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
Part IV. p. 1.
The religion of genuine Christianity is a revelation so distinct and
specific in its design, and so clear and intelligible in its rules,
that a man of philosophic and retired thought is apt to wonder by what
means the endless systems of error and hostility which divide the
world were ever introduced into it.
What means this hollow cant--this fifty times warmed-up bubble and
squeak? That such parts are intelligible as the Barrister understands?
That such parts as it possesses in common with all systems of religion
and morality are plain and obvious? In other words that ABC are so
legible that they are legible to every one that has learnt to read? If
the Barrister mean other or more than this, if he really mean the whole
religion and revelation of Christ, even as it is found in the original
records, the Gospels and Epistles, he escapes from the silliness of a
truism by throwing himself into the arms of a broad brazenfaced untruth.
What! Is the sixth chapter of St. John's Gospel so distinct and specific
in its design, that any modest man can wonder that the best and most
learned men of every age since Christ have deemed it mysterious? Are the
many passages concerning the Devil and demoniacs so very easy? Has this
writer himself thrown the least light on, or himself received one ray of
light from, the meaning of the word Faith;--or the reason of Christ's
paramount declarations respecting its omnific power, its absolutely
indispensable necessity? If the word mean only what the Barrister
supposes, a persuasion that in the present state of our knowledge the
evidences for the historical truth of the miracles of the Gospel
outweigh the arguments of the Sceptics, will he condescend to give us
such a comment on the assertion, that had we but a grain of mustard seed
of it, we might control all material nature, without making Christ
himself the most extravagant hyperbolist that ever mis-used language?
But it is impossible to make that man blush, who can seriously call the
words of Christ as recorded by St. John, plain, easy, common sense, out
of which prejudice, artifice, and selfish interest alone can compose any
difficulty. The Barrister has just as much right to call his religion
Christianity, as to call flour and water plum pudding:--yet we all admit
that in plum pudding both flour and water do exist.
Ib. p. 7.
Socinus can have no claim upon my veneration: I have never concerned
myself with what he believed nor with what he taught &c.
The Scripture is my authority, and on no other authority will I ever,
knowingly, lay the foundation of my faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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