The following Letters on the Inspiration of the Scriptures were left
by Mr. Coleridge in MS. at his death. The Reader will find in them a
key to most of the Biblical criticism scattered throughout the
Author's own writings, and an affectionate, pious, and, as the Editor
humbly believes, a profoundly wise attempt to place the study of the
Written Word on its only sure foundation,--a deep sense of God's
holiness and truth, and a consequent reverence for that Light--the
image of Himself--which He has kindled in every one of his rational
creatures.--[HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE.]
LINCOLN'S INN, _September 22, 1840_.
Being persuaded of nothing more than of this, that whether it be
matter of speculation or of practice, no untruth can possibly avail
the patron and defender long, and that things most truly are likewise
most behovefully spoken.--_Hooker._
Any thing will be pretended rather than admit the necessity of
internal evidence, or acknowledge, among the external proofs, the
convictions and experiences of Believers, though they should be common
to all the faithful in every age of the Church. But in all
superstition there is a heart of unbelief; and, _vice versâ_, where a
man's belief is but a superficial acquiescence, credulity is the
natural result and accompaniment, if only he be not required to sink
into the depths of his being, where the sensual man can no longer draw
breath.--[COLERIDGE'S _Literary Remains_.]
Faith subsists in the _synthesis_ of the Reason and the individual
Will. By virtue of the latter, therefore, it must be an energy, and,
inasmuch as it relates to the whole moral man, it must be exerted in
each and all of his constituents or incidents, faculties and
tendencies:--it must be a total, not a partial--a continuous, not a
desultory or occasional--energy. And by virtue of the former, that is,
Reason, Faith must be a Light, a form of knowing, a beholding of
Truth. In the incomparable words of the Evangelist, therefore,--_Faith
must be a Light originating in the Logos, or the substantial Reason,
which is co-eternal and one with the Holy Will, and which Light is at
the same time the Life of men._ Now, as _Life_ is here the sum or
collective of all moral and spiritual acts, in suffering, doing, and
being, so is Faith the source and the sum, the energy and the
principle of the fidelity of Man to God, by the subordination of his
human Will, in all provinces of his nature, to his Reason, as the sum
of spiritual Truth, representing and manifesting the Will
Divine.--[COLERIDGE'S _Essay on Faith: Literary Remains_, vol. iv.
page 437. We reprint the entire essay at the end of the present
volume. See p. 339.--ED.]