ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE CHURCH AND STATE, ACCORDING TO THE IDEA OF EACH. BY SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. EDITED FROM THE AUTHOR'S CORRECTED COPY, WITH NOTES, BY HENRY NELSON COLERIDGE, ESQ., M.A. NEW YORK: BROTHERS. HARPER & "O that our Clergy did but know and see that their tithes and glebes belong to them as officers and functionaries of the Nationalty,-as clerks, and not exclusively as theologians, and not at all as Ministers of the Gospel; but that they are likewise ministers of the Church of Christ, and that their claims and the powers of that Church are no more alienated or affected by their being at the same time the Established Clergy, than by the common coincidence of their being justices of the peace, or heirs to an estate, or stockholders! The Romish divines placed the Church above the Scriptures: our present divines give it no place at all. "But Donne and his great contemporaries had not yet learnt to be afraid of announcing and enforcing the claims of the Church, distinct from, and coordinate with, the Scriptures. This is one evil consequence, though most unnecessarily so, of the union of the Church of Christ with the National Church, and of the claims of the Christian pastor and preacher with the legal and constitutional rights and revenues of the officers of the National Clerisy. Our Clergymen, in thinking of their legal rights, forget those rights of theirs which depend on no human law at all.”--Literary Remains. PREFACE TO THE CHURCH AND STATE. A RECOLLECTION of the value set upon the following little work ⚫ by its Author, combined with a deep sense of the wisdom and importance of the positions laid down in it, will, it is hoped, be thought to justify the publication of a few preliminary remarks, designed principally to remove formal difficulties out of the path of a reader not previously acquainted with Mr. Coleridge's writings, nor conversant with the principles of his philosophy. The truth is that, although the Author's plan is well defined and the treatment strictly progressive, there is in some parts a want of detailed illustration and express connection, which weakens the impression of the entire work on the generality of readers. “If," says Mr. Maurice, "I were addressing a student who was seeking to make up his mind on the question, without being previously biased by the views of any particular party, I could save myself this trouble by merely referring him to the work of Mr. Coleridge, on the Idea of Church and State, published shortly after the passing of the Roman Catholic Bill. The hints respecting the nature of the Christian Church which are thrown out in that work are only sufficient to make us wish that the Author had developed his views more fully; but the portion of it which refers to the State seems to me in the highest degree satisfactory. When I use the word satisfactory, I do not mean that it will satisfy the wishes of any person who thinks that the epithets teres atque rotundus are the highest that can be applied to a scientific work; who expects an author to furnish him with a complete system which he can carry away in his memory, and after it has received a few improvements from himself, can hawk it about to the pub * See Table Talk, p. 259, note. |