Coleridge's 'Literary Remains', vol. 4

,—a Gospel-face retrospective, and smiling through penitent tears on the sins of the past, and a Moses-face looking forward in frown and menace, frightening the harlot will into a holy abortion of sins conceived but not yet born, perchance not yet quickened. The fanatic Antinomian reverses this; for the past he requires all the horrors of remorse and despair, till the moment of assurance; thenceforward, he may do what he likes, for he cannot sin.

All natural inclinations (said Luther) are either against or without God; therefore none are good. We see that no man is so honest as to marry a wife, only thereby to have children, to love and to bring them up in the fear of God.

This is a very weak instance. If a man had been commanded to marry by God, being so formed as that no sensual delight accompanied, and refused to do so, unless this appetite and gratification were added,—then indeed!

Chap. X. p. 168, 9.

Ah Lord God (said Luther), why should we any way boast of our free-will, as if it were able to do anything in divine and spiritual matters were they never so small? * * * I confess that mankind hath a free-will, but it is to milk kine, to build houses, &c., and no further: for so long as a man sitteth well and in safety, and sticketh in no want, so long he thinketh he hath a free-will which is able to do something; but, when want and need appeareth, that there is neither to eat nor to drink, neither money nor provision, where is then the free will? It is utterly lost, and cannot stand when it cometh to the pinch. But faith only standeth fast and sure, and seeketh Christ.

Luther confounds free-will with efficient power, which neither does nor can exist save where the finite will is one with the absolute Will. That Luther was practically on the right side in this famous controversy, and that he was driving at the truth, I see abundant reason to believe. But it is no less evident that he saw it in a mist, or rather as a mist with dissolving outline; and as he saw the thing as a mist, so he ever and anon mistakes a mist for the thing. But Erasmus and Saavedra were equally indistinct; and shallow and unsubstantial to boot. In fact, till the appearance of Kant's

of the pure and of the practical Reason the problem had never been accurately or adequately stated, much less solved.

Loving friends, (said Luther) our doctrine that free-will is dead and nothing at all is grounded powerfully in Holy Scripture.

It is of vital importance for a theological student to understand clearly the utter diversity of the Lutheran, which is likewise the Calvinistic, denial of free-will in the unregenerate, and the doctrine of the modern Necessitarians and (

) of the later Calvinists, which denies the proper existence of will altogether. The former is sound, Scriptural, compatible with the divine justice, a new, yea, a mighty motive to morality, and, finally, the dictate of common sense grounded on common experience. The latter the very contrary of all these.

Chap. XII. p. 187.

This is now (said Luther), the first instruction concerning the law; namely, that the same must be used to hinder the ungodly from their wicked and mischievous intentions. For the Devil, who is an Abbot and a Prince of this world, driveth and allureth people to work all manner of sin and wickedness; for which cause God hath ordained magistrates, elders, schoolmasters, laws, and statutes, to the end, if they cannot do more, yet at least that they may bind the claws of the Devil, and to hinder him from raging and swelling so powerfully (in those which are his) according to his will and pleasure.

And (said Luther), although thou hadst not committed this or that sin, yet nevertheless, thou art an ungodly creature, &c. but what is done cannot he undone, he that hath stolen, let him henceforward steal no more.

Secondly, we use the law spiritually, which is done in this manner; that it maketh the transgressions greater, as Saint Paul saith; that is, that it may reveal and discover to people their sins, blindness, misery, and ungodly doings wherein they were conceived and born; namely, that they are ignorant of God, and are his enemies, and therefore have justly deserved death, hell, God's judgments, his everlasting wrath and indignation. Saint Paul, (said Luther), expoundeth such spiritual offices and works of the law with many words.

Rom. vii.

Nothing can be more sound or more philosophic than the contents of these two paragraphs. They afford a sufficient answer to the pretence of the Romanists and Arminians, that by the law St. Paul meant only the ceremonial law.

And if Moses had not cashiered and put himself out of his office, and had not taken it away with these words, (where he saith, The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee another prophet out of thy brethren; Him shall thou hear. (Deut. xviii.)) who then at any time would or could have believed the Gospel, and forsaken Moses?

If I could be persuaded that this passage (

. xviii. 15-19.) primarily referred to Christ, and that Christ, not Joshua and his successors, was the prophet here promised; I must either become a Unitarian psilanthrophist, and join Priestley and Belsham,—or abandon to the Jews their own Messiah as yet to come, and cling to the religion of John and Paul, without further reference to Moses than to Lycurgus, Solon and Numa; all of whom in their different spheres no less prepared the way for the coming of the Lord,

the desire of the nations

It is therefore most evident (said Luther), that the law can but only help us to know our sins, and to make us afraid of death. Now sins and death are such things as belong to the world, and which are therein.

Both in Paul and Luther, (names which I can never separate),—not indeed peculiar to these, for it is the same in the Psalms, Ezekiel, and throughout the Scriptures, but which I feel most in Paul and Luther, —there is one fearful blank, the wisdom or necessity of which I do not doubt, yet cannot help groping and straining after like one that stares in the dark; and this is Death. The law makes us afraid of death. What is death?—an unhappy life? Who does not feel the insufficiency of this answer? What analogy does immortal suffering bear to the only death which is known to us?

Since I wrote the above, God has, I humbly trust, given me a clearer light as to the true nature of the

so often mentioned in the Scriptures.

Ib.

It is (said Luther), a very hard matter: yea, an impossible thing for thy human strength, whosoever thou art (without God's assistance) that (at such a time when Moses setteth upon thee with his law, and fearfully affrighteth thee, accuseth and condemneth thee, threateneth thee with God's wrath and death) thou shouldest as then be of such a mind; namely, as if no law nor sin had ever been at any time:—I say, it is in a manner a thing impossible, that a human creature should carry himself in such a sort, when he is and feeleth himself assaulted with trials and temptations, and when the conscience hath to do with God, as then to think no otherwise, than that from everlasting nothing hath been, but only and alone Christ, altogether grace and deliverance.

Yea, verily, Amen and Amen! For this short heroic paragraph contains the sum and substance, the heighth and the depth of all true philosophy. Most assuredly right difficult it is for us, while we are yet in the narrow chamber of death, with our faces to the dusky falsifying looking-glass that covers the scant end-side of the blind passage from floor to ceiling,—right difficult for us, so wedged between its walls that we cannot turn round, nor have other escape possible but by walking backward, to understand that all we behold or have any memory of having ever beholden, yea, our very selves as seen by us, are but shadows, and when the forms that we loved vanish, impossible not to feel as if they were real.

Nothing that is good proceedeth out of the works of the law, except grace be present; for what we are forced to do, the same goeth not from the heart, neither is acceptable.

A law supposes a law-giver, and implies an actuator and executor, and consequently rewards and punishments publicly announced, and distinctly assigned to the deeds enjoined or forbidden; and correlatively in the subjects of the law, there are supposed, first, assurance of the being, the power, the veracity and seeingness of the law-giver, in whom I here comprise the legislative, judicial and executive functions; and secondly, self-interest, desire, hope and fear. Now from this view, it is evident that the deeds or works of the Law are themselves null and dead, deriving their whole significance from their attachment or alligation to the rewards and punishments, even as this diversely shaped and ink colored paper has its value wholly from the words or meanings, which have been arbitrarily connected therewith; or as a ladder, or flight of stairs, of a provision-loft, or treasury. If the architect or master of the house had chosen to place the store-room or treasury on the ground floor, the ladder or steps would have been useless. The life is divided between the rewards and punishments on the one hand, and the hope and fear on the other: namely, the active life or excitancy belongs to the former, the passive life or excitability to the latter. Call the former the afficients, the latter the affections, the deeds being merely the signs or impresses of the former, as the seal, on the latter as the wax. Equally evident is it, that the affections are wholly formed by the deeds, which are themselves but the lifeless unsubstantial shapes of the actual forms (

formæ formantes

), namely, the rewards and punishments. Now contrast with this the process of the Gospel. There the affections are formed in the first instance, not by any reference to works or deeds, but by an unmerited rescue from death, liberation from slavish task-work; by faith, gratitude, love, and affectionate contemplation of the exceeding goodness and loveliness of the Saviour, Redeemer, Benefactor: from the affections flow the deeds, or rather the affections overflow in the deeds, and the rewards are but a continuance and continued increase of the free grace in the state of the soul and in the growth and gradual perfecting of that state, which are themselves gifts of the same free grace, and one with the rewards; for in the kingdom of Christ which is the realm of love and inter-community, the joy and grace of each regenerated spirit becomes double, and thereby augments the joys and the graces of the others, and the joys and graces of all unite in each;—Christ, the head, and by his Spirit the bond, or unitive

of all, being the spiritual sun whose entire image is reflected in every individual of the myriads of dew-drops. While under the Law, the all was but an aggregate of subjects, each striving after a reward for himself, —not as included in and resulting from the state,—but as the stipulated wages of the task-work, as a loaf of bread may be the pay or bounty promised for the hewing of wood or the breaking of stones!

Ib.

He (said Luther), that will dispute with the Devil, &c.

Abstractedly from, and independently of, all sensible substances, and the bodies, wills, faculties, and affections of men, has the Devil, or would the Devil have, a personal self-subsistence? Does he, or can he, exist as a conscious individual agent or person? Should the answer to this query be in the negative: then—

Do there exist finite and personal beings, whether with composite and decomponible bodies, that is, embodied, or with simple and indecomponible bodies, (which is all that can be meant by disembodied as applied to finite creatures), so eminently wicked, or wicked and mischievous in so peculiar a kind, as to constitute a distinct genus of beings under the name of devils?

Is this second hypothesis compatible with the acts and functions attributed to the Devil in Scripture? O! to have had these three questions put by Melancthon to Luther, and to have heard his reply!

If (said Luther) God should give unto us a strong and an unwavering faith, then we should he proud, yea also, we should at last contemn Him. Again, if he should give us the right knowledge of the law, then we should be dismayed and fainthearted, we should not know which way to wind ourselves.

The main reason is, because in this instance, the change in the relation constitutes the difference of the things. A. considered as acting

on the selfish fears and desires of men is the Law: the same A: acting

as a new nature infused by grace, as the mind of Christ prompting to all obedience, is the Gospel. Yet what Luther says is likewise very true. Could we reduce the great spiritual truths or ideas of our faith to comprehensible conceptions, or (for the thing itself is impossible) fancy we had done so, we should inevitably be 'proud vain asses.'

And as to know his works and actions, is not yet rightly to know the Gospel, (for thereby we know not as yet that he hath overcome sin death and the Devil); even so likewise, it is not as yet to know the Gospel, when we know such doctrine and commandments, but when the voice soundeth, which saith, Christ is thine own with life, with doctrine, with works, death, resurrection, and with all that he hath, doth and may do.

The ancient Fathers said: Distingue tempora et concordabis Scripturas; distinguish the times; then may we easily reconcile the Scriptures together.

Yea! and not only so, but we shall reconcile truths, that seem to repeal this or that passage of Scripture, with the Scriptures. For Christ is with his Church even to the end.

Ib.

I verily believe, (said Luther) it (the abolition of the Law) vexed to the heart the beloved St. Paul himself before his conversion.

How dearly Martin Luther loved St. Paul! How dearly would St. Paul have loved Martin Luther! And how impossible, that either should not have done so!

Ib.

In this case, touching the distinguishing the Law from the Gospel, we must utterly expel all human and natural wisdom, reason, and understanding.

All reason is above nature. Therefore by reason in Luther, or rather in his translator, you must understand the reasoning faculty:— that is, the logical intellect, or the intellectual understanding. For the understanding is in all respects a medial and mediate faculty, and has therefore two extremities or poles, the sensual, in which form it is St. Paul's

Greek: phrónaema sarkòs

; and the intellectual pole, or the hemisphere (as it were) turned towards the reason. Now the reason (

lux idealis seu spiritualis

) shines down into the understanding, which recognizes the light,

id est, lumen a luce spirituali quasi alienigenum aliquid

, which it can only comprehend or describe to itself by attributes opposite to its own essential properties. Now these latter being contingency, and (for though the immediate objects of the understanding are

genera et species

, still they are particular

genera et species

) particularity, it distinguishes the formal light (

) (not the substantial light,

) of reason by the attributes of the necessary and the universal; and by irradiation of this

the understanding becomes a conclusive or logical faculty. As such it is

Greek: Lógos anthrôpinos.

see previous image

When Satan saith in thy heart, God will not pardon thy sins, nor be gracious unto thee, I pray (said Luther) how wilt thou then, as a poor sinner, raise up and comfort thyself, especially when other signs of God's wrath besides do beat upon thee, as sickness, poverty, &c. And that thy heart beginneth to preach and say, Behold, here thou livest in sickness, thou art poor and forsaken of every one, &c.

Oh! how true, how affectingly true is this! And when too Satan, the tempter, becomes Satan the accuser, saying in thy heart:—"This sickness is the consequence of sin, or sinful infirmity, and thou hast brought thyself into a fearful dilemma; thou canst not hope for salvation as long as thou continuest in any sinful practice, and yet thou canst not abandon thy daily dose of this or that poison without suicide. For the sin of thy soul has become the necessity of thy body, daily tormenting thee, without yielding thee any the least pleasurable sensation, but goading thee on by terror without hope. Under such evidence of God's wrath how canst thou expect to be saved?" Well may the heart cry out, "Who shall deliver me from the

body of this death

,—from this death that lives and tyrannizes in my body?" But the Gospel answers—"There is a redemption from the body promised; only cling to Christ. Call on him continually with all thy heart, and all thy soul, to give thee strength, and be strong in thy weakness; and what Christ doth not see good to relieve thee from, suffer in hope. It may be better for thee to be kept humble and in self-abasement. The thorn in the flesh may remain and yet the grace of God through Christ prove sufficient for thee. Only cling to Christ, and do thy best. In all love and well-doing gird thyself up to improve and use aright what remains free in thee, and if thou doest ought aright, say and thankfully believe that Christ hath done it for thee." O what a miserable despairing wretch should I become, if I believed the doctrines of Bishop Jeremy Taylor in his Treatise on Repentance, or those I heard preached by Dr.——; if I gave up the faith, that the life of Christ would precipitate the remaining dregs of sin in the crisis of death, and that I shall rise in purer capacity of Christ; blind to be irradiated by his light, empty to be possessed by his fullness, naked of merit to be clothed with his righteousness!

The nobility, the gentry, citizens, and farmers, &c. are now become so haughty and ungodly, that they regard no ministers nor preachers; and (said Luther) if we were not holpen somewhat by great princes and persons, we could not long subsist: therefore Isaiah saith well, And kings shall be their nurses, &c.

Corpulent nurses too often, that overlay the babe; distempered nurses, that convey poison in their milk!

Chap. XIII. p. 208.

Philip Melancthon said to Luther, The opinion of St. Austin of justification (as it seemeth) was more pertinent, fit and convenient when he disputed not, than it was when he used to speak and dispute; for thus he saith, We ought to censure and hold that we are justified by faith, that is by our regeneration, or by being made new creatures. Now if it be so, then we are not justified only by faith, but by all the gifts and virtues of God given unto us. Now what is your opinion Sir? Do you hold that a man is justified by this regeneration, as is St. Austin's opinion?

Luther answered and said, I hold this, and am certain, that the true meaning of the Gospel and of the Apostle is, that we are justified before God gratis, for nothing, only by God's mere mercy, wherewith and by reason whereof, he imputeth righteousness unto us in Christ.

True; but is it more than a dispute about words? Is not the regeneration likewise

, only by God's mere mercy? We, according to the necessity of our imperfect understandings, must divide and distinguish. But surely justification and sanctification are one act of God, and only different perspectives of redemption by and through and for Christ. They are one and the same plant, justification the root, sanctification the flower; and (may I not venture to add?) transubstantiation into Christ the celestial fruit.

Ib. p. 210-11.

Melancthon's sixth reply.

Sir! you say Paul was justified, that is, was received to everlasting life, only for mercy's sake. Against which, I say, if the piece-meal or partial cause, namely our obedience, followeth not; then we are not saved, according to these words, Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel. 1. Cor. ix.

Luther's answer.

No piecing or partial cause (said Luther) approacheth thereupto: for faith is powerful continually without ceasing; otherwise, it is no faith. Therefore what the works are, or of what value, the same they are through the honor and power of faith, which undeniably is the sun or sun-beam of this shining.

This is indeed a difficult question; and one, I am disposed to think, which can receive its solution only by the idea, or the act and fact of justification by faith self-reflected. But, humanly considered, this position of Luther's provokes the mind to ask, is there no receptivity of faith, considered as a free gift of God, prerequisite in the individual? Does faith commence by generating the receptivity of itself? If so, there is no difference either in kind or in degree between the receivers and the rejectors of the word, at the moment preceeding this reception or rejection; and a stone is a subject as capable of faith as a man. How can obedience exist, where disobedience was not possible? Surely two or three texts from St. Paul, detached from the total

of his reasoning, ought not to out-weigh the plain fact, that the contrary position is implied in, or is an immediate consequent of, our Lord's own invitations and assurances.

where a something is attributed to the will

²

.

Chap. XIII. p. 211.

To conclude, a faithful person is a new creature, a new tree. Therefore all these speeches, which in the law are usual, belong not to this case; as to say A faithful person must do good works. Neither were it rightly spoken, to say the sun shall shine: a good tree shall bring forth good fruit, &c. For the sun shall not shine, but it doth shine by nature unbidden, it is thereunto created.

This important paragraph is obscure by the translator's ignorance of the true import of the German

, which does not answer to our

but rather to our

do this or that,—is under an obligation to do it.

And I, my loving Brentius, to the end I may better understand this case, do use to think in this manner, namely, as if in my heart were no quality or virtue at all, which is called faith, and love, (as the Sophists do speak and dream thereof), but I set all on Christ, and say, my formalis justitia, that is, my sure, my constant and complete righteousness (in which is no want nor failing, but is, as before God it ought to be) is Christ my Lord and Saviour.

Aye! this, this is indeed to the purpose. In this doctrine my soul can find rest. I hope to be saved by faith, not by my faith, but by the faith of Christ in me.

The Scripture nameth the faithful a people of God's saints. But here one may say; the sins which daily we commit, do offend and anger God; how then can we be holy?

Answer. A mother's love to her child is much stronger than are the excrements and scurf thereof. Even so God's love towards us is far stronger than our filthiness and uncleanness.

Yea, one may say again, we sin without ceasing, and where sin is, there the holy Spirit is not: therefore we are not holy, because the holy Spirit is not in us, who maketh holy.

Answer. (John xvi. 14.) Now where Christ is, there is the holy Spirit. The text saith plainly, The holy Ghost shall glorify me, &c. Now Christ is in the faithful (although they have and feel sins, do confess the same, and with sorrow of heart do complain thereover); therefore sins do not separate Christ from those that believe.

All in this page is true, and necessary to be preached. But O! what need is there of holy prudence to preach it aright, that is, at right times to the right ears! Now this is when the doctrine is necessary and thence comfortable; but where it is not necessary, but only very comfortable, in such cases it would be a narcotic poison, killing the soul by infusing a stupor or counterfeit peace of conscience. Where there are no sinkings of self-abasement, no griping sense of sin and worthlessness, but perhaps the contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing for good qualities supposed an overbalance for the sins,—there it is not necessary. In short, these are not the truths, that can be preached

Greek: eukaírôs akaírôs

in season and out of season

. In declining life, or at any time in the hour of sincere humiliation, these truths may be applied in reference to past sins collectively; but a Christian must not, a true however infirm Christian will not, cannot, administer them to himself immediately after sinning; least of all immediately before. We ought fervently to pray thus:—"Most holy and most merciful God! by the grace of thy holy Spirit make these promises profitable to me, to preserve me from despairing of thy forgiveness through Christ my Saviour! But O! save me from presumptuously perverting them into a pillow for a stupified conscience! Give me grace so to contrast my sin with thy transcendant goodness and long-suffering love, as to hate it with an unfeigned hatred for its own exceeding sinfulness."

Ib. p. 219-20.

Faith is, and consisteth in, a person's understanding, but hope consisteth in the will. * * Faith inditeth, distinguisheth and teacheth, and it is the knowledge and acknowledgment. * * Faith fighteth against error and heresies, it proveth, censureth and judgeth the spirits and doctrines. * * Faith in divinity is the wisdom and providence, and belongeth to the doctrine. * * Faith is the dialectica, for it is altogether wit and wisdom.

Luther in his Postills discourseth far better and more genially of faith than in these paragraphs. Unfortunately, the Germans have but one word for faith and belief—

, and what Luther here says, is spoken of belief. Of faith he speaks in the next article but one.

"That regeneration only maketh God's children.

The article of our justification before God (said Luther) is, as it useth to be with a son which is born an heir of all his father's goods, and cometh not thereunto by deserts."

I will here record my experience. Ever when I meet with the doctrine of regeneration and faith and free grace simply announced— "So it is!"—then I believe; my heart leaps forth to welcome it. But as soon as an explanation nation or reason is added, such explanations, namely, and reasonings as I have any where met with, then my heart leaps back again, recoils, and I exclaim, Nay! Nay! but not so.

25th of September, 1819.

"Doctor Carlestad (said Luther) argueth thus: True it is that faith justifieth, but faith is a work of the first commandment; therefore it justifieth as a work. Moreover all that the Law commandeth, the same is a work of the Law. Now faith is commanded, therefore faith is a work of the Law. Again, what God will have the same is commanded: God will have faith, therefore faith is commanded."

"St. Paul (said Luther) speaketh in such sort of the law, that he separateth it from the promise, which is far another thing than the law. The law is terrestrial, but the promise is celestial.

"God giveth the law to the end we may thereby be roused up and made pliant; for the commandments do go and proceed against the proud and haughty, which contemn God's gifts; now a gift or present cannot be a commandment."

"Therefore we must answer according to this rule, Verba sunt accipienda secundum subjectam materiam. * * St. Paul calleth that the work of the law, which is done and acted through the knowledge of the law by a constrained will without the holy Spirit; so that the same is a work of the law, which the law earnestly requireth and strictly will have done; it is not a voluntary work, but a forced work of the rod."

And wherein did Carlestad and Luther differ? Not at all, or essentially and irreconcilably, according as the feeling of Carlestad was. If he meant the particular deed, the latter; if the total act, the agent included, then the former.

Chap. XIV. p. 230.

"The love towards the neighbour (said Luther) must be like a pure chaste love between bride and bridegroom, where all faults are connived at, covered and borne with, and only the virtues regarded."

In how many little escapes and corner-holes does the sensibility, the fineness, (that of which refinement is but a counterfeit, at best but a reflex,) the geniality of nature appear in this

son of thunder!

O for a Luther in the present age!