The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 3Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Religion
The Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Volume 3
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Literature -- History and criticism
As to this Apology, the victory doubtless remains with Taylor on the
whole; but to have rendered it full and triumphant, it would have been
necessary to do what perhaps could not at that time, and by Jeremy
Taylor, have been done with prudence; namely, not only to disprove in
part, but likewise in part to explain, the alleged difference of the
spiritual fruits in the ministerial labors of the high and low party in
the Church,--(for remember that at this period both parties were in the
Church, even as the Evangelical, Reformed and Pontifical parties before
the establishment of a schism by the actually schismatical Council of
Trent,)--and thus to demonstrate that the differences to the
disadvantage of the established Church, as far as they were real, were
as little attributable to the Liturgy, as the wound in the heel of
Achilles to the shield and breast-plate which his immortal mother had
provided for him from the forge divine.
Ib. s. lxxxvi. p. 361.
That the Apostles did use the prayer their Lord taught them, I think
needs not much be questioned.
'Ad contra', see above. But that they did not till the siege of
Jerusalem deviate unnecessarily from the established usage of the
Synagogue is beyond rational doubt. We may therefore safely maintain
that a set form was sanctioned by Apostolic practice; though the form
was probably settled after the converts from Paganism began to be the
majority of Christians.
Ib. s. lxxxvii. p. 361.
Now that they tied themselves to recitation of the very words of
Christ's prayer 'pro loco et tempore', I am therefore easy to believe,
because I find they were strict to a scruple in retaining the
sacramental words which Christ spake when he instituted the blessed
Sacrament.
Not a case in point. Besides it assumes the controverted sense of
[Greek: ohut_os] as "in these words" 'versus' "to this purport." Grotius
and Lightfoot, however, have settled this dispute by proving that the
Lord's prayer is a selection of prayers from the Jewish ritual: and a
most happy and valuable inference against novelties obtruded for
novelty's sake does Grotius draw from this fact.
When I consider the manner in which the Jews usually quoted or referred
to particular passages of Scripture, it does not seem altogether
improbable that the several articles of the 'Oratio Dominica' might have
been the initial sentences of several prayers; but I have not the least
doubt that by the loud utterance of the 'My God! my God! why hast thou
forsaken me?' our blessed Redeemer referred to and recalled to John and
Mary that most wonderful and prophetic twenty-second Psalm.
And what a glorious light does not this throw on the whole scene of the
crucifixion, and in what additional loveliness does it not present the
god-like character of the crucified Son of Man!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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