The Keys of the Creeds

Sections: General Index Present Section: Index Next: Letters 1 to 3

• The Keys of the Creeds. Second Edition, Revised: Trübner & Co., London (Ludgate Hill), 1875. 201 pp.

Information: As it is the case with several other works, this book was today a rare one, very difficult to find, until it was presented to the Internet public in the Anna Kingsford Site. Edward Maitland himself wrote a comment on this book:

“(...) notwithstanding certain defects of expression, due chiefly to an insufficient acquaintance with the terminology of metaphysics, it proved an invaluable help to very many, as was amply shown by the letters of grateful appreciation received from them by me. The keynote was that which afterwards found expression in the utterance:

“‘There is no enlightenment from without: the secret of things is revealed from within.

“‘From without cometh no Divine Revelation: but the Spirit within beareth witness.’ (Clothed with the Sun, Part I, No. 2)

“For the lesson it contained was the lesson that the phenomenal world cannot disclose its own secret. To find this, man must seek in that substantial world which lies within himself, since all that is real is within the man. From which it followed that if there is no within, or if that within be inaccessible, either there is no reality, or man has no organon of knowledge, and is by constitution agnostic. Meanwhile, the very fact of my possession of an ideal exempt from the limitations of the apparent, constituted for me a strong presumption in favour of the reality of the ideal.

“(...) By which it will be seen that I was still in ignorance of the nature of the faculty I found in myself”. (The Story of Anna Kingsford and Edward Maitland and of the New Gospel of Interpretation, pp. 26-27.)

Below we have a photo of its original cover, the title pages, the Preface, the index of the chapters with the links to the complete Html text of the book:

THE KEYS

THE CREEDS

SECOND EDITION REVISED

LONDON

TRÜBNER & CO., LUDGATE HILL

1875

LONDON: PRINTED BY

SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE

AND PARLIAMENT STREET

THE CHURCH, THE CHURCHES, AND THE WORLD,

THIS BOOK IS PROFFERED AS AN

EIRENICON. [1]

_________

(1st.) TO THE CHURCH: in the hope that through the demonstration of the facts, –

(i) That Theology is not necessary to Religion.

(ii) That inasmuch as all known theological systems whatever are purely human in character and origin, and without reference to Deity, Theology as a science of God has no real existence. And,

(iii) That the Church by virtue of its exaltation of that which is merely a sublimated Anthropology, in the place of Theology, does actually already dispense with Theology; –

it may be induced to renounce its pretension to supernatural knowledge or authority, or to be a medium of communication between man and his Maker, and by admission of the truth in this respect put itself in accord with the moral sense of mankind; and, also, that it may withdraw from science the ban whereby it has sought to prohibit investigation into the real nature of the universe.

(2nd.) TO THE CHURCHES: in the hope that through the consideration that the differences between them concern, not the nature, will, or dealings of the Deity, but human idealisations only of humanity, – they may be induced to renounce their mutual antagonisms, and to unite for the promotion of that which constitutes the essential element in Religion, namely, the culture of the idea of perfection in the soul; and of that which constitutes the essential element in morals, namely, the endeavour to realise that idea in life. And,

(3rd.) TO THE WORLD: in the hope that through a comprehension of the true meaning of religion and function of the Church, it may be led to accept the ministry of the Churches on behalf of Religion and Morals as above defined.

LONDON: August 1875.

[1] Compiler’s note: Work written by Rev. E.B Pusey, in three parts (1865-70), being an attempt to find a common basis to a reunification of Roman Catholicism and the Church of England.

PREFACE

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THE LETTERS contained in this volume were written between the autumns of 1873 and 1874. The reason for publishing them anonymously will be obvious to all who read them. Happily, religious and historical truth needs not for its confirmation the authority of a name. The Editor has been careful to omit all references of a personal nature, saving only in so far as was necessary to make the position of the writer intelligible. It is considered sufficient to add that the quotations from Scripture have been made, as was natural under the circumstances, from both the Douay and the English versions.

LONDON: Easter 1875.

CONTENTS

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LETTERS (pages)

I. THE SHADOW OF DEATH (1)

II. THE SOUL (8)

III. GOD (15)

IV. IN HIS OWN IMAGE, MALE AND FEMALE (20)