NOTES ON THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER

Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit

by Samuel T. Coleridge

NOTES ON THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, CONFESSIONS OF AN INQUIRING SPIRIT by Samuel T. Coleridge
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PRAYER.

A man may pray night and day, and yet deceive himself; but no man can
be assured of his sincerity who does not pray. Prayer is faith
passing into act; a union of the will and the intellect realising in
an intellectual act. It is the whole man that prays. Less than this
is wishing, or lip-work; a charm or a mummery. PRAY ALWAYS, says the
apostle: that is, have the habit of prayer, turning your thoughts
into acts by connecting them with the idea of the redeeming God, and
even so reconverting your actions into thoughts.

THE SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST.

The best preparation for taking this sacrament, better than any or
all of the books or tracts composed for this end, is to read over and
over again, and often on your knees--at all events with a kneeling
and praying heart--the Gospel according to St. John, till your mind
is familiarised to the contemplation of Christ, the Redeemer and
Mediator of mankind, yea, of every creature, as the living and self-
subsisting Word, the very truth of all true being, and the very being
of all enduring truth; the reality, which is the substance and unity
of all reality; THE LIGHT WHICH LIGHTETH EVERY MAN, so that what we
call reason is itself a light from that light, lumen a luce, as the
Latin more distinctly expresses this fact. But it is not merely
light, but therein is life; and it is the life of Christ, the co-
eternal Son of God, that is the only true life-giving light of men.
We are assured, and we believe, that Christ is God; God manifested in
the flesh. As God, he must be present entire in every creature;--
(for how can God, or indeed any spirit, exist in parts?)--but he is
said to dwell in the regenerate, to come to them who receive him by
faith in his name, that is, in his power and influence; for this is
the meaning of the word "name" in Scripture when applied to God or
his Christ. Where true belief exists, Christ is not only present
with or among us;--for so he is in every man, even the most wicked;--
but to us and for us. THAT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT, WHICH LIGHTETH EVERY
MAN THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD. HE WAS IN THE WORLD, AND THE WORLD
WAS MADE BY HIM, AND THE WORLD KNEW HIM NOT. BUT AS MANY AS RECEIVED
HIM, TO THEM GAVE HE POWER TO BECOME THE SONS OF GOD, EVEN TO THEM
THAT BELIEVE IN HIS NAME; WHICH WERE BORN, NOT OF BLOOD, NOR OF THE
WILL OF THE FLESH, NOR OF THE WILL OF MAN, BUT OF GOD. AND THE WORD
WAS MADE FLESH AND DWELT AMONG US. John i. 9-14. Again--WE WILL
COME UNTO HIM, AND MAKE OUR ABODE WITH HIM. John xiv. 23. As truly
and as really as your soul resides constitutively in your living
body, personally and substantially does Christ dwell in every
regenerate man.

After this course of study, you may then take up and peruse sentence
by sentence the communion service, the best of all comments on the
Scriptures appertaining to this mystery. And this is the preparation
which will prove, with God's grace, the surest preventive of, or
antidote against, the freezing poison, the lethargising hemlock, of
the doctrine of the Sacramentaries, according to whom the Eucharist
is a mere practical metaphor, in which things are employed instead of
articulated sounds for the exclusive purpose of recalling to our
minds the historical fact of our Lord's crucifixion; in short--(the
profaneness is with them, not with me)--just the same as when
Protestants drink a glass of wine to the glorious memory of William
III.! True it is that the remembrance is one end of the sacrament;
but it is, DO THIS IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME,--of all that Christ was and
is, hath done and is still doing for fallen mankind, and, of course,
of his crucifixion inclusively, but not of his crucifixion alone. 14
December, 1827.

COMPANION TO THE ALTAR.

First, then, that we may come to this heavenly feast holy, and
adorned with the wedding garment, Matt. xxii. ii, we must search our
hearts, and examine our consciences, not only till we see our sins,
but until we hate them.

But what if a man, seeing his sin, earnestly desire to hate it?
Shall he not at the altar offer up at once his desire, and the yet
lingering sin, and seek for strength? Is not this sacrament medicine
as well as food? Is it an end only, and not likewise the means? Is
it merely the triumphal feast; or is it not even more truly a blessed
refreshment for and during the conflict?

This confession of sins must not be in general terms only, that we
are sinners with the rest of mankind, but it must be a special
declaration to God of all our most heinous sins in thought, word, and
deed.

Luther was of a different judgment. He would have us feel and groan
under our sinfulness and utter incapability of redeeming ourselves
from the bondage, rather than hazard the pollution of our
imaginations by a recapitulation and renewing of sins and their
images in detail. Do not, he says, stand picking the flaws out one
by one, but plunge into the river and drown them!--I venture to be of
Luther's doctrine.

COMMUNION SERVICE.

In the first Exhortation, before the words "meritorious Cross and
Passion," I should propose to insert "his assumption of humanity, his
incarnation, and." Likewise, a little lower down, after the word
"sustenance," I would insert "as." For not in that sacrament
exclusively, but in all the acts of assimilative faith, of which the
Eucharist is a solemn, eminent, and representative instance, an
instance and the symbol, Christ is our spiritual food and sustenance.

MARRIAGE SERVICE.

Marriage, simply as marriage, is not the means "for the procreation
of children," but for the humanisation of the offspring procreated.
Therefore, in the Declaration at the beginning, after the words
"procreation of children," I would insert, "and as the means of
securing to the children procreated enduring care, and that they may
be," &c.

COMMUNION OF THE SICK.

Third rubric at the end.

But if a man, either by reason of extremity of sickness, &c.

I think this rubric, in what I conceive to be its true meaning, a
precious doctrine, as fully acquitting our Church of all Romish
superstition, respecting the nature of the Eucharist, in relation to
the whole scheme of man's redemption. But the latter part of it--"he
doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ
profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the
sacrament with his mouth"--seems to me very incautiously expressed,
and scarcely to be reconciled with the Church's own definition of a
sacrament in general. For in such a case, where is "the outward and
visible sign of the inward and spiritual grace given?"

XI. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

Epistle.--l Cor. xv. 1.

Brethren, I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you.

Why should the obsolete, though faithful, Saxon translation of [Greek
text which cannot be reproduced] be retained? Why not "good
tidings?" Why thus change a most appropriate and intelligible
designation of the matter into a mere conventional name of a
particular book?

Ib.

- how that Christ died for our sins.

But the meaning of [Greek text which cannot be reproduced] is, that
Christ died through the sins, and for the sinners. He died through
our sins, and we live through his righteousness.

Gospel--Luke xviii. 14.

This man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

Not simply justified, observe; but justified rather than the other,
[Greek text which cannot be reproduced],--that is, less remote from
salvation.

XXV. SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.

Collect.

- that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may
of thee be plenteously rewarded.

Rather--"that with that enlarged capacity, which without thee we
cannot acquire, there may likewise be an increase of the gift, which
from thee alone we can wholly receive."

Ps. VIII.

V. 2. Out of the mouth of very babes and sucklings hast thou
ordained strength, because of thine enemies; that thou mightest still
the enemy and the avenger.

To the dispensations of the twilight dawn, to the first messengers of
the redeeming word, the yet lisping utterers of light and life, a
strength and power were given BECAUSE OF THE ENEMIES, greater and of
more immediate influence, than to the seers and proclaimers of a
clearer day: even as the first reappearing crescent of the eclipsed
moon shines for men with a keener brilliance than the following
larger segments, previously to its total emersion.

Ib. v. 5.

Thou madest him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and
worship.

Power + idea = angel.
Idea--power = man, or Prometheus.

Ps. LXVIII.

V. 34. Ascribe ye the power to God over Israel: his worship and
strength is in the clouds.

The "clouds," in the symbolical language of the Scriptures, mean the
events and course of things, seemingly effects of human will or
chance, but overruled by Providence.

Ps. LXXII.

This psalm admits no other interpretation but of Christ, as the
Jehovah incarnate. In any other sense it would be a specimen of more
than Persian 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!

Ps. 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 the Leviathan in pieces; and gavest
him to be meat for the people in the wilderness.

Does this allude to any real tradition? The Psalms appears to have
been composed shortly before the captivity of Judah.

Ps. 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.

Ps. LXXXVII.

I would fain understand this Psalm; but first I must collate it word
by word with the original Hebrew. It seems clearly Messianic.

Ps. LXXXVIII.

Vv. 10-12. Dost thou show wonders among the dead, or shall the dead
rise up again and praise thee? &c.

Compare Ezekiel xxxvii.

Ps. 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.

Ps. 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!

Ps. 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 irae suae.

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.

Ps. CXVIII.

To be interpreted of Christ's Church.

Ps. CXXVI.

V. 5. As the rivers in the south.

Does this allude to the periodical rains?

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 honoured 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 ignorance and inadvertence in not
knowing, or not noticing, the contradistinction 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 gainsayed but after repeated inquiries, and on
weighty grounds.

XXXVII. It is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the
magistrate, to wear weapons, and to serve in 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.