Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous Pieces — John Shaqi
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous PiecesColeridge, Samuel Taylor
Religion
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit and Some Miscellaneous Pieces
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Bible -- Inspiration
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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