CHAPTER XV.
Four eminent Divines, who have made a deep mark on English literature, now claim attention, coming, as they do, from their complexion of thought, and from their characteristic opinions, between the Anglicans just reviewed, and the Latitudinarians who remain to be noticed.
William Chillingworth was one of those clever, hard-headed men in whom the reasoning faculty predominates over imagination and sentiment, and who are thoroughly at home in the exercises of logic, subjecting the opinions of opponents to a subtle analysis, and entrenching themselves behind carefully-constructed outworks of argumentative defence. The skill which, as an engineer, he displayed at the siege of Gloucester, in framing engines to storm the place, was of a piece with the skill which he exhibited in attacking what he believed to be forms of error and superstition.[456] He is best known by his great work, The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation; and it is evident that he had derived advantages, as an assailant of the Roman Church, from the acquaintance with it which he had formed during the period of his connection with that community.
LIBERAL ORTHODOX.—CHILLINGWORTH.
His famous dictum, “The Bible, and the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants”—the lever with which he sought to upheave and overthrow the tenets of Popery—placed him in a theological position distinct from that which was occupied by Anglicans; for, though they were ready enough to appeal to Scripture against Rome, they also appealed to Christian antiquity against Puritanism. Chillingworth’s method of reasoning betrayed an absence of sympathy with High Church Divines in their reverence for the early Fathers, and showed how he fixed his religious opinions solely upon the basis of the written revelation, as interpreted by reason. And at the same time, by largely insisting upon the principle that the Apostles’ Creed contains all necessary points of mere belief,[457] and by the disposition which he manifested to recognize as little doctrinal meaning upon disputed points as possible in the articles of that early Christian confession, he not only separated himself from Anglicans, but he separated himself from Puritans. He was reticent upon evangelical subjects, respecting which the latter delighted to speak; and from his desire to comprehend people of considerable dogmatic divergency within the pale of the Church, he incurred reproaches from those last named, and was stigmatized by them, not only as an Arminian, but as a Socinian. No definite idea of his opinions upon some important parts of Divine truth can be gathered from his writings. It is plain that he loved a large liberty in all kinds of thinking, and set a higher value upon a religious temper, a devout spirit, a Catholic disposition, and a moral life, than upon orthodoxy of sentiment, or forms of worship, or methods of ecclesiastical government and discipline.
Chillingworth, a native of the City, and an ornament of the University of Oxford, died in 1644. Eight years afterwards, the English Church lost another Divine, an ornament of the University of Cambridge, who, though very different in many respects from Chillingworth, may be classed with him in the same division of liberal Divines.
LIBERAL ORTHODOX.—SMITH.
John Smith possessed a mind in which the mystical element mingled itself with an intense energy of reflection, a habit of calm thought, and an imagination which employed itself, not in painting individual objects, but in dyeing, with rich tints of colour, abstract and immutable ideas. His mental training had been in the Greek Academy. He had long sat as a loving disciple at the feet of Plato, and had conversed with the earlier and later Platonists. The reader of Smith’s works will, in every page, discover traces of his peculiar culture, as well as of his peculiar endowments. His Select Discourses, published in 1660, take a wide range, embracing the true method of attaining Divine knowledge; the errors that grow up beside it—superstition on the one hand, atheism on the other; the immortality of the soul, which is the subject, and the existence and nature of God, who is the Author and object of religion; and prophecy, which Smith treats as the way whereby revealed truth is dispensed and conveyed, rather than as a proof whereby it is established. The discourses upon the difference between an evangelical and legal righteousness, upon the excellency and nobleness of true religion, and upon a Christian’s conflict with and conquest over Satan, exhibit the author’s characteristic views of doctrinal, ethical, and experimental Divinity. The first only requires particular notice here. “The law was the ministry of death, and in itself an external and lifeless thing; neither could it procure or beget that Divine life and spiritual form of godliness, in the souls of men, which God expects from all the heirs of glory, nor that glory which is only consequent upon a true Divine life.” Whereas, on the other side, the Gospel is set forth “as a mighty efflux and emanation of life and spirit, freely issuing forth from an omnipotent source of grace and love, as that true, God-like, vital influence whereby the Divinity derives itself into the souls of men, enlivening and transforming them into its own likeness, and strongly imprinting upon them a copy of its own beauty and goodness; like the spermatical virtue of the heavens, which spreads itself freely upon this lower world, and, subtily insinuating itself into this benumbed, feeble, earthly matter, begets life and motion in it. Briefly, it is that whereby God comes to dwell in us, and we in Him.”[458]
Particular passages may mislead as to the general character of an author’s teaching; but there is a ring in these words, indicating at once the kind of metal of which Smith’s theology is made. It is of the same substance throughout. “The righteousness of faith,” he says, “and the righteousness of God, is a Christ-like nature in a man’s soul, or Christ appearing in the minds of men by the mighty power of His Divine Spirit, and thereby deriving a true participation of Himself to them.” And in accordance with this, and showing at the same time the author’s shrinking from definite and precise forms of dogmatic statement, such as may be found in Anglicans on the one side, and in Puritans on the other, he observes that the Gospel “was not brought in, only to refine some notions of truth that might formerly seem discoloured and disfigured by a multitude of legal rites and ceremonies; it was not to cast our opinions concerning the way of life and happiness only into a new mould and shape in a pedagogical kind of way; it is not so much a system and body of saving Divinity, but the spirit and vital influx of it, spreading itself over all the powers of men’s souls, and quickening them into a Divine life; it is not so properly a doctrine that is wrapt up in ink and paper as it is vitalis scientia, a living impression made upon the soul and spirit.”[459] Another name challenges attention.
The ever-memorable John Hales, pronounced by Pearson to have had “as great a sharpness, quickness, and subtlety of wit as ever this or perhaps any nation bred,” had been a Calvinist; but he said, that at the Synod of Dort, which he attended, he bid John Calvin good-night. He had certainly what might be termed very broad views of Christian faith; for he remarked, “The Church is like Amphiaraus, she hath no device, no word in her shield; mark and essence with her are all one, and she hath no other note but to be.”[460] This was a statement which removed him to an equal distance from both Anglicans and Puritans; and one sentence from a sermon by Hales is sufficient to show how widely his teaching as to the way of salvation differed from all preachers of the latter class. “The water of baptism, and the tears of true repentance, creatures of themselves weak and contemptible, yet through the wonderful operation of the grace of God annext unto them, are able, were our sins as red as twice-dyed scarlet, to make them as white as snow.”[461] Hales was as orthodox as a man could be on the subject of the Trinity;[462] and, in his masterly sermon on Christian omnipotency, plainly asserts the power and sufficiency of Divine grace.[463]
LIBERAL ORTHODOX.—FARINDON.
Hales died in 1656, and was followed to the grave two years afterwards by his attached friend Anthony Farindon, both of them being members of the University of Oxford. Farindon was far more evangelical than Hales and Chillingworth. He had not the mystical turn of mind which is so marked in John Smith, nor was he so manifestly a Platonist. Altogether his habits of thought are much more on a level with common understandings.
The distance which severed Farindon from the Anglicans comes out in the following passage:—“And now, if we look into the Church, we shall find that most men stand in need of a ‘yea, rather.’ ... Felix sacramentum! ‘Blessed sacrament of baptism!’ ... It is true; but there is ... ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that have put on Christ.’ ‘Blessed sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.’ It is true; but, ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that dwell in Christ.’ ‘Blessed profession of Christianity!’ ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that are Christ’s.’ ‘Blessed cross!’ The Fathers call it so. ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that have crucified their flesh, with the affections and lusts.’ ‘Blessed Church!’ ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they who are members of Christ.’ ‘Blessed Reformation!’ ‘Yea, rather; blessed are they that reform themselves.’”[464]
Nor is the distinction between Farindon and the Puritans much less visible, when he remarks, with regard to the act of justification, “What mattereth it whether I believe or not believe, know or not know, that our justification doth consist in one or more acts, so that I certainly know and believe that it is the greatest blessing that God can let fall upon His creature, and believe that by it I am made acceptable in His sight, and, though I have broken the law, yet shall be dealt with as if I had been just and righteous indeed? whether it be done by pardoning all my sins, or imputing universal obedience to me, or the active and passive obedience of Christ?” “And as in justification, so in the point of faith by which we are justified, what profit is there so busily to inquire whether the nature of faith consisteth in an obsequious assent, or in the appropriation of the grace and mercy of God, or in a mere fiducial apprehension and application of the merits of Christ?”[465] It would be difficult to point out, in the writings of this theologian, a precise definition either of justification or of faith, and equally difficult to point out any statement adverse to those views of salvation by grace in which all evangelic Christians agree. He finds fault with Augustine for confounding justification with sanctification, and separates himself from the Anglican, though not so widely as from the Romanist, when he stigmatizes as “an unsavoury tenet” the doctrine, “that justification is not a pronouncing, but a making one righteous; that inherent holiness is the formal cause of justification; and that we may redeem our sins, and purchase forgiveness, by fasting, almsdeeds, and other good works.” Deficient in definiteness upon these points, Farindon is clear in reference to the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Atonement. He expounds them in an orthodox way, yet he does not dwell upon them so frequently, and at such length, as his Anglican and Puritan contemporaries. He is no Calvinist; without entering into lengthened controversy on the five points, he shows his great dislike to Calvin’s views.[466] He holds decidedly that Christ died for all men; and with caustic reasoning, shows that, when it is said, “God so loved the world,” it cannot mean, He so loved the elect.[467] His Arminianism is perhaps nearly, if not quite, as evangelical as that of our Wesleyan brethren, but he lacks the fervour with which they set forth the verities of Christianity in relation to the deepest wants of man. Puritans could scarcely apply the moral lessons of the Gospel to the hearts of men on grounds more evangelic than those presented by Farindon; but we miss in his sermons a penetrating fire like that of John Owen, and a melting pathos like that of Richard Baxter.
CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL.
The way is now open for viewing that division of thinkers who distinguished themselves, after the Restoration, by the breadth of their opinions. They followed in the steps of those whom we have now described, but in some particulars they went far beyond them. In a former volume I touched upon the Cambridge school of theologians; it remains for me to trace the subsequent development and progress of their peculiarities. They early received the name of Latitudinarians, and in 1662 their name had passed into everybody’s mouth, although its explicit meaning, it was said, remained as great a mystery as the order of the Rosicrucians. Some spoke of them as holding dangerous opinions, others defended them; but all which people in general knew seemed to be that the new school of thinkers mostly belonged to the University of Cambridge, and that they mostly followed the new philosophy.
A contemporary—one of their number—describes them in the first place as attached to the liturgy of the Church of England; and as admiring its solemnity, gravity, and primitive simplicity, together with its freedom both from affected phrases, and from any mixture of vain and doubtful opinions. They also, he says, believed “that it is the greatest check to devotion which can be, to hear men mix their private opinions with their public prayers,”—and they expressed themselves strongly against extempore devotions. As for rites and ceremonies, they approved what is called “the virtuous mediocrity of the Reformed Episcopal Church,” between the “meretricious gaudiness” of Rome, and “the squalid sluttery” of the fanatics. They contended that “so long as we live in this region of mortality, we must make use of such external helps” as the Church has thought fitted for the ends of worship. According to the same authority, they were averse to Presbyterianism and to Independency; and were decided supporters of Episcopal order. As for the doctrines of the Church, the Latitudinarians cordially adhered to the Thirty-nine Articles, to the three Creeds, and to any doctrine held by the Church, “unless absolute reprobation be one, which they do not think themselves bound to believe.” Great reverence is attributed to them, for the genuine monuments of the ancient Fathers, those especially of the first and purest age; and the writer then meets the charge of their hearkening too much to reason. For reason, he says, “is that faculty, whereby a man must judge of everything; nor can a man believe anything except he have some reason for it, whether that reason be a deduction from the light of nature, and those principles which are the candle of the Lord, set up in the soul of every man that hath not wilfully extinguished it, or a branch of Divine revelation in the oracles of Holy Scripture; or the general interpretation of genuine antiquity, or the proposal of our own Church consentaneous thereto; or lastly, the result of some or all of these: for he that will rightly make use of his reason, must take all that is reasonable into consideration. And it is admirable to consider how the same conclusions do naturally flow from all these several principles; and what in the faithful use of the faculties that God hath given, men have believed for true, doth excellently agree with that revelation that God hath exhibited in the Scripture, and the doctrine of the ancient Church with them both. Thus the freedom of our wills, the universal intent of Christ’s death, and sufficiency of God’s grace, the condition of justification, and many other points of the like nature, which have been almost exploded in these latter degenerate ages of the world, do again begin to obtain, though with different persons upon different accounts: some embrace them for their evidence in Scripture, others for the concurrent testimony of the primitive Church for above four hundred years; others for the reasonableness of the things themselves, and their agreement both with the Divine attributes, and the easy suggestions of their own minds. Nor is there any point in Divinity, where that which is most ancient doth not prove the most rational, and the most rational the ancientest; for there is an eternal consanguinity between all verity; and nothing is true in Divinity, which is false in Philosophy, or on the contrary; and therefore what God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”[468]
CAMBRIDGE SCHOOL.
The account is that of a partizan, who evidently wishes to make Latitudinarianism stand well in the estimation of all sorts of Churchmen; and therefore he strives to paint its teachers in colours of orthodoxy, and he charily remarks that they will be “generally suspected to be for liberty of conscience.”
Baxter, in 1665, speaks of the same school, as Platonists, or Cartesians, and of many of them as Arminians, with this addition, that they had more charitable thoughts than others of the salvation of heathens and infidels; and that some of them agreed in the opinions of Origen, about the pre-existence of souls.[469] Burnet says that they “read Episcopius much,”[470] respecting whose works Thorndike affirmed, that in them “the faith of the Holy Trinity is made an indifferent thing,” and the doctrine of original sin is “turned out of doors,”[471]—a sweeping accusation which has been called in question, yet it would be difficult to establish the orthodoxy of Episcopius on the Trinity, in the sense attached to that term by writers like Thorndike. No doubt there were heterodox tendencies in the writings of Episcopius and his school; but in this respect some of the later Remonstrants went beyond their master.
FOWLER.
The writer who most fully expounded the tenets of the Latitudinarians as a whole was Edward Fowler, who hesitated to conform in 1662, but who became afterwards Rector of Allhallows, Bread Street, and finally was elevated to the see of Gloucester. In his work On the Principles and Practices of Certain Moderate Divines of the Church of England, published in 1679, he professes truly to represent and defend them, and every page bears witness to the fact of their having been adopted by this author. He strongly maintains the eternal and immutable grounds of morality, against the pernicious principle which had been urged by some Calvinists, that the entire basis of virtue is to be found in the will of God, and vindicates the prominence given by the new teachers to the reasonableness of Christianity. Though the supernatural origin of the Gospel, and the Divine authority of its doctrines, are implied, and even distinctly acknowledged in the volume, yet the impression given by it altogether is such as to place the duty of accepting Christianity mainly upon the ground of its being a rational system. The production of faith is described as a process of reasoning, with regard to which the inward testimony of the Spirit is resolved “ordinarily” into a blessing on the use of means, i.e., the consideration of the motives He hath given us to believe.[472]
Another passage may be quoted, indicating the view of the writer upon a question which proves a touchstone of theological sentiment.
The Latitudinarians “are very careful so to handle the doctrine of justifying faith, as not only to make obedience to follow it, but likewise to include a hearty willingness to submit to all Christ’s precepts in the nature of it; and to show the falsity and defectiveness of some descriptions of faith, that have had too general an entertainment, and still have. This they look upon themselves as greatly obliged to do, as being well aware, of what dangerous consequence some received notions of that grace are, and that not a few that have imbibed them, have so well understood their true and natural inferences, as to be thereby encouraged to let the reins loose to all ungodliness.”[473]
Fowler affirms that those who are sincerely righteous, and from an inward living principle allow themselves in no known sin, nor in the neglect of any known duty, which is to be truly, evangelically righteous, shall be dealt with and rewarded, in and through Christ, as if they were perfectly and in a strict legal sense so. Entering essentially into Fowler’s notion of faith is the idea of its being the germ of Christian virtue: and, as it regards the connection between faith and justification, he believes that the receiving of Christ as Lord is a prerequisite to the obtaining of Christ as Redeemer. He defines justifying faith in these words:—“A grace of the Holy Spirit, whereby a man being convinced of his sin and miserable estate in regard of it, and an all-sufficiency in Christ to save from both, receives Him as He is tendered in the Gospel, or according to his three offices of Prophet, Priest, and King;” and,—which is important to the understanding of Fowler’s views,—he adds, “That act of receiving Christ as Lord, is to go before that of receiving Him as a Priest; for we may not rely upon Him for salvation, till we are willing to yield obedience to Him.”[474] In all this, and in much more, may be recognized a striving after some way of thoroughly meeting the two sides of that redemption from evil, which in the Gospel is ever represented as one. Whilst some theologians made holiness the result of faith in a Divine salvation, which salvation was treated by them as identical with justification, and others considered holiness as an essential part of it,—Fowler leaned in the direction of making holiness the means of salvation; and the tendency to adopt a via media further appears in his attempt to steer a middle course between Calvinism and Arminianism:—He remarks, “That there is such a thing as distinguishing grace, whereby some persons are absolutely elected, by virtue whereof they shall be (having potent and infallible means prepared for them) irresistibly saved. But that others, that are not in the number of those singular and special favourites, are not at all in a desperate condition, but have sufficient means appointed for them to qualify them for greater or less degrees of happiness, and have sufficient grace offered to them some way or other, and some time or other; and are in a capacity of salvation either greater or less, through the merits of Jesus Christ; and that none of them are damned, but those that wilfully refuse to co-operate with that grace of God, and will not act in some moral suitableness to that power they have received.”[475]
FOWLER.
Universal redemption,—by which is signified the universal applicability of our Lord’s atoning sacrifice,—is strenuously maintained by this Divine;[476] and he speaks hopefully of the future state, through Christ, of virtuous heathens.
Passing to Church questions, the same writer expresses a preference for Episcopacy, but does not unchurch unepiscopal societies; he holds Erastian views of the power of the civil magistrate; and strangely denies, that liberty of conscience forms a part of Christian liberty. He would concede to every man liberty of opinion, but not the liberty of persuading others to adopt his opinion; so that this scheme, ecclesiastically considered, runs at last into the doctrine of intolerance. Throughout Fowler’s works an anti-Puritan feeling is predominant; and his allusions to Nonconformists are by no means friendly.[477]
Wilkins, the moderate and liberal Bishop of Chester, belonged to the same class with Fowler. Known chiefly by his scientific works, he, nevertheless, deserves notice as one of the early defenders of natural religion against the attacks and the innuendoes of sceptics and infidels. The authors who have been just mentioned passed over the evidences of religion and plunged at once into the discussion of doctrines; but Wilkins saw that there is much outside Christianity which needed defence, for the subsequent preservation of the palladium of the faith. He is to be reckoned amongst the first to expound those more general and fundamental truths which, in the next century, occupied so much attention, and were esteemed bulwarks of revelation. He wrote upon the principles and duties of natural religion; but only twelve chapters of the book on the subject were completed by himself; the rest being prepared from the Bishop’s MSS., by his friend Tillotson. Cumberland’s De legibus Naturæ Disquisitio Philosophica (1672) is scarcely a theological treatise, it being a pioneer in the dangerous region of utilitarian ethics; but Cumberland may properly be reckoned as belonging to the Latitudinarians, for his speculations are more or less intimately related to what is generally regarded as the religion of nature in its alliance with the religion of revelation.
CUDWORTH.
A chief—if not the very first place—amongst the opponents of atheism and immorality, must be adjudged to Ralph Cudworth, whose learning and ability have reflected so much lustre on the Cambridge school. His Intellectual System is left unfinished, and reminds us of costly preparations for palatial buildings which have never risen above a few layers of marble blocks. With such a comparison, however, a contrast is suggested; for whilst the substructions referred to, may be monuments of the folly, condemned in the Gospel, of him who begins to build and is not able to finish,—Cudworth’s treatise shows it was from no want of power that he left his work incomplete. Of the five chapters of the first and only book of the Intellectual System, the fourth and fifth are by very far the longest, and these are devoted to Theology. It comes not within my province to make an attempt at deciding upon the place of honour due to Cudworth in the temple of fame, to report his speculations, or to repeat his critical estimates of different philosophers; my duty is simply to call attention to the two chapters, in which he ventures to trace a resemblance between the Trinity of Plato and the Trinity of Scripture, and argues also against Atheism. Respecting the latter, Cudworth had stated in his second chapter, the various reasonings of the ancient fatalists, whose system he characterized as “a gigantical and titanical attempt to dethrone the Deity,”—“Atheism openly swaggering under the glorious appearance of wisdom and philosophy.” In the fourth chapter, where he speaks of the Trinity, he explains Platonic ideas, attempting to show, that notwithstanding the difference between them and the ideas in Scripture, the three hypostases of the Platonists were Homoousian, Coessential, and Consubstantial. He touches upon the opinions of the Fathers, and expounds the views of Athanasius, who supposes that the three Divine hypostases “make up one entire Divinity, after the same manner as the fountain and the stream make up one entire river; or the root, and the stock, and the branches, one entire tree.” Cudworth contends that the Christian Trinity, though a mystery, is more agreeable to reason than the Platonic; and that there is no absurdity at all in supposing “the pure soul and body of the Messiah to be made a living temple or Shechinah-image or statue of the Deity.”[478] The bent of the author’s mind, and the tendency of the school to which he belonged, is seen throughout this part of his design, which is not to place the doctrine of the Trinity on a scriptural basis, but to establish and illustrate its perfect reasonableness, and to point out coincidences between it and some of the best guesses, or most satisfactory conclusions, of thinkers who never enjoyed the advantages of revelation. In harmony with this, is the fact of his noting, in the midst of his speculations, the following errors:—“The first, of those who make Christianity nothing but an Antinomian Plot against real righteousness, and, as it were, a secret confederacy with the Devil. The second, of those who turn that into matter of mere notion and opinion, dispute and controversy, which was designed by God only as a contrivance, machine, or engine to bring men effectually to a holy and godly life.”[479]
CUDWORTH.
The fifth chapter is devoted to “a particular confutation of all the atheistic grounds,” which confutation covers 270 folio pages. The two principal objections which he combats are, that, either men have no idea of God at all, or else, none but such as is compounded and made up of impossible and contradictory notions; whence these Atheists would infer Him to be an inconceivable nothing, and that, as nothing could come from nothing, it may be concluded, that whatever substantially or really is, was from all eternity of itself unmade, or uncreated by any Deity. The answering of these objections—in a course of argument which combines great learning with metaphysical acuteness—leads Cudworth to introduce proofs of the Divine existence drawn from final causes, as in the subjoined passage, which is quoted as one of the most familiar and popular forms of reasoning to be found in this recondite treatise:—“It is no more possible, that the fortuitous motion of dead and senseless matter, should ever from itself be taught and necessitated to produce such an orderly and regular system as the frame of this whole world is, together with the bodies of animals, and constantly to continue the same; than that a man perfectly illiterate and neither able to write nor read, taking up a pen into his hand, and making all manner of scrawls, with ink upon paper, should at length be taught and necessitated by the thing itself, to write a whole quire of paper together, with such characters, as being decyphered by a certain key, would all prove coherent philosophic sense.” Or to take another instance:—“This is no more possible than that ten or a dozen persons, altogether unskilled in music, having several instruments given them, and striking the strings or keys thereof, any how as it happened, should, after some time of discord and jarring, at length be taught and necessitated, to fall into most exquisite harmony, and continue the same uninterruptedly for several hours together.”[480]
Cudworth directed his studies chiefly to the foundations of religion and morality. Neither from his published works, nor, it would appear, from his unpublished MSS., in the British Museum, can any definite system of Biblical doctrine be gathered. The general colouring of his theological views, however, may be inferred from the very title of one of his printed treatises: “Deus Justificatus; or the Divine Goodness vindicated and cleared against the assertors of absolute and inconditionate Reprobation.”
CAMBRIDGE.—CRITICS.
Edward Stillingfleet, who has claimed our attention both as a healer and a stirrer up of strife, although not a doctrinal controversialist, demands some notice as a writer on Christian evidences. His broad and moderate churchmanship at the period of the Restoration, and his sympathy also at that time with the Latitudinarian Divines of Cambridge,—where he was educated and obtained a Fellowship at St. John’s in 1653,—entitle him to a place amongst them in the early part of his life.[481] It was in the year 1662, that he published his “Origines Sacræ; or Rational Account of the Christian Faith, as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the Scripture.” His learning, acuteness, logical ability, and lawyer-like habit of thought eminently fitted him for controversy, and these talents are signally displayed in the book now mentioned. The first part is occupied with an exposure of the obscurity, defect, and uncertainty of heathen histories, and of heathen chronology. In the treatment of this subject, he so completely undermines the credibility of all ancient history, except what is in Scripture, that he unwittingly precludes the proper use of the former in certain instances as a corroboration of the latter. He does not with thorough care distinguish between insufficiency and a complete want of authority. In the second book, he dwells on the knowledge, fidelity, and integrity of Moses; and upon the proofs of a Divine inspiration of the prophets from the fulfilment of their prophecies; but in this part of his work, he does not so much anticipate the details of the modern argument, as unfold the principles upon which he conceived the argument should rest. The evidence from miracles is also exhibited. The third book, to which the title of Origines particularly points, treats of the being of God, and the origin of the universe,—of evil—of the nations of the earth—and of the Heathen Mythology. In connection with the origin of nations, he vindicates the Scripture history of the Deluge, and falls into harmony with modern geologists, by confessing that he sees no necessity from Scripture, to assert, that the flood spread itself over the whole surface of the earth.[482]
Before proceeding further with the current of theological opinion, let me pause for a moment to mention the names of men who, in the service of Biblical learning, may perhaps be justly classed with the Divines now under review. Lightfoot, the Erastian, published, between 1644 and 1664, a Harmony of the Gospels, a Commentary upon the Acts, and Notes upon St. Paul’s Epistles to the Romans and Corinthians, besides Horæ Hebraicæ, et Talmudicæ, and other Exercitations of a similar kind. All his books exhibit Rabbinical lore applied to the elucidation of the Holy Scriptures; and he is not only the first of our English Divines to break up new ground decidedly and extensively in this field, but he actually tills the soil to such a degree, that none of his successors in the same path of industry are equal to this master-workman. Besides his own volumes, he has contributed to the interests of Biblical scholarship, by largely assisting Walton in his Polyglott, and Poole in his Synopsis.
Simon Patrick—numbered by Burnet among the Latitudinarians—wrote Commentaries upon the Old Testament, as far as the Book of Esther,—these were published between the years 1694 and 1705,—but at an earlier date, between 1678 and 1681, he wrote Paraphrases of Job and the Psalms, of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. He united reverence with learning, and brevity with accuracy; and avoiding the method of citing a number of opinions, which only perplex the reader, he gives his own in a style which is clear, and with arguments which are forcible.[483]
There is another person entitled to honourable mention, which perhaps may be as fittingly introduced here as anywhere: for, though he cannot be identified with the Latitudinarian school, neither can he in any proper sense be pronounced either Anglican or Puritan. Dr. James Ussher occupies a niche of his own in the temple of theological literature. His broad sympathies seem to fix his place at least near to those scholars who have just been described. As to time, his publications take their place between the beginning of the works of Lightfoot and the beginning of the works of Patrick. Ussher differed from them both. He was far superior to the last in learning; but I should infer, from what is said of him, that in some respects—certainly in the Rabbinical department of study—he was inferior to Lightfoot as a Biblical critic. In the learning which relates to sacred chronology he had no rival.
CAMBRIDGE.—SCIENCE.
At the close of this chapter, in which so much has been said respecting the free thought of the Cambridge school, and just as we are on the point of noticing its wider developments, I would seize the opportunity of saying a few words in relation to views of science entertained by more advanced theological inquirers. Aristotle remained a favourite philosophical teacher with the supporters of old-fashioned orthodoxy. The “new learning,” as the investigation of physical phenomena after the Baconian method, came to be termed, inspired an immense degree of suspicion in the minds of a large number of clergymen, who fancied they could detect in it tendencies to Popery, or Socinianism,—they scarcely knew which; and the infant Royal Society, then beginning “to knock at the door where truth was to be found, although it was left for Newton to force it open,”[484] expressed a good deal of indignation on account of its supposed arrogance. It received such treatment as falls to the lot of a pert and conceited child, and old people shook their heads as they prognosticated the end of such folly after a little experience. Gunning, Bishop of Ely, Barlow, Bishop of Lincoln, and South, when orator at the University of Oxford, denounced these new studies as most mischievous; and Henry Stubbe, an intense admirer of Aristotle, raved against the scientific associates with a violence which was perfectly absurd.[485] That jealousy of science, which is not yet extinguished, then burnt with greater fury than it does now; and the Divines who united the inductive study of nature with the more immediate duties of their profession, had to sustain the brunt of a fierce battle. Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, and Wilkins, Bishop of Chester, whilst theologically at variance, were scientifically in unison, and occupied the front rank in the clerical army on the side of intellectual advancement. But the person most zealous and laborious in the defence of the new philosophy was Joseph Glanvill, Rector of Bath, and Chaplain in Ordinary to Charles II., a writer of great ability, who had at his command a racy vigorous English style. It is amusing to find him employing the doctrine of a pre-existence of souls as the key to unlock the grand mysteries of Providence, and defending the possibility and real existence of witches and apparitions; still more amusing to be told by him that Adam needed neither spectacles nor telescope, for his naked eyes saw as much of the celestial world as we can discover with all the advantages of art.[486] Nevertheless the tone of his philosophy on the whole was decidedly sceptical; more so than Descartes, more so than Malebranche.
CAMBRIDGE.—SCIENCE.
Glanvill, who was a Fellow of the Royal Society, and acted as its Secretary, described and vindicated its character and proceedings, as a noble institution, vouchsafed to the modern world for the communication and increase of knowledge, according to the pregnant suggestion of Lord Bacon, that many heads and hands should unite in making and recording scientific observations, thus gathering up the facts which lie scattered in “the vast champaign of nature,” and bringing them into a common store.[487] But a notice of the way in which Glanvill defended the religious temper and tendencies of the experimental philosophy is more to our purpose; and I may, therefore, state that he executed his task in an ingenious and lively performance which is well worth the attention of certain people in the present day. He shows that God is to be praised in all His works—that His works are to be studied by those that would praise Him for them—that the study of nature in relation to God is very serviceable to religion—and that the ministers and professors of religion ought not to discourage, but promote the knowledge of the ways and works of its Author. He not only points out the connection between science and natural religion, but proves how true philosophy may be a friend of revelation, since it is a maxim of reason, that whatsoever God saith is to be believed, though we cannot apprehend the manner of it or tell how the thing should be.[488] No heterodoxy lurked under the advocacy of this scientific Divine, for he applied his principle to the Trinity and Incarnation, as being defensible on the same grounds as the existence of matter and motion. He moves nearer to the controversies of our own time, and indeed takes up a position in the midst of existing strifes, when he challenges the imputation, that philosophy teaches doctrines contrary to the Word of God. He meets it by saying, philosophy teaches many things which are not revealed in Scripture, for the design of Scripture is to teach religion, not science; no tenet ought to be exploded because some statements in the Divine oracles seem not to comport with it, natural objects being popularly described in the Old Testament; and the free experimental philosophy which the author pursued, and undertook to recommend, ventured, he said, on no peremptory and dogmatical assertions opposed to Divine authority, but confined itself to probabilities, where religion and the Scriptures are not at all concerned.[489] In many of his remarks, Glanvill anticipates the line of defence adopted by modern religious philosophers; and whilst he evinces a freedom of inquiry into natural phenomena which proves that he had burst the trammels of ancient prejudices, he also indicates a profound reverence for the Bible, and never allows his scepticism to utter a syllable inconsistent with belief in Divine revelation. I may add, that he published a discourse upon the agreement between reason and religion, against infidelity, scepticism, and fanaticisms of all sorts. It is apparent, from what he says, that he had no sympathy with Puritanism, but he had a great respect for Richard Baxter.