Chapter VII: Letter 133: To Cottle

Bristol (June), 1807. Dear Cottle,

To pursue our last conversation. Christians expect no outward or sensible miracles from prayer. Its effects, and its fruitions are spiritual, and accompanied says that _true Divine_, Archbishop Leighton, "not by reasons and arguments, but by an inexpressible kind of evidence, which they only know who have it."

To this I would add, that even those who, like me I fear, have not attained it, yet may presume it. First, because reason itself, or rather mere human nature, in any dispassionate moment, feels the necessity of religion, but if this be not true there is no religion, no religation, or binding over again; nothing added to reason, and therefore _Socinianism_, misnamed _Unitarianism_, is not only not _Christianity_, it is not even _religion_, it does not _religate_; does not bind anew. The first outward and sensible result of prayer is, a penitent resolution, joined with a consciousness of weakness in effecting it, yea even a dread, too well grounded, lest by breaking and falsifying it, the soul should add guilt to guilt; by the very means it has taken to escape from guilt; so pitiable is the state of unregenerate man.

Are you familiar with Leighton's Works? He resigned his archbishoprick, and retired to voluntary poverty on account of the persecutions of the Presbyterians, saying, "I should not dare to introduce Christianity itself with such cruelties, how much less for a surplice, and the name of a bishop." If there could be an intermediate space between inspired, and uninspired writings, that space would be occupied by Leighton. No show of learning, no appearance, or ostentatious display of eloquence, and yet both may be shown in him, conspicuously and holily. There is in him something that must be felt, even as the Scriptures must be felt.

You ask me my views of the _Trinity_. I accept the doctrine, not as deduced from human reason, in its grovelling capacity for comprehending spiritual things, but as the clear revelation of Scripture. But perhaps it may be said, the Socinians do not admit this doctrine as being taught in the Bible. I know enough of their shifts and quibbles, with their dexterity at explaining away all they dislike, and that is not a little, but though beguiled once by them, I happily for my own peace of mind, escaped from their sophistries, and now hesitate not to affirm, that Socinians would lose all character for honesty, if they were to explain their neighbour's will with the same latitude of interpretation, which they do the Scriptures.

I have in my head some floating ideas on the _Logos_, which I hope, hereafter, to mould into a consistent form; but it is a gross perversion of the truth, in Socinians, to declare that we believe in _three gods_; and they know it to be false. They might, with equal justice affirm that we believe in _three suns_. The meanest peasant, who has acquired the first rudiments of Christianity, would shrink back from a thing so monstrous. Still the Trinity has its difficulties. It would be strange if otherwise. A _Revelation_ that revealed nothing, not within the grasp of human reason!--no religation, no binding over again, as before said; but these difficulties are shadows, contrasted with the substantive and insurmountable obstacles, with which _they_ contend who admit the _Divine authority of Scripture_, with the _superlative excellence of Christ_, and yet undertake to prove that these Scriptures teach, and that Christ taught his own _pure humanity_.

If Jesus Christ was merely a man, if he was not God as well as man, be it considered, he could not have been even a _good man_. There is no medium. The SAVIOUR _in that case_ was absolutely _a deceiver_! one, transcendantly _unrighteous_! in advancing pretensions to miracles, by the "Finger of God," which he never performed; and by asserting claims, (as a man) in the most aggravated sense, blasphemous. These consequences, Socinians, to be consistent, must allow, and which impious arrogation of Divinity in Christ, according to their faith, as well as his false assumption of a community of "glory" with the Father, "before the world was," even they will be necessitated completely to admit the exoneration of the Jews,[9] according to their law, in crucifying one, who "being a man," "made himself God!" But in the Christian, rather than in the _Socinian_, or _Pharisaic_ view, all these objections vanish, and harmony succeeds to inexplicable confusion. If Socinians hesitate in ascribing _unrighteousness_ to Christ, the inevitable result of their principles, they tremble, as well they might, at their avowed creed, and virtually renounce what they profess to uphold.

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 (Letter 19), 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.

I recollect when I stood on the summit of Etna, and darted my gaze down the crater; the immediate vicinity was discernible, till, lower down, obscurity gradually terminated in total darkness. Such figures exemplify many truths revealed in the Bible. We pursue them, until, from the imperfection of our faculties, we are lost in impenetrable night. All truths, however, that are essential to faith, _honestly_ interpreted; all that are important to human conduct, under every diversity of circumstance, are manifest as a blazing star. The promises also of felicity to the righteous in the future world, though the precise nature of that felicity may not be defined, are illustrated by every image that can swell the imagination; while the misery of the _lost_, in its unutterable intensity, though the language that describes it is all necessarily figurative, is there exhibited as resulting chiefly, if not wholly, from the withdrawment of the _light of God's countenance_, and a banishment from his _presence_! best comprehended in this world by reflecting on the desolations, which would instantly follow the loss of the sun's vivifying and universally diffused _warmth_.

You, or rather _all_, should remember that some truths from their nature, surpass the scope of man's limited powers, and stand as the criteria of _faith_, determining by their rejection, or admission, who among the sons of men can confide in the veracity of heaven. Those more ethereal truths, of which the Trinity is conspicuously the chief, without being circumstantially explained, may be faintly illustrated by material objects. The eye of man cannot discern the satellites of Jupiter, nor become sensible of the multitudinous stars, whose rays have never reached our planet, and consequently garnish not the canopy of night; yet are they the less _real_, because their existence lies beyond man's unassisted gaze? The tube of the philosopher, and the _celestial telescope_,--the unclouded visions of heaven will confirm the one class of truths, and irradiate the other.

The _Trinity_ is a subject on which analogical reasoning may advantageously be admitted, as furnishing, at least, a glimpse of light, and with this, for the present, we must be satisfied. Infinite Wisdom deemed clearer manifestations inexpedient; and is man to dictate to his Maker? I may further remark, that where we cannot behold a desirable object distinctly, we must take the best view we can; and I think you, and every candid enquiring mind, may derive assistance from such reflections as the following.

Notwithstanding the arguments of Spinosa, and Des Cartes, and other advocates of the _Material system_, or, in more appropriate language, the _Atheistical system_! it is admitted by all men, not prejudiced, not biased by sceptical prepossessions, that _mind_ is distinct from _matter_. The mind of man, however, is involved in inscrutable darkness, (as the profoundest metaphysicians well know) and is to be estimated, if at all, alone by an inductive process; that is, by its _effects_. Without entering on the question, whether an extremely circumscribed portion of the mental process, surpassing instinct, may or may not be extended to quadrupeds, it is universally acknowledged, that the mind of man alone, regulates all the actions[10] of his corporeal frame. Mind, therefore, may be regarded as a distinct genus, in the scale ascending above brutes, and including the whole of intellectual existences; advancing from _thought_, that mysterious thing! in its lowest form, through all the gradations of sentient and rational beings, till it arrives at a Bacon, a Newton; and then, when unincumbered by matter, extending its illimitable sway through Seraph and Archangel, till we are lost in the GREAT INFINITE!

Is it not deserving of notice, as an especial subject of meditation, that our _limbs_, in all they do or can accomplish, implicitly obey the dictation of the _mind_? that this operating power, whatever its name, under certain limitations, exercises a sovereign dominion not only over our limbs, but over our[11] intellectual pursuits? The mind of every man is evidently the fulcrum, the moving force, which alike regulates all his limbs and actions: and in which example, we find a strong illustration of the subordinate nature of mere _matter_. That alone which gives direction to the organic parts of our nature, is wholly _mind_; and one mind if placed over a thousand limbs, could, with undiminished ease, control and regulate the whole.

This idea is advanced on the supposition that _one mind_ could command an unlimited direction over any given number of _limbs_, provided they were all connected by _joint_ and _sinew_. But suppose, through some occult and inconceivable means, these limbs were dis-associated, as to all material connexion; suppose, for instance, one mind with unlimited authority, governed the operations of _two_ separate persons, would not this substantially, be only _one person_, seeing the directing principle was one? If the truth here contended for, be admitted, that _two persons_, governed by _one mind_, is incontestably _one person_; the same conclusion would be arrived at, and the proposition equally be justified, which affirmed that, _three_, or otherwise _four_ persons, owning also necessary and essential subjection to _one mind_, would only be so many diversities or modifications of that _one mind_, and therefore the component parts virtually collapsing into _one whole_, the person would be _one_. Let any man ask himself, whose understanding can both reason and become the depository of truth, whether, if _one mind_ thus regulated with absolute authority, _three_, or otherwise _four_ persons, with all their congeries of material parts, would not these parts inert in themselves, when subjected to one predominant mind, be in the most logical sense, _one person_? Are ligament and exterior combination indispensable pre-requisites to the sovereign influence of mind over mind? or mind over matter?

But perhaps it may be said, we have no instance of one mind governing more than one body. This may be, but the argument remains the same. With a proud spirit, that forgets its own contracted range of thought, and circumscribed knowledge, who is to limit the sway of Omnipotence? or presumptuously to deny the possibility of _that_ Being, who called light out of darkness, so to exalt the dominion of _one mind_, as to give it absolute sway over other dependant minds, or (indifferently) over detached, or combined portions of organized matter? But if this superinduced quality be conferable on any order of created beings, it is blasphemy to limit the power of God, and to deny _his_ capacity to transfuse _his own_ Spirit, when and to whom he will.

This reasoning may now be applied in illustration of the Trinity. We are too much in the habit of viewing our Saviour Jesus Christ, through the medium of his body. "A body was prepared for him," but this body was mere matter; as insensible in itself as every human frame when deserted by the soul. If therefore the Spirit that was in Christ, was the Spirit of the Father; if no thought, no vibration, no spiritual communication, or miraculous display, existed in, or proceeded from Christ, not immediately and consubstantially identified with Jehovah, the Great First cause; if all these operating principles were thus derived, in consistency alone with the conjoint divine attributes; if this Spirit of the Father ruled and reigned in Christ as his own manifestation, then in the strictest sense, Christ exhibited "the Godhead bodily," and was undeniably "_one_ with the Father;" confirmatory of the Saviour's words: "Of myself," (my body) "I can do nothing, the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works."

But though I speak of the body as inert in itself, and necessarily allied to matter, yet this declaration must not be understood as militating against the Christian doctrine of the _resurrection of the body_. In its grosser form, the thought is not to be admitted, for "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God," but, that the body, without losing its consciousness and individuality, may be subjected by the illimitable power of Omnipotence, to a sublimating process, so as to be rendered compatible with spiritual association, is not opposed to reason, in its severe abstract exercises, while in attestation of this _exhilarating belief_, there are many remote analogies in nature exemplifying the same truth, while it is in the strictest accordance with that final dispensation, which must, as Christians, regulate all our speculations. I proceed now to say, that

If the postulate be thus admitted, that one mind influencing two bodies, would only involve a diversity of operations, but in reality be one in essence; or otherwise (as an hypothetical argument, illustrative of truth), if one pre-eminent mind, or spiritual subsistence, unconnected with matter, possessed an undivided and sovereign dominion over two or more disembodied minds, so as to become the exclusive source of all their subtlest volitions and exercises, the _unity_, however complex the modus of its manifestation, would be fully established; and this principle extends to Deity itself, and shows the true sense, as I conceive, in which Christ and the Father are one.

In continuation of this reasoning, if God who is light, the Sun of the Moral World, should in his union of Infinite Wisdom, Power, and Goodness, and from all Eternity, have ordained that an emanation from himself,--for aught we know, an essential emanation, as light is inseparable from the luminary of day--should not only have existed in his Son, in the fulness of time to be united to a mortal body, but that a like emanation from himself (also perhaps essential) should have constituted the Holy Spirit, who, without losing his ubiquity, was more especially sent to this lower earth, _by_ the Son, _at_ the impulse of the Father, then in the most comprehensive sense, God, and his Son, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, are ONE. "Three persons in one God," and thus form the true Trinity in Unity.

To suppose that more than ONE Independent Power, or Governing mind exists in the whole universe, is absolute Polytheism, against which the denunciations of all the Jewish and Christian canonical books were directed. And if there be but ONE directing MIND, that Mind is God! operating however, in Three Persons, according to the direct and uniform declarations of that inspiration which "brought life and immortality to light." Yet this divine doctrine of the Trinity is to be received, not because it is or can be clear to finite apprehension, but (in reiteration of the argument) because the Scriptures, in their unsophisticated interpretation expressly state it. The Trinity, therefore, from its important aspects, and Biblical prominence, is the grand article of faith, and the foundation of the whole Christian system.

Who can say, as Christ and the Holy Ghost proceeded from, and are still one with the Father, and as all the disciples of Christ derive their fulness from him, and, in spirit, are inviolately united to him as a branch is to the vine, who can say, but that in one view, what was once mysteriously separated, may as mysteriously, be re-combined, and (without interfering with the everlasting Trinity, and the individuality of the spiritual and seraphic orders) the Son, at the consummation of all things, deliver up his mediatorial kingdom to the Father, and God, in some peculiar and infinitely sublime sense, become All in All! God love you,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

"The following letter," says Cottle, "was written by Mr. Coleridge to Mr. George Fricker, his brother-in-law, it is believed, in 1807."