But here, in addition to the three Aphorisms preceding, I interpose a view of redemption as appropriated by faith, coincident with Leighton's, though for the greater part expressed in my own words. This I propose as the right view. Then follow a few sentences transcribed from Field (an excellent divine of the reign of James I., of whose work on the Church it would be difficult to speak too highly)[127] containing the questions to be solved, and which is numbered, as an Aphorism, rather to preserve the uniformity of appearance, than as being strictly such. Then follows the Comment: as part and commencement of which the Reader will consider the two paragraphs of pp. 135 136, written for this purpose and in the foresight of the present inquiry: and I entreat him therefore to begin the Comment by re-perusing these.
[123] Elements of Religious Philosophy, ante, p. 88—Ed.
[124] See ante, pp. 96-101.—Ed.
[125] To escape the consequences of this scheme, some Arminian divines have asserted that the penalty inflicted on Adam, and continued in his posterity, was simply the loss of immortality, Death as the utter extinction of personal Being: immortality being regarded by them (and not, I think, without good reason) as a supernatural attribute, and its loss therefore involved in the forfeiture of supernatural graces. This theory has its golden side; and as a private opinion, is said to have the countenance of more than one dignitary of our Church, whose general orthodoxy is beyond impeachment. For here the penalty resolves itself into the consequence, and this the natural and naturally inevitable consequence of Adam's crime. For Adam, indeed, it was a positive punishment: a punishment of his guilt, the justice of which who could have dared arraign? While for the Offspring of Adam it was simply a not super-adding to their nature the privilege by which the original man was contra-distinguished from the brute creation—a mere negation, of which they had no more right to complain than any other species of animals. God in this view appears only in his attribute of mercy, as averting by supernatural interposition a consequence naturally inevitable. This is the golden side of the theory. But if we approach to it from the opposite direction, it first excites a just scruple, from the countenance it seems to give to the doctrine of Materialism. The supporters of this scheme do not, I presume, contend, that Adam's offspring would not have been born men, but have formed a new species of beasts! And if not, the notion of a rational, and self-conscious soul, perishing utterly with the dissolution of the organized body, seems to require, nay, almost involves, the opinion that the soul is a quality or accident of the body—a mere harmony resulting from organization.
But let this pass unquestioned. Whatever else the descendants of Adam might have been without the intercession of Christ, yet (this intercession having been effectually made) they are now endowed with souls that are not extinguished together with the material body. Now unless these divines teach likewise the Romish figment of Purgatory, and to an extent in which the Church of Rome herself would denounce the doctrine as an impious heresy: unless they hold, that a punishment temporary and remedial is the worst evil that the impenitent have to apprehend in a future state; and that the spiritual Death declared and foretold by Christ, the death eternal where the worm never dies, is neither Death nor eternal, but a certain quantum of suffering in a state of faith, hope, and progressive amendment—unless they go these lengths (and the divines here intended are orthodox Churchmen, men who would not knowingly advance even a step on the road towards them)—then I fear, that any advantage their theory might possess over the Calvinistic scheme in the article of Original Sin, would be dearly purchased by increased difficulties, and an ultra-Calvinistic narrowness in the article of Redemption. I at least find it impossible, with my present human feelings, not to imagine otherwise than that even in heaven it would be a fearful thing to know, that in order to my elevation to a lot infinitely more desirable than by nature it would have been, the lot of so vast a multitude had been rendered infinitely more calamitous; and that my felicity had been purchased by the everlasting misery of the majority of my fellow-men, who if no redemption had been provided, after inheriting the pains and pleasures of earthly existence during the numbered hours, and the few and evil—evil yet few—days of the years of their mortal life, would have fallen asleep to wake no more,—would have sunk into the dreamless sleep of the grave, and have been as the murmur and the plaint, and the exulting swell and the sharp scream, which the unequal gust of yesterday snatched from the strings of a wind-harp!
In another place I have ventured to question the spirit and tendency of Taylor's work on Repentance.[126] But I ought to have added, that to discover and keep the true medium in expounding and applying the Efficacy of Christ's Cross and Passion, is beyond comparison the most difficult and delicate point of practical divinity—and that which especially needs a guidance from above.
[126] Perhaps in his "Unum Necessarium; or the Doctrine and Practice of Repentance," part of his "Notes on Jeremy Taylor," pp. 295-325, v. iii., of the 'Remains,' 1838.—Ed.
[127] See also "Notes on Field on the Church" (1628), in Coleridge's 'Remains,' 1838, v. iii., pp. 57-92.—Ed.
APHORISM XVIII.
Stedfast by Faith. This is absolutely necessary for resistance to the Evil Principle. There is no standing out without some firm ground to stand on: and this Faith alone supplies. By Faith in the Love of Christ the power of God becomes ours. When the soul is beleaguered by enemies, weakness on the walls, treachery at the gates, and corruption in the citadel, then by Faith she says—Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the World! thou art my strength! I look to thee for deliverance! And thus she overcomes. The pollution (miasma) of sin is precipitated by his blood, the power of sin is conquered by his Spirit. The Apostle says not—stedfast by your own resolutions and purposes; but—stedfast by faith. Nor yet stedfast in your Will, but stedfast in the faith. We are not to be looking to, or brooding over ourselves, either for accusation or for confidence, or (by a deep yet too frequent self-delusion) to obtain the latter by making a merit to ourselves of the former. But we are to look to Christ and him crucified. The Law that is very nigh to thee, even in thy heart; the Law that condemneth and hath no promise; that stoppeth the guilty Past in its swift flight, and maketh it disown its name; the Law will accuse thee enough. Linger not in the Justice-court, listening to thy indictment! Loiter not in waiting to hear the Sentence! No! Anticipate the verdict! Appeal to Cæsar! Haste to the King for a pardon! Struggle thitherward, though in fetters; and cry aloud, and collect the whole remaining strength of thy Will in the outcry—I believe! Lord! help my unbelief! Disclaim all right of property in thy fetters. Say, that they belong to the old man, and that thou dost but carry them to the Grave, to be buried with their owner! Fix thy thought on what Christ did, what Christ suffered, what Christ is—as if thou wouldst fill the hollowness of thy Soul with Christ! If he emptied himself of glory to become sin for thy salvation, must not thou be emptied of thy sinful Self to become Righteousness in and through his agony and the effective merits of his Cross?[128] By what other means, in what other form, is it [{210}] possible for thee to stand in the presence of the Holy One? With what mind wouldst thou come before God, if not with the mind of Him, in whom alone God loveth the world? With good advice, perhaps, and a little assistance, thou wouldst rather cleanse and patch up a mind of thy own, and offer it as thy admission-right, thy qualification, to Him who charged his angels with folly![129] Oh! take counsel of thy Reason! It will show thee how impossible it is, that even a world should merit the love of Eternal Wisdom and all sufficing Beatitude, otherwise than as it is contained in that all-perfect Idea, in which the Supreme Spirit contemplateth itself and the plenitude of its infinity—the Only-Begotten before all ages! the beloved Son, in whom the Father is indeed well pleased!