procured for me. This day Edwards will write to him.

God love you, and your grateful and affectionate friend, S. T. Coleridge.

N. B. I preached yesterday."


Mr. Coleridge, in the preceding letters, states his having preached
occasionally. There must have been a first sermon. It so happened that I
heard Mr. C. preach his first and also his second sermon, with some
account of which I shall now furnish the reader; and that without
concealment or embellishment. But it will be necessary, as an
illustration of the whole, to convey some previous information, which, as
it regards most men, would be too unimportant to relate.

When Mr. Coleridge first came to Bristol, he had evidently adopted, at
least to some considerable extent, the sentiments of Socinus. By persons
of that persuasion, therefore, he was hailed as a powerful accession to
their cause. From Mr. C.'s voluble utterance, it was even believed that
he might become a valuable Unitarian minister, (of which class of
divines, a great scarcity then existed, with a still more gloomy
anticipation, from most of the young academicians at their chief academy
having recently turned infidels.) But though this presumption in Mr.
Coleridge's favour was confidently entertained, no certainty could exist
without a trial, and how was this difficulty to be overcome? The
Unitarians in Bristol might have wished to see Mr. C. in their pulpit,
expounding and enforcing their faith; but, as they said, "the thing, in
Bristol, was altogether impracticable," from the conspicuous stand which
he had taken in free politics, through the medium of his numerous
lectures.[20]