Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert SoutheyCottle, Joseph
General
Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey
Cottle, Joseph
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772-1834; Southey, Robert, 1774-1843
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, (p. 1-85.) 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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