Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia LiterariaColeridge, Samuel Taylor
General
Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 2: being The Biographical Supplement of Coleridge's Biographia Literaria
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834 -- Correspondence
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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