The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 49

Towards the close of the reign of our first James, and during the period from the accession of Charles I to the restoration of his profligate son, there arose a party of divines, Arminians (and many of them Lat.i.tudinarians) in their creed, but devotees of the throne and the altar, soaring High Churchmen and ultra royalists.

Much as I dislike their scheme of doctrine and detest their principles of government both in Church and State, I cannot but allow that they formed a galaxy of learning and talent, and that among them the Church of England finds her stars of the first magnitude.

Instead of regarding the Reformation established under Edward VI as imperfect, they accused the Reformers, some of them openly, but all in their private opinions, of having gone too far; and while they were willing to keep down (and if they could not reduce him to a primacy of honor to keep out) the Pope, and to prune away the innovations in doctrine brought in under the Papal domination, they were zealous to restore the hierarchy, and to subst.i.tute the authority of the Fathers, Canonists and Councils of the first six or seven centuries, and the least Papistic of the later Doctors and Schoolmen, for the names of Luther, Melancthon, Bucer, Calvin and the systematic theologians who rejected all testimony but that of their Bible.

As far as the principle, on which Archbishop Laud and his followers acted, went to re-actuate the idea of the Church, as a co-ordinate and living Power by right of Christ's inst.i.tution and express promise, I go along with them; but I soon discover that by the Church they meant the Clergy, the hierarchy exclusively, and then I fly off from them in a tangent.

For it is this very interpretation of the Church that, according to my conviction, const.i.tuted the first and fundamental apostasy; and I hold it for one of the greatest mistakes of our polemic divines in their controversies with the Romanists, that they trace all the corruptions of the Gospel faith to the Papacy.

Meantime can we be surprised that our forefathers under the Stuarts were alarmed, and imagined that the Bishops and court preachers were marching in quick time with their faces towards Rome, when, to take one instance of a thousand, a great and famous divine, like Bishop Taylor, a.s.serts the inferiority, in rank and efficacy, of Baptism to Confirmation, and grounds this a.s.sertion so strange to all Scriptural Protestants on a text of Cabasilas--a saying of Rupertus--a phrase of St. Denis--and a sentence of Saint Bernard in a Life of Saint Malachias!--for no Benedictine can be more liberal in his attribution of saintship than Jeremy Taylor, or more reverently observant of the beatifications and canonizations of the Old Lady of the scarlet petticoat.

P. S. If the reader need other ill.u.s.trations, I refer him to Bishop Hackett's 'Sermons on the Advent and Nativity', which might almost pa.s.s for the orations of a Franciscan brother, whose reading had been confined to the 'Aurea Legenda'. It would be uncandid not to add that this indiscreet traffickery with Romish wares was in part owing to the immense reading of these divines.

Ib. s. i. p. 247. Acts viii. 14-17.

This is an argument indeed, and one that of itself would suffice to decide the question, if only it could be proved, or even made probable, that by the Holy Ghost in this place was meant that receiving of the Spirit to which Confirmation is by our Church declared to be the means and vehicle.

But this I suspect cannot be done. The whole pa.s.sage to which sundry chapters in St. Paul's Epistles seem to supply the comment, inclines and almost compels me to understand by the Holy Ghost in this narrative the miraculous gifts, [Greek: tas dynameis], collectively.

And in no other sense can I understand the sentence 'the Holy Ghost was not yet fallen upon any of them'. But the subject is beset with difficulties from the paucity of particular instances recorded by the inspired historian, and from the mult.i.tude and character of these instances found in the Fathers and Ecclesiastical historians.

Ib. s. ii. p. 254.

Still they are all [Greek: dynameis], exhibitable powers, faculties.

Were it otherwise what strange and fearful consequences would follow from the a.s.sertion, 'the Holy Spirit was not yet fallen upon any of them'.

That we misunderstand the gift of tongues, and that it did not mean the power of speaking foreign languages unlearnt, I am strongly persuaded.

Yea, but this is not the question. If my heart, bears me witness that I love my brother, that I love my merciful Saviour, and call Jesus Lord and the Anointed of G.o.d with joy of heart, I am encouraged by Scripture to infer that the Spirit abideth in me; besides that I know that of myself, and estranged from the Holy Spirit, I cannot even think a thought acceptable before G.o.d.

But how will this help me to believe that I received this Spirit through the Bishop's hands laid on my head at Confirmation: when perhaps I am distinctly conscious, that I loved my Saviour, freely forgave, nay, tenderly yearned for the weal of, them that hated me before my Confirmation,--when, indeed, I must have been the most uncharitable of men if I did not admit instances of the most exemplary faith, charity, and devotion in Christians who do not practise the imposition of hands in their Churches. What! did those Christians, of whom St. Luke speaks, not love their brethren?

'In fine'.

I have had too frequent experience of professional divines, and how they identify themselves with the theological scheme to which they have been articled, and I understand too well the nature and the power, the effect and the consequences, of a wilful faith,--where the sensation of positiveness is subst.i.tuted for the sense of certainty, and the stubborn clutch for quiet insight,--to wonder at any degree of hardihood in matters of belief.

Therefore the instant and deep-toned affirmative to the question

"And do you actually believe the presence of the material water in the baptizing of infants or adults is essential to their salvation, so indispensably so that the omission of the water in the Baptism of an infant who should die the day after would exclude that infant from the kingdom of heaven, and whatever else is implied in the loss of salvation?"

I should not be surprised, I say, to hear this question answered with an emphatic,

"Yes, Sir! I do actually believe this, for thus I find it written, and herein begins my right to the name of a Christian, that I have exchanged my reason for the Holy Scriptures: I acknowledge no reason but the Bible."

But as this intrepid respondent, though he may dispense with reason, cannot quite so easily free himself from the obligations of common sense and the canons of logic,--both of which demand consistency, and like consequences from like premisses 'in rebus ejusdem generis', in subjects of the same cla.s.s,--I do find myself tempted to wonder, some small deal, at the unscrupulous subst.i.tution of a few drops of water sprinkled on the face for the Baptism, that is, immersion or dipping, of the whole person, even if the rivers or running waters had been thought non-essential.

And yet where every word in any and in all the four narratives is so placed under the logical press as it is in this Discourse by Jeremy Taylor, and each and every incident p.r.o.nounced exemplary, and for the purpose of being imitated, I should hold even this hazardous.

But I must wonder a very great deal, and in downright earnest, at the contemptuous language which the same men employ in their controversies with the Romish Church, respecting the corporal presence in the consecrated bread and wine, and the efficacy of extreme unction.

For my own part, the a.s.sertion that what is phenomenally bread and wine is substantially the Body and Blood of Christ, does not shock my common sense more than that a few drops of water sprinkled on the face should produce a momentous change, even a regeneration, in the soul; and does not outrage my moral feelings half as much.

P. S. There is one error of very ill consequence to the reputation of the Christian community, which Taylor shares with the Romish divines, namely, the quoting of opinions, and even of rhetorical flights, from the writings of this and that individual, with 'Saint' prefixed to his name, as expressing the faith of the Church during the first five or six centuries.

Whereas it would not, perhaps, be very difficult to convince an unprejudiced man and a sincere Christian of the impossibility that even the decrees of the General Councils should represent the Catholic faith, that is, the belief essential to, or necessarily consequent on, the faith in Christ common to all the elect.

[Footnote 1: The references are here given to Heber's edition, 1822. Ed.]

[Footnote 2: The page however remains a blank. But a little essay on punctuation by the Author is in the Editor's possession, and will be published hereafter.--Ed.]

[Footnote 3: See Euseb. 'Hist.' iii. 27.--Ed.]

[Footnote 4: 'Vindication, &c. Quer.' 13, 14, 15.--Ed.]

[Footnote 5: See the form previously exhibited in this volume, p. 93.

--Ed.]

[Footnote 6: 'Mark' viii. 29. 'Luke' ix. 20.--Ed.]

[Footnote 7: 1 'Pet'. v. 13.--Ed.]

[Footnote 8: Lightfoot and Wall use this strong argument for the lawfulness and implied duty of Infant Baptism in the Christian Church.

It was the universal practice of the Jews to baptize the infant children of proselytes as well as their parents. Instead, therefore, of Christ's silence as to infants by name in his commission to baptize all nations being an argument that he meant to exclude them, it is a sign that he meant to include them. For it was natural that the precedent custom should prevail, unless it were expressly forbidden. The force of this, however, is limited to the ceremony;--its character and efficacy are not established by it.--Ed.]

[Footnote 9: The Author's views of Baptism are stated more fully and methodically in the 'Aids to Reflection'; but even that statement is imperfect, and consequently open to objection, as was frequently admitted by Mr. C. himself. The Editor is unable to say what precise spiritual efficacy the Author ultimately ascribed to Infant Baptism; but he was certainly an advocate for the practice, and appeared as sponsor at the font for more than one of his friends' children. See his 'Letter to a G.o.dchild', printed, for this purpose, at the end of this volume; his 'Sonnet on his Baptismal Birthday', ('Poet. Works', ii. p. 151.) in the tenth line of which, in many copies, there was a misprint of 'heart'

for 'front;' and the 'Table Talk', 2nd edit. p. 183. Ed.]

[Footnote 10: 'Deut.' xiii. 1-5. xviii. 22.--Ed.]

[Footnote 11: 'Galat.' i. 8, 9.--Ed.]

[Footnote 12: Pp. 206-227. Ed.]