The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iv Part 34

including the Son in the [Greek: pataer monos]. For to his only-begotten Son before all time the Father showeth all things.

Ib. p. 279.

But whether we can reconcile these words to our belief of Christ's prescience and divinity, or not, matters little to the debate about his divinity itself; since we can so fully prove it by innumerable pa.s.sages of Scripture, too direct, express, and positive, to be balanced by one obscure pa.s.sage, from 'whence the Arian is to draw the consequence himself, which may possibly be wrong'.

Very good.

Ib. p. 280.

'We know that the Son of G.o.d is come, and hath given us an understanding 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.'--l John v. 20. The whole connection evidently shows the words to be spoken of Christ.

That the words comprehend Christ is most evident. All that can be fairly concluded from 1 Cor. viii. 6, is this:--that the Apostles, Paul and John, speak of the Father as including and comprehending the Son and the Holy Ghost, as his Word and his Spirit; but of these as inferring or supposing the Father, not comprehending him. Whenever, therefore, respecting the G.o.dhead itself, containing both deity and dominion, the term G.o.d is distinctively used, it is applied to the Father, and Lord to the Son.

Ib. p. 281.

But, farther, it is objected that Christ cannot be G.o.d, since G.o.d calls him 'his servant' more than once, particularly 'Isaiah' xlii. 1.

The Prophets often speak of the anti-type, or person typified, in language appropriate to, and suggested by, the type itself. So, perhaps, in this pa.s.sage, if, as I suppose, Hezekiah was the type immediately present to Isaiah's imagination. However, Skelton's answer is quite sufficient.

Ib. p. 287.

Hence it appears, that in the pa.s.sage objected, (1 'Cor'. xv. 24, &c.) Christ is spoken of purely as that Man whom 'G.o.d had highly exalted, and to whom he had given a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.' (Phil. ii. 9, 10.)

I must confess that this exposition does not quite satisfy me. I cannot help thinking that something more and deeper was meant by the Apostle; and this must be sought for in the mystery of the Trinity itself, 'in which' (mystery) 'all treasures of knowledge are hidden'.

Ib. p. 318.

Hence, perhaps, may be best explained what St. Peter says in the second Epistle, after pleading a miracle. 'We have also a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well that you take heed.'

I believe that St. Peter neither said it, nor meant this; but that [Greek: Bebaioteron] follows 'the prophetic word'. We have also the word of prophecy more firm;--that is; we have, in addition to the evidence of the miracles themselves, this further confirmation, that they are the fulfilment of known prophecies.

Ib. p. 327.

Agreeable to these pa.s.sages of the Prophet, St. Peter tells us ('Acts'

x. 38), 'G.o.d anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and power'.

I have often to complain that too little attention is paid by commentators to the history and particular period in which certain speeches were delivered, or words written. Could St. Peter with propriety have introduced the truth to a prejudiced audience with its deepest mysteries? Must he not have begun with the most evident facts?

Ib. Disc. VIII.

The Doctrine of the Holy Trinity vindicated.

Were I a Clergyman, the paragraphs from p. 366 to p. 370, both inclusive, of this Discourse should form the conclusion of my Sermon on Trinity Sunday,--whether I preached at St. James's, or in a country village.

Ib. pp. 374-378.

As a reason why we should doubt our own judgment, it is quite fair to remind the objector, that the same difficulty occurs in the scheme of G.o.d's ordinary providence. But that a difficulty in a supposed article of revealed truth is solved by the occurrence of the same or of an equivalent difficulty in the common course of human affairs--this I find it hard to conceive. How was the religious, as distinguished from the moral, sense first awakened? What made the human soul feel the necessity of a faith in G.o.d, but the apparent incongruity of certain dispensations in this world with the idea of G.o.d, with the law written in the heart?

Is not the reconciling of these facts or 'phaenomena' with the divine attributes, one of the purposes of a revealed religion? But even this is not a full statement of the defect complained of in this solution. A difficulty which may be only apparent (like that other of the prosperity of the wicked) is solved by the declaration of its reality! A difficulty grounded on the fact of temporal and outward privations and sufferings, is solved by being infinitely increased, that is, by the a.s.sertion of the same principle on the determination of our inward and everlasting weal and woe. That there is nothing in the Christian Faith or in the Canonical Scriptures, when rightly interpreted, that requires such an argument, or sanctions the recourse to it, I believe myself to have proved in the Aids to Reflection. For observe that "to solve" has a scientific, and again a religious sense, and that in the latter, a difficulty is satisfactorily solved, as soon as its insolvibility for the human mind is proved and accounted for.

Ib. (Disc. XIV. pp. 500-502.)

Christianity proved by Miracles.

I cannot see and never could, the purpose, or 'cui bono', of this reasoning. To whom is it addressed? To a man who denies a G.o.d, or that G.o.d can reveal his will to mankind? If such a man be not below talking to, he must first be convinced of his miserable blindness respecting these truths; for these are clearly presupposed in every proof of miracles generally.

Again, does he admit the authenticity of the Gospels, and the veracity of the Evangelists? Does he credit the facts there related, and as related? If not, these points must be proved; for these are clearly presupposed in all reasoning on the particular miracles of the Christian dispensation. If he does, can he deny that many acts of Christ were wonderful;--that reanimating a dead body in which putrefaction had already commenced,--and feeding four thousand men with a few loaves and fishes, so that the fragments left greatly exceeded the original total quant.i.ty,--were wonderful events? Should such a man, 'compos mentis', exist, (which I more than doubt,) what could a wise man do but stare--and leave him? Christ wrought many wonderful works, implying admirable power, and directed to the most merciful and beneficent ends; and these acts were such signs of his divine mission, as rendered inattention or obstinate averseness to the truths and doctrines which he promulgated, inexcusable, and indeed on any hypothesis but that of immoral dispositions and prejudices, utterly inconceivable. In what respect, I pray, can this statement be strengthened by any reasoning about the nature and distinctive essence of miracles 'in abstracto'?

What purpose can be answered by any pretended definition of a miracle?

If I met with a disputatious word-catcher, or logomachist, who sought to justify his unbelief on this ground, I should not hesitate to say--"Never mind whether it is a miracle or no. Call it what you will;--but do you believe the fact? Do you believe that Christ did by force of his will and word multiply instantaneously twelve loaves and a few small fishes, into sufficient food for a hungering mult.i.tude of four thousand men and women?" When I meet with, or from credible authority hear of, a man who believes this fact, and yet thinks it no sign of Christ's mission; when I can even conceive of a man in his right senses who, believing all the facts and events related in the New Testament, and as there related, does yet remain a Deist, I may think it time to enter into a disquisition respecting the right definition of a miracle; and meantime, I humbly trust that believing with my whole heart and soul in the wonderful works of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I shall not forfeit my t.i.tle of Christian, though I should not subscribe to this or that divine's right definition of his 'idea' of a miracle; which word is with me no 'idea' at all, but a general term; the common surname, as it were, of the wonderful works wrought by the messengers of G.o.d to man in the Patriarchal, Mosaic, and Christian dispensations.

It is to these notions and general definitions, far more than to the facts themselves, that the arguments of Infidels apply; and from which they derive their plausibility. Nor is this all. The Infidel imitates the divine, and adopts the same mode of arguing, namely, by this substantiation of mere general or collective terms. For instance, Hume's argument (stated, by the by, before he was born, and far more forcibly, by Dr. South, who places it in the mouth of Thomas,) [2]--reduce it to the particular facts in question, and its whole speciousness vanishes. I am speaking of the particular facts and actions of the Gospel; of those, and those only. Now that I should be deceived, or the eye-witnesses have been deceived, under all the circ.u.mstances of those miracles, with all antecedents, accompaniments, and consequents, is quite as contrary to, that is, unparalleled in my experience, as the return to life of a dead man.

So again in the second paragraph of page 502, [3] the position is true or false according to the definition of a miracle. In the narrower sense of the term, miracle,--that is, a consequent presented to the outward senses without an adequate antecedent, ejusdem generis,--it is not only false but detractory from the Christian religion. It is a main, nay, an indispensable evidence; but it is not the only, no, nor if comparison be at all allowable, the highest and most efficient; unless, indeed, the term evidence is itself confined to grounds of conviction offered to the senses, but then the position is a mere truism.

There is yet another way of reasoning, which I utterly dislike; namely, by putting imaginary cases of imaginary miracles, as Paley has done. "If a dozen different individuals, all men of known sense and integrity, should each independently of the other pledge their everlasting weal on the truth, that they saw a man beheaded and quartered, and that on a certain person's prayer or bidding, the quarters reunited, and then a new head grew on and from out of the stump of the neck: and should the man himself a.s.sure you of the same, shew you the junctures, and identify himself to you by some indelible mark, with which you had been previously acquainted,--could you withstand this evidence?" What could a judicious man reply but--"When such an event takes place, I will tell you; but what has this to do with the reasons for our belief in the truth of the written records of the Old and New Testament? Why do you fly off from the facts to a gigantic fiction,--when the possibility of the 'If' with respect to a much less startling narration is the point in dispute between us?"

Such and so peculiar, and to an honest mind so unmistakeable, is the character of veracity and simplicity on the very countenance, as it were, of the Gospel, that every remove of the inquirer's attention from the facts themselves is a remove of his conversion. It is your business to keep him from wandering, not to set him the example.

Never, surely, was there a more unequal writer than Skelton;--in the discourses on the Trinity, the compeer of Bull and Waterland; and yet the writer of these pages, 500-501! Natural magic! a stroke of art! for example, converting the Nile into blood! And then his definition of a miracle. Suspension of the laws of nature! suspension--laws--nature!

Bless me! a chapter would be required for the explanation of each several word of this definition, and little less than omniscience for its application in any one instance. An effect presented to the senses without any adequate antecedent, 'ejusdem generis', is a miracle in the philosophic sense. Thus: the corporeal ponderable hand and arm raised with no other known causative antecedent, but a thought, a pure act of an immaterial essentially invisible imponderable will, is a miracle for a reflecting mind. Add the words, 'praeter experientiam': and we have the definition of a miracle in the popular, practical, and appropriated sense.

Vol. III.

That all our thoughts and views respecting our Faith should be consistent with each other, and with the attributes of G.o.d, is most highly desirable: but when the great diversities of men's understandings, and the unavoidable influence of circ.u.mstances on the mind, are considered, we may hope from the Divine mercy, that the agreement in the result will suffice; and that he who sincerely and efficiently believes that Christ left the glory which he had with the Father before all worlds, to become man and die for our salvation,--that by him we may, and by him alone we can, be saved,--will be held a true believer,--whether he interprets the words 'sacrifice,' 'purchase,'

'bargain,' 'satisfaction,' of the creditor by full payment of the 'debt,' and the like as proper and literal expressions of the redeeming act and the cause of our salvation, as Skelton seems to have done;--or (as I do) as figurative language truly designating the effects and consequences of this adorable act and process.

Ib. p. 393.

But were the prospect of a better parish, in case of greater diligence, set before him by his Bishop, on the music of such a promise, like one bit by a 'tarantula', we should probably soon see him in motion, and serving G.o.d, (O shameful!) for the sake of Mammon, as if his torpid body had been animated anew by a returning soul.

Without any high-flying in Christian morality, I cannot keep shrinking from the wish here expressed; at all events, I cannot sympathize with, or partic.i.p.ate in, the expectation of "an infinite advancement" from men so motived.

Ib. p. 394.

Yet excommunication, the inherent discipline of the Church, which it exercised under persecution, which it is still permitted to exercise under the present establishment.

Rarely I suspect, without exposing the Clergyman to the risk of an action for damages, or some abuse. There are few subjects that more need investigation, yet require more vigour and soundness of judgment to be rightly handled, than this of Christian discipline in a Church established by law. It is indeed a most difficult and delicate problem, and supplied Baxter with a most plausible and to me the only perplexing of his numerous objections to our Ecclesiastical Const.i.tution. On the other hand, I saw clearly that he was requiring an impossibility; and that his argument carried on to its proper consequences concluded against all Church Establishment, not more against the National Church of which he complained, than the one of his own clipping and shaping which he would have subst.i.tuted; consequently, every proof (and I saw many and satisfactory proofs) of the moral and political necessity of an Established Church, was at the same time a pledge that a deeper insight would detect some flaw in the reasoning of the Disciplinarians. For if A. be right and requisite, B., which is incompatible with A., cannot be rightly required. And this it was, that first led me to the distinction between the 'Ecclesia' and an 'Enclesia', concerning which see my Essay on Establishment and Dissent, in which I have met the objection to my position, that Christian discipline is incompatible with a Church established by law, from the fact of the discipline of the Church of Scotland. [4] Who denies that it is in the power of a legislature to punish certain offences by ignominy, and to make the clergy magistrates in reference to these? The question is, whether it is wise or expedient, which it may be, or rather may have been, in Scotland, and the contrary in England? Wise or unwise, this is not discipline, not Christian discipline, enforced only by spiritual motives, enacted by spiritual authority, and submitted to for conscience' sake.