Arminianism in England. 26. The loyal Anglican clergy, suffering persecution at the hands of Calvinistic sectaries, might be naturally expected to cherish the opposite principles. These are manifest in the sermons of Barrow, rather perhaps by his silence than his tone, and more explicitly in those of South. But many exceptions might be found among leading men, such as Sanderson; while in an opposite quarter, among the younger generation who had conformed to the times, arose a more formidable spirit of Arminianism, which changed the face of the English church. This was displayed among those who, just about the epoch of the Restoration, were denominated Latitude-men, or more commonly Latitudinarians, trained in the principles of Episcopius and Chillingworth, strongly averse to every compromise with popery, and thus distinguished from the high church party, learned rather in profane philosophy than in the fathers, more full of Plato and Plotinus than Jerome or Chrysostom, great maintainers of natural religion and of the eternal laws of morality, not very solicitous about systems of orthodoxy, and limiting very considerably beyond the notions of former ages, the fundamental tenets of Christianity. This is given as a general character, but varying in the degree of its application to particular persons. Burnet enumerates as the chief of this body of men, More, Cudworth, Whichcot, Tillotson, Stillingfleet; some, especially the last, more tenacious of the authority of the fathers and of the church than others, but all concurring in the adoption of an Arminian theology.[738] This became so predominant before the revolution, that few English divines of eminence remained, who so much as endeavoured to steer a middle course, or to dissemble their renunciation of the doctrines which had been sanctioned at the synod of Dort by the delegates of their church. “The Theological Institutions of Episcopius,” says a contemporary writer, “were at that time (1685) generally in the hands of our students of divinity in both universities, as the best system of divinity that had appeared.”[739] And he proceeds afterwards: “The Remonstrant writers, among whom there were men of excellent learning and parts, had now acquired a considerable reputation in our universities by the means of some great men among us.” This testimony seems irresistible; and as one hundred years before the Institutes of Calvin were read in the same academical studies, we must own, unless Calvin and Episcopius shall be maintained to have held the same tenets, that Bossuet might have added a chapter to the Variations of Protestant Churches.
[738] Burnet’s History of His Own Times, i., 187. Account of the new sect called Latitudinarians, in the collection of tracts, entitled Phœnix, vol. ii., p. 499.
[739] Nelson’s Life of Bull, in Bull’s Works, vol. viii., p. 257.
Bull’s Harmonia Apostolica. 27. The methods adopted in order to subvert the Augustinian theology were sometimes direct, by explicit controversy, or by an opposite train of scriptural interpretation in regular commentaries; more frequently perhaps indirect, by inculcating moral duties, and especially by magnifying the law of nature. Among the first class, the Harmonia Apostolica of Bull seems to be reckoned the principal work of this period. It was published in 1669, and was fiercely encountered at first, not merely by the presbyterian party, but by many of the church, the Lutheran tenets as to justification by faith being still deemed orthodox. Bull establishes as the groundwork of his harmony between the apostles Paul and James, on a subject where their language apparently clashes in terms, that we are to interpret St. Paul by St. James, and not St. James by St. Paul, because the latest authority, and that which may be presumed to have explained what was obscure in the former, ought to prevail;[740] a rule doubtless applicable in many cases, whatever it may be in this. It, at least, turned to his advantage; but it was not so easy for him to reconcile his opinions with those of the reformers, or with the Anglican articles.
[740] Nelson’s Life of Bull.
Hammond—Locke—Wilkins. 28. The Paraphrase and Annotations of Hammond on the New Testament, give a different colour to the Epistles of St. Paul, from that which they display in the hands of Beza and the other theologians of the sixteenth century. And the name of Hammond stood so high with the Anglican clergy, that he naturally turned the tide of interpretation his own way. The writings of Fowler, Wilkins, and Whichcot are chiefly intended to exhibit the moral lustre of Christianity, and to magnify the importance of virtuous life. The first of these ventured on an express defence of Latitudinarianism; but in general those to whom their adversaries gave that name declined the invidious prejudices which they knew to be associated with it. Wilkins left an unfinished work on the Principles and Duties of Natural Religion. Twelve chapters only, about half the volume, were ready for the press at his death; the rest was compiled by Tillotson as well as the materials left by the author would allow; and the expressions employed lead us to believe that much was due to the editor. The latter’s preface strongly presses the separate obligation of natural religion, upon which both the disciples of Hobbes, and many of the less learned sectaries, were at issue with him.
Socinians in England. 29. We do not find much of importance written on the Trinitarian controversy before the middle of the seventeenth century, except by the Socinians themselves. But the case was now very different. Though the Polish or rather German Unitarians did not produce more distinguished men than before, they came more forward in the field of dispute. Finally, expelled from Poland in 1660, they sought refuge in more learned, as well as more tolerant, regions, and especially in the genial soil of religious liberty, the United Provinces. Even here, they enjoyed no avowed toleration; but the press, with a very slight concealment of place, under the attractive words, Eleutheropolis, Irenopolis, or Freystadt, was ready to serve them with its natural impartiality. They began to make a slight progress in England; the writings of Biddle were such as even Cromwell, though habitually tolerant, did not overlook; the author underwent an imprisonment both at that time and after the Restoration. In general, the Unitarian writers preserved a disguise. Milton’s treatise, not long since brought to light, goes on the Arian hypothesis, which had probably been countenanced by some others. It became common, in the reign of Charles II., for the English divines to attack the Anti-Trinitarians of each denomination.
Bull’s Defensio Fidei Nicenæ. 30. An epoch is supposed to have been made in this controversy, by the famous work of Bull, Defensio Fidei Nicenæ. This was not primarily directed against the heterodox party. In the Dogmata Theologica of Petavius, published in 1644, that learned Jesuit, laboriously compiling passages from the fathers, had come to the conclusion that most of those before the Nicene council had seemed, by their language, to run into nearly the same heresy as that which the council had condemned, and this inference appeared to rest on a long series of quotations. The Arminian Courcelles, and even the English philosopher, Cudworth, the latter of whom was as little suspected of a heterodox leaning, as Petavius himself, had come to the same result; so that a considerable triumph was given to the Arians, in which the Socinians, perhaps at that time more numerous, seem to have thought themselves entitled to partake. Bull had, therefore, to contend with authorities not to be despised by the learned.
31. The Defensio Fidei Nicenæ was published in 1685. It did not want answerers in England; but it obtained a great reputation, and an assembly of the French clergy, through the influence of Bossuet, returned thanks to the author. It was, indeed, evident that Petavius, though he had certainly formed his opinion with perfect honesty, was preparing the way for an inference, that if the primitive fathers could be heterodox on a point of so great magnitude, we must look for infallibility, not in them nor in the diffusive church, but in general councils presided over by the pope, or ultimately in the pope himself. This, though not unsuitable to the notions of some Jesuits, was diametrically opposite to the principles of the Gallican church, which professed to repose on a perpetual and catholic tradition.
Not satisfactory to all. 32. Notwithstanding the popularity of this defence of the Nicene faith, and the learning it displays, the author was far from ending the controversy, or from satisfying all his readers. It was alledged that he does not meet the question with which he deals; that the word ὁμοουσιος, being almost new at the time of the council, and being obscure and metaphysical in itself, required a precise definition to make the reader see his way before him, or, at least, one better than Bull has given, which the adversary might probably adopt without much scruple; that the passages adduced from the fathers are often insufficient for his purpose; that he confounds the eternal essence with the eternal personality or distinctness of the Logos, though well aware, of course, that many of the early writers employed different names (ενδιαθετος and προφορικος) for these; and that he does not repel some of the passages which can hardly bear an orthodox interpretation. It was urged, moreover, that his own hypothesis, taken altogether, is but a palliated Arianism; that by insisting, for more than one hundred pages, on the subordination of the Son to the Father, he came close to what since has borne that name, though it might not be precisely what had been condemned at Nice, and could not be reconciled with the Athanasian creed, except by such an interpretation of the latter as is neither probable, nor has been reputed orthodox.