The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge Volume Iii Part 50

[Footnote 13: With reference to all these notes on Original Sin, see 'Aids to Reflection', p. 250-286.--Ed.]

[Footnote 14: 'Aids to Reflection', p. 274.--Ed.]

[Footnote 15: Ante. 'Vindication, &c.' p. 357-8.]

[Footnote 16: Ibid.]

[Footnote 17:

'Dupliciter vero sanguis Christi et caro intelligitur, spiritualis ilia atque divina, de qua ipse dixit, Caro mea vere est cibus, &c., vel caro et sanguis, quae crucifixa est, et qui militis effusus est lancea.'

In 'Epist. Ephes.' c.i.]

[Footnote 18: See 'Table Talk', p. 72, second edit. Ed.]

[Footnote 19:

'Ipsum regem tradunt, volventem commentaries Numae, quum ibi occulta solennia sacrificia Jovi Elicio facta invenisset, operatum his sacris se abdidisse; sed non rite initum aut curatum id sacrum esse; nee solum nullam ei oblatam Caelestium speciem, sed ira Jovis, sollicitati prava religione, fulmine ictum c.u.m domo conflagra.s.se.'

L. i. c. x.x.xi.--Ed.]

[Footnote 20:

"This also rests upon the practice apostolical and traditive interpretation of holy Church, and yet cannot be denied that so it ought to be, by any man that would not have his Christendom suspected.

To these I add the communion of women, the distinction of books apocryphal from canonical, that such books were written by such Evangelists and Apostles, the whole tradition of Scripture itself, the Apostles' Creed, &c. ... These and divers others of greater consequence, (which I dare not specify for fear of being misunderstood,) rely but upon equal faith with this of Episcopacy,"

&c.--Ed.]

[Footnote 21: S. xxvi.]

[Footnote 22: S. iv. 4.--Ed.]

NOTES ON THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

I know of no book, the Bible excepted, as above all comparison, which I, according to my judgment and experience, could so safely recommend as teaching and enforcing the whole saving truth according to the mind that was in Christ Jesus, as the Pilgrim's Progress. It is, in my conviction, incomparably the best 'Summa Theologiae Evangelicae' ever produced by a writer not miraculously inspired.

June 14, 1830.

It disappointed, nay surprised me, to find Robert Southey express himself so coldly respecting the style and diction of the Pilgrim's Progress. I can find nothing homely in it but a few phrases and single words. The conversation between Faithful and Talkative [1] is a model of unaffected dignity and rhythmical flow.

SOUTHEY'S LIFE OF BUNYAN.

P. xiv.

"We intended not," says Baxter, "to dig down the banks, or pull up the hedge, and lay all waste and common, when we desired the Prelates'

tyranny might cease." No; for the intention had been under the pretext of abating one tyranny to establish a far severer and more galling in its stead: in doing this the banks had been thrown down, and the hedge destroyed; and while the b.e.s.t.i.a.l herd who broke in rejoiced in the havoc, Baxter, and other such erring though good men, stood marvelling at the mischief, which never could have been effected, if they had not mainly a.s.sisted in it.

But the question is, would these 'erring good' men have been either willing or able to a.s.sist in this work, if the more erring Lauds and Sheldons had not run riot in the opposite direction? And as for the 'b.e.s.t.i.a.l herd,'--compare the whole body of Parliamentarians, all the fanatical sects included, with the royal and prelatical party in the reign of Charles II. These were, indeed, a b.e.s.t.i.a.l herd. See Baxter's unwilling and Burnet's honest description of the moral discipline throughout the realm under Cromwell.

Ib. p. xv.

They pa.s.sed with equal facility from strict Puritanism to the utmost license of practical and theoretical impiety, as Antinomians or as Atheists, and from extreme profligacy to extreme superst.i.tion in any of its forms.

'They!' How many? and of these how many that would not have been in Bedlam, or fit for it, under some other form? A madman falls into love or religion, and then, forsooth! it is love or religion that drove him mad.

Ib. p. xxi.

In an evil hour were the doctrines of the Gospel sophisticated with questions which should have been left in the Schools for those who are unwise enough to employ themselves in excogitations of useless subtlety.

But what, at any rate, had Bunyan to do with the Schools? His perplexities clearly rose out of the operations of his own active but unarmed mind on the words of the Apostle. If anything is to be arraigned, it must be the Bible in English, the reading of which is imposed (and, in my judgment, well and wisely imposed) as a duty on all who can read. Though Protestants, we are not ignorant of the occasional and partial evils of promiscuous Bible-reading; but we see them vanish when we place them beside the good.

Ib. p. xxiv.

False notions of that corruption of our nature which it is almost as perilous to exaggerate as to dissemble.

I would have said "which it is almost as perilous to misunderstand as to deny."

Ib. p. xli. &c.

But the wickedness of the tinker has been greatly over-charged; and it is taking the language of self-accusation too literally, to p.r.o.nounce of John Bunyan that he was at any time depraved. The worst of what he was in his worst days is to be expressed in a single word ... he had been a blackguard, &c.

All this narrative, with the reflections on the facts, is admirable and worthy of Robert Southey: full of good sense and kind feeling--the wisdom of love.

Ib. p. lxi.

But the Sectaries had kept their countrymen from it (the Common Prayer Book), while they had the power, and Bunyan himself in his sphere laboured to dissuade them from it.