The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 48

Ib. s. iii. p. 105.

And therefore St. Paul left an excellent precept to the Church to avoid 'profanas voc.u.m novitates', 'the prophane newness of words;'

that is, it is fit that the mysteries revealed in Scripture should be preached and taught in the words of the Scripture, and with that simplicity, openness, easiness, and candor, and not with new and unhallowed words, such as that of Transubstantiation.

Are not then Trinity, Tri-unity, 'hypostasis, perich.o.r.esis, diphysis', and others, excluded? Yet Waterland very ingeniously, nay more, very honestly and sensibly, shews the necessity of these terms 'per accidens'. The 'profanum' fell back on the heretics who had occasioned the necessity.

Ib. p. 106.

"The oblation of a cake was a figure of the Eucharistical bread which the Lord commanded to do in remembrance of his pa.s.sion." These are Justin's words in that place.

Justin Martyr could have meant no more, and the Greek construction means no more, than that the cake we offer is the representative, subst.i.tute, and 'fac-simile' of the bread which Christ broke and delivered.

I find no necessary absurdity in Transubstantiation. For substance is but a notion 'thought on' to the aggregate of accidents--'hinzugedacht'

--conceived, not perceived, and conceived always in universals, never in 'concreto'.

Therefore, X. Y. Z. being unknown quant.i.ties, Y. may be as well annexed by the choice of the mind as the imagined 'substratum' as X. For we cannot distinguish substance from substance any more than X. from X.

The substrate or 'causa invisibilis' may be the 'noumenon' or actuality, 'das Ding in sich', of Christ's humanity, as well as the 'Ding in sich'

of which the sensation, bread, is the appearance.

But then, on the other hand, there is not a word of sense possible to prove that it is really so; and from the not impossible to the real is a strange 'ultra'-Rhodian leap.

And it is opposite both to the simplicity of Evangelical meaning, and anomalous from the interpretation of all a.n.a.logous phrases which all men expound as figures,--'I am the gate, I am the way, I am the vine', and the like,--and to Christ's own declarations that his words were to be understood spiritually, that is, figuratively.

Ib. s. vi. p. 164.

However, if you will not commit downright idolatry, as some of their saints teach you, then you must be careful to observe these plain distinctions; and first be sure to remember that when you wors.h.i.+p an image, you do it not materially but formally; not as it is of such a substance, but as it is a sign; next take care that you observe what sort of image it is, and then proportion your right kind to it, that you do not give 'latria' to that where 'hyperdulia' is only due; and be careful that if 'dulia' only be due, that your wors.h.i.+p be not 'hyperdulical', &c.

A masterly specimen of grave dignified irony. Indeed, Jeremy Taylor's 'Works' would be of more service to an English barrister than those of Demosthenes, aeschines, and Cicero taken together.

Ib. s. vii. p. 168.

A man cannot well understand an essence, and hath no idea of it in his mind, much less can a painter's pencil do it.

Noticeable, that this is the only instance I have met in any English cla.s.sic before the Revolution of the word 'idea' used as synonymous with a mental image. Taylor himself has repeatedly placed the two in opposition; and even here I doubt whether he has done otherwise. I rather think he meant by the word 'idea' a notion under an indefinite and confused form, such as Kant calls a 'schema'or vague outline, an imperfect embryo of a concrete, to the individuation of which the mind gives no conscious attention; just as when I say--"any thing," I may imagine a poker or a plate; but I pay no attention to its being this rather than that; and the very image itself is so wandering and unstable that at this moment it may be a dim shadow of the one, and in the next of some other thing. In this sense, idea is opposed to image in degree instead of kind; yet still contra-distinguished, as is evident by the sequel, "much less can a painter's pencil do it:" for were it an image, 'individui et concreti', then the painter's pencil could do it as well as his fancy or better.

A DISCOURSE OF CONFIRMATION.

Of all Taylor's works, the Discourse of Confirmation seems to me the least judicious; and yet that is not the right word either. I mean, however, that one is puzzled to know for what cla.s.s of readers or auditors it was intended.

He announces his subject as one of such lofty claims; he begins with positions taken on such high ground, no less than the superior dignity and spiritual importance of Confirmation above Baptism itself--whether considered as a sacramental rite and mystery distinct from Baptism, or as its completory and crowning part (the 'finis coronans opus')--that we are eager to hear the proof.

But proofs differ in their value according to our previous valuation of authorities. What would pa.s.s for a very sufficient proof, because grounded on a reverend authority, with a Romanist, would be a mere fancy-medal and of no currency with a Bible Protestant.

And yet for Protestants, and those too laymen (for we can hardly suppose that Taylor thought his Episcopal brethren in need of it), must this Discourse have been intended; and in this point of view, surely never did so wise a man adopt means so unsuitable to his end, or frame a discourse so inappropriate to his audience.

The authorities of the Fathers are, indeed, as strong and decisive in favour of the Bishop's position as the warmest advocate of Confirmation could wish; but this very circ.u.mstance was calculated to create a prejudice against the doctrine in the mind of a zealous Protestant, from the contrast in which the unequivocal and explicit declarations of the Fathers stand with the remote, arbitrary, and fine-drawn inferences from the few pa.s.sages of the New Testament which can be forced into an implied sanction of a rite no where mentioned, and as a distinct and separate ministration, utterly, as I conceive, unknown in the Apostolic age.

How much more rational and convincing (as to me it seems) would it have been to have shewn, that when from various causes the practice of Infant Baptism became general in the Church, Confirmation or the acknowledgment 'in propria persona' of the obligations that had been incurred by proxy was introduced; and needed no other justification than its own evident necessity, as substantiating the preceding form as to the intended effects of Baptism on the believer himself, and then to have shewn the great uses and spiritual benefits of the inst.i.tution.

But this would not do. Such was the spirit of the age that nothing less than the a.s.sertion of a divine origin,--of a formal and positive inst.i.tution by Christ himself, or by the Apostles in their Apostolic capacity as legislators for the universal Church in all ages, could serve; and accordingly Bishops, liturgies, t.i.thes, monarchy, and what not, were, 'de jure divino', with celestial patents, wrapped up in the womb of this or that text of Scripture to be exforc.i.p.ated by the logico-obstetric skill of High Church doctors and ultra-loyal court chaplains.

THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY TO THE DUKE OF ORMONDE.

Ib. p. ccxvii.

This very poor church.

With the exception of Spain, the Church establishment in Ireland is now, I conceive, the richest in Europe; though by the most iniquitous measure of the Irish Parliament, most iniquitously permitted to acquire the force of law at the Union, the Irish Church was robbed of the t.i.thes from all pasture lands. What occasioned so great a change in its favour since the time of Charles II?

1810.

Ib. p. ccxviii.

And amidst these and very many more inconveniences it was greatly necessary that G.o.d should send us such a king.

Such a king! O sorrow and shame! Why, why, O Genius! didst thou suffer thy darling son to crush the fairest flower of thy garland beneath a mitre of Charles's putting on!

Ib. p. ccxix.

For besides that the great usefulness of this ministry will greatly endear the Episcopal order, to which (that I may use St. Hierom's words) "if there be not attributed a more than common power and authority, there will be as many schisms as priests," &c.

On this ground the Romish divines justify the Papacy. The fact of the Scottish Church is the sufficient answer to both. Episcopacy needs not rash a.s.sertions for its support.

Ib. p. ccxx.

For it is a sure rule in our religion, and is of an eternal truth, that "they who keep not the unity of the Church, have not the Spirit of G.o.d."

Contrast with this our xixth and xxth Articles on the Church. The Irish Roman Catholic Bishops, methinks, must have read this with delight. What an over hasty simpleton that James II. was! Had he waited and caressed the Bishops, they would have taken the work off his hands.

Ib. p. 229. Introduction.

It has been my conviction that in respect of the theory of the Faith, (though G.o.d be praised! not in the practical result,) the Papal and the Protestant communions are equi-distant from the true idea of the Gospel Inst.i.tute, though erring from opposite directions.

The Romanists sacrifice the Scripture to the Church virtually annulling the former: the Protestants reversed this practically, and even in theory, (see the above-mentioned Articles,) annulling the latter.

The consequence has been, as might have been predicted, the extinction of the Spirit (the indifference or 'mesothesis') in both considered as bodies: for I doubt not that numerous individuals in both Churches live in communion with the Spirit.