It may be not amiss that I should leave a record in my own hand, how far, in what sense, and under what conditions, I agree with my friend, Edward Irving, respecting the second coming of the Son of Man.

  1. How far? First, instead of the full and entire conviction, the positive assurance, which Mr. Irving entertains, I—even in those points in which my judgment most coincides with his,—profess only to regard them as probable, and to vindicate them as nowise inconsistent with orthodoxy. They may be believed, and they may be doubted, salva Catholica fide. Further, from these points I exclude all prognostications of time and event; the mode, the persons, the places, of the accomplishment; and I decisively protest against all parts of Mr. Irving's and of Lacunza's scheme grounded on the books of Daniel or the Apocalypse, interpreted as either of the two, Irving or Lacunza, understands them. Again, I protest against all identification of the coming with the Apocalyptic Millennium, which in my belief began under Constantine.
  1. In what sense? In this and no other, that the objects of the Christian Redemption will be perfected on this earth;—that the kingdom of God and his Word, the latter as the Son of Man, in which the divine will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven, will come;—and that the whole march of nature and history, from the first impregnation of Chaos by the Spirit, converges toward this kingdom as the final cause of the world. Life begins in detachment from Nature, and ends in union with God.
  1. Under what conditions? That I retain my former convictions respecting St. Michael, and the ex-saint Lucifer, and the Genie Prince of Persia, and the re-institution of bestial sacrifices in the Temple at Jerusalem, and the rest of this class. All these appear to me so many pimples on the face of my friend's faith from inward heats, leaving it indeed a fine handsome intelligent face, but certainly not adding to its comeliness.

Such are the convictions of S. T. Coleridge, May, 1827.

P. S.

I fully agree with Mr. Irving as to the literal fulfilment of all the prophecies which respect the restoration of the Jews. (

Deuteron

. xxv. 1-8.)

It may be long before Edward Irving sees what I seem at least to see so clearly,—and yet, I doubt not, the time will come when he too will see with the same evidentness,—how much grander a front his system would have presented to judicious beholders; on how much more defensible a position he would have placed it,—and the remark applies equally to Ben Ezra (that is, Emanuel Lacunza)—had he trusted the proof to Scriptures of undisputed catholicity, to the spirit of the whole Bible, to the consonance of the doctrine with the reason, its fitness to the needs and capacities of mankind, and its harmony with the general plan of the divine dealings with the world,—and had left the Apocalypse in the back ground. But alas! instead of this he has given it such prominence, such prosiliency of relief, that he has made the main strength of his hope appear to rest on a vision, so obscure that his own author and faith's-mate claims a meaning for its contents only on the supposition that the meaning is yet to come!