"Would that not be trusting to works"? - where did I read this?

August 10, 2020 10:02 PM

Lately I've had the phrase "Would that not be trusting to works?" running through my head and it's driving me nuts. I know it's from a novel I studied in undergrad 20 years ago, almost guaranteed to be a Victorian (perhaps Romantic) era book. I believe it was said by a female character and the novel had something to do with Calvinism, or at least the characters struggled with the issue of whether their salvation was preordained or a matter of "works", i.e. "good deeds". I don't think it was by one of the 'big' authors - probably not Dickens, for example. Googling just brings up a lot of results about trusting your employees and so on. I know this is a long shot, but if any one happens to know what novel I'm remembering, I'd be forever grateful!
posted by The Hyacinth Girl to Writing & Language (3 answers total)

Best answer: I searched Google Books specifically for "Trusting to works" and found several possibilities. Best guess would be something from Frances Milton Trollope as it shows up twice in a context that seems pretty similar. Not sure what the exact book is that it's excerpted from as it's a "collected works" book. The included novels are mentioned on the book's details page
posted by JZig at 10:07 PM on August 10, 2020 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: By God, I think it was Trollope! Metafilter never ceases to amaze me. I’ll have to check that list of included novels and see if a title jumps out at me but I think you’ve cracked the case. And introduced me to Google Books which I didn’t know was a thing.
posted by The Hyacinth Girl at 11:18 PM on August 10, 2020

Chasing that a little more, it’s The Vicar of Wrexhill, one of her zillions if problem novels.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36686

thomas j. wise to the courtesy lectern...

Also, the phrase occurs in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs so anxious English people would have been quoting it for centuries, AIUI.
posted by clew at 2:25 PM on August 11, 2020