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THE LITERARY REMAINS

OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE



VOLUME THE THIRD



COLLECTED AND EDITED BY

HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE.



1838




TO THE RIGHT HONORABLE JOHN HOOKHAM FRERE THE THIRD AND FOURTH VOLUMES
OF COLERIDGE'S REMAINS ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED.




  CONTENTS


  Preface
  Formula Fidei de SS. Trinitate
  Nightly Prayer
  Notes on 'The Book of Common Prayer'
  Notes on Hooker
  Notes on Field
  Notes on Donne
  Notes on Henry More
  Notes on Heinrichs
  Notes on Hacket
  Notes on Jeremy Taylor
  Notes on 'The Pilgrim's Progress'
  Notes on John Smith
  Letter to a Godchild




PREFACE

For a statement of the circumstances under which the collection of Mr.
Coleridge's Literary Remains was undertaken, the Reader is referred to
the Preface to the two preceding Volumes published in 1836. But the
graver character of the general contents of this Volume and of that
which will immediately follow it, seems to justify the Editor in
soliciting particular attention to a few additional remarks.

Although the Author in his will contemplated the publication of some at
least of the numerous notes left by him on the margins and blank spaces
of books and pamphlets, he most certainly wrote the notes themselves
without any purpose beyond that of delivering his mind of the thoughts
and aspirations suggested by the text under perusal. His books, that is,
any person's books--even those from a circulating library--were to him,
whilst reading them, as dear friends; he conversed with them as with
their authors, praising, or censuring, or qualifying, as the open page
seemed to give him cause; little solicitous in so doing to draw
summaries or to strike balances of literary merit, but seeking rather to
detect and appreciate the moving principle or moral life, ever one and
single, of the work in reference to absolute truth. Thus employed he had
few reserves, but in general poured forth, as in a confessional, all his
mind upon every subject,--not keeping back any doubt or conjecture which
at the time and for the purpose seemed worthy of consideration. In
probing another's heart he laid his hand upon his own. He thought pious
frauds the worst of all frauds, and the system of economizing truth too
near akin to the corruption of it to be generally compatible with the
Job-like integrity of a true Christian's conscience. Further, he
distinguished so strongly between that internal faith which lies at the
base of, and supports, the whole moral and religious being of man, and
the belief, as historically true, of several incidents and relations
found or supposed to be found in the text of the Scriptures, that he
habitually exercised a liberty of criticism with respect to the latter,
which will probably seem objectionable to many of his readers in this
country. [1]

His friends have always known this to be the fact; and he vindicated
this so openly that it would be folly to attempt to conceal it: nay, he
pleaded for it so earnestly--as the only middle path of safety and peace
between a godless disregard of the unique and transcendant character of
the Bible taken generally, and that scheme of interpretation, scarcely
less adverse to the pure spirit of Christian wisdom, which wildly arrays
our faith in opposition to our reason, and inculcates the sacrifice of
the latter to the former,--that to suppress this important part of his
solemn convictions would be to misrepresent and betray him. For he threw
up his hands in dismay at the language of some of our modern divinity on
this point;--as if a faith not founded on insight were aught else than a
specious name for wilful positiveness;--as if the Father of Lights could
require, or would accept, from the only one of his creatures whom he had
endowed with reason the sacrifice of fools! Did Coleridge, therefore,
mean that the doctrines revealed in the Scriptures were to be judged
according to their supposed harmony or discrepancy with the evidence of
the senses, or the deductions of the mere understanding from that
evidence? Exactly the reverse: he disdained to argue even against
Transubstantiation on such a ground, well knowing and loudly proclaiming
its utter weakness and instability. But it was a leading principle in
all his moral and intellectual views to assert the existence in all men
equally of a power or faculty superior to, and independent of, the
external senses: in this power or faculty he recognized that image of
God in which man was made; and he could as little understand how faith,
the indivisibly joint act or efflux of our reason and our will, should
be at variance with one of its factors or elements, as how the Author
and Upholder of all truth should be in contradiction to himself. He
trembled at the dreadful dogma which rests God's right to man's
obedience on the fact of his almighty power,--a position falsely
inferred from a misconceived illustration of St. Paul