Religion in James Hogg’s The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justi

Religion in James pigs The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and J.G. Lockharts Adam BlairThere is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the fairness of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (Romans 81-2). Given the highly charged religious environment of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scotland, the above passage must have been discussed many times in Christian circles then. Some of the Reformed faithful, perhaps, took the first part too seriously, to the expense of any normal sense of morality, while others might have forgotten their exemption from condemnation and fallen into despair. Either way, both views pervert the orthodox Calvinistic view of guilt laid out in the teachings of the doctrines namesake and the exemplification confessions of the church at the time.While they may not make very good theology, these dogmas at least provided material for two nineteenth-century charac ter studies, James Hoggs The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner and J.G. Lockharts Adam Blair. Written when much (but not all) of post-Enlightenment Scotland had taken an anti-clerical, anti-religious stance, these novels explore the faith of the previous extension and how fundamentalist Presbyterianism may have gone horribly wrong. The protagonists of each book react in completely opposite ways to their sinful acts Lockharts eponymous character has a nearly legalistic view of his own sin, while Hoggs Robert Wringhim follows a more antinomian path. Oddly enough, it is the former who ends up ransomed and the other damned, but their respective journeys toward those ends follow much of the same path.Robert Wringhim, Hoggs cen... ... Studies Review Vol. 5 (2004) 9-26.Hogg, James. The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner. Oxford Oxford University pressure, 1969.Holy Bible, slope Standard Version. Ed. J.I. Packer et. al. London HarperCollins Relig ious, 2002.Lockhart, J.G. Some Passages in the Life of Mr. Adam Blair, Minister of the Gospel at Cross-Meikle. Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press, 1963.Mack, Douglas S. The Rage of Fanaticism in the Former geezerhood James Hoggs Confession of a Justified Sinner and the Controversy over Old Mortality. Nineteenth Century Scottish Fiction fine Essays. Ed. Ian Campbell. Manchester Carcanet New Press Limited, 1979. 37-50.Richardson, Thomas C. Character and Craft in Lockharts Adam Blair. Nineteenth Century Scottish Fiction Critical Essays. Ed. Ian Campbell. Manchester Carcanet New Press Limited, 1979. 51-67.