M Guizot’s Confession of Faith
In the Christianisme du XIX. Siècle the following extract from M. Guizot’s will is printed:
“I die in the bosom of the Reformed Christian Church of France, in which I was born, and in which I congratulate myself on having been born. In remaining attached to her, I have always exercised that liberty of conscience which she allows to her adherents in their relations with God, and which she invoked for her own basis. I have inquired, I have doubted; I have believed in the sufficiency of the human mind to resolve the problems presented to it by the universe and by man, and in the power of the human will to govern man’s life in accordance with its law and its moral purpose. After having lived, acted, and reflected long, I have remained, and still remain, convinced that neither the universe nor man suffice either to explain or to govern themselves naturally by the mere force of fixed laws to which they are subject, and of human wills that are brought into play. It is my profound faith that God, who created the universe and man, governs, upholds, or modifies them either by general, and, as we may say, natural laws, or by special and, as we call them, supernatural acts, emanating, as do also the general laws, from His perfect and free wisdom and His infinite power, which it is given to us to acknowledge in their effects, but forbidden to understand in their essence and design. Thus I have returned to the convictions in which I was cradled. Still firmly attached to reason and liberty, which I have received from God, and which are my honor and my right in this world, though I have returned to feel myself a child under the hand of God, sincerely resigned to my large share of weakness and ignorance, I believe in God, and adore Him without seeking to comprehend Him. I recognize Him present and at work not only in the fixed system of the universe and in the inner life of the soul, but also in the history of human society, specially in the Old and New Testaments,—monuments of revelation and Divine action, by the mediation and sacrifice of our Saviour Jesus Christ for the salvation of the human race. I bow myself before the mysteries of the Bible and the Gospel, and I stand aloof from the discussion and the scientific solution by which men have tried to explain them. I trust that God will allow me to call myself a Christian; and I am convinced that in the light on which I am about to enter, we shall see clearly the purely human origin and the vanity of the greater part of our discussions here below on Divine things.”