DR. R. W. DALE ON AUTHORITY IN RELIGION.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
have not read Dr. Dale's article which you criticise, but the sentence which you quote—that " the authority of the New Testament comes from those parts of it in which I find God and God finds me "—reminds me of Coleridge. He says (" Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," Letter i., p.11, ed. 1849) : ." Whatever finds me bears witness for itself that it has pro- ceeded from a Holy Spirit, even from the same Spirit which remaining in itself yet regenerateth all other powers, and in all ages entering into holy souls maketh them friends of God and prophets." (Wisdom vii.) And at the beginning of the second Letter : " In the Bible there is more that finds me than in all other books put together ; the words of the Bible find me at greater depths of my being." The italics are Coleridge's. Coleridge, it is needless to say, rejected the theory of the immediate dictation of the Bible by God, as I suppose Dr. Dale also does.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Rochester, September 8th. S. CHEETHAM.
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