Taylor's was a great and lovely mind; yet how much and injuriously was it
perverted by his being a favourite and follower of Laud, and by his
intensely popish feelings of church authority. [1] His Liberty of
Prophesying is a work of wonderful eloquence and skill; but if we believe
the argument, what do we come to? Why to nothing more or less than this,
that--so much can be said for every opinion and sect,--so impossible is it
to settle any thing by reasoning or authority of Scripture,--we must appeal
to some positive jurisdiction on earth, _ut sit finis controversiarum_. In
fact, the whole book is the precise argument used by the Papists to induce
men to admit the necessity of a supreme and infallible head of the church
on earth. It is one of the works which preeminently gives countenance to
the saying of Charles or James II., I forget which:--"When you of the
Church of England contend with the Catholics, you use the arguments of the
Puritans; when you contend with the Puritans, you immediately adopt all the
weapons of the Catholics." Taylor never speaks with the slightest symptom
of affection or respect of Luther, Calvin, or any other of the great
reformers--at least, not in any of his learned works; but he _saints_ every
trumpery monk and friar, down to the very latest canonizations by the
modern popes. I fear you will think me harsh, when I say that I believe
Taylor was, perhaps unconsciously, half a Socinian in heart. Such a strange
inconsistency would not be impossible. The Romish church has produced many
such devout Socinians. The cross of Christ is dimly seen in Taylor's works.
Compare him in this particular with Donne, and you will feel the difference
in a moment. Why are not Donne's volumes of sermons reprinted at Oxford?[2]
[Footnote 1:
Mr. Coleridge placed Jeremy Taylor amongst the four great geniuses of old
English literature. I think he used to reckon Shakspeare and Bacon, Milton
and Taylor, four-square, each against each. In mere eloquence, he thought
the Bishop without any fellow. He called him Chrysostom. Further, he loved
the man, and was anxious to find excuses for some weak parts in his
character. But Mr. Coleridge's assent to Taylor's views of many of the
fundamental positions of Christianity was very limited; and, indeed, he
considered him as the least sound in point of doctrine of any of the old
divines, comprehending, within that designation, the writers to the middle
of Charles II.'s reign. He speaks of Taylor in "The Friend" in the
following terms:--"Among the numerous examples with which I might enforce
this warning, I refer, not without reluctance, to the most eloquent, and
one of the most learned, of our divines; a rigorist, indeed, concerning the
authority of the church, but a latitudinarian in the articles of its faith;
who stretched the latter almost to the advanced posts of Socinianism, and
strained the former to a hazardous conformity with the assumptions of the
Roman hierarchy." Vol. ii. p. 108.--ED.]
[Footnote 2:
Why not, indeed! It is really quite unaccountable that the sermons
of this great divine of the English church should be so little known as
they are, even to very literary clergymen of the present day. It might
have been expected, that the sermons of the greatest preacher of his age,
the admired of Ben Jonson, Selden, and all that splendid band of poets
and scholars, would even as curiosities have been reprinted, when works,
which are curious for nothing, are every year sent forth afresh under the
most authoritative auspices. Dr. Donne was educated at both universities,
at Hart Hall, Oxford, first, and afterwards at Cambridge, but at
what college Walton does not mention--ED.]
* * * * *
In the reign of Edward VI., the Reformers feared to admit almost any thing
on human authority alone. They had seen and felt the abuses consequent on
the popish theory of Christianity; and I doubt not they wished and intended
to reconstruct the religion and the church, as far as was possible, upon
the plan of the primitive ages? But the Puritans pushed this bias to an
absolute bibliolatry. They would not put on a corn-plaster without scraping
a text over it. Men of learning, however, soon felt that this was wrong in
the other extreme, and indeed united itself to the very abuse it seemed to
shun. They saw that a knowledge of the Fathers, and of early tradition, was
absolutely necessary; and unhappily, in many instances, the excess of the
Puritans drove the men of learning into the old popish extreme of denying
the Scriptures to be capable of affording a rule of faith without the
dogmas of the church. Taylor is a striking instance how far a Protestant
might be driven in this direction.
_June_ 6. 1830.