The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
History
The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 1
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Literature -- History and criticism
II. Hence it becomes my absolute duty to believe, and I do believe, that
there is a God, that is, a Being, in whom supreme reason and a most holy
will are one with an infinite power; and that all holy will is
coincident with the will of God, and therefore secure in its ultimate
consequences by His omnipotence;--having, if such similitude be not
unlawful, such a relation to the goodness of the Almighty, as a perfect
time-piece will have to the sun.
COROLLARY.
The wonderful works of God in the sensible world are a perpetual
discourse, reminding me of his existence, and shadowing out to me his
perfections. But as all language presupposes in the intelligent hearer
or reader those primary notions, which it symbolizes; as well as the
power of making those combinations of these primary notions, which it
represents and excites us to combine,--even so I believe, that the
notion of God is essential to the human mind; that it is called forth
into distinct consciousness principally by the conscience, and
auxiliarly by the manifest adaptation of means to ends in the outward
creation. It is, therefore, evident to my reason, that the existence of
God is absolutely and necessarily insusceptible of a scientific
demonstration, and that Scripture has so represented it. For it commands
us to believe in one God. 'I am the Lord thy God: thou shalt have none
other gods but me'. Now all commandment necessarily relates to the will;
whereas all scientific demonstration is independent of the will, and is
apodictic or demonstrative only as far as it is compulsory on the mind,
'volentem, nolentem'.
III. My conscience forbids me to propose to myself the pains and
pleasures of this life, as the primary motive, or ultimate end, of my
actions;--on the contrary, it makes me perceive an utter
disproportionateness and heterogeneity between the acts of the spirit,
as virtue and vice, and the things of the sense, such as all earthly
rewards and punishments must be. Its hopes and fears, therefore, refer
me to a different and spiritual state of being: and I believe in the
life to come, not through arguments acquired by my understanding or
discursive faculty, but chiefly and effectively, because so to believe
is my duty, and in obedience to the commands of my conscience. Here ends
the first table of my creed, which would have been my creed, had I been
born with Adam; and which, therefore, constitutes what may in this sense
be called natural religion, that is, the religion of all finite rational
beings. The second table contains the creed of revealed religion, my
belief as a Christian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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