2. I was also anxious to bring my views into agreement with the teachings of Christ and His Apostles. I wished every article of my belief to rest, not on the word of man, but on the word of God. I believed it to be my duty to come as near to Christ as possible, both in my views and character. And I wished my style of preaching and teaching to be, like His, the perfection of plainness and simplicity. I felt that my chief mission was to the masses,—that I was called especially to preach and teach the Gospel to the poor; and it was my wish to be able to make it plain to people of the most defective education, and of the humblest capacity.
3. I was further wishful to see an agreement between the doctrines which I gathered from the Sacred Scriptures, and the oracles which came to me from the works of God in nature. If nature and Christianity were from the same All-perfect God, as I believed, their voices must be one. Their lessons of truth and duty must agree. They must have the same end and tendency. Christian precepts must be in harmony with man's mental and bodily constitution. They must be conducive to the development of all man's powers; to the perfection and happiness of his whole being. They must be friendly to the improvement of his condition. They must favor every thing that is conducive to his personal and domestic happiness, and to the social and national welfare of the whole human race. And the doctrines of Christianity must be in harmony with the constitution, and laws, and phenomena of the visible universe. If there be one Great, All-perfect Creator and Governor of the world and of man, then man and the universe, the universe and religion, science and revelation, philosophy and Christianity, the laws of nature and the laws of Christ, must all be one. I wanted to see this oneness, and to feel the sweet sense of it in my soul.
4. I wanted further to see the foundations on which my belief in God and Christ and in the Sacred Scriptures rested, that I might be able to justify my belief both to myself and to others. I wished to have the fullest evidence and assurance of the truth of Christianity I could get, that I might both feel at rest and happy myself, and be able to give rest and comfort to the souls of others.
5. With these objects in view I set to work. I prayed to God, the Great Father of lights, and the Giver of every good and perfect gift, to lead me into all truth, and to furnish me to every good work. I read the Bible with the greatest care. I searched it through and through. I studied it daily, desirous to learn the whole scope and substance of its teachings, on every point both of truth and duty. I marked on the margin of the pages all those passages that struck me by their peculiar clearness, and their fulness of important meaning. These passages I read over again and again, till I got great numbers of them off by heart. I gave each passage a particular mark according to the subject on which it treated. I then copied the whole of these passages into large Note Books, placing all that spake on any particular subject together. I also arranged the passages so far as I was able, in their natural order, that they might throw light on one another, and present the subject on which they treated, in as full and intelligible a light as possible. I divided the pages of my Note Books into two columns, placing the passages which favored one view of a subject in the first column, and those which seemed to favor a different view in the second. I placed in those Note Books passages on matters of duty, as well as on matters of truth. In this way I got nearly all the plainer and more important portions of the Bible arranged in something like systematic order. Having done this, I went through my Books, and put down in writing all that the passages plainly taught, and marked the bearing of their teachings on the various articles of my creed, with a view to bringing my creed, and the teachings of Scripture, into agreement with each other.
6. To help me in these my labors, and to secure myself as far as possible from serious error, I read a multitude of other books, on almost every subject of importance, by authors of almost all varieties of creeds. I read commentaries, sermons, bodies of divinity, and a host of treatises on various points. To the best of my ability I examined the Scriptures in the original languages, as well as in a number of translations, both ancient and modern, including several Latin and French versions, four German ones, and all the English ones that came in my way. I had a number of Lexicons, and of Theological and Bible Dictionaries of which I made free use. I went through the Commentaries of Baxter, Wesley and Adam Clarke with the greatest care, as well as through a huge and somewhat heterodox, but able and excellent work, published by Goadby, entitled, Illustrations of the Sacred Scriptures. I do not think I missed a single sentence in these commentaries, or passed unweighed a single word.
I read and studied the writings of Wesley generally, and the works of Fletcher, Benson and Watson. I read Hooker and Taylor also, and Wilkins, and Barrow, and Tillotson, and Butler, and Burnet, and Pearson, and Hoadley. I read the writings of Baxter almost continually. I went through, not only the whole of his voluminous practical works, but many of his doctrinal and controversial ones, including his Catholic Theology, his Aphorisms on Justification, his Confessions, and his most elaborate, comprehensive and wonderful work of all, his Methodus Theologiæ, in Latin. In Baxter alone I had a world of materials for thought, on almost every religious and moral subject that can engage the mind of man. And on almost every subject of importance his thoughts seemed rich and wholesome, scriptural and rational in the highest degree. His Christian spirit held me captive, and I never got tired of his earnest, eloquent, and godly talk. Even the old and endless controversies on which he spent so much time and strength, were often rendered interesting by the honesty of his heart, by the abundance of his charity, by the moderation of his views, and by the never-failing good sound sense of his remarks. None of the works I read had such a charm for me as those of Baxter, and no other religious writer exerted so powerful and lasting an influence either on my head or heart. Taylor was too flowery, and Barrow too wordy, and Tillotson was rather cold and formal; yet I read them all with profit, and with a great amount of pleasure. Hooker I found a wonder, both for excellency of style and richness of sentiment; and his piety and wisdom, his candor and his charity, have never been surpassed since the days of Christ and His Apostles. And Hoadley too I liked, and Butler, and Thomas a Kempis, and William Law. And then came Bolton and Howe, and Doddridge and Watts. Then Penn, and Barclay, and Clarkson, and Sewell, and Hales, and Dell caught my attention, giving me interesting revelations of Quaker thought and feeling.
And I was edified by Lactantius and Chrysostom, the most eloquent, rational and practical of the Christian Fathers. By and by came Priestley and Price, and Dr. John Taylor, and W. E. Channing, and a host of others of the modern school of heterodox writers. I also read a number of celebrated French authors, including Bossuet and Bourdaloue, Flechier and Massillon, Pascal and Fenelon, and the eloquent, Protestant preacher and author, M. Saurin. I read the principal works both of Catholics and Protestants, of the Fathers and Reformers, of Churchmen and Dissenters, of Quakers and Mystics, of Methodists and Calvinists, of Unitarians and Infidels.
I read several works on Law and Government, including Puffendorf's Law of Nature, Grotius on the Laws of Peace and War, Bodin on Government, Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, Blackstone's Commentaries, and Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium. I had read works on Anatomy, Physiology and Medicine, when I could get hold of them, from the time when I was only twelve years old. I never went far into any other sciences, yet I studied, to some extent, Astronomy, Geology, Physical Geography, Botany, Natural History, and Anthropology. I read Wesley's publication on Natural Philosophy, and I gave more or less attention to every work on science and natural philosophy that came in my way. Works on natural religion and natural theology, in which science was taught and used in subservience to Christian truth and duty, I read whenever I could get hold of them. They interested me exceedingly. For works on Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, I had not the least regard. They seemed to have no tendency to help me in the work in which I was engaged, and I had no desire to talk respectable nonsense on such subjects. I was fond of Ecclesiastical and Civil History, and read most greedily such works as threw light on the progress of society in learning, science, and useful arts; in freedom, morals, religion and government. I read many of the works of the ancient Greeks and Romans, and the history of the wonderful periods in which they flourished. I was especially fond of Cicero, Seneca, and Epictetus. All subjects bearing on the great interests of mankind, and all works revealing the workings of the human mind and the laws of human nature, seemed to me to bear important relations to religion and the Bible; and the writings of the great philosophers, lawyers, and historians, appeared to be almost as much in my line as Baxter's Christian Directory, or Wesley's Notes on the New Testament.
Tales of wars and intrigues, and of royal and aristocratic vices and follies I hated. Yet I was interested in accounts of religious controversies, and read with eagerness, though with pain and horror, the tragic and soul-harrowing stories of the deadly conflicts between Christian piety and anti-Christian intolerance. Above all I loved well-written books on the beneficial influence of Christianity on the temporal interests and the general happiness of mankind. I liked good biographies, especially of celebrated students, great philosophers, and remarkable Christian philanthropists. Of works of fiction I read very few, and evermore still fewer as I got older, until at length I came to view them generally as a great nuisance. There are few, I suppose, that can say they read the whole, not only of Wesley's works, but of his Christian Library, in fifty volumes; yet I went through the whole, though one of the books was so profound, or else so silly, that I could not find one sentence in it that I could properly understand. I read the greater part of the books of my friends. I went through nearly the whole library of a village about two miles distant from my native place. My native place itself could not boast a library in those days. I read scores, if not hundreds of books that taught me nothing but the ignorance and self-conceit of the writers, and the various forms of literary and religious insanity to which poor weak humanity is liable.
There was a large old Free Library at Newcastle-on-Tyne, left to the city by a celebrated clergyman, which contained all the Fathers, all the Greek and Roman Classics, all the more celebrated of the old Infidels, all the old leading skeptical and lawless writers of Italy, and France, and Holland, all the great old Church of England writers, and all the leading writers of the Nonconformists, Dissenters, and Heretics of all kinds. To this library I used to go, day after day, and stay from morning to night, reading some of the great authors through, and examining almost all of them sufficiently to enable me to see what there was in each, that I had not met with in the rest. Here I read Hobbes and Machiavel, Bolingbroke and Shaftesbury, Tindal and Chubb. Here I first saw the works of Cudworth and Chillingworth, and here too I first found the entire works of Bacon and Newton, of Locke and Boyle. Here also I read the works of some of the older defenders of the faith. Grotius on the truth of the Christian religion I had read much earlier. I had used it as a school book, translating it both out of Latin into English, and out of English back into Latin, imprinting it thereby almost word for word upon my memory. I had also read the work of his commentator on the causes of incredulity. Leland on the deistical writers, and Paley's Evidences, and others, I read after. But in this great old library I met with numbers of interesting and important works that I have never met with since. And here, in the dimly lighted antiquated rooms, I used to fill my mind with a world of facts, and thoughts, and fancies, and then go away to meditate upon them while travelling on my way, or sitting in my room, or lying on my bed. Day and night, alone and in company, these were the things which filled my mind and exercised my thoughts.