In common with some other Divines of that day, he passed through a change of opinion, and that at an early period of life. He went to Cambridge with no strong theological bias of any kind, and entered Trinity College at a time when that College was accused neither of Puritan nor of Romanizing tendencies. But he thought less unfavourably of Calvinism at the commencement of his studies than he did during his subsequent career. At first he did not, without some qualification, condemn the doctrine of final perseverance; also he then opposed other parts of the system upon grounds which he afterwards abandoned, as not sufficiently distinct and fundamental. He was also far less severe when controverting the arguments of Nonconformists in the former than in the latter period of his life.[375] Patristic studies, to a large extent, most likely produced the change which he experienced; and his ejectment from his Fellowship at Trinity by the Presbyterians would naturally serve to increase his growing distaste for their distinguishing tenets.
The book in which he unfolds his scheme of divinity was written before the Restoration, and bears the title of An Epilogue to the Tragedy of the Church of England (1659): a title which provoked the criticisms of his friends, especially afterwards, when the book proved to be a prologue to that Church’s revival. The work contains The Principles of Christian Truth; The Covenant of Grace; and The Laws of the Church.
In laying down the principles of Christian truth, Thorndike, as an Anglican, somewhat startles his reader by his first position, that reason is to decide controversies of faith[376]—a form of words which, taken alone, certainly conveys an idea very different from what the writer intends. Any rationalistic interpretation is prevented by what follows. He proceeds, indeed, to explain that neither the private teaching of the Spirit of God to the individual soul on the one hand, nor the authority of the Church in relation to men in general on the other, can be the ground of believing. But, on that account, he does not enthrone human reason. He adds, that there is obscurity in Scripture, all truth being in it not explicitly but only implicitly; and he argues that whilst the Bible is sufficient in one sense, it is not so in another, and that it therefore needs such interpretation as is supplied by the traditions of the Church.[377] The use of reason (or reasoning) in matters of faith is resolved by him into this—that by it “all undertake to persuade all,” and its only scope is in the examination of evidence. Yet what are commonly called the evidences of Christianity are very much overlooked in Thorndike’s writings. There are numerous incidental allusions to the opinions of Herbert and Hobbes. Sometimes these writers are grappled with; but reliance on reasoning is abandoned when, by this Divine, outlawry is maintained to be “the penalty of the Leviathan, and all that have or may follow him either into apostasy or atheism.”[378] Thorndike, indeed, touches on both the external and internal proofs of revealed religion, but he nowhere, that I can find, thoroughly and at length discusses the matter. I may here observe, in passing, that he speaks with approval of the way in which the Jewish Doctors resolve inspiration into different degrees.[379] But the interpretation of Christianity is, in his view, the office of the Church. The Church, he maintains, is a permanent teacher, its permanence depending upon Apostolical succession, and its tuition finding expression in the decisions of Councils and in the writings of Fathers; the authority of the latter being explained as not arising out of personal qualities of learning and holiness, but out of ecclesiastical position. Tradition limits the interpretation of Holy Writ; but this principle “pretends not any general rule for the interpretation of Scripture, even in those things which concern the rule of faith, but infers a prescription against anything that can be alleged out of Scripture, that, if it may appear contrary to that which the whole Church hath received and held from the beginning, it cannot be the true meaning of that Scripture which is alleged to prove it.” At the same time Thorndike says, that the power of the Church limits the tradition of Apostles only in matters of ceremony and order, such as are indifferent in themselves; changes in circumstances, and in the usages of society, rendering changes of that nature necessary and unavoidable: a conclusion equivalent to the well-known one that the Church hath power, within certain bounds, to decree rites and ceremonies. Heresy, Thorndike defines as consisting in the denial of something necessary to salvation; and schism to consist in a departure from the unity of the Church, whether from heresy, or from any other cause. Upon these principles—which he defends at great length, not without many discursions, and sometimes in a manner which it is difficult to follow—Thorndike declares the Church of England to have laid her deep foundations; and her main position is by him asserted to be, that, repudiating all pretensions to infallibility, she owns tradition to be her guide, and requires that “no interpretation of the Scriptures be alleged contrary to the consent of the Fathers.”[380]
ANGLICANS.—THORNDIKE.
The covenant of grace is examined by this Divine at great length; and, if I may be allowed the attempt, I would give an outline of his method somewhat as follows:—
I. The condition of that covenant is the contract of baptism, and that contract is identical with justifying faith. Such faith is not simply credence, or trust, or persuasion—it is not merely the belief of a Divine testimony, or a reliance upon a Divine person—nor is it a conviction that one is already justified and predestinated to life; but is an acceptation of Christianity, “embracing and professing it” as a whole. Faith, as enjoined by St. Paul and St. James, and as exemplified in the lives of the Hebrew patriarchs, is essentially practical; and when the former Apostle puts faith in opposition to works, he means the works of Jewish law, and not the works of Gospel precept. Faith is rooted “in the affection of the will, not in the perfection of the understanding.” Yet good works are entirely the production of Divine grace.[381] Though the Fathers are free to acknowledge, with St. Paul, the doctrine of justification by faith alone, they are, on the other side, so copious in attributing the promises of the Gospel to Christian obedience, that it may be truly said, there is not one of them from whom sufficient authority may not be drawn in favour of it: a concurrence which amounts to a tradition of the whole Church upon this important point.
ANGLICANS.—THORNDIKE.
II. The necessity of the covenant of grace arises out of original sin, which is confessed by David and St. Paul, which consists in concupiscence, and which cleaves to every man by his first birth, the birth of a carnal nature.[382]
III. The Mediator of the covenant is the Divine Christ, the Angel of the Lord, whose apparitions of old “were prefaces to the Incarnation”—the Word, who was in the beginning, by whom all things were created, and who was made flesh. He is “the great God,” with St. Paul; the “true God,” with St. John; the “only Lord God,” with St. Jude. Scripture abounds in proofs of His Godhead. To the full meaning of these titles, as expressed by other texts in equivalent terms, the early Church’s belief in Christ’s Divinity, and the writings of the ante-Nicene Fathers, Ignatius, Justin, Irenæus, Clement, and Origen, bear concurrent witness. The fact of a Trinity in the Godhead is fully and clearly stated in Scripture. The admission of the mystery is reconcilable with reason; but no one can explain the secrets of the Divine nature, and it is only rational that, on such a subject, we should submit to the teaching of revelation. “All dispute about essence, and persons, and natures, and all the terms whereby either the Scriptures express themselves in this point, or the Church excludes the importunities of heresies from the true sense of the Christian faith, improves no man’s understanding an inch in this mystery. The service it does, is to teach men the language of the Church, by distinguishing that sense of several sayings which is, and that which is not, consistent with the faith. And if any man hereupon proceed, by discourse upon the nature of the subject, to infer what is and what is not such, his understanding is unsufferable.”[383]
IV. The method of the covenant is gracious. All its provisions depend entirely upon the grace of Christ. But salvation is not through any Divine predestination of the will of man. God determines not what the moral acts of His creatures shall be in themselves, but only the practical results of them. The soul is free from necessity, though not from bondage; and the doctrine of the predetermination of the human will is not the root but the rooting up of freedom and of Christianity. Nothing formally determines the will of man, but his own act. Predestination to the enjoyment of grace is absolute, but predestination to the enjoyment of glory is conditional, and has respect to character. The end to which God predestinates is not the end for which He predestinates. Grace is the reward of the right use of grace. Upon this entire subject, the tradition of the Church runs counter to Predestinarianism, to Arminianism, and to Pelagianism.[384]