LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES - LETTER V

Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel T. Coleridge

LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES - LETTER V, CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT by Samuel T. Coleridge
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Yes, my dear friend, it is my conviction that in all ordinary cases
the knowledge and belief of the Christian Religion should precede the
study of the Hebrew Canon. Indeed, with regard to both Testaments, I
consider oral and catechismal instruction as the preparative provided
by Christ himself in the establishment of a visible Church. And to
make the Bible, apart from the truths, doctrines, and spiritual
experiences contained therein, the subject of a special article of
faith, I hold an unnecessary and useless abstraction, which in too
many instances has the effect of substituting a barren acquiescence
in the letter for the lively FAITH THAT COMETH BY HEARING; even as
the hearing is productive of this faith, because it is the Word of
God that is heard and preached. (Rom. x. 8, 17.) And here I mean
the written Word preserved in the armoury of the Church to be the
sword of faith OUT OF THE MOUTH of the preacher, as Christ's
ambassador and representative (Rev. i. 16), and out of the heart of
the believer from generation to generation. Who shall dare dissolve
or loosen this holy bond, this divine reciprocality, of Faith and
Scripture? Who shall dare enjoin aught else as an object of saving
faith, beside the truths that appertain to salvation? The imposers
take on themselves a heavy responsibility, however defensible the
opinion itself, as an opinion, may be. For by imposing it, they
counteract their own purposes. They antedate questions, and thus, in
all cases, aggravate the difficulty of answering them satisfactorily.
And not seldom they create difficulties that might never have
occurred. But, worst of all, they convert things trifling or
indifferent into mischievous pretexts for the wanton, fearful
difficulties for the weak, and formidable objections for the
inquiring. For what man FEARING God dares think any the least point
indifferent, which he is required to receive as God's own immediate
Word miraculously infused, miraculously recorded, and by a succession
of miracles preserved unblended and without change?--Through all the
pages of a large and multifold volume, at each successive period, at
every sentence, must the question recur:- "Dare I believe--do I in my
heart believe--these words to have been dictated by an infallible
reason, and the immediate utterance of Almighty God?"--No! It is due
to Christian charity that a question so awful should not be put
unnecessarily, and should not be put out of time. The necessity I
deny. And out of time the question must be put, if after enumerating
the several articles of the Catholic Faith I am bound to add:- "and
further you are to believe with equal faith, as having the same
immediate and miraculous derivation from God, whatever else you shall
hereafter read in any of the sixty-six books collected in the Old and
New Testaments."

I would never say this. Yet let me not be misjudged as if I treated
the Scriptures as a matter of indifference. I would not say this,
but where I saw a desire to believe, and a beginning love of Christ,
I would there say:- "There are likewise sacred writings, which, taken
in connection with the institution and perpetuity of a visible
Church, all believers revere as the most precious boon of God, next
to Christianity itself, and attribute both their communication and
preservation to an especial Providence. In them you will find all
the revealed truths, which have been set forth and offered to you,
clearly and circumstantially recorded; and, in addition to these,
examples of obedience and disobedience both in states and
individuals, the lives and actions of men eminent under each
dispensation, their sentiments, maxims, hymns, and prayers--their
affections, emotions, and conflicts;--in all which you will recognise
the influence of the Holy Spirit, with a conviction increasing with
the growth of your own faith and spiritual experience."

Farewell.