The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Religion
The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 4
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Literature -- History and criticism
Eventually the whole direction of the popular mind, in the affairs of
religion, will be gained into the hands of a set of ignorant fanatics
of such low origin and vulgar habits as can only serve to degrade
religion in the eyes of those to whom its influence is most wanted.
Will such persons venerate or respect it in the hands of a sect
composed in the far greater part of bigotted, coarse, illiterate, and
low-bred enthusiasts? Men who have abandoned their lawful callings, in
which by industry they might have been useful members of society, to
take upon themselves concerns the most sacred, with which nothing but
their vanity and their ignorance could have excited them to meddle.
It is not the buffoonery of the reverend joker of the Edinburgh Review;
not the convulsed grin of mortification which, sprawling prostrate in
the dirt from "the whiff and wind" of the masterly disquisition in the
Quarterly Review, the itinerant preacher would pass oft' for the broad
grin of triumph; no, nor even the over-valued distinction of miracles,
--which will prevent him from seeing and shewing the equal applicability
of all this to the Apostles and primitive Christians. We know that
Trajan, Pliny, Tacitus, the Antonines, Celsus, Lucian and the
like,--much more the ten thousand philosophers and joke-smiths of
Rome,--did both feel and apply all this to the Galilean Sect; and
yet--'Vicisti, O Galilæe'!
Ib. p. 95.
They never fail to refer to the proud Pharisee, whom they term
self-'righteous'; and thus, having greatly misrepresented his
character, they proceed to declaim on the arrogance of founding any
expectation of reward from the performance of our 'moral
duties':--whereas the plain truth is that the Pharisee was 'not
righteous', but merely arrogated to himself that character; he had
neglected all the 'moral duties' of life.
Who told the Barrister this? Not the Gospel, I am sure.
The Evangelical has only to translate these sentences into the true
statement of his opinions, in order to baffle this angry and impotent
attack; the self-righteousness of all who expect to claim salvation on
the plea of their own personal merit. "Pay to A. B. at sight--value
received by me."--To Messrs. Stone and Co. Bankers, Heaven-Gate. It is a
short step from this to the Popish. "Pay to A. B. 'or order'." Once
assume merits, and I defy you to keep out supererogation and the old
'Monte di Pietà'.
Ib. p. 97.
--and from thence occasion is taken to defame all those who strive to
prepare themselves, during this their state of trial, for that
judgment which they must undergo at that day, when they will receive
either reward or punishment, according as they shall be found to have
'merited' the one, or 'deserved' the other.
Can the Barrister have read the New Testament? Or does he know it only
by quotations?
Ib.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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