THE STATESMAN'S MANUAL; or the Bible the best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight. A Lay Sermon, addressed to the Higher Classes of Society. By S. T. Coleridge, Esq. Gale and Fenner.

Dec. 29, 1816.

HERE is the true Simon Pure. We have by anticipation given some account of this Sermon. We have only to proceed to specimens in illustration of what we have said.

It sets out with the following sentence:—

"If our own knowledge and information concerning the Bible had been confined to the one fact of its immediate derivation from God, we should still presume that it contained rules and assistances for all conditions of men under all circumstances; and therefore for communities no less than for individuals."

Now this is well said; " and 'tis a kind of good deed to say well." But why did not Mr. Coleridge keep on in the same strain to the end of the chapter, instead of himself disturbing the harmony and unanimity which he here very properly supposes to exist on this subject, or questioning the motives of its existence by such passages as the following, p. 23 of the Appendix:

"Thank heaven! notwithstanding the attempts of Mr. Thòmas Paine and his compeers, it is not so bad with us. Open infidelity has ceased to be a means even of gratifying vanity; for the leaders of the gang themselves turned apostates to Satan, as soon as the number of their proselytes became so large, that Atheism ceased to give distinction. Nay, it became a mark of original thinking to defend the Belief and the Ten Commandments; so the strong minds veered round, and religion came again into fashion."

Now we confess we do not find in this statement much to thank heaven for; if religion has only come into fashion again with the strong minds-(it will hardly be denied that Mr. Coleridge is one of the number)-as a better mode of gratifying their

vanity than "open infidelity." Be this as it may, Mr. Coleridge has here given a true and masterly delineation of that large class of Proselytes or their teachers, who believe any thing or nothing, just as their vanity prompts them. All that we have ever said of modern apostates is and feeble to it. There is however one poor error in his statement, inasmuch as Mr. Thomas Paine never openly professed Atheism, whatever some of his compeers might do.

It is a pity that with all that fund of "rules and assistances which the Bible contains for our instruction and reproof, and which the author in this work proposes to recommend as the Statesman's Manual, or the best Guide to Political Skill and Foresight, in times like these, he has not brought forward a single illustration of his doctrine, nor referred to a single example in the Jewish history that bears at all, in the circumstances, or the inference, on our own, but one, and that one he has purposely omitted. Is this to be credited? Not without quoting the

passage.

"But do you require some one or more particular passage from the Bible that may at once illustrate and exemplify its application to the changes and fortunes of empires? Of the numerous chapters that relate to the Jewish tribes, their enemies and allies, before and after their division into two kingdoms, it would be more difficult to state a single one, from which some guiding light might not be struck." [Oh, very well, we shall have a few of them. The passage goes on.] "And in nothing is Scriptural history more strongly contrasted with the histories of highest note in the present age, than in its freedom from the hollowness of abstractions." [Mr. Coleridge's admiration of the inspired writers seems to be very much mixed with a dislike of Hume and Gibbon.]" While the latter present a shadow-fight of Things and Quantities, the former gives us the history of Men, and balances the important influence of individual minds with the previous state of national morals and manners, in which, as constituting a specific susceptibility, it presents to us the true cause,

both of the influence itself, and of the Weal or Woe that were its consequents. How should it be otherwise? The histories and political economy of the present and preceding century par take in the general contagion of its mechanic philosophy," ['still harping on my daughter']" and are the product of an unenlivened generalizing understanding. In the Scriptures they are the living educts of the Imagination; of that reconciling and mediatory power, which incorporating the reason in Images of the Sense, and organizing (as it were) the flux of the Senses by the permanence and self-circling energies of the Reason, gives birth to a system of symbols, harmonious in themselves, and consubstantial with the truths, of which they are the conductors. These are the Wheels which Ezekiel beheld when the hand of the Lord was upon him, and he saw visions of God as he sat among the captives by the river of Chebar. Whither soever the Spirit was go, the wheels went, and thither was their spirit to go; for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels also. The truths and the symbols that represent them move in conjunction, and form the living chariot that bears up (for us) the throne of the Divine Humanity. Hence by a derivative, indeed, but not a divided influence, and though in a secondary, yet in more than a metaphorical sense, the Sacred Book is worthily entitled the Word of God," p. 36.

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So that, after all, the Bible is not the immediate word of God, except according to the German philosophy, and in something between a literal and metaphorical sense. Of all the cants that ever were canted in this canting world, this is the worst! The author goes on to add, that "it is among the miseries of the present age that it recognises no medium between literal and metaphorical," and laments that " the mechanical understanding, in the blindness of its self-complacency, confounds SYMBOLS with ALLEGORIES," This is certainly a sad mistake, which he labours very learnedly to set right," in a diagonal sidelong movement between truth and falsehood."-We assure the reader that the passages which we have given above are given in the

order in which they are strung together in the Sermon ; and so he goes on for several pages, concluding his career where the Allies have concluded theirs, with the doctrine of Divine Right; which he does not however establish quite so successfully with the pen, as they have done with the sword. "Herein" (says this profound writer)" the Bible differs from all the books of Greek philosophy, and in a two-fold manner. It doth not affirm a Divine Nature only, but a God; and not a God only, but the living God. Hence in the Scriptures alone is the JUS DIVINUM or direct Relation of the State and its Magistracy to the Supreme Being, taught as a vital and indispensable part of ALL MORAL AND ALL POLITICAL WISDOM, even as the Jewish alone was a true theocracy!"

Now it does appear to us, that as the reason why the Jus Divinum was taught in the Jewish state was, that that alone was a true theocracy, this is so far from proving this doctrine to be a part of all moral and all political wisdom, that it proves just the contrary. This may perhaps be owing to our mechanical understanding. Wherever Mr. C. will shew us the theocracy, we will grant him the Jus Divinum. Where God really pulls down and sets up kings, the people need not do it. Under the true Jewish theocracy, the priests and prophets cashiered kings; but our lay-preacher will hardly take this office upon himself as a part of the Jus Divinum, without having any thing better to shew for it than his profound moral and political wisdom. Mr. Southey hints at something of the kind in verse, and we are not sure that Mr. Coleridge does not hint at it in prose. For after his extraordinary career and interminable circumnavigation through the heaven of heavens, after being rapt in the wheels of Ezekiel, and sitting with the captives by the river of Chebar, he lights once more on English ground, and you think you have him.

"But I refer to the demand. Were it my object to touch on the present state of public affairs in this kingdom, or on the prospective measures in agitation respecting our Sister Island, I would direct your most serious meditations to the latter period of the

reign of Solomon, and the revolutions in the reign of Rehoboam his son. But I tread on glowing embers. I will turn to a subject on which all men of reflection are at length in agreement— the causes of the Revolution and fearful chastisement of France." -Here Mr. Coleridge is off again on the wings of fear as he was before on those of fancy.-This trifling can only be compared to that of the impertinent barber of Bagdad, who being sent for to shave the prince, spent the whole morning in preparing his razors, took the height of the sun with an astrolabe, sung the song of Zimri, and danced the dance of Zamtout, and concluded by declining to perform the operation at all, because the day was unfavourable to its success. As we are not so squeamish as Mr. Coleridge, and do not agree with him and all other men of reflection on the subject of the French Revolution, we shall turn back to the latter end of the reign of Solomon, and that of his successor Rehoboam, to find out the parallel to the present reign and regency which so particularly strikes and startles Mr. Coleridge. Here it is for the edification of the curious, from the First Book of Kings

"And the time that Solomon reigned over all Israel was forty years. And Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his stead. And Rehoboam went to Shechem: for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king: And Jeroboam and all the congregation of Israel came and spake unto Rehoboam saying, Thy father (Solomon) made our yoke grievous; now, therefore, make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee. And he said unto them, Depart yet for three days, then come again to me. And the people departed. And King Rehoboam consulted with the old men that stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, and said, How do ye advise, that I may answer this people? And they spake unto him, saying, If thou wilt be a

* Does this verse come under Mr. C.'s version of Jus Divinum?

K