The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iv Part 16

12. The Litany ... omitteth very many particulars, ... and it is exceeding disorderly, following no just rules of method. Having begged pardon of our sins, and deprecated vengeance, it proceedeth to evil in general, and some few sins in particular, and thence to a more particular enumeration of judgments; and thence to a recitation of the parts of that work of our redemption, and thence to the deprecation of judgments again, and thence to prayers for the King and magistrates, and then for all nations, and then for love and obedience, &c.

The very points here objected to as faults I should have selected as excellencies. For do not the duties and temptations occur in real life even so intermingled? The imperfection of thought much more of language, so singly successive, allows no better representation of the close neighbourhood, nay the co-inherence of duty in duty, desire in desire.

Every want of the heart pointing G.o.dward is a chili agon that touches at a thousand points. From these remarks I except the last paragraph of s.

12:

(As to the prayer for Bishops and Curates and the position of the General Thanksgiving, &c.)

which are defects so palpable and so easily removed, that nothing but antipathy to the objectors could have retained them.

13. The like defectiveness and disorder is in the Communion Collects for the day.... There is no more reason why it should be appropriate to that day than another, or rather be a common pet.i.tion for all days, &c.

I do not see how these supposed improprieties, for want of appropriateness to the day, could be avoided without risk of the far greater evil of too great appropriation to particular Saints and days as in Popery. I am so far a Puritan that I think nothing would have been lost, if Christmas day and Good Friday had been the only week days made holy days, and Easter the only Lord's day especially distinguished. I should also have added Whitsunday; but that it has become unmeaning since our Clergy have, as I grieve to think, become generally Arminian, and interpreting the descent of the Spirit as the gift of miracles and of miraculous infallibility by inspiration have rendered it of course of little or no application to Christians at present. Yet how can Arminians pray our Church prayers collectively on any day? Answer. See a 'boa constrictor' with an ox or deer. What they do swallow, proves so astounding a dilatability of gullet, that it would be unconscionable strictness to complain of the horns, antlers, or other indigestible non-essentials being suffered to rot off at the confines, [Greek: herkos hodonton]. But to write seriously on so serious a subject, it is mournful to reflect that the influence of the systematic theology then in fashion with the anti-Prelatic divines, whether Episcopalians or Presbyterians, had quenched all fineness of mind, all flow of heart, all grandeur of imagination in them; while the victorious party, the Prelatic Arminians, enriched as they were with all learning and highly gifted with taste and judgment, had emptied revelation of all the doctrines that can properly be said to have been revealed, and thus equally caused the extinction of the imagination, and quenched the life in the light by withholding the appropriate fuel and the supporters of the sacred flame. So that, between both parties, our transcendant Liturgy remains like an ancient Greek temple, a monumental proof of the architectural genius of an age long departed, when there were giants in the land.

Ib. p. 337.

As I was proceeding, Bishop Morley interrupted me according to his manner, with vehemency crying out * * The Bishop interrupted me again * * I attempted to speak, and still he interrupted me * * Bishop Morley went on, talking louder than I, &c.

The Bishops appear to have behaved insolently enough. Safe in their knowledge of Charles's inclinations, they laughed in their sleeves at his commission. Their best answer would have been to have pressed the anti-impositionists with their utter forgetfulness of the possible, nay, very probable differences of opinion between the ministers and their congregations. A vain minister might disgust a sober congregation with his 'extempore' prayers, or his open contempt of their kneeling at the Sacrament, and the like. Yet by what right if he acts only as an individual? And then what an endless source of disputes and preferences of this minister or of that!

Ib. p. 341.

The paper offered by Bishop Cosins.

1. That the question may be put to the managers of the division, Whether there be anything in the doctrine, or discipline, or the Common Prayer, or ceremonies, contrary to the word of G.o.d; and if they can make any such appear; let them be satisfied.

2. If not, let them propose what they desire in point of expediency, and acknowledge it to be no more.

This was proposed, doubtless, by one of your sensible men; it is so plain, so plausible, shallow, 'nihili, nauci, pili, flocci-cal'. Why, the very phrase "contrary to the word of G.o.d" would take a month to define, and neither party agree at last. One party says:

The Church has power from G.o.d's word to order all matters of order so as shall appear to them to conduce to decency and edification: but ceremonies respect the orderly performance of divine service: ergo, the Church has power to ordain ceremonies: but the Cross in baptizing is a ceremony; ergo, the Church has power to prescribe the crossing in Baptism. What is rightfully ordered cannot be rightfully withstood:--but the crossing, &c., is rightfully ordered:--'ergo', the crossing cannot be rightfully omitted.

To this, how easily would the other party reply;

1. That a small number of Bishops could not be called the Church:

2. That no one Church had power or pretence from G.o.d's word to prescribe concerning mere matters of outward decency and convenience to other Churches or a.s.semblies of Christian people:

3. That the blending an unnecessary and suspicious, if not superst.i.tious, motion of the hand with a necessary and essential act doth in no wise respect order or propriety:

Lastly, that to forbid a man to obey a direct command of G.o.d because he will not join with it an admitted mere tradition of men, is contrary to common sense, no less than to G.o.d's word, expressly and by breach of charity, which is the great end and purpose of G.o.d's word. Besides; might not the Pope and his shavelings have made the same proposition to the Reformers in the reign of Edward VI., in respect to the greater part of the idle superfluities which were rejected by the Reformers, only as idle and superfluous, and for that reason contrary to the spirit of the Gospel, though few, if any, were in the direct teeth of a positive prohibition? Above all, an honest policy dictates that the end in view being fully determined, as here for instance, the preclusion of disturbance and indecorum in Christian a.s.semblies, every addition to means, already adequate to the securing of that end, tends to frustrate the end, and is therefore evidently excluded from the prerogatives of the Church, (however that word may be interpreted) inasmuch as its power is confined to such ceremonies and regulations as conduce to order and general edification. In short it grieves me to think that the Heads of the most Apostolical Church in Christendom should have insisted on three or four trifles, the abolition of which could have given offence to none but such as from the baleful superst.i.tion that alone could attach importance to them effectually, it was charity to offend;-when all the rest of Baxter's objections might have been answered so triumphantly.

Ib. p. 343.

Answer to the foresaid paper.

8. That none may be a preacher, that dare not subscribe that there is nothing in the Common Prayer Book, the Book of Ordination, and the 39 Articles, that is contrary to the word of G.o.d.

I think this might have been left out as well as the other two articles mentioned by Baxter. For as by the words "contrary to the word of G.o.d"

in Cosins's paper, it was not meant to declare the Common Prayer Book free from all error, the sense must have been, that there is not anything in it in such a way or degree contrary to G.o.d's word, as to oblige us to a.s.sign sin to those who have overlooked it, or who think the same compatible with G.o.d's word, or who, though individually disapproving the particular thing, yet regard that acquiescence as an allowed sacrifice of individual opinion to modesty, charity, and zeal for the peace of the Church. For observe that this eighth instance is additional to, and therefore not inclusive of, the preceding seven: otherwise it must have been placed as the first, or rather as the whole, the seven following being motives and instances in support and explanation of the point.

Ib. p. 368.

Let me mediate here between Baxter and the Bishops: Baxter had taken for granted that the King had a right to promise a revision of the Liturgy, Canons and regiment of the Church, and that the Bishops ought to have met him and his friends as diplomatists on even ground. The Bishops could not with discretion openly avow all they meant; and it would be bigotry to deny that the spirit of compromise had no indwelling in their feelings or intents. But nevertheless it is true that they thought more in the spirit of the English Const.i.tution than Baxter and his friends.--"This," thought they, "is the law of the land, 'quam nolumus mutari'; and it must be the King with and by the advice of his Parliament, that can authorize any part of his subjects to take the question of its repeal into consideration. Under other circ.u.mstances a King might bring the Bishops and the Heads of the Romish party together to plot against the law of the land. No! we would have no other secret Committees but of Parliamentary appointment. We are but so many individuals. It is in the Legislature that the congregations, the party most interested in this cause, meet collectively by their representatives."--Lastly, let it not be overlooked, that the root of the bitterness was common to both parties,--namely, the conviction of the vital importance of uniformity;--and this admitted, surely an undoubted majority in favor of what is already law must decide whose uniformity it is to be.

Ib. p. 368.

We must needs believe that when your Majesty took our consent to a Liturgy to be a foundation that would infer our concord, you meant not that we should have no concord but by consenting to this Liturgy without any considerable alteration.

This is forcible reasoning, but which the Bishops could fairly leave for the King to answer;--the contract tacit or expressed, being between him and the anti-Prelatic Presbytero-Episcopalian party, to which neither the Bishops nor the Legislature had acceded or a.s.sented. If Baxter and Calamy were so little imbued with the spirit of the Const.i.tution as to consider Charles II. as the breath of their nostrils, and this dread sovereign Breath in its pa.s.sage gave a snort or a snuffle, or having led them to expect a snuffle surprised them with a snort, let the reproach be shared between the Breath's fetid conscience and the nostrils'

nasoductility. The traitors to the liberty of their country who were swarming and intriguing for favor at Breda when they should have been at their post in Parliament or in the Lobby preparing terms and conditions!--Had all the ministers that were afterwards ejected and the Presbyterian party generally exerted themselves, heart and soul, with Monk's soldiers, and in collecting those whom Monk had displaced, and, instead of carrying on treasons against the Government 'de facto' by mendicant negociations with Charles, had taken open measures to confer the sceptre on him as the Scotch did,--whose stern and truly loyal conduct has been most unjustly condemned,--the schism in the Church might have been prevented and the Revolution of 1688 superseded.

N.B. In the above I speak of the Bishops as men interested in a litigated estate. G.o.d forbid, I should seek to justify them as Christians.

Ib. p. 369.

'Quaere'. Whether in the 20th Article these words are not inserted;--'Habet Ecclesia auctoritatem in controversiis fidei'.

Strange, that the evident ant.i.thesis between power in respect of ceremonies, and authority in points of faith, should have been overlooked!

Ib.

Some have published, That there is a proper sacrifice in the Lord's Supper, to exhibit Christ's death in the 'post-fact', as there was a sacrifice to prefigure it in the Old Law in the 'ante-fact', and therefore that we have a true altar, and not only metaphorically so called.

Doubtless a gross error, yet pardonable, for to errors nearly as gross it was opposed.

Ib.

Some have maintained that the Lord's Day is kept merely by ecclesiastical const.i.tution, and that the day is changeable.

Where shall we find the proof of the contrary?--at least, if the position had been worded thus: The moral and spiritual obligation of keeping the Lord's Day is grounded on its manifest necessity, and the evidence of its benignant effects in connection with those conditions of the world of which even in Christianized countries there is no reason to expect a change, and is therefore commanded by implication in the New Testament, so clearly and by so immediate a consequence, as to be no less binding on the conscience than an explicit command. A., having lawful authority, expressly commands me to go to London from Bristol.

There is at present but one safe road: this therefore is commanded by A.; and would be so, even though A. had spoken of another road which at that time was open.

Ib. p. 370.

Some have broached out of Socinus a most uncomfortable and desperate doctrine, that late repentance, that is, upon the last bed of sickness, is unfruitful, at least to reconcile the penitent to G.o.d.

This no doubt refers to Jeremy Taylor's work on Repentance, and is but too faithful a description of its character.