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.
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