The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 9

I should rather express the difference between the faithful of the Synagogue and those of the Church, thus:--That the former hoped generally by an implicit faith;--"It shall in all things be well with all that love the Lord; therefore it cannot but be good for us and well with us to rest with our forefathers." But the Christian hath an a.s.sured hope by an explicit and particular faith, a hope because its object is future, not because it is uncertain. The one was on the road journeying toward a friend of his father's, who had promised he would be kind to him even to the third and fourth generation. He comforts himself on the road, first, by means of the various places of refreshment, which that friend had built for travellers and continued to supply; and secondly, by antic.i.p.ation of a kind reception at the friend's own mansion-house.

But the other has received an express invitation to a banquet, beholds the preparations, and has only to wash and put on the proper robes, in order to sit down.

Ib. p. 11.

The reason why our translators, in the beginning, did choose rather to use the word 'congregation' than 'Church,' was not, as the adversary maliciously imagineth, for that they feared the very name of the Church; but because as by the name of religion and religious men, ordinarily in former times, men understood nothing but _fact.i.tias religiones_, as Gerson out of Anselme calleth them, that is, the professions of monks and friars, so, &c.

For the same reason the word 'religion' for [Greek: Thraeskia] in St.

James [4] ought now to be altered to ceremony or ritual. The whole version has by change of language become a dangerous mistranslation, and furnishes a favorite text to our moral preachers, Church Socinians and other christened pagans now so rife amongst us. What was the substance of the ceremonial law is but the ceremonial part of the Christian religion; but it is its solemn ceremonial law, and though not the same, yet one with it and inseparable, even as form and substance. Such is St.

James's doctrine, destroying at one blow Antinomianism and the Popish popular doctrine of good works.

Ib. c. 18. p. 27.

But if the Church of G.o.d remains in Corinth, where there were 'divisions, sects, emulations', &c. ... who dare deny those societies to be the Churches of G.o.d, wherein the tenth part of these horrible evils and abuses is not to be found?

It is rare to meet with sophistry in this sound divine; but here he seems to border on it. For first the Corinthian Church upon admonition repented of its negligence; and secondly, the objection of the Puritans was, that the const.i.tution of the Church precluded discipline.

B. II. c. 2. p. 31.

'Miscreant' is twice used in this page in its original sense of misbeliever.

Ib. c. 4. p. 35.

'Discourse' is here used for the discursive acts of the understanding, even as 'discursive, is opposed to 'intuitive' by Milton [5] and others.

Thus understand Shakspeare's "discourse of reason" for those discursions of mind which are peculiar to rational beings.

B. III. c. 1.p. 53.

The first publishers of the Gospel of Christ delivered a rule of faith to the Christian Churches which they founded, comprehending all those articles that are found in that 'epitome' of Christian religion, which we call the Apostles' Creed.

This needs proof. I rather believe that the so called Apostles' Creed was really the Creed of the Roman or Western church, (and possibly in its present form, the catechismal rather than the baptismal creed),--and that other churches in the East had Creeds equally ancient, and, from their being earlier troubled with Anti Trinitarian heresies, more express on the divinity of Christ than the Roman.

Ib. p. 58.

Fourthly, that it is no less absurd to say, as the Papists do, that our satisfaction is required as a condition, without which Christ's satisfaction is not appliable unto us, than to say, Peter hath paid the debt of John, and he to whom it was due accepteth of the same payment, conditionally if he pay it himself also.

This [6] propriation of a metaphor, namely, forgiveness of sin and abolition of guilt through the redemptive power of Christ's love and of his perfect obedience during his voluntary a.s.sumption of humanity, expressed, on account of the sameness of the consequences in both cases, by the payment of a debt for another, which debt the payer had not himself incurred,--the propriation of this, I say, by transferring the sameness from the consequents to the antecedents is the one point of orthodoxy (so called, I mean) in which I still remain at issue. It seems to me so evidently a [Greek: metabasis eis allo genos.] A metaphor is an ill.u.s.tration of something less known by a more or less partial identification of it with something better understood. Thus St. Paul ill.u.s.trates the consequences of the act of redemption by four different metaphors drawn from things most familiar to those, for whom it was to be ill.u.s.trated, namely, sin-offerings or sacrificial expiation; reconciliation; ransom from slavery; satisfaction of a just creditor by vicarious payment of the debt. These all refer to the consequences of redemption.

Now, St. John without any metaphor declares the mode by and in which it is effected; for he identifies it with a fact, not with a consequence, and a fact too not better understood in the one case than in the other, namely, by generation and birth. There remains, therefore, only the redemptive act itself, and this is transcendant, ineffable, and 'a fortiori', therefore, inexplicable. Like the act of primal apostasy, it is in its own nature a mystery, known only through faith in the spirit.

James owes John 100, which (to prevent James's being sent to prison) Henry pays for him; and John has no longer any claim. But James is cruel and ungrateful to Mary, his tender mother. Henry, though no relation, acts the part of a loving and dutiful son to Mary. But will this satisfy the mother's claims on James, or ent.i.tle him to her esteem, approbation, and blessing? If, indeed, by force of Henry's example or persuasion, or any more mysterious influence, James repents and becomes himself a good and dutiful child, then, indeed, Mary is wholly satisfied; but then the case is no longer a question of debt in that sense in which it can be paid by another, though the effect, of which alone St. Paul was speaking, is the same in both cases to James as the debtor, and to James as the undutiful son. He is in both cases liberated from the burthen, and in both cases he has to attribute his exoneration to the act of another; as cause simply in the payment of the debt, or as likewise 'causa causae' in James's reformation. Such is my present opinion: G.o.d grant me increase of light either to renounce or confirm it.

Perhaps the different terms of the above position may be more clearly stated thus:

1. 'agens causator'

2. 'actus causativus:'

3. 'effectus causatus:'

4. 'consequentia ab effecto.'

1. The co-eternal Son of the living G.o.d, incarnate, tempted, crucified, resurgent, communicant of his spirit, ascendant, and obtaining for his church the descent of the Holy Ghost.

2. A spiritual and transcendant mystery.

3. The being born anew, as before in the flesh to the world, so now in the spirit to Christ: where the differences are, the spirit opposed to the flesh, and Christ to the world; the 'punctum indifferens', or combining term, remaining the same in both, namely, a birth.

4. Sanctification from sin and liberation from the consequences of sin, with all the means and process of sanctification, being the same for the sinner relatively to G.o.d and his own soul, as the satisfaction of a creditor for a debt, or as the offering of an atoning sacrifice for a transgressor of the law; as a reconciliation for a rebellious son or a subject to his alienated parent or offended sovereign; and as a ransom is for a slave in a heavy captivity.

Now my complaint is that our systematic divines transfer the paragraph 4 to the paragraphs 2 and 3, interpreting 'proprio sensu et ad totum 'what is affirmed 'sensu metaphorico et ad partem', that is, 'ad consequentia a regeneratione effecta per actum causativum primi agentis, uempe [Greek: Logou] redemptoris', and by this interpretation subst.i.tuting an identification absolute for an equation proportional.

4th May, 1819.

Ib. p. 62.

Personality is nothing but the existence of nature itself.

G.o.d alone had his nature in himself; that is, G.o.d alone contains in himself the ground of his own existence. But were this definition of Field's right, we might predicate personality of a worm, or wherever we find life. Better say,--personality is individuality existing in itself, but with a nature as its ground.

Ib. p.66.

Accursing Eutyches as a heretic.

It puzzles me to understand what sense Field gave to the word, heresy.

Surely every slight error, even though persevered in, is not to be held a heresy, or its a.s.serters accursed. The error ought at least to respect some point of faith essential to the great ends of the Gospel. Thus the phrase 'cursing Eutyches,' is to me shockingly unchristian. I could not dare call even the opinion cursed, till I saw how it injured the faith in Christ, weakened our confidence in him, or lessened our love and grat.i.tude.

Ib. p.71.

'If ye be circ.u.mcised ye are fallen from grace, and Christ can profit you nothing.'

It seems impossible but that these words had a relation to the particular state of feeling and belief, out of which the anxiety to be circ.u.mcised did in those particular persons proceed, and not absolutely, and at all times to the act itself, seeing that St. Paul himself circ.u.mcised Timothy from motives of charity and prudence.

Ib. c.3. p.76.

The things that pertain to the Christian faith and religion are of two sorts; for there are some things 'explicite', some things 'implicite credenda'; that is, there are some things that must be particularly and expressly known and believed, as that the Father is G.o.d, the Son is G.o.d and the Holy Ghost G.o.d, and yet they are not three G.o.ds but one G.o.d; and some other, which though all men, at all times, be not bound upon the peril of d.a.m.nation to know and believe expressly, yet whosoever will be saved must believe them at least 'implicite', and in generality, as that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fled into Egypt.

Merciful Heaven! Eternal misery and the immitigable wrath of G.o.d, and the inextinguishable fire of h.e.l.l amid devils, parricides, and haters of G.o.d and all goodness--this is the verdict which a Protestant divine pa.s.ses against the man, who though sincerely believing the whole Nicene creed and every doctrine and precept taught in the New Testament, and living accordingly, should yet have convinced himself that the first chapters of St. Matthew and St. Luke were not parts of the original Gospels!