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. Thomas 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
