The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 52

This is a valuable anecdote, for it proves, what might have been concluded 'a priori', that Bunyan was a man of too much genius to be a fanatic. No two qualities are more contrary than genius and fanaticism.

Enthusiasm, indeed, [Greek: o thes en haemin], is almost a synonyme of genius; the moral life in the intellectual light, the will in the reason; and without it, says Seneca, nothing truly great was ever achieved by man.

Ib. p. 12.

And not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, "What shall I do?"

Reader, was this ever your case? Did you ever see your sins, and feel the burden of them, so as to cry out in the anguish of your soul, What must I do to be saved? If not, you will look on this precious book as a romance or history, which no way concerns you; you can no more understand the meaning of it than if it were wrote in an unknown tongue, for you are yet carnal, dead in your sins, lying in the arms of the wicked one in false security. But this book is spiritual; it can only be understood by spiritually quickened souls who have experienced that salvation in the heart, which begins with a sight of sin, a sense of sin, a fear of destruction and dread of d.a.m.nation.

Such and such only commence Pilgrims from the City of Destruction to the heavenly kingdom.

'Note in Edwards'.

Most true. It is one thing to perceive and acknowledge this and that particular deed to be sinful, that is, contrary to the law of reason or the commandment of G.o.d in Scripture, and another thing to feel sin within us independent of particular actions, except as the common ground of them. And it is this latter without which no man can become a Christian.

Ib. p. 39.

Now whereas thou sawest that as soon as the first began to sweep, the dust did so fly about that the room by him could not be cleansed, but that thou wast almost choked therewith; this is to show thee, that the Law, instead of cleansing the heart (by its working) from sin, doth revive, put strength into, and increase it in the soul, even as it doth discover and forbid it; for it doth not give power to subdue.

See Luther's 'Table Talk'. The chapters in that work named "Law and Gospel," contain the very marrow of divinity. Still, however, there remains much to be done on this subject; namely, to show how the discovery of sin by the Law tends to strengthen the sin; and why it must necessarily have this effect, the mode of its action on the appet.i.tes and impet.i.tes through the imagination and understanding; and to exemplify all this in our actual experience.

Ib. p. 40.

Then I saw that one came to Pa.s.sion, and brought him a bag of treasure, and poured it down at his feet; the which he took up, and rejoiced therein, and withal laughed Patience to scorn; but I beheld but awhile, and he had lavished all away, and had nothing left him but rags.

One of the not many instances of faulty allegory in 'The Pilgrim's Progress'; that is, it is no allegory. The beholding "but awhile," and the change into "nothing but rags," is not legitimately imaginable. A longer time and more interlinks are requisite. It is a hybrid compost of usual images and generalized words, like the Nile-born nondescript, with a head or tail of organized flesh, and a lump of semi-mud for the body.

Yet, perhaps, these very defects are practically excellencies in relation to the intended readers of 'The Pilgrim's Progress'.

Ib. p. 43.

The Interpreter answered, "This is Christ, who continually, with the oil of his grace, maintains the work already begun in the heart; by the means of which, notwithstanding what the Devil can do, the souls of his people prove gracious still. And in that thou sawest that the man stood behind the wall to maintain the fire, this is to teach thee, that it is hard for the tempted to see how this work of grace is maintained in the soul."

This is beautiful; yet I cannot but think it would have been still more appropriate, if the waterpourer had been a Mr. Legality, a prudentialist offering his calculation of consequences as the moral antidote to guilt and crime; and if the oil-instillator, out of sight and from within, had represented the corrupt nature of man, that is, the spiritual will corrupted by taking up a nature into itself.

Ib.

What, then, has the sinner who is the subject of grace no hand in keeping up the work of grace in the heart? No! It is plain Mr. Bunyan was not an Arminian.

'Note in Edwards'.

If by metaphysics we mean those truths of the pure reason which always transcend, and not seldom appear to contradict, the understanding, or (in the words of the great Apostle) spiritual verities which can only be spiritually discerned--and this is the true and legitimate meaning of metaphysics, [Greek: meta ta physika]--then I affirm, that this very controversy between the Arminians and the Calvinists, in which both are partially right in what they affirm, and both wholly wrong in what they deny, is a proof that without metaphysics there can be no light of faith.

Ib. p. 45.

I left off to watch and be sober; I laid the reins upon the neck of my l.u.s.ts

This single paragraph proves, in opposition to the a.s.sertion in the preceding note in Edwards, that in Bunyan's judgment there must be at least a negative co-operation of the will of man with the divine grace, an energy of non-resistance to the workings of the Holy Spirit. But the error of the Calvinists is, that they divide the regenerate will in man from the will of G.o.d, instead of including it.

Ib. p. 49.

So I saw in my dream, that just as Christian came up with the Cross, his burden loosed from off his shoulders, and fell from off his back, and began to tumble; and so continued to do, till it came to the mouth of the sepulchre, where it fell in, and I saw it no more.

'We know that the Son of G.o.d is come, and hath given us an understanding' (or discernment of reason) 'that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his son Jesus Christ. This is the true G.o.d and eternal life. Little children, keep yourselves from idols'. 1. John, v. 20, 21.

Alas! how many Protestants make a mental idol of the Cross, scarcely less injurious to the true faith in the Son of G.o.d than the wooden crosses and crucifixes of the Romanists!--and this, because they have not been taught that Jesus was both the Christ and the great symbol of Christ.

Strange, that we can explain spiritually, what to take up the cross of Christ, to be crucified with Christ, means;--yet never ask what the Crucifixion itself signifies, but rest satisfied in the historic image.

That one declaration of the Apostle, that by wilful sin we 'crucify the Son of G.o.d afresh', might have roused us to n.o.bler thoughts.

Ib. p. 52.

And besides, say they, if we get into the way, what matters which way we get in? If we are in, we are in. Thou art but in the way, who, as we perceive, came in at the gate: and we are also in the way, that came tumbling over the wall: wherein now is thy condition better than ours?

The allegory is clearly defective, inasmuch as 'the way' represents two diverse meanings;

1. the outward profession of Christianity, and 2. the inward and spiritual grace.

But it would be very difficult to mend it.

1830.

In this instance (and it is, I believe, the only one in the work,) the allegory degenerates into a sort of pun, that is, in the two senses of the word 'way,' and thus supplies Formal and Hypocrite with an argument which Christian cannot fairly answer, or rather one to which Bunyan could not make his Christian return the proper answer without contradicting the allegoric image.

For the obvious and only proper answer is: No! you are not in the same 'way' with me, though you are walking on the same 'road.'

But it has a worse defect, namely, that it leaves the reader uncertain as to what the writer precisely meant, or wished to be understood, by the allegory.

Did Bunyan refer to the Quakers as rejecting the outward Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's Supper?

If so, it is the only unspiritual pa.s.sage in the whole beautiful allegory, the only trait of sectarian narrow-mindedness, and, in Bunyan's own language, of legality.

But I do not think that this was Bunyan's intention. I rather suppose that he refers to the Arminians and other Pelagians, who rely on the coincidence of their actions with the Gospel precepts for their salvation, whatever the ground or root of their conduct may be; who place, in short, the saving virtue in the stream, with little or no reference to the source.

But it is the faith acting in our poor imperfect deeds that alone saves us; and even this faith is not ours, but the faith of the Son of G.o.d in us.

'I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of G.o.d, who loved me and gave himself for me.'

Gal. ii. 20.

Ill.u.s.trate this by a simile. Labouring under chronic 'bronchitis', I am told to inhale chlorine as a specific remedy; but I can do this only by dissolving a saturated solution of the gas in warm water, and then breathing the vapour. Now what the aqueous vapour or steam is to the chlorine, that our deeds, our outward life, [Greek: bios], is to faith.