The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 46

This paragraph is an exquisite specimen of grave and dignified irony, 'telum quod cedere simulat retorquentis'. In contrast with this stands the paragraph on note 15, (p. 381.) which is a coa.r.s.e though not unmerited sneer, or, as a German would have expressed himself, 'an of-Jeremy-Taylor-unworthy,though a-not-of-the-Roman-Catholic-Papicolar- polemics-unmerited, sneer.'

Ib. p. 381.

... excepting only some Popes have been remarked by their own histories for funest and direful deaths.

In the adoption of this word 'funest' into the English language by 'apocope' of the final 'us', Taylor is supported by 'honest' and 'modest;' but then the necessity of p.r.o.nouncing funest should have excluded it, the superlative final being an objection to all of them, though outweighed in the others. A common reader would p.r.o.nounce it 'funest,' and perhaps mistake it for 'funniest.'

Ib. p. 382.

... sacraments, 'which to be seven', is with them an article of faith.

The fastidious exclusion of this and similar idioms in modern writing occasions unnecessary embarra.s.sment for the writer, both in narration and argumenting, and contributes to the monotony of our style.

Ib.

The Fathers and Schoolmen differ greatly in the definition of a Sacrament.

Had it been in other respects advisable, it would, I think, have been theologically convenient, if our Reformers had contra-distinguished Baptism and the Lord's Supper by the term Mysteries, and allowed the name of Sacrament to Ordination, Confirmation, and Marriage.

Ib. s. iii. p. 388.

And he did so to the Jews ... tradition was not relied upon; it was not trusted with any law of faith or manners.

This all the later Jews deny, affirming an oral communication from Moses to the Seventy, on as lame pretences as the Roman Catholics, and for the same vile purposes as reproved by Christ, who, if he had believed the story, would not have condemned traditions of men generally without exception, and would not have proved the immortality of the Patriarchs by a text which seems to have had no such primary intention, though it may contain the deduction 'potentialiter'.

But Taylor's 1st and 7th arguments following are, the former weak and incorrect, the latter 'dictum et vulgatum, sed non probatum, ne dicam improbatum'. Who doubts that all that is indispensable to the salvation of each and every one is contained in the New Testament?

But is it not contained in the first chapter of St. John's Gospel? Is it not contained in the eleventh of the Acts, and in a score other separable portions? Necessary, indispensable, and the like, are multivocal terms. Dogs have survived (and without any noticeable injury) the excision of the spleen.

Dare we conclude from this fact that the spleen is not necessary to the continuance of the canine race? What is not indispensable for even the majority of individual believers may be necessary for the Church.

Instead, therefore, of these terms, put 'true,' 'important,' and 'const.i.tutive,' that is, appertaining to the chain ('ad catenam auream') of truths interdependent and rendered mutually intelligible, which const.i.tute the system of the Christian religion, including not alone the faith and morals of individuals, but the 'organismus' likewise of the Church, as a body spiritual, yet outward and historical; and this again not as an aggregate or sum total, like a corn-sheaf, but a unity.

Let the question, I say, be thus restated, and then let the cause come to trial between the Romish and the Protestant divines.

N. B. As a running comment on all these marginal notes, let it be understood that I hold the far greater part--the only not all of what our great Author urges, to apply with irrefutable force against the doctrine and practice of the Romish Church, as it in fact exists, and no less against the Familists and 'istius farinae enthusiastas'.

I contend only, that he himself, in several a.s.sertions, lies open to attack from the supporters of a scheme of faith, as unlike either the Romish or the Fanatical, as Taylor's own, and which scheme, namely, the co-ordinate authority of the Word, the Spirit and the Church, I believe to be the true Apostolic and Catholic doctrine, and that to this scheme his objections do not apply.

When I can bring myself to believe that from the mere perusal of the New Testament a man might have sketched out by antic.i.p.ation the const.i.tution, discipline, creeds, and sacramental ritual of the Episcopal Reformed Church of England; or that it is not a true and orthodox Church, because this is incredible; then I may perhaps be inclined to echo Chillingworth.

As I cannot think that it detracts from a dial that in order to tell the time the sun must s.h.i.+ne upon it; so neither does it detract from the Scriptures, that though the best and holiest they are yet Scripture, and require a pure heart and the consequent a.s.sistances of G.o.d's enlightening grace in order to understand them to edification.

1812.

I still agree with the preceding note, and add that Jeremy Taylor should have cited the Arians and Socinians on the other side. But the Romish Papal hierarchy cannot for shame say, or only from want of shame can pretend to say, what a Catholic would be ent.i.tled to urge on the triple link of the Scripture, the Spirit, and the Church.

27 April, 1826.

Ib. s. vi. p. 392.

From this principle, as it is promoted by the Fanatics, they derive a wandering, unsettled, and a dissolute religion, &c.

The evils of the Fanatic persuasion here so powerfully, so exquisitely, stated and enforced by our all-eloquent Bishop, supply no proof or even presumption against the tenet of the Spirit rightly expressed. For catholicity is the distinctive mark, the 'conditio sine qua non', of a spiritual teaching; and if men that dream with their eyes open mistake for this the very contrary, that is, their own particular fancies, or perhaps sensations, who can help it?

Ib. s. vii. p. 394.

They affirm that the Scriptures are full, that they are a perfect rule, that they contain all things necessary to salvation; and from hence they confuted all heresies.

Yes, the heretics were so confuted, I grant; because these would not acknowledge any other authority but that of the Scriptures, and these too forged or corrupted by themselves; but by the Scriptures that remained unaltered the early Fathers of the Church both demonstrated the omissions and interpolations of the heretical canons and the false doctrines of the heresy itself. But so far from following the same rule to the members of the true Church, they made the applicability of this way of proof the criterion of a heretic.

Ib. p. 394.

'Which truly they then preached, but afterwards by the will of G.o.d delivered to us in the Scriptures, which was to be the pillar and ground to our faith.'

Lessing has shown this to be a false and even ungrammatical rendering of Irenaeus's words. The 'columen et fundamentum fidei', are the Creed, or economy of salvation.

Ib. vii. p. 395. Extracts from Clement's 'Stromata'.

It would require a volume to shew the qualifications with which these 'excerpta' must be read. There is no one source of error and endless controversy more fruitful than this custom of quoting detached sentences. I would pledge myself in the course of a single morning to bring an equal number of pa.s.sages from the same (Ante-Nicene) Fathers in proof of the Roman Catholic theory. One palpable cheat in these transcripts is the neglect of appreciating the words, 'inspired,' 'a 'Spiritu dicta'', and the like, in the Patristic use; as if the Fathers did not frequently apply the same terms to the discourses of the Bishops, their contemporaries, and to writings not canonical. It is wonderful how so acute and learned a man as Taylor could have read Tertullian, Irenaeus and Clemens Alexandrinus, and not have seen that the pa.s.sages are all against him so far as they all make the Scriptures subsidiary only to the Spirit in the Church and the Baptismal creed, the [Greek: kan_n piste_os], 'regula fidei', or 'aeconomia salutis'.

Ib. p. 396.

... that the tradition ecclesiastical, that is, the whole doctrine taught by the Church of G.o.d, and preached to all men, is in the Scripture.

It is only by the whole context and purpose of the work, and this too interpreted by the known doctrine of the age, that the intent of the sentences here quoted can be determined, relatively to the point in question. But even as they stand here, they do not a.s.sert that the 'Traditio Ecclesiastica' was grounded on, or had been deduced from, the Scriptures; nor that by Scripture Clemens meant princ.i.p.ally the New Testament; and that the Scriptures contain the Tradition Ecclesiastical or Catholic Faith the Romish divines admit and contend.

Ib. p. 399. Extract from Origen.

As our Saviour imposed silence upon the Sadducees by the word of his doctrine, and faithfully convinced that false opinion which they thought to be truth; so also shall the followers of Christ do, by the examples of Scripture, by which according to sound doctrine every voice of Pharaoh ought to be silent.

Does not this prove too much; namely, that nothing exists in the New which does not likewise exist in the Old Testament?

One objection to Jeremy Taylor's argument here must, I think, strike every reflecting mind; namely, that in order to a fair and full view of the sentiments of the Fathers of the first four centuries, all they declare of the Church, and her powers and prerogatives, ought to have been likewise given.