Never was there a book less entitled than the "Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit" to the honour of effecting a revolution in theology, or becoming the manifesto of any school of inquirers accustomed to habits of sound and accurate reasoning. With not a little to remind us of the reach and originality of thought which distinguish the other writings of Coleridge, it is marked to a most vicious excess with looseness and inaccuracy of conception; it betrays a painful ignorance of the main facts and fundamental principles involved in the question at issue; and, by the confident, but impotent attempt which he makes to marry a mystical philosophy to an unsound theology, he only shows that he has strayed into a province of speculation with whose guiding landmarks he was completely unacquainted. Nor is this failure to grasp, and inability to deal with, the necessary conditions of the problem to be solved, so conspicuous in Coleridge's discussion of the doctrine of inspiration, altogether due to his limited and defective preparation for dealing with the subject; it is in no small measure to be attributed to the exigencies of his position and argument.

Excerpt from Confessions an Inquiring Spirit This a providence, a preparation, and a look ing-forward to Christ. Here then we have four out of the five classes. And in all these the sky of my be lief is serene, unclouded by a doubt. Would to God that my faith, that faith which works on the whole man, confirming and conform ing, were but in just proportion to my belief, to the full acquiescence of my intellect, and rthe deep consent of my conscience! The very difficulties argue the truth of the whole scheme and system for my understanding, since I see plainly that so must the truth ap pear, if it be the truth. J V. But there is a Book, of two parts, each part consisting of several books. The first part - (i speak in the character of an uninterested critic or philologist) contains the reliques of the literature of the Hebrew people, while the Hebrew was still the living language. The second part comprises the writings, and, with one or two inconsiderable and doubtful exceptions, all the writings of. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.