paul, — nava ypa0?) Bioirvtva- 
 toq /cat w^sXi/ioc. ttqoq didavicaklav, k. t. X. (2 Tim. 
 in. 16), which favors the one or the other opinion 
 accordingly as the words are construed ; and which, 
 again, is the more probable construction, depends in 
 great measure on the preference given to one or other 
 of two different readings, the one having and the other 
 omitting the conjunction copulative icai. 
 
 [The English version is : — All Scripture is given by 
 inspiration of God, and is profitable, &$c. And in this 
 rendering of the original the English is countenanced by 
 the established Version of the Dutch Reformed Church : 
 — Alle de Schrift is van Godt ingegeven, ende is nuttigh 
 t\"c. And by Diodati : — Tutta la Scrittura e divinamente 
 inspirata, ed util, fyc. And by Martin : Toute I'Ecriture 
 
LETTER VI. 69 
 
 In every generation, and wherever the light 
 of Revelation has shone, men of all ranks, 
 conditions, and states of mind have found in 
 this Volume a correspondent for every move- 
 ment toward the Better felt in their own hearts. 
 The needy soul has found supply, the feeble a 
 help, the sorrowful a comfort ; yea, be the reci- 
 piency the least that can consist with moral life, 
 there is an answering grace ready to enter. 
 The Bible has been found a spiritual World, — 
 spiritual, and yet at the same time outward and 
 common to all. You in one place, I in another, 
 
 est divinement inspirte, et profitable, $$c. And by Beza : 
 — Tota Scriptura divinitus est inspirata, et utilis, <Sfc. 
 
 The other rendering is supported by the Vulgate : — 
 Omnis Scriptura, divinitus inspirata, utilis est ad, <^c. By 
 Luther : — Denn alle Sehrift von Gott eingegeben, ist nutze 
 zur, tyc. And by Calmet: — Toute VEcriture, qui est in- 
 spirte de Dieu, est utile, tyc. And by the common Spanish 
 translation : — Toda Escritura, divinamente inspirada, es 
 util para ensenar Sfc. This is also the rendering of the 
 Syriac (Pesch.) and two Arabic Versions, and is followed 
 by Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and most of the 
 Fathers. See the note in Griesbacb. Tertullian repre- 
 sents the sense thus : — Legimus, Omnem Scripturam, (zdi- 
 Jicationi habilem, divinitus inspirari. De Habit. Mul. c. 
 iii. Origen has it several times, QeoirvEvaroQ oixra, 
 ux^ekifiog tori, and once as in the received text. Ed.] 
 
70 LETTER VI. 
 
 all men somewhere or at some time, meet with 
 an assurance that the hopes and fears, the 
 thoughts and yearnings that proceed from, or 
 tend to, a right spirit in us, are not dreams or 
 fleeting singularities, no voices heard in sleep, 
 or spectres which the eye suffers but not per- 
 ceives. As if on some dark night a pilgrim, 
 suddenly beholding a bright star moving before 
 him, should stop in fear and perplexity. But 
 lo ! traveller after traveller passes by him, and 
 each, being questioned whither he is going, 
 makes answer, " I am following yon guiding 
 Star !" The pilgrim quickens his own steps, 
 and presses onward in confidence. More con- 
 fident still will he be, if by the way side he 
 should find, here and there, ancient monuments, 
 each with its votive lamp, and on each the name 
 of some former pilgrim, and a record that there 
 he had first seen or begun to follow the benig- 
 nant Star ! 
 
 No otherwise is it with the varied contents of 
 the Sacred Volume. The hungry have found 
 food, the thirsty a living spring, the feeble a 
 staff, and the victorious warfarer songs of wel- 
 come and strains of music ; and as long as each 
 man asks on account of his wants, and asks 
 what he wants, no man will discover aught 
 
LETTER VI. 71 
 
 amiss or deficient in the vast and many-cham- 
 bered storehouse. But if instead of this, an 
 idler or a scoffer should wander through the 
 rooms, peering and peeping, and either detects, 
 or fancies he has detected, here a rusted sword 
 or pointless shaft, there a tool of rude construc- 
 tion, and superseded by later improvements 
 (and preserved, perhaps, to make us more 
 grateful for them) ; — which of two things will a 
 sober-minded man, — who from his childhood 
 upward had been fed, clothed, armed, and fur- 
 nished with the means of instruction from this 
 very magazine, — think the fitter plan? — Will 
 he insist that the rust is not rust, or that it is a 
 rust sui generis, intentionally formed on the 
 steel for some mysterious virtue in it, and that 
 the staff and astrolabe of a shepherd astronomer 
 are identical with, or equivalent to, the quadrant 
 and telescope of Newton or Herschel? — Or 
 will he not rather give the curious inquisitor 
 joy of his mighty discoveries, and the credit of 
 them for his reward ? — 
 
 Or lastly, put the matter thus. For more 
 than a thousand years the Bible, collectively 
 taken, has gone hand in hand with civilization, 
 science, law, — in short, with the moral and 
 intellectual cultivation of the species, always 
 
72 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 supporting, and often leading the way. Its 
 very presence, as a believed Book, has rendered 
 the nations emphatically a chosen race, and this 
 too in exact proportion as it is more or less 
 generally known and studied. Of those nations, 
 which in the highest degree enjoy its influences, 
 it is not too much to affirm, that the differences 
 public and private, physical, moral and intellec- 
 tual, are only less than what might be expected 
 from a diversity in species. Good and holy 
 men, and the best and wisest of mankind, the 
 kingly spirits of history, enthroned in the hearts 
 of mighty nations, have borne witness to its 
 influences, have declared it to be beyond com- 
 pare the most perfect instrument, the only 
 adequate organ, of Humanity ; — the organ and 
 instrument of all the gifts, powers, and tenden- 
 cies, by which the individual is privileged to 
 rise above himself — to leave behind, and lose 
 his dividual phantom self, in order to find his 
 true Self in that Distinctness where no division 
 can be, — in the Eternal I Am, the Ever-living 
 Word, of whom all the elect from the arch- 
 angel before the throne to the poor wrestler 
 with the Spirit until the breaking of day 
 are but the fainter and still fainter echoes. 
 And are all these testimonies and lights of 
 
LETTER VI. 73 
 
 experience to lose their value and efficiency, 
 because I feel no warrant of history, or Holy 
 Writ, or of my own heart for denying, that 
 in the framework and outward case of this 
 instrument a few parts may be discovered of 
 less costly materials and of meaner workman- 
 ship ? Is it not a fact that the Books of the 
 New Testament were tried by their consonance 
 with the rule, and according to the analogy, of 
 Faith? Does not the universally admitted 
 canon — that each part of Scripture must be 
 interpreted by the spirit of the whole — lead to 
 the same practical conclusion as that for which 
 I am now contending; — namely, that it is the 
 spirit of the Bible, and not the detached words 
 and sentences, that is infallible and absolute ? — 
 Practical, I say, and spiritual too; — and what 
 knowledge not practical or spiritual are we 
 entitled to seek in our Bibles ? Is the grace of 
 God so confined, — are the evidences of the 
 present and actuating Spirit so dim and doubtful, 
 — that to be assured of the same we must first 
 take for granted that all the life and co-agency 
 of our humanity is miraculously suspended ? 
 
 Whatever is spiritual, is eo nomine super- 
 natural ; but must it be always and of necessity 
 miraculous ? Miracles could open the eyes of 
 
 L 
 
74 LETTER VI. 
 
 the body; and he that was born blind beheld 
 his Redeemer. But miracles, even those of the 
 Redeemer himself, could not open the eyes of 
 the self-blinded, of the Sadducean sensualist or 
 the self-righteous Pharisee ; — while to have said, 
 I saw thee under the Jig tree, sufficed to make 
 a Nathanael believe. 
 
 To assert and to demand miracles without 
 necessity was the vice of the unbelieving Jews 
 of old ; and from the Rabbis and Talmudists 
 the infection has spread. And would I could 
 say that the symptoms of the disease are con- 
 fined to the Churches of the Apostasy! But 
 all the miracles, which the legends of Monk or 
 Rabbi contain, can scarcely be put in compe- 
 tition, on the score of complication, inexplica- 
 bleness, the absence of all intelligible use or 
 purpose, and of circuitous self-frustration, with 
 those that must be assumed by the maintainers 
 of this doctrine, in order to give effect to the 
 series of miracles, by which all the nominal 
 composers of the Hebrew nation before the 
 time of Ezra, of whom there are any remains, 
 were successively transformed into automaton 
 compositors, — so that the original text should 
 be in sentiment, image, word, syntax, and com- 
 position an exact impression of the divine copy ! 
 
LETTER VI. 75 
 
 In common consistency the theologians, who 
 impose this belief on their fellow Christians, 
 ought to insist equally on the superhuman origin 
 and authority of the Masora, and to use more 
 respectful terms, than has been their wont of 
 late, in speaking of the false Aristeas's legend 
 concerning the Septuagint. And why the 
 miracle should stop at the Greek Version, and 
 not include the Vulgate, I can discover no 
 ground in reason. Or if it be an objection to 
 the latter, that this belief is actually enjoined 
 by the Papal Church, yet the number of Chris- 
 tians who read the Lutheran, the Genevan, or 
 our own authorized, Bible, and are ignorant of 
 the dead languages, greatly exceeds the number 
 of those who have access to the Septuagint. 
 Why refuse the writ of consecration to these, 
 or to the one at least appointed by the assertors' 
 own Church? I find much more consistency 
 in the opposition made under pretext of this 
 doctrine to the proposals and publications of 
 Kennicot, Mill, Bentley, and Archbishop New- 
 come. 
 
 But I am weary of discussing a tenet, which 
 the generality of divines and the leaders of the 
 Religious Public have ceased to defend, and 
 yet continue to assert or imply. The tendency 
 
76 LETTER VI. 
 
 manifested in this conduct, the spirit of this 
 and the preceding century, on which, not indeed 
 the tenet itself, but the obstinate adherence to 
 it against the clearest light of reason and expe- 
 rience, is grounded, — this it is which, according 
 to my conviction, gives the venom to the error, 
 and justifies the attempt to substitute a juster 
 view. As long as it was the common and 
 effective belief of all the Reformed Churches, 
 (and by none was it more sedulously or more 
 emphatically enjoined than by the great Re- 
 formers of our Church), that by the good Spirit 
 were the spirits tried, and that the light, which 
 beams forth from the written Word, was its 
 own evidence for the children of light ; — as 
 long as Christians considered their Bible as a 
 plenteous entertainment, where every guest, 
 duly called and attired, found the food needful 
 and fitting for him, and where each — instead of 
 troubling himself about the covers not within 
 his reach — beholding all around him glad and 
 satisfied, praised the banquet and thankfully 
 glorified the Master of the feast, — so long did 
 the Tenet — that the Scriptures were written 
 under the special impulse of the Holy Ghost 
 remain safe and profitable. Nay, in the sense, 
 
LETTER VI. 77 
 
 and' with the feelings, in which it was asserted, 
 it was a truth — a truth to which every spiritual 
 believer now and in all times will bear witness 
 by virtue of his own experience. And if in the 
 overflow of love and gratitude they confounded 
 the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, 
 working alike in weakness and in strength, in 
 the morning mists and in the clearness of the 
 full day ; — if they confounded this communion 
 and co-agency of divine grace, attributable to 
 the Scripture generally, with those express, and 
 expressly recorded, communications and mes- 
 sages of the Most High, which form so large 
 and prominent a portion of the same Scriptures ; 
 — if, in short, they did not always duly distin- 
 guish the inspiration, the imbreathment, of the 
 predisposing and assisting Spirit from the 
 revelation of the informing Word, — it was at 
 worst a harmless hyperbole. It was holden by 
 all, that if the power of the Spirit from without 
 furnished the text, the grace of the same Spirit 
 from within must supply the comment. 
 
 In the sacred Volume they saw and rever- 
 enced the bounden wheat-sheaf that stood 
 upright, and had obeisance from all the other 
 sheaves — (the writings, I mean, of the Fathers 
 
78 LETTER VI. 
 
 and Doctors of the Church) — sheaves depre- 
 ciated indeed, more or less, with tares, 
 
 and furrow-weeds, 
 Darnel and many an idle flower that grew 
 Mid the sustaining corn ; 
 
 yet sheaves of the same harvest, the sheaves of 
 brethren ! Nor did it occur to them, that, in 
 yielding- the more full and absolute honor to 
 the sheaf of the highly favoured of their Father, 
 they should be supposed to attribute the same 
 worth and quality to the straw-bands which 
 held it together. The bread of life was there. 
 And this in an especial sense was bread from 
 heaven ; for no where had the same been found 
 wild ; no soil or climate dared claim it for its 
 natural growth. In simplicity of heart they 
 received the Bible as the precious gift of God, 
 providential alike in origin, preservation, and 
 distribution, without asking- the nice question, 
 whether all and every part were likewise mira- 
 culous. The distinction between the providen- 
 tial and the miraculous, between the divine 
 Will working with the agency of natural causes, 
 and the same Will supplying their place by a 
 special fiat — this distinction has, I doubt not, 
 many uses in speculative divinity. But its 
 
LETTER VI. 79 
 
 weightiest practical application is shown, when 
 it is employed to free the souls of the unwary 
 and weak in faith from the nets and snares, the 
 insidious queries and captious objections, of the 
 Infidel by calming 1 the flutter of their spirits. 
 They must be quieted, before we can commence 
 the means necessary for their disentanglement. 
 And in no way can this be better effected than 
 when the frightened captives are made to see in 
 how many points the disentangling itself is a 
 work of expedience rather than of necessity ; — 
 so easily and at so little loss might the web be 
 cut or brushed away ! 
 
 First, let their attention be fixed on the 
 history of Christianity as learnt from universal 
 tradition, and the writers of each successive 
 generation. Draw their minds to the fact of 
 the progressive and still continuing fulfilment of 
 the assurance of a few fishermen, that both their 
 own religion, though of divine origin, and the 
 religion of their conquerors, which included or 
 recognized all other religions of the known 
 world, should be superseded by the faith in a 
 man recently and ignominiously executed. Then 
 induce them to meditate on the universals of 
 Christian Faith, — on Christianity, taken as the 
 sum of belief common to Greek and Latin, to 
 
80 LETTER VI. 
 
 Romanist and Protestant. Shew them that 
 this and only this is the ordo traditionis, quam 
 tradiderunt Aposloli Us quihus committebant 
 ecclesias, and which we should have been 
 bound to follow, says Irenseus, si neque Apos- 
 toli quidem Scripturas reliquissent. This is 
 that regula Jidei, that sacramentum symboli 
 memorize mandatum, of which St. Augustine 
 says; — noveritis hoc esse Fidei Caiholicce 
 fundamentum super quod edijicium surrexit 
 Ecclesice. This is the norma Catholici ei 
 Ecclesiastici sensus, determined and explicated, 
 but not augmented, by the Nicene Fathers, as 
 Waterland has irrefragably shewn ; — a norm or 
 model of Faith grounded on the solemn affirma- 
 tions of the Bishops collected from all parts of 
 the Roman Empire, that this was the essential 
 and unalterable Gospel received by them from 
 their predecessors in all the Churches as the 
 irapdhocriq iicicXrjffiaaTiKr], cui, says Irenseus, 
 assentiunt multce gentes eorum qui in Christum 
 credunt sine charta et atramento, scriptam 
 habentes per Spiritum in cordibus suis salu- 
 tem, et veterum traditionem diligenter custo- 
 dientes. Let the attention of such as have 
 been shaken by the assaults of Infidelity be 
 thus directed, and then tell me wherein a 
 
LETTER VI. 81 
 
 spiritual physician would be blameworthy, if he 
 carried on the cure by addressing his patient in 
 this manner : — 
 
 " All men of learning, even learned unbe- 
 lievers, admit that the greater part of the 
 objections, urged in the popular works of Infi- 
 delity, to this or that verse or chapter of the 
 Bible prove only the ignorance or dishonesty 
 of the objectors. But let it be supposed for a 
 moment that a few remain hitherto unanswered, 
 — nay, that to your judgment and feelings they 
 appear unanswerable. What follows? That 
 the Apostles' and Nicene Creed is not credible, 
 the Ten Commandments not to be obeyed, the 
 clauses of the Lord's Prayer not to be desired, 
 or the Sermon on the Mount not to be prac- 
 tised ? — See how the logic would look. David 
 cruelly tortured the inhabitants of Rabbah (2 
 Sam. xii. 31. 1 Chr. xx. 3.) and in several of 
 the Psalms he invokes the bitterest curses on 
 his enemies : therefore it is not to be believed 
 that the love of God toward us was manifested 
 in sending his only-begotten Son into the 
 world that we might live through him (1 John 
 iv. 9). Or: Abijah is said to have collected 
 an army of 400,000 men, and Jeroboam to have 
 met him with an army of 800,000, each army 
 
 M 
 
82 LETTER VI. 
 
 consisting of chosen men (2 Chr. xiii. 3.), and 
 making together a host of 1,200,000, and 
 Abijahtohave slain 500,000 out of the 800,000 •: 
 therefore, the words which admonish us that if 
 God so loved us, we ought also to love one 
 another (1 John iv. 11.), even our enemies, 
 yea, to bless them that curse us, and to do 
 good to them that hate us (Matt. v. 44.), 
 cannot proceed from the Holy Spirit. Or: 
 The first six chapters of the Book of Daniel 
 contain several words and phrases irreconcilable 
 with the commonly received dates, and those 
 chapters and the Book of Esther have a tradi- 
 tional and legendary character unlike that of 
 the other historical books of the Old Testament : 
 therefore, those other books, by contrast with 
 which the former appear suspicious, and the 
 historical document, 1 Cor, xv. 1 — 8, are not to 
 be credited !" 
 
 We assuredly believe that the Bible contains 
 all truths necessary to salvation, and that therein 
 is preserved the undoubted Word of God. We 
 assert likewise that, besides these express oracles 
 and immediate revelations, there are Scriptures 
 which to the soul and conscience of every Chris- 
 tian man bear irresistible evidence of the Divine 
 Spirit assisting and actuating the authors ; and 
 
LETTER VI. 83 
 
 that both these and the former are such as to 
 render it morally impossible that any passage of 
 the small inconsiderable portion, not included 
 in one or other of these, can supply either 
 ground or occasion of any error in faith, prac- 
 tice, or affection, except to those who wickedly 
 and wilfully seek a pretext for their unbelief. 
 And if in that small portion of the Bible which 
 stands in no necessary connection with the 
 known and especial ends and purposes of the 
 Scriptures, there should be a few apparent 
 errors resulting from the state of knowledge 
 then existing— errors which the best and holiest 
 men might entertain uninjured, and which with- 
 out a miracle those men must have entertained ; 
 if I find no suph miraculous prevention asserted, 
 and see no reason for supposing it — may I not, 
 to ease the scruples of a perplexed inquirer, 
 venture to say to him : " Be it so. What then ? 
 The absolute infallibility even of the inspired 
 writers in matters altogether incidental and 
 foreign to the objects and purposes of their 
 inspiration is no part of my Creed; and even 
 if a professed divine should follow the doctrine 
 of the Jewish Church so far as not to attribute 
 to the Hagiographi, in every word and sen- 
 tence, the same height and fullness of inspiration 
 
84 LETTER VI. 
 
 as to the Law and the Prophets, I feel no 
 warrant to brand him as a heretic for an opinion, 
 the admission of which disarms the Infidel with- 
 out endangering a single article of the Catholic 
 Faith." — If to an unlearned but earnest and 
 thoughtful neighbour, I give the advice ; — " Use 
 the Old Testament to express the affections 
 excited, and to confirm the faith and morals 
 taught you, in the New, and leave all the rest 
 to the students and professors of theology and 
 Church history ! You profess only to be a 
 Christian:" — am I misleading my brother in 
 Christ? 
 
 This I believe by my own dear experience, — 
 that the more tranquilly an inquirer takes up 
 the Bible as he would any other body of ancient 
 writings, the livelier and steadier will be his 
 impressions of its superiority to all other books, 
 till at length all other books and all other know- 
 ledge will be valuable in his eyes in proportion 
 as they help him to a better understanding of his 
 Bible. Difficulty after difficulty has been over- 
 come from the time that I began to study the 
 Scriptures with free and unboding spirit, under 
 the conviction that my faith in the Incarnate 
 Word and his Gospel was secure, whatever the 
 result might be; — the difficulties that still re- 
 
LETTER VI. 85 
 
 main being so few and insignificant in my own 
 estimation, that I have less personal interest in 
 the question than many of those who will most 
 dogmatically condemn me for presuming to make 
 a question of it. 
 
 So much for scholars — for men of like edu- 
 cation and pursuits as myself. With respect 
 to Christians generally, I object to the conse- 
 quence drawn from the Doctrine rather than to 
 the Doctrine itself; — a consequence not only 
 deducible from the premisses, but actually and 
 imperiously deduced ; according to which every 
 man that can but read is to sit down to the 
 consecutive and connected perusal of the Bible 
 under the expectation and assurance that the 
 whole is within his comprehension, and that, 
 unaided by note or comment, catechism or 
 liturgical preparation, he is to find out for him- 
 self what he is bound to believe and practise, 
 and that whatever he conscientiously under- 
 stands by what he reads, is to be his religion. 
 For he has found it in his Bible, and the Bible 
 is the Religion of Protestants ! 
 
 Would I then withhold the Bible from the 
 Cottager and the Artisan ? — Heaven forefend ! 
 The fairest flower that ever clomb up a cottage 
 window is not so fair a sight to my eyes, as 
 
86 LETTER VI. 
 
 the Bible gleaming through the lower panes. 
 Let it but be read as by such men it used to 
 be read ; when they came to it as to a ground 
 covered with manna, even the bread which the 
 Lord had given for his people to eat; where 
 he that gathered much had nothing over, and 
 he that gathered little had no lack. They 
 gathered every man according to his eating. 
 They came to it as to a treasure-house of Scrip- 
 tures ; each visitant taking what was precious 
 and leaving as precious for others ; — Yea, more, 
 says our worthy old Church-historian, Fuller, 
 where " the same man at several times may in his 
 apprehension prefer several Scriptures as best, 
 formerly most affected with one place, for the 
 present more delighted with another, and after- 
 wards, conceiving comfort therein not so clear, 
 choose other places as more pregnant and perti- 
 nent to his purpose. Thus God orders it, that 
 divers men, (and perhaps the same man at 
 divers times) make use of all his gifts, gleaning 
 and gathering comfort, as it is scattered through 
 the whole field of the Scripture." 
 
 Farewell. 
 
LETTER VII. 
 
 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 Bibli- 
 olatry, 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 con- 
 
88 LETTER VII. 
 
 ceptions, revelation by the Eternal Word, and 
 actuation of the Holy Spirit. The former in- 
 deed is not always or necessarily united with 
 the latter — the prophecy of Balaam is an in- 
 stance of the contrary — , but yet being- ordi- 
 narily, and only not always, so united, the term, 
 Inspiration, has acquired a double sense. 
 
 First, the term is used in the sense of Infor- 
 mation miraculously communicated by voice or 
 vision ; and secondly, where without any sensi- 
 ble 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 reve- 
 lation, 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 pre- 
 tended overleaping of which constitutes impos- 
 ture, 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 
 
LETTER VII. 89 
 
 everlasting Gospel. But with regard to the 
 second, neither the holy writers — the so called 
 Hagiographi — themselves, nor any fair inter- 
 pretations 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 honor 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 subjec- 
 tive. 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 
 operation, — its existing and present operancy 
 in no respect differing from any other fact of 
 history, and not at all modified by the super- 
 natural principle in which it had its origin in 
 time. Divines of this persuasion are actually, 
 
 N 
 
90 LETTER VII. 
 
 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 super- 
 stitious, — a letter proudly emblazoned and illu- 
 minated, 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 con- 
 sequence 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 objec- 
 tive, 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 unquali- 
 fied, 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, 
 
LETTER VII. 91 
 
 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 recep- 
 tion of such decision by the Church Universal 
 in all its rightful members. 
 
 I comprise and conclude the sum of my con- 
 viction 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 Ob- 
 jective. It is in itself, and irrelatively, at once 
 inward Life and Truth, and outward Fact and 
 Luminary. But as all Power manifests itself 
 
92 LETTER VII. 
 
 in the harmony of correspondent Opposites, 
 each supposing and supporting the other, — so 
 has Religion its objective, or historic and eccle- 
 siastical pole, and its subjective, or spiritual and 
 individual pole. In the miracles, and miraculous 
 parts of religion — both in the first communi- 
 cation 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 super- 
 natural. 
 
 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 reci- 
 procity, or reciprocation, of the Spirit as sub- 
 jective and objective, which in conformity with 
 the Scheme proposed by me, in aid of distinct 
 conception and easy recollection, I have named 
 the Indifference*. What I mean by this, afami- 
 
 * The Papacy elevated the Church to the virtual 
 exclusion or suppression of the Scriptures : the modern 
 Church of England, since Chillingworth, has so raised 
 up the Scriptures as to annul the Church : both alike 
 have quenched the Holy Spirit, as the mesothesis or in- 
 
LETTER VII. 93 
 
 liar 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 there- 
 from on the spirit, working in himself and in 
 
 difference of the two, and substituted an alien compound 
 for the genuine Preacher, which should be the synthesis 
 of the Scriptures and the Church, and the sensible voice 
 of the Holy Spirit."— Lit. Rem, v. iii. p. 93. Ed. 
 
94 LETTER VII. 
 
 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 com- 
 municate 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 par- 
 ticipation 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, 
 
LETTER VII. 95 
 
 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 pre- 
 cautions to guard against the possible infer- 
 ences 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 mo- 
 mentous 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. 
 
 Farewell. 
 
CHISWICK : 
 
 TRINTED BY C. WHITTINGHAM. 
 
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