cause of
the world. Life begins in detachment from Nature, and ends in union with
God.

III. 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!

Preliminary Discourse, p. lxxx.

Now of these three, the office of Christ, as our prophet, is the means
used by the Holy Spirit for working the redemption of the
understanding of men; that faculty by which we acquire the knowledge
on which proceed both our inward principles of conduct and our outward
acts of power.

I cannot forbear expressing my regret that Mr. Irving has not adhered to
the clear and distinct exposition of the understanding, 'genere et
gradu', given in the Aids to Reflection. [3]

What can be plainer than to say: the understanding is the medial faculty
or faculty of means, as reason on the other hand is the source of ideas
or ultimate ends. By reason we deter