LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES - LETTER II

Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel T. Coleridge

LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES - LETTER II, CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT by Samuel T. Coleridge
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My dear friend,

In my last Letter I said that in the Bible there is more that FINDS
me than I have experienced in all other books put together; that the
words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being; and that
whatever finds me brings with it an irresistible evidence of its
having proceeded from the Holy Spirit. But the doctrine in question
requires me to believe that not only what finds me, but that all that
exists in the sacred volume, and which I am bound to find therein,
was--not alone inspired by, that is composed by, men under the
actuating influence of the Holy Spirit, but likewise--dictated by an
Infallible Intelligence; that the writers, each and all, were
divinely informed as well as inspired. Now here all evasion, all
excuse, is cut off. An infallible intelligence extends to all
things, physical no less than spiritual. It may convey the truth in
any one of the three possible languages--that of sense, as objects
appear to the beholder on this earth; or that of science, which
supposes the beholder placed in the centre; or that of philosophy,
which resolves both into a supersensual reality. But whichever be
chosen--and it is obvious that the incompatibility exists only
between the first and second, both of them being indifferent and of
equal value to the third--it must be employed consistently; for an
infallible intelligence must intend to be intelligible, and not to
deceive. And, moreover, whichever of these three languages be
chosen, it must be translatable into truth. For this is the very
essence of the doctrine, that one and the same intelligence is
speaking in the unity of a person; which unity is no more broken by
the diversity of the pipes through which it makes itself audible,
than is a tune by the different instruments on which it is played by
a consummate musician, equally perfect in all. One instrument may be
more capacious than another, but as far as its compass extends, and
in what it sounds forth, it will be true to the conception of the
master. I can conceive no softening here which would not nullify the
doctrine, and convert it to a cloud for each man's fancy to shift and
shape at will. And this doctrine, I confess, plants the vineyard of
the Word with thorns for me, and places snares in its pathways.
These may be delusions of an evil spirit; but ere I so harshly
question the seeming angel of light--my reason, I mean, and moral
sense in conjunction with my clearest knowledge--I must inquire on
what authority this doctrine rests. And what other authority dares a
truly catholic Christian admit as coercive in the final decision, but
the declarations of the Book itself--though I should not, without
struggles, and a trembling reluctance, gainsay even a universal
tradition?

I return to the Book. With a full persuasion of soul respecting all
the articles of the Christian Faith, as contained in the first four
classes, I receive willingly also the truth of the history, namely,
that the Word of the Lord did come to Samuel, to Isaiah, to others;
and that the words which gave utterance to the same are faithfully
recorded. But though the origin of the words, even as of the
miraculous acts, be supernatural, yet the former once uttered, the
latter once having taken their place among the phenomena of the
senses, the faithful recording of the same does not of itself imply,
or seem to require, any supernatural working, other than as all truth
and goodness are such. In the books of Moses, and once or twice in
the prophecy of Jeremiah, I find it indeed asserted that not only the
words were given, but the recording of the same enjoined by the
special command of God, and doubtless executed under the special
guidance of the Divine Spirit. As to all such passages, therefore,
there can be no dispute; and all others in which the words are by the
sacred historian declared to have been the Word of the Lord
supernaturally communicated, I receive as such with a degree of
confidence proportioned to the confidence required of me by the
writer himself, and to the claims he himself makes on my belief.

Let us, therefore, remove all such passages, and take each book by
itself; and I repeat that I believe the writer in whatever he himself
relates of his own authority, and of its origin. But I cannot find
any such claim, as the doctrine in question supposes, made by these
writers, explicitly or by implication. On the contrary, they refer
to other documents, and in all points express themselves as sober-
minded and veracious writers under ordinary circumstances are known
to do. But perhaps they bear testimony, the successor to his
predecessor? Or some one of the number has left it on record, that
by special inspiration HE was commanded to declare the plenary
inspiration of all the rest? The passages which can without violence
be appealed to as substantiating the latter position are so few, and
these so incidental--the conclusion drawn from them involving
likewise so obviously a petitio principii, namely, the supernatural
dictation, word by word, of the book in which the question is found
(for, until this is established, the utmost that such a text can
prove is the current belief of the writer's age and country
concerning the character of the books then called the Scriptures)--
that it cannot but seem strange, and assuredly is against all analogy
of Gospel revelation, that such a doctrine--which, if true, must be
an article of faith, and a most important, yea, essential article of
faith--should be left thus faintly, thus obscurely, and, if I may so
say, OBITANEOUSLY, declared and enjoined. The time of the formation
and closing of the Canon unknown;--the selectors and compilers
unknown, or recorded by known fabulists;--and (more perplexing still)
the belief of the Jewish Church--the belief, I mean, common to the
Jews of Palestine and their more cultivated brethren in Alexandria
(no reprehension of which is to be found in the New Testament)--
concerning the nature and import of the [Greek text which cannot be
reproduced] attributed to the precious remains of their Temple
Library;--these circumstances are such, especially the last, as in
effect to evacuate the tenet, of which I am speaking, of the only
meaning in which it practically means anything at all tangible,
steadfast, or obligatory. In infallibility there are no degrees.
The power of the High and Holy One is one and the same, whether the
sphere which it fills be larger or smaller;--the area traversed by a
comet, or the oracle of the house, the holy place beneath the wings
of the cherubim;--the Pentateuch of the Legislator, who drew near to
the thick darkness where God was, and who spake in the cloud whence
the thunderings and lightnings came, and whom God answered by a
voice; or but a letter of thirteen verses from the affectionate ELDER
TO THE ELECT LADY AND HER CHILDREN, WHOM HE LOVED IN THE TRUTH. But
at no period was this the judgment of the Jewish Church respecting
all the canonical books. To Moses alone--to Moses in the recording
no less than in the receiving of the Law--and to all and every part
of the five books called the Books of Moses, the Jewish doctors of
the generation before, and coeval with, the apostles, assigned that
unmodified and absolute theopneusty which our divines, in words at
least, attribute to the Canon collectively. In fact it was from the
Jewish Rabbis--who, in opposition to the Christian scheme, contended
for a perfection in the revelation by Moses, which neither required
nor endured any addition, and who strained their fancies in
expressing the transcendency of the books of Moses, in aid of their
opinion--that the founders of the doctrine borrowed their notions and
phrases respecting the Bible throughout. Remove the metaphorical
drapery from the doctrine of the Cabbalists, and it will be found to
contain the only intelligible and consistent idea of that plenary
inspiration, which later divines extend to all the canonical books;
as thus:- "The Pentateuch is but ONE WORD, even the Word of God; and
the letters and articulate sounds, by which this Word is communicated
to our human apprehensions, are likewise divinely communicated."

Now, for 'Pentateuch' substitute 'Old and New Testament,' and then I
say that this is the doctrine which I reject as superstitious and
unscriptural. And yet as long as the conceptions of the revealing
Word and the inspiring Spirit are identified and confounded, I assert
that whatever says less than this, says little more than nothing.
For how can absolute infallibility be blended with fallibility?
Where is the infallible criterion? How can infallible truth be
infallibly conveyed in defective and fallible expressions? The
Jewish teachers confined this miraculous character to the Pentateuch.
Between the Mosaic and the Prophetic inspiration they asserted such a
difference as amounts to a diversity; and between both the one and
the other, and the remaining books comprised under the tithe of
Hagiographa, the interval was still wider, and the inferiority in
kind, and not only in degree, was unequivocally expressed. If we
take into account the habit, universal with the Hebrew doctors, of
referring all excellent or extraordinary things to the great First
Cause, without mention of the proximate and instrumental causes--a
striking illustration of which may be obtained by comparing the
narratives of the same event in the Psalms and in the historical
books; and if we further reflect that the distinction of the
providential and the miraculous did not enter into their forms of
thinking--at all events not into their mode of conveying their
thoughts--the language of the Jews respecting the Hagiographa will be
found to differ little, if at all, from that of religious persons
among ourselves, when speaking of an author abounding in gifts,
stirred up by the Holy Spirit, writing under the influence of special
grace, and the like.

But it forms no part of my present purpose to discuss the point
historically, or to speculate on the formation of either Canon.
Rather, such inquiries are altogether alien from the great object of
my pursuits and studies, which is to convince myself and others that
the Bible and Christianity are their own sufficient evidence. But it
concerns both my character and my peace of mind to satisfy
unprejudiced judges that if my present convictions should in all
other respects be found consistent with the faith and feelings of a
Christian--and if in many and those important points they tend to
secure that faith and to deepen those feelings--the words of the
Apostle, rightly interpreted, do not require their condemnation.
Enough, if what has been stated above respecting the general doctrine
of the Hebrew masters, under whom the Apostle was bred, shall remove
any misconceptions that might prevent the right interpretation of his
words. Farewell.