without the intervention of language. This opinion has so much foundation, as the circumstance of the variations of the Decalogue of Exodus from that of Deuteronomy may afford; whence it should seem to follow (inasmuch as God never spoke but once) that the Decalogue assumes to teach, not the very words, but only the opinions of God. The sacred Scriptures announce no other means besides these, through which God reveals himself to man, none are therefore to be admitted into our conception of his nature; and although we distinctly apprehend that God may communicate immediately with the mind of man without the intervention of material means, yet that intellect must necessarily be of a nature more elevated and excellent than the intellect of man, which can perceive within itself anything not comprised under the original elements of human knowledge, whence I am induced to believe that no person ever arrived at so great an eminence above mankind except Christ, to whom the decrees of God, conducive to human salvation, were immediately revealed, without either words or visions, God manifesting himself through the mind of Christ to the Apostles as formerly to Moses through the mediation of an aërial voice. Therefore the voice of Christ, like that which Moses heard, may be called the voice of God. And thus it may be said that the Wisdom of God, that is superhuman wisdom, assumed human nature in Christ. that Christ was the way of salvation. The portion of the MS. given from here to the end. by Middleton in fac-simile extends And But I must warn the reader that I here avoid the consideration of certain doctrines established by some Churches concerning Christ, which utterly unable to comprehend, I neither affirm, nor deny. That which I have affirmed, I infer from Scripture. For it is nowhere stated that God appeared, or spoke to Christ, but only that God revealed himself through Christ to the Apostles, and that he was the way of salvation, and lastly that the old law was immediately delivered through an Angel, and not by God himself. Therefore, if Moses spoke with God face to face as one man with' his friend (that is through the intermediation of two bodies) Christ communicated with God mind to mind. We may assume, therefore, that, with the exception of Christ, none ever apprehended the revelations of God without the assistance of the imagination, that is of words or forms imaged forth in the mind, and that therefore, as shall be shewn more clearly in the following chapter, the qualification to prophecy is rather a more vivid imagination than a profounder understanding than other men. In the fac-simile MS. was stands in the place of with, of course through a slip of the pen. In printing the line before, Mid dleton substituted if God spoke to Moses for if Moses spoke with God, which is very clearly shewn by the fac-simile to be the right reading. [Mr. Rossetti records in a note (see his edition of the Poetical Works, 1878, Vol. III, page 436) that he had seen in Mr. Garnett's hands "a literal translation made by the poet, when he began learning German in 1815, from the opening portion of Faust, up to where the infernal dog first makes his appearance. It is done as a mere exercise in acquiring the language,... but has its interest as showing... the way he went to work in studying." Mr. Rossetti gave three specimens of this exercise ; and I am content to repeat them here. The whole translation described is in Sir Percy Shelley's possession; and it is not thought worth while to publish it entire.-H. B. F.] |