Ecclesiastical History of England, Volume 2—The Church of the Commonwealth

by John Stoughton

Burnet remarks respecting the individuals whom we have named, "All these, and those who were formed under them, studied to examine further into the nature of things than had been done formerly. They declared against superstition on the one hand, and enthusiasm on the other. They loved the constitution of the Church, and the Liturgy, and could well live under them. But they did not think it unlawful to live under another form. They wished that things might have been carried with more moderation. And they continued to keep a good correspondence with those who had differed from them in opinion, and allowed a great freedom both in philosophy and in divinity. From whence they were called men of latitude, and upon this, men of narrower thoughts and fiercer tempers fastened upon them the name of Latitudinarians. They read Episcopius much; and the making out the reasons of things being a main part of their studies—their enemies called them Socinians. They were all very zealous against Popery. And so, they becoming soon very considerable, the Papists set themselves against them to decry them as Atheists, Deists, or at best Socinians."[282]

It is curious to find such men in the very heart of a Puritan age. They were founders of a new order of religious thought, new, at least, in reference to the mental habits in general of that period. They did not assail Puritanism, nor, indeed, assume an attitude of opposition to other good men of any class—they preferred to build up rather than to pull down, to heal rather than to wound; but certainly their sympathies did not run in Puritan lines. They appreciated the eminent piety of many contemporaries of that school, and they lived with them upon terms of friendship; but, for their own part, they maintained broader views of theology than did their brethren. Their interest in the study of Plato and Plotinus, and their elevation of what is moral over what is merely intellectual gave to their method of enquiry, and to the conclusions which they reached, a certain cast, which plainly distinguished them from the kind of teaching found in the Westminster Confession, and in the standard works of the Puritan Divines.

Cambridge Studies.

Differences have always obtained in the mode of contemplating Christianity, according with various types of mind and with various descriptions of culture and circumstances. Aristotelian and Platonic forms of thought, so obvious in theological history, are amongst its common facts; and when we recollect that such forms are the inevitable consequences of original varieties in the intellectual nature of mankind, they appear also to belong to its greatest mysteries. Occasionally overlooked, even by philosophers, and habitually forgotten by controversialists, the remembrance of them is so important, that if forgotten, the changes and collisions which occur in the progress of theological enquiry—whether in primitive, mediæval, or modern times—must remain unintelligible. And the spectacle of the logical dogmatist on the one hand, and the sentimental mystic on the other, deriving different impressions from the same object—and then looking each other in the face, with expressions of marvellous surprise, that they cannot both see one and the same thing in one and the same way—can never be explained by those who do not keep before them the fact just noticed. As there were different ineradicable idiosyncracies in Clement and Tertullian, in Origen and Augustine, in Bernard and Abelard, in Bonaventura and Thomas Aquinas, in John Tauler and John Calvin—so there were idiosyncracies equally ineradicable in John Smith and John Owen, in Ralph Cudworth and in Richard Baxter. The influence of circumstances in reference to the Cambridge school coincided with the intellectual character of the members, and contributed to the development of its theological peculiarities. Early education, the stimulus derived from other minds, in some respects very different, and the reactions consequent upon the unfolding of tendencies to their furthest extreme, are all to be reckoned amongst the factors of religious opinion. The theology of the men to whom we now refer was partly the result of that training which they had received in Greek philosophy, and which had formed part of the Cambridge system in their early days[283]; and of that study of the Greek fathers, which had been promoted, perhaps, by the example of Andrewes; partly, also, it was a reaction both against the stiff ritualism of the Laudian party, and against the rigid and severe doctrinalism of the Puritans. A good example of what constituted the pith of the teaching which we have briefly noticed, occurs in an introduction to "Smith's Select Discourses," written by his friend, Dr. John Worthington.[284]

Cambridge Theology.

Godliness he explains as signifying "infinitely more than a power to dispute with heat and vehemency about some opinions, or to discourse volubly about some matters in religion, and in such forms of words as are taking with the weak and unskilful; more than a power to pray without a form of words; for these and the like may be, and frequently are done by the formal and unspiritual Christian; more than a power to deny themselves in some things that are easy to part with, and do not much cross their inclinations, their self-will, their corrupt designs and interests, nor prejudice their dear and more beloved lusts and pleasures, their profitable and advantageous sins; and more than a power to observe some lesser and easier commands, or to perform an outward obedience arising out of slavish fear, void of inward life and love, and a complacency in the law of God." And further, he dwells with delight on "the mighty acts and noble achievements of the more excellent, though less ostentatious Christians, who, through faith in the goodness and power of God, have been 'enabled to do all things through Christ, knowing both how to abound, and how to be abased;' enabled to overcome the world without them, and the love of the world within them; enabled to overcome themselves—and for a man 'to rule his own spirit' is a greater instance of power and valour than 'to take a city,' as Solomon judgeth;—enabled to resist the powers of darkness, and to quit themselves like men and good soldiers of Jesus Christ—giving many signal overthrows to those lusts that war against their souls, and to the mightiest and strongest of them, the sons of Anak; and by engaging in the hardest services of this spiritual warfare, wherein the Pharisaical boasters dare not follow them, they shew that there is a spirit of power in them, and that they can do more than others."[285]

Yet, whilst we are quite disposed to do justice to these admirable individuals, we cannot but discover in the later effects of their example some things which must be exceedingly deplored. Their breadth of charity was followed by an amount of latitudinarianism with which they themselves were not chargeable. And their attempts to determine and establish the higher position of what is moral, in comparison with what is intellectual in Church life and in Church creeds, led ultimately to an inexcusable neglect of the distinctive doctrines of Christianity. The profitableness of virtue, and the reasonableness of religion, became the all-absorbing themes. Hard, dry Rationalism, bearing a Christian name, with never-ending discussions on evidences, appears throughout the first half of the eighteenth century as a development of the weak side of the Cambridge divinity in the seventeenth.

Cambridge and Oxford Compared.

Between this and the Oxford theology of the Commonwealth period, a remarkable contrast presents itself. The most distinguished Oxford Divines then were Owen and Goodwin. Howe—who in genius and feeling was far less remote than they were from Cudworth and Smith, and who possessed a still nobler intellect, and also presented a life of still rarer beauty than either of his fellow Independents—was but a young man at the time of which we speak, and could exercise no such influence as belonged to the Dean of Christ Church and the President of Magdalen. The theology of these two Divines was Puritan to the core, and whilst betraying Puritan defects, it exhibited, in a high degree, Puritan excellencies. It sometimes assigned to a really subordinate theory the place belonging to a supremely important fact; it failed to distinguish adequately between Divine premises and human inferences; also it was deficient in sympathy with pure thought, spiritual desire, and honest endeavours after goodness beyond its own circle; and it lacked that breadth of sympathy which was cultivated by the Cambridge worthies, which redounded so much to their honour. But then let it be remembered, that on the part of the Oxford Puritans there existed a loyalty to that which is peculiar, and characteristic in the Gospel of Christ—a loyalty which redeemed their worst weaknesses. They loved the Gospel as a message of free mercy to the children of Adam, as a revelation of redeeming grace through the mystery of the cross; and they dwelt largely, emphatically, and in a way not to be misunderstood, upon what makes the New Testament a book of life and joy to conscience-stricken men. And the veins of gold running through their works rendered them a mine of wealth a hundred years afterwards, when people impoverished by Rationalism flocked to it as to a spiritual California. Indeed, the Methodism ultimately fixed outside the establishment by Whitefield and the two Wesleys—who were all three nurtured at Oxford—was largely dug out of Puritan beds of Christian ore. In the largest measure, and in the directest way, this was the case with Whitefield's theology. With respect to John Wesley, although Oxford Puritanism was not without influence upon his mind, yet that influence was less direct than it seems to have been in the history of his Calvinistic friend, and in Wesley's case it was certainly mixed with powerful ingredients which were derived from Cambridge sources. The school of Divines just noticed stood high in his estimation,[286] and he was affected by them not only through the perusal of their writings, but likewise through the medium of an eminent disciple of theirs—William Law, who was one of Wesley's personal friends.

Still more decidedly the Evangelicalism of the last century fostered within the establishment by Romaine, and Berridge, and Venn, was derived from the influence of Owen and his companions; and thus defects attaching to the theology which had sprung up at Cambridge were supplied by the theology which had been cherished and promoted at Oxford. Too long these schools of thought have stood apart. Is not the time come for uniting evangelical faith and zeal, as decided and fervent as were those of Owen and Goodwin, with a sympathy for all truth—with a recognition of the relations of Christianity to the entire universe of thought—with a catholic charity in judging other men—and with an estimate of the supremacy of spiritual goodness, in no respect less broad, but in every respect more healthy than that which prevailed in some of the colleges within the University of Cambridge two hundred years ago?