The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 19

I can see no possible edification that can arise from these _ultra_-Scriptural speculations respecting our Lord.

Ib. p. 157. A.

Though the G.o.dhead never departed from the carcase ... yet because the human soul was departed from it, he was no man.

Donne was a poor metaphysician; that is, he never closely questioned himself as to the absolute meaning of his words. What did he mean by the 'soul?' what by the 'body?' [13]

Ib. D.

And I know that there are authors of a middle nature, above the philosophers, and below the Scriptures, the Apocryphal books.

A whimsical instance of the disposition in the mind for every pair of opposites to find an intermediate,--a 'mesothesis' for every 'thesis'

and 'ant.i.thesis'. Thus Scripture may be opposed to philosophy; and then the Apocryphal books will be philosophy relatively to Scripture, and Scripture relatively to philosophy.

Ib. p. 159. B.

And therefore the same author (Epiphanius) says, that because they thought it an uncomely thing for Christ to weep for any temporal thing, some men have expunged and removed that verse out of St. Luke's Gospel, that 'Jesus, when he saw that city, wept'. [14]

This, by the by, rather indiscreetly lets out the liberties, which the early Christians took with their sacred writings. Origen, who, in answer to Celsus's reproach on this ground, confines the practice to the heretics, furnishes proofs of the contrary himself in his own comments.

Ib. p. 161. D.

That world, which finds itself in an authumn in itself, finds itself in a spring in our imaginations.

Worthy almost of Shakspeare!

Serm. XVII. Matt. xix. 17. p. 163.

Ib. E.

The words are part of a dialogue, of a conference, between Christ and a man who proposed a question to him; to whom Christ makes an answer by way of another question, 'Why callest thou me good?' &c. In the words, and by occasion of them, we consider the text, the context, and the pretext; not as three equal parts of the building; but the context, as the situation and prospect of the house, the pretext, as the access and entrance into the house, and then the text itself, as the house itself, as the body of the building: in a word, in the text the words; in the context the occasion of the words; in the pretext the purpose, the disposition of him who gave the occasion.

What a happy example of elegant division of a subject! And so also the 'compendium' of Christianity in the preceding paragraph (D). Our great divines were not ashamed of the learned discipline to which they had submitted their minds under Aristotle and Tully, but brought the purified products as sacrificial gifts to Christ. They baptized the logic and manly rhetoric of ancient Greece.

Ib. p. 164. A. B.

Excellent ill.u.s.tration of fragmentary morality, in which each man takes his choice of his virtues and vices.

Ib. D.

Men perish with whispering sins, nay, with silent sins, sins that never tell the conscience they are sins, as often as with crying sins.

Yea, I almost doubt whether the truth here so boldly a.s.serted is not of more general necessity for ordinary congregations, than the denunciation of the large sins that cannot remain 'in incognito'.

Ib. p. 165. A.

'Venit procurrens, he came running'. Nicodemus came not so, Nicodemus durst not avow his coming, and therefore he came creeping, and he came softly, and he came seldom, and he came by night.

Ah! but we trust in G.o.d that he did in fact come. The adhesion, the thankfulness, the love which arise and live after the having come, whether from spontaneous liking, or from a beckoning hope, or from a compelling good, are the truest 'criteria' of the man's Christianity.

Ib. B.

When I have just reason to think my superiors would have it thus, this is music to my soul; when I hear them say they would have it thus, this is rhetoric to my soul; when I see their laws enjoin it to be thus, this is logic to my soul; but when I see them actually, really, clearly, constantly do thus, this is a demonstration to my soul, and demonstration is the powerfullest proof. The eloquence of inferiors is in words, the eloquence of superiors is in action.

A just representation, I doubt not, of the general feeling and principle at the time Donne wrote. Men regarded the gradations of society as G.o.d's ordinances, and had the elevation of a self-approving conscience in every feeling and exhibition of respect for those of ranks superior to their own. What a contrast with the present times! Is not the last sentence beautiful? "The eloquence of inferiors is in words, the eloquence of superiors is in action."

Ib. B. and C.

He came to Christ, he ran to him; and when he was come, as St. Mark relates it, 'he fell upon his knees to Christ'. He stood not then Pharisaically upon his own legs, his own merits, though he had been a diligent observer of the commandments before, &c.

All this paragraph is an independent truth; but I doubt whether in his desire to make every particle exemplary, to draw some Christian moral from it, Donne has not injudiciously attributed, _quasi per prolepsin_, merits inconsistent with the finale of a wealthy would-be proselyte. At all events, a more natural and, perhaps, not less instructive interpretation might be made of the sundry movements of this religiously earnest and zealous admirer of Christ, and worshipper of Mammon. O, I have myself known such!

Ib. D.

He was no ignorant man, and yet he acknowledged that he had somewhat more to learn of Christ than he knew yet. Blessed are they that inanimate all their knowledge, consummate all in Christ Jesus, &c.

The whole paragraph is pure gold. Without being aware of this pa.s.sage in Donne, I expressed the same conviction, or rather declared the same experience, in the appendix [15] to the Statesman's Manual. O! if only one day in a week, Christians would consent to have the Bible as the only book, and their minister's labour to make them find all substantial good of all other books in their Bibles!

Ib. E.

I remember one of the Panegyrics celebrates and magnifies one of the Roman emperors for this, that he would marry when he was young; that he would so soon confine and limit his pleasures, so soon determine his affections in one person.

It is surely some proof of the moral effect which Christianity has produced, that in all Protestant countries, at least, a writer would be ashamed to a.s.sign this as a ground of panegyric; as if promiscuous intercourse with those of the other s.e.x had been a natural good, a privilege, which there was a great merit in foregoing! O! what do not women owe to Christianity! As Christians only it is that they do, or ordinarily can, cease to be things for men, instead of co-persons in one spiritual union.

Ib. p. 166. A.

But such is often the corrupt inordinateness of greatness, that it only carries them so much beyond other men, but not so much nearer to G.o.d.

Like a balloon, away from earth, but not a whit nearer the arch of heaven. There is a praiseworthy relativeness and life in the morality of our best old divines. It is not a cold law in bra.s.s or stone; but "this I may and should think of my neighbour, this of a great man," &c.

Ib. p. 167. A.

Christ was pleased to redeem this man from this error, and bring him to know truly what he was, that he was G.o.d. Christ therefore doth not rebuke this man, by any denying that he himself was good; for Christ doth a.s.sume that addition to himself, 'I am the good shepherd'.