HOME AGAIN, _ROLLING_, _RUDDERLESS_! THEOLOGY
[Coleridge reached England on 17th August 1806 (_Letters_, 499), and
made for London, intending to write articles once more for Daniel
Stuart. He does not seem, however, to have done anything at this time
for the newspapers.[5] Humphry Davy was endeavouring to get him to give
a course of lectures on the Fine Arts (Dykes Campbell's _Life_, 154). At
the close of the year Coleridge was at Coleorton, the seat of Sir George
Beaumont in Leicestershire, where he met William and Dorothy
Wordsworth.[6] Wordsworth read to him the _Prelude_, now completed; and
Coleridge, after its recital, wrote the well-known poem to Wordsworth in
blank verse, which is as much a dirge over his own failures as a eulogy
of Wordsworth's poem. Wordsworth's view of the great men of all ages,
forming an interconnected scheme of truth slowly being revealed, is a
Coleridgean rather than a Wordsworthian idea (_Prelude_, Book XIII,
300-311); and Coleridge in his verses to his brother bard hails him as
among the men of the Permanent, among the
Choir of ever-during men.
On 17th February, Coleridge was still at Coleorton (Dykes Campbell's
_Life_, 138); but in July, Coleridge and his wife and family were again
at Stowey on a visit to Poole (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 175-182).
Here Coleridge remained till the end of September. Tom Wedgwood had died
while he was at Malta; and his brother Josiah expected Coleridge to
furnish him with some materials for a Life of Tom. Poole endeavoured to
impress upon him the necessity of complying; but the task was
distasteful to him, at which Josiah Wedgwood, not unnaturally, was
displeased.[7] But Coleridge, after some procrastination, wrote to
Josiah Wedgwood on 27th June 1807, giving reasons for his delay
(Meteyard's _Group of Englishmen_, p. 324); and Wedgwood wrote to Poole,
"I was truly glad to hear from him. His letter removed all those
feelings of anger which occasionally, but not permanently, existed in my
mind towards him." (_T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 185.)
Meantime, we find Coleridge again in correspondence with Cottle, who had
heard of his arrival in Stowey. Cottle wrote to him, expressing the hope
that Coleridge's health would soon allow him to pay a visit to Bristol
(_Rem._, 305). To this Coleridge replied:
LETTER 131. TO COTTLE
(---- 1807.)
Dear Cottle,
On my return to Bristol, whenever that may be, I will certainly give you
the right hand of old fellowship; but, alas! you will find me the
wretched wreck of what you knew me, rolling, rudderless. My health is
extremely bad. Pain I have enough of, but that is indeed to me, a mere
trifle, but the almost unceasing, overpowering sensations of
wretchedness: achings in my limbs, with an indescribable restlessness,
that makes action to any available purpose, almost impossible: and worst
of all, the sense of blighted utility, regrets, not remorseless. But
enough; yea, more than enough; if these things produce, or deepen the
conviction of the utter powerlessness of ourselves, and that we either
perish, or find aid from something that passes understanding.
Affectionately,
S. T. C.
* * * * *
Cottle tells us he knew nothing as yet of opium, and was struck with the
interesting narratives Coleridge gave of his Italian experiences and of
his voyage to England. Theology was now in the ascendant with Coleridge
who had now abjured unitarianism and become more orthodox. The following
letters on the Trinity and kindred subjects attest to the veracity of
Cottle's estimate of Coleridge at this period (_Reminiscences_, 306,
325-6):
LETTER 132. TO COTTLE
(1807.)
* * * The declaration that the Deity is "the sole Operant" (Religious
Musings) is indeed far too bold; may easily be misconstrued into
Spinozism; and, therefore, though it is susceptible of a pious and
justifiable interpretation, I should by no means now use such a phrase.
I was very young when I wrote that poem, and my religious feelings were
more settled than my theological notions.[8]
As to eternal punishments, I can only say, that there are many passages
in Scripture, and these not metaphorical, which declare that all flesh
shall be finally saved; that the word _aionios_ is indeed used sometimes
when eternity must be meant, but so is the word "Ancient of Days," yet
it would be strange reasoning to affirm, that therefore, the word
ancient must always mean eternal. The literal meaning of _aionios_ is,
"through ages;" that is indefinite; beyond the power of imagination to
bound. But as to the effects of such a doctrine, I say, First,--that it
would be more pious to assert nothing concerning it, one way or the
other.
Ezra says well, "My Son, meditate on the rewards of the righteous, and
examine not over-curiously into the fate of the wicked." (This
apocryphal Ezra is supposed to have been written by some Christian in
the first age of Christianity.) Second,--that however the doctrine is
now broached, and publicly preached by a large and increasing sect, it
is no longer possible to conceal it from such persons as would be likely
to read and understand the _Religious Musings_. Third.--That if the
offers of eternal blessedness; if the love of God; if gratitude; if the
fear of punishment, unknown indeed as to its kind and duration, but
declared to be unimaginably great; if the possibility, nay, the
probability, that this punishment may be followed by annihilation, not
final happiness, cannot divert men from wickedness to virtue; I fear
there will be no charm in the word Eternal.
Fourth, that it is a certain fact, that scarcely any believe eternal
punishment practically with relation to themselves. They all hope in
God's mercy, till they make it a presumptuous watch-word for religious
indifference. And this, because there is no medium in their faith,
between blessedness and misery,--infinite in degree and duration; which
latter they do not practically, and with their whole hearts, believe. It
is opposite to their clearest views of the divine attributes; for God
cannot be vindictive, neither therefore can his punishments be founded
on a vindictive principle. They must be, either for amendment, or
warning for others; but eternal punishment precludes the idea of
amendment, and its infliction, after the day of judgment, when all not
so punished shall be divinely secured from the possibility of falling,
renders the notion of warning to others inapplicable.
The Catholics are far more afraid of, and incomparably more influenced
in their conduct by, the doctrine of purgatory, than Protestants by that
of hell! That the Catholics practise more superstitions than morals, is
the effect of other doctrines.--Supererogation; invocation of saints;
power of relics, etc., etc., and not of Purgatory, which can only act as
a general motive, to what must depend on other causes.
Fifth, and lastly.--It is a perilous state in which a Christian stands,
if he has gotten no further than to avoid evil from the fear of hell!
This is no part of the Christian religion, but a preparatory awakening
of the soul: a means of dispersing those gross films which render the
eye of the spirit incapable of any religion, much less of such a faith
as that of the love of Christ.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but perfect love
shutteth out fear. It is sufficient for the utmost fervour of gratitude
that we are saved from punishments, too great to be conceived; but our
salvation is surely not complete, till by the illumination from above,
we are made to know "the exceeding sinfulness of sin," and that
horribleness in its nature, which, while it involves all these frightful
consequences, is yet, of itself more affrightful to a regenerated soul
than those consequences. To him who but for a moment felt the influence
of God's presence, the thought of eternal exclusion from the sense of
that presence, would be the worst hell his imagination could conceive.
N.B. I admit of no right, no claim of a creature on its Creator. I speak
only of hopes and of faith deduced from inevitable reason, the gift of
the Creator; from his acknowledged attributes. Above all, immortality
is a free gift, which we neither do, nor can deserve. * * *
S. T. C.
LETTER 133. TO COTTLE
Bristol (June), 1807.
Dear Cottle,
To pursue our last conversation. Christians expect no outward or
sensible miracles from prayer. Its effects, and its fruitions are
spiritual, and accompanied says that _true Divine_, Archbishop Leighton,
"not by reasons and arguments, but by an inexpressible kind of evidence,
which they only know who have it."
To this I would add, that even those who, like me I fear, have not
attained it, yet may presume it. First, because reason itself, or rather
mere human nature, in any dispassionate moment, feels the necessity of
religion, but if this be not true there is no religion, no religation,
or binding over again; nothing added to reason, and therefore
_Socinianism_, misnamed _Unitarianism_, is not only not _Christianity_,
it is not even _religion_, it does not _religate_; does not bind anew.
The first outward and sensible result of prayer is, a penitent
resolution, joined with a consciousness of weakness in effecting it, yea
even a dread, too well grounded, lest by breaking and falsifying it, the
soul should add guilt to guilt; by the very means it has taken to escape
from guilt; so pitiable is the state of unregenerate man.
Are you familiar with Leighton's Works? He resigned his archbishoprick,
and retired to voluntary poverty on account of the persecutions of the
Presbyterians, saying, "I should not dare to introduce Christianity
itself with such cruelties, how much less for a surplice, and the name
of a bishop." If there could be an intermediate space between inspired,
and uninspired writings, that space would be occupied by Leighton. No
show of learning, no appearance, or ostentatious display of eloquence,
and yet both may be shown in him, conspicuously and holily. There is in
him something that must be felt, even as the Scriptures must be felt.
You ask me my views of the _Trinity_. I accept the doctrine, not as
deduced from human reason, in its grovelling capacity for comprehending
spiritual things, but as the clear revelation of Scripture. But perhaps
it may be said, the Socinians do not admit this doctrine as being taught
in the Bible. I know enough of their shifts and quibbles, with their
dexterity at explaining away all they dislike, and that is not a little,
but though beguiled once by them, I happily for my own peace of mind,
escaped from their sophistries, and now hesitate not to affirm, that
Socinians would lose all character for honesty, if they were to explain
their neighbour's will with the same latitude of interpretation, which
they do the Scriptures.
I have in my head some floating ideas on the _Logos_, which I hope,
hereafter, to mould into a consistent form; but it is a gross perversion
of the truth, in Socinians, to declare that we believe in _three gods_;
and they know it to be false. They might, with equal justice affirm that
we believe in _three suns_. The meanest peasant, who has acquired the
first rudiments of Christianity, would shrink back from a thing so
monstrous. Still the Trinity has its difficulties. It would be strange
if otherwise. A _Revelation_ that revealed nothing, not within the grasp
of human reason!--no religation, no binding over again, as before said;
but these difficulties are shadows, contrasted with the substantive and
insurmountable obstacles, with which _they_ contend who admit the
_Divine authority of Scripture_, with the _superlative excellence of
Christ_, and yet undertake to prove that these Scriptures teach, and
that Christ taught his own _pure humanity_.
If Jesus Christ was merely a man, if he was not God as well as man, be
it considered, he could not have been even a _good man_. There is no
medium. The SAVIOUR _in that case_ was absolutely _a deceiver_! one,
transcendantly _unrighteous_! in advancing pretensions to miracles, by
the "Finger of God," which he never performed; and by asserting claims,
(as a man) in the most aggravated sense, blasphemous. These
consequences, Socinians, to be consistent, must allow, and which impious
arrogation of Divinity in Christ, according to their faith, as well as
his false assumption of a community of "glory" with the Father, "before
the world was," even they will be necessitated completely to admit the
exoneration of the Jews,[9] according to their law, in crucifying one,
who "being a man," "made himself God!" But in the Christian, rather than
in the _Socinian_, or _Pharisaic_ view, all these objections vanish, and
harmony succeeds to inexplicable confusion. If Socinians hesitate in
ascribing _unrighteousness_ to Christ, the inevitable result of their
principles, they tremble, as well they might, at their avowed creed, and
virtually renounce what they profess to uphold.
The Trinity, as Bishop Leighton has well remarked, is "a doctrine of
faith, not of demonstration," except in a _moral_ sense. If the New
Testament declare it, not in an insulated passage, but through the whole
breadth of its pages, rendering, with any other admission, the book
which is the Christian's anchor-hold of hope, dark and contradictory,
then it is not to be rejected, but on a penalty that reduces to an atom,
all the sufferings this earth can inflict.
Let the grand question be determined.--Is, or is not the Bible
_inspired_? No one book has ever been subjected to so rigid an
investigation as the Bible, by minds the most capacious, and in the
result, which has so triumphantly repelled all the assaults of infidels.
In the extensive intercourse which I have had with this class of men, I
have seen their prejudices surpassed only by their ignorance. This I
found particularly the case in Dr. Darwin (Letter 19), the prince of
their fraternity. Without therefore, stopping to contend on what all
dispassionate men must deem, undebatable ground, I may assume
inspiration as admitted; and, equally so, that it would be an insult to
man's understanding, to suppose any other Revelation from God than the
Christian Scriptures. If these Scriptures, impregnable in their
strength, sustained in their pretensions, by undeniable prophecies and
miracles, and by the experience of the _inner man_, in all ages, as well
as by a concatenation of arguments, all bearing upon one point, and
extending with miraculous consistency, through a series of fifteen
hundred years; if all this combined proof does not establish their
validity, nothing can be proved under the sun; but the world and man
must be abandoned, with all its consequences, to one universal
scepticism! Under such sanctions, therefore, if these Scriptures, as a
fundamental truth, _do_ inculcate the doctrine of the _Trinity_; however
surpassing human comprehension; then I say, we are bound to admit it on
the strength of _moral demonstration_.
The supreme Governor of the world and the Father of our spirits, has
seen fit to disclose to us much of his will, and the whole of his
natural and moral perfections. In some instances he has given his _word_
only, and demanded our _faith_; while on other momentous subjects,
instead of bestowing full revelation, like the _Via Lactea_, he has
furnished a glimpse only, through either the medium of inspiration, or
by the exercise of those rational faculties with which he has endowed
us. I consider the Trinity as substantially resting on the first
proposition, yet deriving support from the last.
I recollect when I stood on the summit of Etna, and darted my gaze down
the crater; the immediate vicinity was discernible, till, lower down,
obscurity gradually terminated in total darkness. Such figures exemplify
many truths revealed in the Bible. We pursue them, until, from the
imperfection of our faculties, we are lost in impenetrable night. All
truths, however, that are essential to faith, _honestly_ interpreted;
all that are important to human conduct, under every diversity of
circumstance, are manifest as a blazing star. The promises also of
felicity to the righteous in the future world, though the precise nature
of that felicity may not be defined, are illustrated by every image that
can swell the imagination; while the misery of the _lost_, in its
unutterable intensity, though the language that describes it is all
necessarily figurative, is there exhibited as resulting chiefly, if not
wholly, from the withdrawment of the _light of God's countenance_, and a
banishment from his _presence_! best comprehended in this world by
reflecting on the desolations, which would instantly follow the loss of
the sun's vivifying and universally diffused _warmth_.
You, or rather _all_, should remember that some truths from their
nature, surpass the scope of man's limited powers, and stand as the
criteria of _faith_, determining by their rejection, or admission, who
among the sons of men can confide in the veracity of heaven. Those more
ethereal truths, of which the Trinity is conspicuously the chief,
without being circumstantially explained, may be faintly illustrated by
material objects. The eye of man cannot discern the satellites of
Jupiter, nor become sensible of the multitudinous stars, whose rays have
never reached our planet, and consequently garnish not the canopy of
night; yet are they the less _real_, because their existence lies beyond
man's unassisted gaze? The tube of the philosopher, and the _celestial
telescope_,--the unclouded visions of heaven will confirm the one class
of truths, and irradiate the other.
The _Trinity_ is a subject on which analogical reasoning may
advantageously be admitted, as furnishing, at least, a glimpse of light,
and with this, for the present, we must be satisfied. Infinite Wisdom
deemed clearer manifestations inexpedient; and is man to dictate to his
Maker? I may further remark, that where we cannot behold a desirable
object distinctly, we must take the best view we can; and I think you,
and every candid enquiring mind, may derive assistance from such
reflections as the following.
Notwithstanding the arguments of Spinosa, and Des Cartes, and other
advocates of the _Material system_, or, in more appropriate language,
the _Atheistical system_! it is admitted by all men, not prejudiced, not
biased by sceptical prepossessions, that _mind_ is distinct from
_matter_. The mind of man, however, is involved in inscrutable darkness,
(as the profoundest metaphysicians well know) and is to be estimated, if
at all, alone by an inductive process; that is, by its _effects_.
Without entering on the question, whether an extremely circumscribed
portion of the mental process, surpassing instinct, may or may not be
extended to quadrupeds, it is universally acknowledged, that the mind of
man alone, regulates all the actions[10] of his corporeal frame. Mind,
therefore, may be regarded as a distinct genus, in the scale ascending
above brutes, and including the whole of intellectual existences;
advancing from _thought_, that mysterious thing! in its lowest form,
through all the gradations of sentient and rational beings, till it
arrives at a Bacon, a Newton; and then, when unincumbered by matter,
extending its illimitable sway through Seraph and Archangel, till we are
lost in the GREAT INFINITE!
Is it not deserving of notice, as an especial subject of meditation,
that our _limbs_, in all they do or can accomplish, implicitly obey the
dictation of the _mind_? that this operating power, whatever its name,
under certain limitations, exercises a sovereign dominion not only over
our limbs, but over our[11] intellectual pursuits? The mind of every man
is evidently the fulcrum, the moving force, which alike regulates all
his limbs and actions: and in which example, we find a strong
illustration of the subordinate nature of mere _matter_. That alone
which gives direction to the organic parts of our nature, is wholly
_mind_; and one mind if placed over a thousand limbs, could, with
undiminished ease, control and regulate the whole.
This idea is advanced on the supposition that _one mind_ could command
an unlimited direction over any given number of _limbs_, provided they
were all connected by _joint_ and _sinew_. But suppose, through some
occult and inconceivable means, these limbs were dis-associated, as to
all material connexion; suppose, for instance, one mind with unlimited
authority, governed the operations of _two_ separate persons, would not
this substantially, be only _one person_, seeing the directing principle
was one? If the truth here contended for, be admitted, that _two
persons_, governed by _one mind_, is incontestably _one person_; the
same conclusion would be arrived at, and the proposition equally be
justified, which affirmed that, _three_, or otherwise _four_ persons,
owning also necessary and essential subjection to _one mind_, would only
be so many diversities or modifications of that _one mind_, and
therefore the component parts virtually collapsing into _one whole_, the
person would be _one_. Let any man ask himself, whose understanding can
both reason and become the depository of truth, whether, if _one mind_
thus regulated with absolute authority, _three_, or otherwise _four_
persons, with all their congeries of material parts, would not these
parts inert in themselves, when subjected to one predominant mind, be in
the most logical sense, _one person_? Are ligament and exterior
combination indispensable pre-requisites to the sovereign influence of
mind over mind? or mind over matter?
But perhaps it may be said, we have no instance of one mind governing
more than one body. This may be, but the argument remains the same. With
a proud spirit, that forgets its own contracted range of thought, and
circumscribed knowledge, who is to limit the sway of Omnipotence? or
presumptuously to deny the possibility of _that_ Being, who called light
out of darkness, so to exalt the dominion of _one mind_, as to give it
absolute sway over other dependant minds, or (indifferently) over
detached, or combined portions of organized matter? But if this
superinduced quality be conferable on any order of created beings, it is
blasphemy to limit the power of God, and to deny _his_ capacity to
transfuse _his own_ Spirit, when and to whom he will.
This reasoning may now be applied in illustration of the Trinity. We are
too much in the habit of viewing our Saviour Jesus Christ, through the
medium of his body. "A body was prepared for him," but this body was
mere matter; as insensible in itself as every human frame when deserted
by the soul. If therefore the Spirit that was in Christ, was the Spirit
of the Father; if no thought, no vibration, no spiritual communication,
or miraculous display, existed in, or proceeded from Christ, not
immediately and consubstantially identified with Jehovah, the Great
First cause; if all these operating principles were thus derived, in
consistency alone with the conjoint divine attributes; if this Spirit of
the Father ruled and reigned in Christ as his own manifestation, then in
the strictest sense, Christ exhibited "the Godhead bodily," and was
undeniably "_one_ with the Father;" confirmatory of the Saviour's words:
"Of myself," (my body) "I can do nothing, the Father that dwelleth in
me, he doeth the works."
But though I speak of the body as inert in itself, and necessarily
allied to matter, yet this declaration must not be understood as
militating against the Christian doctrine of the _resurrection of the
body_. In its grosser form, the thought is not to be admitted, for
"flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," but, that the body,
without losing its consciousness and individuality, may be subjected by
the illimitable power of Omnipotence, to a sublimating process, so as to
be rendered compatible with spiritual association, is not opposed to
reason, in its severe abstract exercises, while in attestation of this
_exhilarating belief_, there are many remote analogies in nature
exemplifying the same truth, while it is in the strictest accordance
with that final dispensation, which must, as Christians, regulate all
our speculations. I proceed now to say, that
If the postulate be thus admitted, that one mind influencing two bodies,
would only involve a diversity of operations, but in reality be one in
essence; or otherwise (as an hypothetical argument, illustrative of
truth), if one pre-eminent mind, or spiritual subsistence, unconnected
with matter, possessed an undivided and sovereign dominion over two or
more disembodied minds, so as to become the exclusive source of all
their subtlest volitions and exercises, the _unity_, however complex the
modus of its manifestation, would be fully established; and this
principle extends to Deity itself, and shows the true sense, as I
conceive, in which Christ and the Father are one.
In continuation of this reasoning, if God who is light, the Sun of the
Moral World, should in his union of Infinite Wisdom, Power, and
Goodness, and from all Eternity, have ordained that an emanation from
himself,--for aught we know, an essential emanation, as light is
inseparable from the luminary of day--should not only have existed in
his Son, in the fulness of time to be united to a mortal body, but that
a like emanation from himself (also perhaps essential) should have
constituted the Holy Spirit, who, without losing his ubiquity, was more
especially sent to this lower earth, _by_ the Son, _at_ the impulse of
the Father, then in the most comprehensive sense, God, and his Son,
Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are ONE. "Three persons in one God,"
and thus form the true Trinity in Unity.
To suppose that more than ONE Independent Power, or Governing mind
exists in the whole universe, is absolute Polytheism, against which the
denunciations of all the Jewish and Christian canonical books were
directed. And if there be but ONE directing MIND, that Mind is God!
operating however, in Three Persons, according to the direct and uniform
declarations of that inspiration which "brought life and immortality to
light." Yet this divine doctrine of the Trinity is to be received, not
because it is or can be clear to finite apprehension, but (in
reiteration of the argument) because the Scriptures, in their
unsophisticated interpretation expressly state it. The Trinity,
therefore, from its important aspects, and Biblical prominence, is the
grand article of faith, and the foundation of the whole Christian
system.
Who can say, as Christ and the Holy Ghost proceeded from, and are still
one with the Father, and as all the disciples of Christ derive their
fulness from him, and, in spirit, are inviolately united to him as a
branch is to the vine, who can say, but that in one view, what was once
mysteriously separated, may as mysteriously, be re-combined, and
(without interfering with the everlasting Trinity, and the individuality
of the spiritual and seraphic orders) the Son, at the consummation of
all things, deliver up his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and God,
in some peculiar and infinitely sublime sense, become All in All! God
love you,
S. T. COLERIDGE.
"The following letter," says Cottle, "was written by Mr. Coleridge to
Mr. George Fricker, his brother-in-law, it is believed, in 1807."
LETTER 134. TO GEORGE FRICKER
Saturday afternoon.
(1807.)
My dear young friend,
I am sorry that you should have felt any delicacy in disclosing to me
your religious feelings, as rendering it inconsistent with your
tranquillity of mind to spend the Sunday evening with me. Though I do
not find in that book, which we both equally revere, any command, either
express, or which I can infer, which leads me to attach any criminality
to cheerful and innocent social intercourse on the Lord's day; though I
do not find that it was in the least degree forbidden to the Jews on
their Sabbath; and though I have been taught by Luther, and the great
founders of the Church of England, that the Sabbath was a part of the
ceremonial and transitory parts of the law given by heaven to Moses; and
that our Sunday is binding on our consciences, chiefly from its manifest
and most awful usefulness, and indeed moral necessity; yet I highly
commend your firmness in what you think right, and assure you solemnly,
that I esteem you greatly for it. I would much rather that you should
have too much, than an atom too little. I am far from surprised that,
having seen what you have seen, and suffered what you have suffered, you
should have opened your soul to a sense of our fallen nature; and the
incapability of man to heal himself. My opinions may not be in all
points the same as yours; but I have experienced a similar alteration. I
was for many years a Socinian; and at times almost a Naturalist, but
sorrow, and ill health, and disappointment in the only deep wish I had
ever cherished, forced me to look into myself; I read the New Testament
again, and I became fully convinced, that Socinianism was not only not
the doctrine of the New Testament, but that it scarcely deserved the
name of a religion in any sense. An extract from a letter which I wrote
a few months ago to a sceptical friend, who had been a Socinian, and of
course rested all the evidences of Christianity on miracles, to the
exclusion of grace and inward faith, will perhaps, surprise you, as
showing you how much nearer our opinions are than what you must have
supposed. "I fear that the mode of defending Christianity, adopted by
Grotius first; and latterly, among many others, by Dr. Paley, has
increased the number of infidels;--never could it have been so great, if
thinking men had been habitually led to look into their own souls,
instead of always looking out, both of themselves, and of their nature.
If to curb attack, such as yours on miracles, it had been
answered:--'Well, brother! but granting these miracles to have been in
part the growth of delusion at the time, and of exaggeration afterward,
yet still all the doctrines will remain untouched by this circumstance,
and binding on thee. Still must thou repent and be regenerated, and be
crucified to the flesh; and this not by thy own mere power; but by a
mysterious action of the moral Governor on thee; of the Ordo-ordinians,
the Logos, or Word. Still will the eternal filiation, or Sonship of the
Word from the Father; still will the Trinity of the Deity, the
redemption, and the thereto necessary assumption of humanity by the
Word, "who is with God, and is God," remain truths: and still will the
vital head-and-heart FAITH in these truths, be the living and only
fountain of all true virtue. Believe all these, and with the grace of
the Spirit consult your own heart, in quietness and humility, they will
furnish you with proofs, that surpass all understanding, because they
are felt and known; believe all these I say, so as that thy faith shall
be not merely real in the acquiescence of the intellect; but actual, in
the thereto assimilated affections; then shall thou KNOW from God,
whether or not Christ be of God. But take notice, I only say, the
miracles are extra essential; I by no means deny their importance, much
less hold them useless, or superfluous. Even as Christ did, so would I
teach; that is, build the miracle on the faith, not the faith on the
miracle.'
May heaven bless you, my dear George, and
Your affectionate friend,
S. T. C.
* * * * *
The following curious letter was written also about this time.
LETTER 135. TO COTTLE
(1807.)
My dear Cottle,
* * * The common end of all narrative, nay, of all poems is, to convert
a series into a whole, to make those events, which, in real or imagined
history, move on in a straight line, assume to our understandings a
circular motion--the snake with its tail in its mouth. Hence, indeed,
the almost flattering and yet appropriate term, Poesy, _i.e._
Poieses--_making_. Doubtless, to His eye, which alone comprehends all
past and all future, in one eternal, what to our short sight appears
straight, is but a part of the great cycle, just as the calm sea to us
appears level, though it be indeed only a part of the globe. Now what
the globe is in geography, miniaturing in order to manifest the truth,
such is a poem to that image of God, which we were created into, and
which still seeking that unity, or revelation of the one, in and by the
many, which reminds it, that though in order to be an individual being,
it must go further from God; yet as the receding from him, is to proceed
toward nothingness and privation, it must still at every step turn back
toward him, in order to be at all. A straight line continually
retracted, forms of necessity a circular orbit. Now God's will and word
CANNOT be frustrated. His fiat was, with ineffable awfulness, applied to
man, when all things, and all living things, and man himself, (as a mere
animal) included, were called forth by the Universal, "Let there be,"
and then the breath of the Eternal superadded, to make an immortal
spirit--immortality being, as the author of the _Wisdom of Solomon_
profoundly expresses it, "the only possible reflex, or image of
eternity." The immortal finite is the contracted shadow of the eternal
Infinite. Therefore nothingness, or death, to which we move, as we
recede from God and from the Word, cannot be nothing; but that
tremendous medium between nothing and true being, which Scripture and
inmost reason present as most, most horrible!
Affectionately,
S. T. C.]
FOOTNOTES:
[5] [Stoddart had retained his MSS. in Malta (for some
unaccountable reason), which had disconcerted Coleridge.]
[6] [Staying at the farmhouse near the mansion of Coleorton.]
[7] _T. Poole and his Friends_, ii, 174-184.
[8] _Religious Musings_ was at first called _The Nativity_, and sent
to Charles Lamb in December 1794 as an unfinished poem.
Coleridge wrote to Cottle in one of his short notes, while his
first volume of _Poems_ was being put through the press: "_The
Nativity_ is not quite three hundred lines. It has cost me much
labour in polishing; more than any poem I ever wrote, and I
believe it deserves it:" Cottle's _Reminiscences_, p. 66. The
first 158 lines, down to "This is the Messiah's destined
victory!" were probably written in the spring of 1796. Their
spirit is diametrically opposed to the remainder of the poem,
in which the Messiah's victory is to be a political one.
[9] ["Even they will be necessitated to admit, completely exonerated
the Jews."--_Early Recollections._]
[10] ["Voluntary actions."--_Early Recollections._]
[11] ["Over all our."--_Early Recollections._]