The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iv Part 1

Coleridge's Literary Remains.

Volume 4.

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

NOTES ON LUTHER'S TABLE TALK [1]

I cannot meditate too often, too deeply, or too devotionally on the personeity of G.o.d, and his personality in the Word, [Greek: Gio to monogenei], and thence on the individuity of the responsible creature;--that it is a perfection which, not indeed in my intellect, but yet in my habit of feeling, I have too much confounded with that 'complexus' of visual images, cycles or customs of sensations, and fellow-travelling circ.u.mstances (as the ship to the mariner), which make up our empirical self: thence to bring myself to apprehend livelily the exceeding mercifulness and love of the act of the Son of G.o.d, in descending to seek after the prodigal children, and to house with them in the sty. Likewise by the relation of my own understanding to the light of reason, and (the most important of all the truths that have been vouchsafed to me!) to the will which is the reason,--will in the form of reason--I can form a sufficient gleam of the possibility of the subsistence of the human soul in Jesus to the Eternal Word, and how it might perfect itself so as to merit glorification and abiding union with the Divinity; and how this gave a humanity to our Lord's righteousness no less than to his sufferings. Doubtless, as G.o.d, as the absolute Alterity of the Absolute, he could not suffer; but that he could not lay aside the absolute, and by union with the creaturely become affectible, and a second, but spiritual Adam, and so as afterwards to be partaker of the absolute in the Absolute, even as the Absolute had partaken of pa.s.sion ([Greek: tou paschein]) and infirmity in it, that is, the finite and fallen creature;--this can be a.s.serted only by one who (unconsciously perhaps), has accustomed himself to think of G.o.d as a thing,--having a necessity of const.i.tution, that wills, or rather tends and inclines to this or that, because it is this or that, not as being that, which is that which it wills to be. Such a necessity is truly compulsion; nor is it in the least altered in its nature by being a.s.sumed to be eternal, in virtue of an endless remotion or retrusion of the const.i.tuent cause, which being manifested by the understanding becomes a foreseen despair of a cause.

Sunday 11th February, 1826.

One argument strikes me in favour of the tenet of Apostolic succession, in the ordination of Bishops and Presbyters, as taught by the Church of Rome, and by the larger part of the earlier divines of the Church of England, which I have not seen in any of the books on this subject; namely, that in strict a.n.a.logy with other parts of Christian history, the miracle itself contained a check upon the inconvenient consequences necessarily attached to all miracles, as miracles, narrowing the possible claims to any rights not proveable at the bar of universal reason and experience. Every man among the Sectaries, however ignorant, may justify himself in scattering stones and fire squibs by an alleged unction of the Spirit. The miracle becomes perpetual, still beginning, never ending. Now on the Church doctrine, the original miracle provides for the future recurrence to the ordinary and calculable laws of the human understanding and moral sense; instead of leaving every man a judge of his own gifts, and of his right to act publicly on that judgment. The initiative alone is supernatural; but all beginning is necessarily miraculous, that is, hath either no antecedent, or one [Greek: heterou genous], which therefore is not its, but merely an, antecedent,--or an incausative alien co-incident in time; as if, for instance, Jack's shout were followed by a flash of lightning, which should strike and precipitate the ball on St. Paul's cathedral. This would be a miracle as long as no causative 'nexus' was conceivable between the antecedent, the noise of the shout, and the consequent, the atmospheric discharge.

The Epistle Dedicatory.

But this will be your glory and inexpugnable, if you cleave in truth and practice to G.o.d's holy service, worship and religion: that religion and faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, which is pure and undefiled before G.o.d even the Father, which is to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep yourselves unspotted from the world.

James i. 27.

Few mistranslations (unless indeed the word used by the translator of St. James meant differently from its present meaning), have led astray more than this rendering of [Greek: Thraeskeia.] (outward or ceremonial worship, 'cultus', divine service,) by the English 'religion'. St. James sublimely says: What the 'ceremonies' of the law were to morality, 'that' morality itself is to the faith in Christ, that is, its outward symbol, not the substance itself.

Chap. I. p. 1, 2.

That the Bible is the word of G.o.d (said Luther) the same I prove as followeth: All things that have been and now are in the world; also how it now goeth and standeth in the world, the same was written altogether particularly at the beginning, in the first book of Moses concerning the creation. And even as G.o.d made and created it, even so it was, even so it is, and even so doth it stand to this present day.

And although King Alexander the Great, the kingdom of Egypt, the Empire of Babel, the Persian, Grecian and Roman monarchs; the Emperors Julius and Augustus most fiercely did rage and swell against this Book, utterly to suppress and destroy the same; yet notwithstanding they could prevail nothing, they are all gone and vanished; but this Book from time to time hath remained, and will remain unremoved in full and ample manner as it was written at the first.

A proof worthy of the manly mind of Luther, and compared with which the Grotian pretended demonstrations, from Grotius himself to Paley, are mischievous underminings of the Faith, pleadings fitter for an Old Bailey thieves' counsellor than for a Christian divine. The true evidence of the Bible is the Bible,--of Christianity the living fact of Christianity itself, as the manifest 'archeus' or predominant of the life of the planet.

Ib. p. 4.

The art of the School divines (said Luther) with their speculations in the Holy Scriptures, are merely vain and human cogitations, spun out of their own natural wit and understanding. They talk much of the union of the will and understanding, but all is mere fantasy and fondness. The right and true speculation (said Luther) is this, Believe in Christ; do what thou oughtest to do in thy vocation, &c.

This is the only practice in divinity. Also, 'Mystica Theologia Dionysii' is a mere fable, and a lie, like to Plato's fables. 'Omnia sunt non ens, et omnia sunt ens'; all is something, and all is nothing, and so he leaveth all hanging in frivolous and idle sort.

Still, however, 'du theure Mann Gottes, mein verehrter Luther'! reason, will, understanding are words, to which real ent.i.ties correspond; and we may in a sound and good sense say that reason is the ray, the projected disk or image, from the Sun of Righteousness, an echo from the Eternal Word--'the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world'; and that when the will placeth itself in a right line with the reason, there ariseth the spirit, through which the will of G.o.d floweth into and actuates the will of man, so that it willeth the things of G.o.d, and the understanding is enlivened, and thenceforward useth the materials supplied to it by the senses symbolically; that is, with an insight into the true substance thereof.

Ib. p. 9.

The Pope usurpeth and taketh to himself the power to expound and to construe the Scriptures according to his pleasure. What he saith, must stand and be spoken as from heaven. Therefore let us love and preciously value the divine word, that thereby we may be able to resist the Devil and his swarm.

As often as I use in prayer the 16th verse of the 71st Psalm, (in our Prayer-book version), my thoughts especially revert to the subject of the right appreciation of the Scriptures, and in what sense the Bible may be called the word of G.o.d, and how and under what conditions the unity of the Spirit is translucent through the letter, which, read as the letter merely, is the word of this and that pious but fallible and imperfect man. Alas for the superst.i.tion, where the words themselves are made to be the Spirit! O might I live but to utter all my meditations on this most concerning point!

Ib. p. 12.

Bullinger said once in my hearing (said Luther) that he was earnest against the Anabaptists, as contemners of G.o.d's word, and also against those which attributed too much to the literal word, for (said he) such do sin against G.o.d and his almighty power; as the Jews did in naming the ark, G.o.d. But, (said he) whoso holdeth a mean between both, the same is taught what is the right use of the word and sacraments.

Whereupon (said Luther) I answered him and said; Bullinger, you err, you know neither yourself, nor what you hold; I mark well your tricks and fallacies: Zuinglius and OEcolampadius likewise proceeded too far in the unG.o.dly meaning: but when Brentius withstood them, they then lessened their opinions, alleging, they did not reject the literal word, but only condemned certain gross abuses. By this your error you cut in sunder and separate the word and the spirit, &c.

In my present state of mind, and with what light I now enjoy,--(may G.o.d increase it, and cleanse it from the dark mist into the 'lumen sicc.u.m'

of sincere knowledge!)--I cannot persuade myself that this vehemence of our dear man of G.o.d against Bullinger, Zuinglius and OEcolampadius on this point could have had other origin, than his misconception of what they intended. But Luther spoke often (I like him and love him all the better therefor,) in his moods and according to the mood. Was not that a different mood, in which he called St. James's Epistle a 'Jack-Straw poppet'; and even in this work selects one verse as the best in the whole letter,--evidently meaning, the only verse of any great value?

Besides he accustomed himself to use the term, 'the word,' in a very wide sense when the narrower would have cramped him. When he was on the point of rejecting the Apocalypse, then 'the word' meant the spirit of the Scriptures collectively.

Ib. p. 21.

I, (said Luther), do not hold that children are without faith when they are baptized; for inasmuch as they are brought to Christ by his command, and that the Church prayeth for them; therefore, without all doubt, faith is given unto them, although with our natural sense and reason we neither see nor understand it.

Nay, but dear honoured Luther! is this fair? If Christ or Scripture had said in one place, 'Believe, and thou mayest be baptized'; and in another place, 'Baptize infants'; then we might perhaps be allowed to reconcile the two seemingly jarring texts, by such words as "faith is given to them, although, &c." But when no such text, as the latter, is to be found, nor any one instance as a subst.i.tute, then your conclusion seems arbitrary.

Ib. p. 25.

This argument (said Luther), concludeth so much as nothing; for, although they had been angels from heaven, yet that troubleth me nothing at all; we are now dealing about G.o.d's word, and with the truth of the Gospel, that is a matter of far greater weight to have the same kept and preserved pure and clear; therefore we (said Luther), neither care nor trouble ourselves for, and about, the greatness of Saint Peter and the other Apostles, or how many and great miracles they wrought: the thing which we strive for is, that the truth of the Holy Gospel may stand; for G.o.d regardeth not men's reputations nor persons.

Oh, that the dear man Luther had but told us here what he meant by the term, Gospel! That St. Paul had seen even St. Luke's, is but a conjecture, grounded on a conjectural interpretation of a single text, doubly equivocal; namely, that the Luke mentioned was the same with the Evangelist Luke; and that the 'evangelium' signified a book; the latter, of itself improbable, derives its probability from the undoubtedly very strong probability of the former. If then not any book, much less the four books, now called the four Gospels, were meant by Paul, but the contents of those books, as far as they are veracious, and whatever else was known on equal authority at that time, though not contained in those books; if, in short, the whole sum of Christ's acts and discourses be what Paul meant by the Gospel; then the argument is circuitous, and returns to the first point,--What 'is' the Gospel? Shall we believe you, and not rather the companions of Christ, the eye and ear witnesses of his doings and sayings? Now I should require strong inducements to make me believe that St. Paul had been guilty of such palpably false logic; and I therefore feel myself compelled to infer, that by the Gospel Paul intended the eternal truths known ideally from the beginning, and historically realized in the manifestation of the Word in Christ Jesus; and that he used the ideal immutable truth as the canon and criterion of the oral traditions. For example, a Greek mathematician, standing in the same relation of time and country to Euclid as that in which St. Paul stood to Jesus Christ, might have exclaimed in the same spirit: "What do you talk to me of this, that, and the other intimate acquaintance of Euclid's? My object is to convey the sublime system of geometry which he realized, and by that must I decide." "I," says St. Paul, "have been taught by the spirit of Christ, a teaching susceptible of no addition, and for which no personal anecdotes, however reverendly attested, can be a subst.i.tute." But dearest Luther was a translator; he could not, must not, see this.

Ib. p. 32.

That G.o.d's word, and the Christian Church, is preserved against the raging of the world.

The Papists have lost the cause; with G.o.d's word they are not able to resist or withstand us. * * * 'The kings of the earth stand up, and the rulers take counsel together, &c'. G.o.d will deal well enough with these angry gentlemen, and will give them but small thanks for their labor, in going about to suppress his word and servants; he hath sat in counsel above these five thousand five hundred years, hath ruled and made laws. Good Sirs! be not so choleric; go further from the wall, lest you knock your pates against it. 'Kiss the Son lest he be angry, &c'. That is, take hold on Christ, or the Devil will take hold on you, &c.

The second Psalm (said Luther), is a proud Psalm against those fellows. It begins mild and simply, but it endeth stately and rattling. * * * I have now angered the Pope about his images of idolatry. O! how the sow raiseth her bristles! * * The Lord saith: 'Ego suscitabo vos in novissimo die': and then he will call and say: ho! Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon, Justus Jonas, John Calvin, &c.

Arise, come up, * * * Well on, (said Luther), let us be of good comfort.

A delicious paragraph. How our fine preachers would turn up their Tom-t.i.t beaks and flirt with their tails at it! But this is the way in which the man of life, the man of power, sets the dry bones in motion.

Chap. II. p. 37.

This is the thanks that G.o.d hath for his grace, for creating, for redeeming, sanctifying, nourishing, and for preserving us: such a seed, fruit, and G.o.dly child is the world. O, woe be to it!

Too true.

Ib. p. 54.

That out of the best comes the worst.

Out of the Patriarchs and holy Fathers came the Jews that crucified Christ; out of the Apostles came Judas the traitor; out of the city Alexandria (where a fair ill.u.s.trious and famous school was, and from whence proceeded many upright and G.o.dly learned men), came Arius and Origenes.

Poor Origen! Surely Luther was put to it for an instance, and had never read the works of that very best of the old Fathers, and eminently upright and G.o.dly learned man.