LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES - LETTER VII

Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel T. Coleridge

LETTERS ON THE INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES - LETTER VII, CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT by Samuel T. Coleridge
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You are now, my dear friend, in possession of my whole mind on this
point--one thing only excepted which has weighed with me more than
all the rest, and which I have therefore reserved for my concluding
letter. This is the impelling principle or way of thinking, which I
have in most instances noticed in the assertors of what I have
ventured to call Bibliolatry, and which I believe to be the main
ground of its prevalence at this time, and among men whose religious
views are anything rather than enthusiastic. And I here take
occasion to declare, that my conviction of the danger and injury of
this principle was and is my chief motive for bringing the doctrine
itself into question; the main error of which consists in the
confounding of two distinct conceptions--revelation by the Eternal
Word, and actuation of the Holy Spirit. The former indeed is not
always or necessarily united with the latter--the prophecy of Balaam
is an instance of the contrary,--but yet being ordinarily, and only
not always, so united, the term, "Inspiration," has acquired a double
sense.

First, the term is used in the sense of Information miraculously
communicated by voice or vision; and secondly, where without any
sensible addition or infusion, the writer or speaker uses and applies
his existing gifts of power and knowledge under the predisposing,
aiding, and directing actuation of God's Holy Spirit. Now, between
the first sense, that is, inspired revelation, and the highest degree
of that grace and communion with the Spirit which the Church under
all circumstances, and every regenerate member of the Church of
Christ, is permitted to hope and instructed to pray for, there is a
positive difference of kind--a chasm, the pretended overleaping of
which constitutes imposture, or betrays insanity. Of the first kind
are the Law and the Prophets, no jot or tittle of which can pass
unfulfilled, and the substance and last interpretation of which
passes not away; for they wrote of Christ, and shadowed out the
everlasting Gospel. But with regard to the second, neither the holy
writers--the so-called Hagiographi--themselves, nor any fair
interpretations of Scripture, assert any such absolute diversity, or
enjoin the belief of any greater difference of degree, than the
experience of the Christian World, grounded on and growing with the
comparison of these Scriptures with other works holden in honour by
the Churches, has established. And THIS difference I admit, and
doubt not that it has in every generation been rendered evident to as
many as read these Scriptures under the gracious influence of the
spirit in which they were written.

But alas! this is not sufficient; this cannot but be vague and
unsufficing to those with whom the Christian religion is wholly
objective, to the exclusion of all its correspondent subjective. It
must appear vague, I say, to those whose Christianity as matter of
belief is wholly external, and like the objects of sense, common to
all alike; altogether historical, an opus operatum--its existing and
present operancy in no respect differing from any other fact of
history, and not at all modified by the supernatural principle in
which it had its origin in time. Divines of this persuasion are
actually, though without their own knowledge, in a state not
dissimilar to that into which the Latin Church sank deeper amid
deeper from the sixth to the fourteenth century; during which time
religion was likewise merely objective and superstitious--a letter
proudly emblazoned and illuminated, but yet a dead letter that was to
be read by its own outward glories without the light of the Spirit in
the mind of the believer. The consequence was too glaring not to be
anticipated, and, if possible, prevented. Without that spirit in
each true believer, whereby we know the spirit of truth and the
spirit of error in all things appertaining to salvation, the
consequence must be--so many men, so many minds! And what was the
antidote which the Priests and Rabbis of this purely objective Faith
opposed to this peril? Why, an objective, outward Infallibility,
concerning which, however, the differences were scarcely less or
fewer than those which it was to heal; an Infallibility which taken
literally and unqualified, became the source of perplexity to the
well-disposed, of unbelief to the wavering, and of scoff and triumph
to the common enemy, and which was, therefore, to be qualified and
limited, and then it meant so munch and so little that to men of
plain understandings and single hearts it meant nothing at all. It
resided here. No! there. No! but in a third subject. Nay! neither
here, nor there, nor in the third, but in all three conjointly!

But even this failed to satisfy; and what was the final resource--the
doctrine of those who would not be called a Protestant Church, but in
which doctrine the Fathers of Protestantism in England would have
found little other fault, than that it might be affirmed as truly of
the decisions of any other bishop as of the Bishop of Rome? The
final resource was to restore what ought never to have been removed--
the correspondent subjective, that is, the assent and confirmation of
the Spirit promised to all true believers, as proved and manifested
in the reception of such decision by the Church Universal in all its
rightful members.

I comprise and conclude the sum of my conviction in this one
sentence. Revealed religion (and I know of no religion not revealed)
is in its highest contemplation the unity, that is, the identity or
co-inherence, of subjective and objective. It is in itself, and
irrelatively at once inward life and truth, and outward fact and
luminary. But as all power manifests itself in the harmony of
correspondent opposites, each supposing and supporting the other; so
has religion its objective, or historic and ecclesiastical pole and
its subjective, or spiritual and individual pole. In the miracles
and miraculous parts of religion--both in the first communication of
Divine truths, and in the promulgation of the truths thus
communicated--we have the union of the two, that is, the subjective
and supernatural displayed objectively--outwardly and phenomenally--
AS subjective and supernatural.

Lastly, in the Scriptures, as far as they are not included in the
above as miracles, and in the mind of the believing and regenerate
reader and meditater, there is proved to us the reciprocity or
reciprocation of the spirit as subjective and objective, which in
conformity with the scheme proposed by me, in aid of distinct
conception and easy recollection, I have named the Indifference.
What I mean by this, a familiar acquaintance with the more popular
parts of Luther's works, especially his "Commentaries," and the
delightful volume of his "Table Talk," would interpret for me better
than I can do for myself. But I do my best, when I say that no
Christian probationer, who is earnestly working out his salvation,
and experiences the conflict of the spirit with the evil and the
infirmity within him and around him, can find his own state brought
before him, and, as it were, antedated, in writings reverend even for
their antiquity and enduring permanence, and far more and more
abundantly consecrated by the reverence, love, and grateful
testimonies of good men, through the long succession of ages, in
every generation, and under all states of minds and circumstances of
fortune, that no man, I say, can recognise his own inward experiences
in such writings, and not find an objectiveness, a confirming and
assuring outwardness, and all the main characters of reality
reflected therefrom on the spirit, working in himself and in his own
thoughts, emotions, and aspirations, warring against sin and the
motions of sin. The unsubstantial, insulated self passes away as a
stream; but these are the shadows and reflections of the Rock of
Ages, and of the Tree of Life that starts forth from its side.

On the other hand, as much of reality, as much of objective truth, as
the Scriptures communicate to the subjective experiences of the
believer, so much of present life, of living and effective import, do
these experiences give to the letter of these Scriptures. In the one
THE SPIRIT ITSELF BEARETH WITNESS WITH OUR SPIRIT, that we have
received the SPIRIT OF ADOPTION; in the other our spirit bears
witness to the power of the Word, that it is indeed the Spirit that
proceedeth from God. If in the holy men thus actuated all
imperfection of knowledge, all participation in the mistakes and
limits of their several ages had been excluded, how could these
writings be or become the history and example, the echo and more
lustrous image of the work and warfare of the sanctifying principle
in us? If after all this, and in spite of all this, some captious
litigator should lay hold of a text here or there--St. Paul's CLOAK
LEFT AT TROAS WITH CARPUS, or a verse from the Canticles, and ask,
"Of what spiritual use is this?"--the answer is ready:- It proves to
us that nothing can be so trifling, as not to supply an evil heart
with a pretext for unbelief.

Archbishop Leighton has observed that the Church has its extensive
and intensive states, and that they seldom fall together. Certain it
is, that since kings have been her nursing fathers, and queens her
nursing mothers, our theologians seem to act in the spirit of fear
rather than in that of faith; and too often, instead of inquiring
after the truth in the confidence that whatever is truth must be
fruitful of good to all who ARE IN HIM THAT IS TRUE, they seek with
vain precautions to GUARD AGAINST THE POSSIBLE INFERENCES which
perverse and distempered minds may pretend, whose whole Christianity-
-do what we will--is and will remain nothing but a pretence.

You have now my entire mind on this momentous question, the grounds
on which it rests, and the motives which induce me to make it known;
and I now conclude by repeating my request: Correct me, or confirm
me.

Farewell.