[564] Des Maizeaux, Life of Chillingworth, p. 141.
[565] Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. p. 285; Des Maizeaux, Life of Chillingworth, pp. 2, 9. The correspondence between Laud and Chillingworth is supposed to be lost. Des Maizeaux, p. 12. Carwithen (Hist. of the Church of England, vol. ii. p. 214) says, ‘Laud was the godfather of Chillingworth.’
[566] The character of Laud is now well understood and generally known. His odious cruelties made him so hated by his contemporaries, that after his condemnation, many persons shut up their shops, and refused to open them till he was executed. This is mentioned by Walton, an eye-witness. See Walton's Life of Sanderson, in Wordsworth's Eccles. Biog. vol. iv. p. 429.
[567] A modern writer suggests, with exquisite simplicity, that Chillingworth derived his liberal principles from Oxford: ‘the very same college which nursed the high intellect and tolerant principles of Chillingworth.’ Bowles's Life of Bishop Ken, vol. i. p. xxi.
[568] Hooker's undue respect for the Councils of the Church is noticed by Mr. Hallam, Const. Hist. vol. i. p. 213. Compare the hesitating remarks in Coleridge's Literary Remains, vol. iii. pp. 35, 36.
[569] Reading the Fathers he contemptuously calls travelling on a ‘north-west discovery.’ Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants, p. 366. Even to Augustine, who was probably the ablest of them, Chillingworth pays no deference. See what he says at pp. 196, 333, 376; and as to the authority of the Fathers in general, see pp. 252, 346. Chillingworth observed, happily enough, that churchmen ‘account them fathers when they are for them, and children when they are against them.’ Calamy's Life, vol. i. p. 253.
[570] As to the supposed authority of Councils, see Religion of Protestants, pp. 132, 463. It affords curious evidence of the slow progress of theologians to observe the different spirit in which some of our clergy consider these matters. See, for instance, Palmer on the Church, 1839, vol. ii. pp. 150–171. In no other branch of inquiry do we find this obstinate determination to adhere to theories which all thinking men have rejected for the last two centuries.
[571] Indeed, he attempts to fasten the same doctrine upon the Catholics; which, if he could have done, would of course have ended the controversy. He says, rather unfairly, ‘Your church you admit, because you think you have reason to do so; so that by you, as well as Protestants, all is finally resolved into your own reason.’ Relig. of Protest. p. 134.
[572] ‘God desires only that we believe the conclusion, as much as the premises deserve; that the strength of our faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the motives to it.’ Relig. of Protest. p. 66. ‘For my part, I am certain that God hath given us our reason to discern between truth and falsehood; and he that makes not this use of it, but believes things he knows not why, I say it is by chance that he believes the truth, and not by choice; and I cannot but fear that God will not accept of this sacrifice of fools.’ p. 133. ‘God's spirit, if he please, may work more,—a certainty of adherence beyond a certainty of evidence; but neither God doth, nor man may, require of us, as our duty, to give a greater assent to the conclusion than the premises deserve; to build an infallible faith upon motives that are only highly credible and not infallible; as it were a great and heavy building upon a foundation that hath not strength proportionate.’ p. 149. ‘For faith is not knowledge, no more than three is four, but eminently contained in it; so that he that knows, believes, and something more; but he that believes many times does not know—nay, if he doth barely and merely believe, he doth never know.’ p. 412. See also p. 417.
[573] On the connexion between the Reformation and the views advocated in the Ecclesiastical Polity, compare Newman's Development of Christian Doctrine, p. 47, with some able remarks by Locke, in King's Life of Locke, vol. ii. pp. 99–101. Locke, who was anything but a friend to the church, was a great admirer of Hooker, and in one place calls him ‘the arch-philosopher.’ Essay on Government, in Locke's Works, vol. iv. p. 380.