Latitudinarian aims.

Falkland

745

resurgent Romanism and the general dislike of hierarchical pretensions in the Anglican Church. Here much need existed for the moderating influence of a middle party like that of the Latitudinarians, who, though they with the rest regarded theology as the "empress of the sciences,' were under the influence of the philosophical speculations of the time, and formed their own opinions on a broader basis, able to stand aside and view with impartial calm the storm of religious disputation, then at its full height. They tried to find a middle way between extreme Anglicanism and intolerant Puritanism, between the advocates of repressive tyranny and revolutionary fanaticism, between the retrograde advocates of authority and the clamorous partisans of independence, each side appealing to Scripture and antiquity, and neither willing to grant to others the right they claimed for themselves. The Latitudinarians addressed themselves to the task of pacification by lifting up the still, small voice of reason to quell the storm of religious passions. Bound together by similar views and sentiments, but working independently of each other, they took their stand on the ground of rational theology. They dwelt on the claims of Christian morality rather than on the importance of purity of doctrine; they preferred the evidence of righteous conduct to the test of correct convictions, asserting the supremacy of reason, yet without impugning the claims of revelation. Their principal aim was a larger comprehension in the charitable spirit of enlightened, though cautious, moderation.

Their first leader was Lord Falkland, the honoured friend of Clarendon, the associate of Ben Jonson, Cowley, D'Avenant, Carew and Suckling. He was also the presiding genius of the "Convivium theologicum"; and some of its members, meeting under his hospitable roof, at a subsequent period became the leaders of the Latitudinarian school of divines. Born of a mother who had been under Jesuit influence, but educated at Trinity College, Dublin, then under the provostship of Ussher, he owed his Protestant views to the spirit of ecclesiastical liberalism prevailing there at this time. After a short stay in Holland, where he met Grotius, and a somewhat chequered career, he returned and settled down in his own country seat at Great Tew, to give himself up to learned leisure and his favourite literary pursuits. It was here that Chillingworth wrote his chief work, in consultation with his friends, and, it has been even surmised, in co-operation with Falkland himself. When the war between the King and Parliament broke out, Falkland, from a romantic sense of loyalty, took side with his royal master, and joined the army as a volunteer with the Earl of Essex. We are told by Clarendon, that "from the entrance into this unnatural war his natural cheerfulness and vivacity grew clouded, and a kind of sadness and dejection of spirit stole over him which he had never been used to." Equally distasteful to his mind were the contentions in Parliament, where he was equally opposed to the "root and branch" party, who tried to exclude the Bishops from the House

746

Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants

of Lords or abolish the Order altogether, and to the exaggerated view of its sacredness entertained by its extreme defenders. Throughout his parliamentary career his plea was for justice tempered by mercy, with reverence for the law and unwillingness to permit any breach of it for reasons of State. He hazarded his life in a war which he abhorred, and fell in battle when he was only thirty-four years old. Thus this "little man" with a great soul passed away prematurely, "the martyr of lucidity of mind and largeness of temper," leaving behind him as a legacy the example of a true Catholicity avoiding the falsehood of extremes, firmly holding on to faith without abjuring reason, and thus opening a new era in religious thought.

The "immortal" Chillingworth had, like his friend Falkland, been under Jesuit influence; he had, moreover, been brought into personal contact with members of the Order, and had succumbed to their superior skill of fence. Himself considered "the readiest and nimblest disputant" at the University, he met his match in one John Fisher (whose real name was Perse or Percey), one of the seminary priests, who worked with much zeal among Oxford undergraduates at this time, and was by him induced to enter the Church of Rome. But, on being sent for further instruction to the college at Douay, he there became a "doubting papist," and, partly through the persuasion of Laud, his godfather, returned to the English Church. Chillingworth re-entered the University to complete a work on free enquiry into religion, and later resorted to the library at Tew, rich in patristic and controversial divinity, to collect materials. Thus equipped, he wrote his well-known treatise entitled The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation ; or an Answer to a Book entitled "Mercy and Truth, or Charity main tained by Catholics." It met with the full approval of the King and Laud, but with little favour from the Puritans. For, though a defender of Protestantism, Chillingworth had little in common with them, as, by natural disposition or by training, he was entirely opposed to their intolerant conceptions of religion. He was one of the earliest objectors to the "damnatory clauses" of the Athanasian Creed, and considered subscription to the Articles of Religion "an imposition on men's conscience," though ultimately he accepted them as "articles of peace." Attached to the royal cause, he joined the King's forces and was present at the siege of Gloucester, where he invented some engines for storming the place. He followed Lord Hopton into Sussex, where he was shut up with the garrison in Arundel Castle. Here, out of health and spirits, he was taken prisoner and conveyed to Chichester, partly through the kind intervention of Francis Cheynell, a former Fellow of Merton, and a "rigid, zealous, Pres byterian," who, in his eagerness to convert Chillingworth, embittered his last moments by his importunate visits. At Chichester, Chillingworth died, and was buried in the cloisters of the cathedral by men of

John Hales a typical Latitudinarian

747

his own persuasion; for it was only just "that malignants should carry malignants to their graves," to use the words of Cheynell, who met them "with Master Chillingworth's book in my hand," and cast it into the grave, with a commendatory prayer, of which it will suffice to quote part: "Get thee gone, thou cursed book, which hast seduced so many precious souls! Get thee gone, thou corrupt rotten book! Earth to Earth, and dust to dust!"

But his work has survived by the elevated dignity of its style, as the outcome of a singularly bright and massive intellect possessed of a firm grasp of the subject and a forceful firmness in conducting the argument from beginning to end. Chillingworth is fair, even magnanimous, towards his opponents, and in the statement of his own case lucid, though, by reason of his eager impetuosity, his sentences are at times involved. A manly naturalness irradiating its pages raises the book far above the average of similar controversial writings of that day. Briefly stated, the argument rests on the infallibility of the Bible as against the infallibility of the Church, and on the right of each individual reader to interpret it independently of ecclesiastical authority, the book being in the end its own interpreter. Thus, amid the clatter of controversies and the tumult raised by the "warrior with confused noise and garments rolled in blood," a voice is here raised, calm and clear in its declaration that "Protestants are inexcusable if they did offer violence to other men's consciences."

"The ever memorable John Hales of Eton" differed from his two younger friends by not taking a prominent part in public affairs. He was a retiring scholar, a student of Shakespeare, taking an honoured place in Suckling's "session of poets," renowned as a "subtle disputer" and eloquent preacher, and, as such, selected to pronounce the funeral oration on the founder of the Bodleian Library. A man of well-balanced judgment, not tied to any party views, a lover of peace detesting "the brawls grown from religion," John Hales is a typical Latitudinarian, gifted with acuteness of intellect, a most delicate perception of the proportion of things, and a profound spiritual insight, viewing the current of religious partisanship from the elevated standpoint of a candid observer rather than from that of a chief actor in the turmoil of political and religious warfare. As a royalist, he suffered with the rest and was deprived of his emoluments, severed from his friends and books, and exposed to indigence in his old age. Yet he remained throughout unsoured by misfortune, retaining a genial and humane kindliness, full of charity towards others. He "would often say that he would renounce the religion of the Church of England to-morrow, if it obliged him to believe that any other Christian should be damned; and that nobody would conclude another man to be damned who did not wish him so." He shows that pride and passion rather than conscience are the cause of religious antagonism, that heresy and schism are scarecrows to frighten the

748 Jeremy Taylor and The Liberty of Prophesying

unwary, while sectaries are reminded that "communion" is "the strength and good of all society, sacred and civil." Hales is quick in detecting the weak points in an argument and the flaws in hasty assumptions. As to the claims of antiquity, he justly points out that the age of opinions does not add to their value. As to the plea of the universal acceptance of truth, quod ab omnibus, he shows, like his contemporary Pascal, that the power of majorities consists in their number, not their "there are more which run against the truth than with it." In short, John Hales is a religious critic, devout, but not dogmatic; rational, but without rashness; liberal, but opposed to licence; a lover of simplicity in religious belief, yet at the same time a rare example of philosophical breadth; in his mental attitude maintaining a singularly calm steadfastness in the whirlpool of theological and political unrest.

reason

-

Ten years lie between the publication of Chillingworth's work and The Liberty of Prophesying, by Jeremy Taylor; and many and farreaching events had occurred in the interval which account for the differences in their style and method, apart from differences in personal disposition and mental characteristics. The triumph of Puritanism, its split into two parties, the submergence of the moderate section by the violence of the revolutionary current, the displacement of the Presbyterians by the Independents, and the multiplication of sects, leading to greater diversity of religious opinion, furnished the psychological moment for the appearance of such a work as Taylor's, which was intended to secure intellectual freedom from spiritual tyranny. He takes up the same ground as his two predecessors, but rests his argument, not only on the uncertainty of tradition and the inconsistency of the Fathers, as weakening their authority, but also on the fallibility of reason in the interpretation of the Bible, thence deducing the duty of agreeing to differ. His aim is not only reconciliation, but reconstruction on a wider basis. His position is near to that of a sceptical eclectic; hence the dread with which the saintly Saunderson regards his "novelties." Jeremy Taylor is not a controversialist pure and simple; he is a casuist in his Ductor Dubitantium, with its "subtilties and spinosities," a rhetorician rather than a reasoner: for his style is full of redundancy and prolixity, though less so in this work than in some of his other writings. He is a Pietist in his several collections of meditations, especially in The Golden Grove, so called in honour of his friend, the Earl of Carbery, at whose seat bearing this name he found hospitality. He is a promoter saintly living and dying, a guide of souls, turning them away from arid disputation to mystical communion with God; "there is no cure for us, but piety and charity." He is a literary churchman rather than a logical divine. His chivalrous defence of episcopacy and somewhat inconclusive dissuasion from Romanism are ineffective, but not so much as has been surmised, on account of a sense of insecurity as to his own standpoint, or of his "critical insensibility." He is less uncompromising than

of

Stillingfleet's Irenicon

749

his predecessors, because he is more humanely sympathetic in his attitude towards those in error. While unanimity is impossible, and doctrinal uniformity has proved ineffective, and "no man is a heretic against his will," the unity of the spirit is insisted upon as essential, and Taylor could unite all in the bond of peace and of all virtues. "I thought it might not misbecome my duty and endeavours to plead for peace and charity and forgiveness and permissions mutual; although I had reason to believe that such is the iniquity of men, and they so indisposed to receive such impresses, that I had as good plough the sands, or till the air."

He

A very different mind from Jeremy Taylor's was that of Edward Stillingfleet, though they are frequently mentioned together as men of similar views and aims. Both are animated by the same catholicity of spirit; but, whereas Stillingfleet is distinguished by greater intellectual penetration and polemical adroitness, Jeremy Taylor excels by the ardour of his earnest affectionateness and meditative mental detachment. also shows greater consistency in adhering to his liberal principles with the changing times. But, with the development of events in the Restoration period, both alike display the same tendency to lean on the State for the restraint of sectarian fanaticism and ecclesiastical intolerance. The Irenicon was published in 1659 and republished in 1662, the year in which the Act of Uniformity was passed, with the first motto on its title-page, "Let your moderation be known to all men." At this time, and more especially among the younger clergy, an earnest desire was felt for a compromise between the religious parties; and Stillingfleet was still a young man when he wrote the book. In it he builds up an argument on the basis of the insecurity of tradition and authority like his predecessors, but takes a step further in the direction of Latitudinarianism by emphasising the indifference of forms, maintaining "that the form of church government is a mere matter of prudence, regulated by the word of God." From the composing effects of Christian prudence in the rulers of the Church he expects a termination "of our strange divisions and unchristian animosities, while we pretend to serve the Prince of Peace." He lived to alter his tone when he had attained to episcopal rank after the Restoration. Then he become the special pleader of his own Church and Order; yet the Irenicon is the sincere expression of those principles which had been instilled into his mind by the band of Cambridge Latitudinarian divines known as the Cambridge Platonists.

These were so called because they were given to the study of Plato and Neoplatonism. With the idealist philosopher, they saw the spiritual realities behind the phenomenal world; and, imbued with the new spirit of speculation as the century advanced, they endeavoured to supply the need felt for bringing religious thought into relation with the thought of the time. Most of them were members of the Puritan College of Emmanuel, where dogmatic rigidity naturally produced a reaction.