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 determine the ultimate end:  by the understanding we are enabled to select and adapt the appropriate means for the attainment of, or approximation to, this end, according to circumstances.  But an ultimate end must of necessity be an idea, that is, that which is not representable by the sense, and has no entire correspondent in nature, or the world of the senses.  For in nature there can be neither a first nor a last:—­all that we can see, smell, taste, touch, are means, and only in a qualified sense, and by the defect of our language, entitled ends.  They are only relatively ends in a chain of motives.  B. is the end to A.; but it is itself a mean to C., and in like manner C. is a mean to D., and so on.  Thus words are the means by which we reduce appearances, or things presented through the senses, to their several kinds, or ‘genera’; that is, we generalize, and thus think and judge.  Hence the understanding, considered specially as an intellective power, is the source and faculty of words;—­and