The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 3. Coleridge Samuel Taylor
or Moghul hyperbole and bombast, of which there is no other instance in Scripture, and which no Christian would dare to attribute to an inspired writer. We know, too, that the elder Jewish Church ranked it among the Messianic Psalms. N.B. The Word in St. John, and the Name of the Most High in the Psalms, are equivalent terms.
v. 1.
Give the king thy judgments, O God; and thy righteousness unto the king's son.
God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, the only begotten, the Son of God and God, King of Kings, and the Son of the King of Kings!
Psalm LXXIV
v. 2.
O think upon thy congregation, whom thou hast purchased and redeemed of old.
The Lamb sacrificed from the beginning of the world, the God-Man, the Judge, the self-promised Redeemer to Adam in the garden!
v. 15.
Thou smotest the heads of Leviathan in pieces; and gavest him to be meat for the people in the wilderness.
Does this allude to any real tradition?3 The Psalm appears to have been composed shortly before the captivity of Judah.
Psalm LXXXII vv. 6-7
The reference which our Lord made to these mysterious verses, gives them an especial interest. The first apostasy, the fall of the angels, is, perhaps, intimated.
Psalm LXXXVII
I would fain understand this Psalm; but first I must collate it word by word with the original Hebrew. It seems clearly Messianic.
Psalm LXXXVIII
vv. 10 – 12.
Dost than shew wonders among the dead, or shall the dead rise up again and praise thee? &c.
Compare Ezekiel xxxvii.
Psalm CIV
I think the Bible version might with advantage be substituted for this, which in some parts is scarcely intelligible.
v. 6.
the waters stand in the hills.
No; stood above the mountains. The reference is to the Deluge.
Psalm CV
v. 3.
Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord.
If even to seek the Lord be joy, what will it be to find him? Seek me, O Lord, that I may be found by thee!
Psalm CX
v. 2.
The Lord shall send the rod of thy power out of Sion; (saying) Rule, &c.
v. 3. Understand:
'Thy people shall offer themselves willingly in the day of conflict in holy clothing, in their best array, in their best arms and accoutrements. As the dew from the womb of the morning, in number and brightness like dew-drops; so shall be thy youth, or the youth of thee, the young volunteer warriors.'
v. 5.
'He shall shake,'
concuss, concutiet reges die iræ suæ,
v. 6. For
'smite in sunder, or wound, the heads;'
some word answering to the Latin conquassare.
v. 7. For 'therefore,' translate 'then shall he lift up his head again;' that is, as a man languid and sinking from thirst and fatigue after refreshment.
N.B. I see no poetic discrepancy between vv. 1 and 5.
Psalm CXVIII
To be interpreted of Christ's church.
Psalm CXXVI
v. 5.
As the rivers in the south.
Does this allude to the periodical rains?4
As a transparency on some night of public rejoicing, seen by common day, with the lamps from within removed – even such would the Psalms be to me uninterpreted by the Gospel. O honored Mr. Hurwitz! Could I but make you feel what grandeur, what magnificence, what an everlasting significance and import Christianity gives to every fact of your national history – to every page of your sacred records!
Articles of Religion: XX
It is mournful to think how many recent writers have criminated our Church in consequence of their own ignorance and inadvertence in not knowing, or not noticing, the contra-distinction here meant between power and authority. Rites and ceremonies the Church may ordain jure proprio: on matters of faith her judgment is to be received with reverence, and not gainsaid but after repeated inquiries, and on weighty grounds.
Articles of Religion: XXXVII
It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the magistrate, to wear weapons, and to serve in the wars.
This is a very good instance of an unseemly matter neatly wrapped up. The good men recoiled from the plain words:
'It is lawful for Christian men at the command of a king to slaughter as many Christians as they can!'
Well! I could most sincerely subscribe to all these articles.
September, 1831.
Notes on Hooker 5
Life Of Hooker by Walton
p. 67.
Mr. Travers excepted against Mr. Hooker, for that in one of his sermons he declared, 'That the assurance of what we believe by the word of God, is not to us so certain as that which we perceive by sense.' And Mr. Hooker confesseth he said so, and endeavours to justify it by the reasons following.
There is, I confess, a shade of doubt on my mind as to this position of Hooker's. Yet I do not deny that it expresses a truth. The question in my mind is, only, whether it adequately expresses the whole truth. The ground of my doubt lies in my inability to compare two things that differ in kind. It is impossible that any conviction of the reason, even where no act of the will advenes as a co-efficient, should possess the vividness of an immediate object of the senses; for the vividness is given by sensation. Equally impossible is it that any truth of the super-sensuous reason should possess the evidence of the pure sense. Even the mathematician does not find the same evidence in the results of transcendental algebra as in the demonstrations of simple geometry. But has he less assurance? In answer to Hooker's argument I say, – that God refers to our sensible experience to aid our will by the vividness of sensible impressions, and also to aid our understanding of the truths revealed, – not to increase the conviction of their certainty where they have been understood.
Walton's Appendix
Ib. p. 116.
It is a strange blind story this of the last three books, and of Hooker's live relict, the Beast without Beauty. But Saravia? – If honest Isaac's account of the tender, confidential, even confessional, friendship of Hooker and Saravia be accurate, how chanced it that Hooker did not entrust the manuscripts to his friend who stood beside him in his last moments? At all events, Saravia must have known whether they had or had not received the author's last hand. Why were not Mr. Charke and the other Canterbury parson called to account, or questioned at least as to the truth of Mrs. Joan's story? Verily, I cannot help suspecting that the doubt cast on the authenticity of the latter books by the high church party originated in their dislike of portions of the contents. – In short, it is a blind story, a true Canterbury tale, dear Isaac!6
Of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity
Pref.
According to Bishop Horne, the allusion is to the destruction of Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea. – Ed.
See Horne in loc. note. – Ed.
The references are to Mr. Keble's edition (1836.) – Ed.
But see Mr. Keble's statement (Pref. xxix.), and the argument founded on discoveries and collation of MSS. since the note in the text was written. – Ed.