S.T. Coleridge: Aids to Reflection - Christian Classics Ethereal Library

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Let it not, however, be forgotten, that the powers of the understanding and the intellectual graces are precious gifts of God; and that every Christian, according to the opportunities vouchsafed to him, is bound to cultivate the one and to acquire the other. Indeed, he is scarcely a Christian who willfully neglects so to do. What says the apostle? Add to your faith knowledge, and to knowledge manly energy, for this is the proper rendering of

and not virtue, at least in the present and ordinary acceptation of the word²² I am not ashamed to confess that I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit: and that in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy. The passage in St. Peter's epistle, is the only scripture authority that can be pretended for its use, and I think it right, therefore, to notice, that it rests, either on an oversight of the translators, or on a change in the meaning of the word since their time..

² I am not ashamed to confess that I dislike the frequent use of the word virtue, instead of righteousness, in the pulpit: and that in prayer or preaching before a Christian community, it sounds too much like pagan philosophy. The passage in St. Peter's epistle, is the only scripture authority that can be pretended for its use, and I think it right, therefore, to notice, that it rests, either on an oversight of the translators, or on a change in the meaning of the word since their time.

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