Coleridges ‘Notebooks’ 8

‘Christmas day. Received the Sacrament – for the first time since my first year at Jesus College/ Christ is gracious even to the Laborer that cometh to his Vineyard at the eleventh hour – 33 years absent from my Master’s Table/ – – Yet I humbly hope that spiritually I have fed on the Flesh & Blood the Strength and the life of the Son of God in his divine Humanity, during the latter years–. The administration & Communion Service of our Church is solemn & affecting – & very far to be preferred both to the Romish, which may excite awe & wonder in such as believe the real transmutation of the Bread & Wine, but assuredly no individual comfort or support – and to the few among our Dissenters who practice what to the shame of our Church the great majority of our Clergymen teach – & cold and flat the ceremonial is – as how can it be otherwise, when the Eucharist is considered as a mere and very forced metaphor for the mere purpose of reminding the Partakers of a single event, the sensible crucifixion of Jesus?
– and without any connection with that most vital mystery revealed in John VI, of which the Eucharist is at once Symbol & instance! – Compared with either the Romish or the Dissenting Service our’s is a subject of gratitude with me – Yet I cannot but think it capable of great improvement, both for the impression on the affections & for edification in knowlege – & it’s being disjoined from the Love-supper, I think a great misfortune/ – But this is a necessary consequence of a sterile National Church – i.e., a National Church that is merely such, instead of comprehending a Christian Church in it’s inmost concentric circle.’

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, ‘The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’. Volume V. 1827 – 1834. Text. Lemma 5703.