Next to this I recommend Baxter's own Life, edited by Sylvester, with my
marginal notes. Here, more than in any of the prelatical and Arminian
divines from Laud to the death of Charles II, you will see the strength
and beauty of the Church of England, that is, its liturgy, homilies, and
articles. By contrasting, too, its present state with that which such
excellent men as Baxter, Calamy, and the so called Presbyterian or
Puritan divines, would have made it, you will bless it as the bulwark of
toleration.

Thirdly, you must read Eichorn's Introduction to the Old and New
Testament, and the Apocrypha, and his comment on the Apocalypse; to all
which my notes and your own previous studies will supply whatever
antidote is wanting;--these will suffice for your Biblical learning, and
teach you to attach no more than the supportable weight to these and
such like outward evidences of our holy and spiritual religion.

So having done, you will be in point of professional knowledge such a
clergyman as will make glad the heart of your loving father,

S. T. COLERIDGE.

N. B.--See Book iv Chap. 7, p. 351, both for a masterly confutation of
the Paleyo-Grotian evidences of the Gospel, and a decisive proof in what
light that system was regarded by the Church of England in its best age.
Like Grotius himself, it is half way between Popery and Socinianism.


B. i. c. 3. p. 5.