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The Ecclesiology of the Latitude-men 1660–1689: Stillingfleet, Tillotson and 'Hobbism'

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2011

John Marshall
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Extract

When the redoubtable Presbyterian Richard Baxter came to write his engagingly biased autobiography he distinguished three broad categories of conformists to the Restoration Church Settlement of 1662. There were those who had been forced to conform out of need, or had casuistically placed their own meaning on the words of the Subscription; next there were the Latitudinarians, who were ‘mostly Cambridge-men’ and of ‘Universal Principles and free’; and then there were those of the ‘high and swaying Party’ who were ‘desirous to extirpate or destroy the Nonconformists’.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 36 , Issue 3 , July 1985 , pp. 407 - 427
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

This article was originally written as an undergraduate dissertation at Cambridge University. For his unfailingly generous supervision, I owe Dr Mark Goldie an immense debt. I would also like to thank Professors John Pocock and Wallace MacCaffrey and Dr Brendan Bradshaw for their comments.

1 Baxter, R., Reliquiae Baxterianae, London 1696, 386–7Google Scholar.

2 On the Latitudinarians and science see Jacob, M., The Newtonians and the English Revolution, Hassocks 1976Google Scholar; M., and Jacob, J., ‘The Anglican origins of modern science: the metaphysical foundations of the Whig constitution‘, Isis, lxxi (1979), 251–67Google Scholar; Shapiro, B., John Wilkins: An Intellectual Biography 1614–72, Berkeley 1969Google Scholar; Hunter, M., Science and Society in Restoration England, Cambridge 1981Google Scholar; Gascoigne, J., ‘The Holy Alliance’, unpublished Cambridge University Ph.D. thesis, 1981Google Scholar.

3 The influence of high churchmen in the Restoration has been the subject of some debate. I. M. Green's revision of R. S. Bosher, depicting the Church in a rather uncomplaining tutelage to the State, has perhaps underestimated the importance of hierocratic polemicists such as Heylyn, Thorndike, Pierce, Fulwood, Gunning, Laney, Turner, Cowper, Dodwell, Bull, Fell and Lowth, and the ideal of a refurbished Anglican discipline cherished by Sheldon and Sancroft. See Gascoigne, ‘Holy Alliance’, 4–30; Shapiro, Wilkins, 169–90; Beddard, R. A., ‘The Restoration Church’, in Jones, J.R. (ed.), The Restored Monarchy, London 1979, 155–76Google Scholar; Goldie, M., ‘John Locke and Anglican Royalism‘, Political Studies, xxxi (1983), 61–85 at 76–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bosher, R. S., The Making of the Restoration Settlement, London 1951Google Scholar; Green, I. M., The Re-establishment of the Church of England, Oxford 1978Google Scholar.

4 Gascoigne, ‘Holy Alliance’, 81–3; Shapiro, Wilkins, 162–3; Stillingfleet, E., The Unreasonableness of Separation, London 1681, p. xxxixGoogle Scholar.

5 T. Birch, Life of Tillotson, London 175a, 28; Sykes, N., ‘The Sermons of Archbishop Tillotson‘, Theology, lviii (1955) 298Google Scholar; Pepys, S., The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham, R. and Matthews, W., London 1976, ix. 548Google Scholar; ibid., v. 87.

6 Lowth, S., Of the Subject of Church Power, London 1685Google Scholar, ‘The Contents’, ‘Tothe Reader’ sig. A4v, pp. 382–3; Lowth, S., A Letter to Edward Stillingfleet, London 1687, 42Google Scholar.

7 See below pp. 417–18, 423–5. Howe confronted Tillotson personally: Birch, Tillotson, xix.

8 In any attempt to characterise fully the nature and sources of Restoration Erastianism and eirenicism the works of Hooker, Grotius and Selden would have to loom at least as large as those of Hobbes. This is not attempted here.

9 Carroll, R., The Commonsense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet, The Hague 1975Google Scholar; Popkin, R., The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza, Berkeley 1979Google Scholar; Popkin, R., ‘The Philosophy of Bishop Stillingfleet’ Journal of the History of Philosophy, ix (1971), 303–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leeuwen, H. Van, The Pursuit of Certainty in English Thought 1630–90, The Hague 1963Google Scholar.

10 Symbolised by differing interpretations of the sacerdotal and dogmatic status of the monarch and of the circumference of his potestas jurisdictionis.

11 See Hardacre, P., ‘Sir Edward Hyde and the idea of liberty to tender consciences, 1641–56‘, Journal of Church and State, xiii (1971), 23–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘The genesis of the Declaration of Breda 1657–60‘, Journal of Church and State, xv (1973), 65–82Google Scholar.

12 Taylor, J., Doctor Dubitantium, The Golden Grove, Smith, L. P. (ed.), Oxford 1930, 145Google Scholar, cited in Baker, H., The Wars of Truth, Gloucester, Massachusetts 1969, 217Google Scholar; Parker, S., A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politie, London 1670, 6Google Scholar.

13 Abrams, P., John Locke: Two Tracts on Government, Cambridge 1967Google Scholar, introduction.

14 All references are to the 1662 edition. Stillingfleet, E., The Irenicum, London 1662Google Scholar, title page, ‘Preface to the Reader’, sig. a2r–2v.

15 Ibid., ‘Preface to the Reader’, sig. av, sig. a3r, pp. 119, 121.

16 Ibid., 3, 40, 124.

17 Ibid., 39, 56.

18 Hobbes, T., Leviathan, Oakeshott, M. (ed.), Oxford 1946, 1 12, 291, 343Google Scholar; Rousseau, J.-J., The Social Contract, London 1973, 27Google Scholar, cited in Springborg, P., ‘Leviathan, the Christian Commonwealth incorporated‘, Political Studies, xxiv (1976), 171–83 at 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Stillingfleet, Irenicum, 3, 39, 40 (author's italics).

20 Ibid., 43–6; Lowth, S., A Letter to a Friend in Answer, London 1688, 23–4Google Scholar.

21 Stillingfleet, Irenicum, 47–9.

22 S. Lowth, Letter to Stillingfleet, 42; S. Lowth, Subject, 145–52, 156–63, 193, 235, 304–26, 339–42, 371–7.

23 Hobbes, Leviathan, 306.

24 Stillingfleet, Irenicum, 38 (author's italics), 41–2.

25 Hobbes, Leviathan, 187–8, 308–11; Hobbes, T., ‘An Answer to a Book published by Dr Bramhall’, in SirMolesworth, W. (ed.), Hobbes's Works, London 1840, 329Google Scholar.

28 Stillingfleet did, however, display a close knowledge of Hobbes’ De Cine, surprisingly utilising it in his account of the nature and obligation of laws: Stillingfleet, Irenicum, 32–5.

27 Parker, S., Reasons for Abrogating the Test, London 1688, 48Google Scholar. A study needs to be made of the developing historiography of the Reformation during the Restoration, including Burnet's work.

28 Lowth, Letter to Stillingflect, 43–6.

29 This title for the manuscript was used throughout the debate in the 1680s. It has been printed under the heading ‘Questions and Answers’ in both Duffield, G. (ed.), The Work of Thomas Cranmer, Appleford 1964Google Scholar, and Cox, J. E. (ed.), Miscellaneous Writings and Letters of Thomas Cranmer, Cambridge 1846Google Scholar. I owe the latter reference to Dr H. C. Porter.

30 Lowth, Subject, sig. A7v, pp. 484–9; Lowth, Letter to Slillingfteet, 56–8; Lowth, S., A Letter to Dr Burnet, London 1685, 4–6Google Scholar; Lowth, S., A Letter to a Friend in Answer, London 1688, 16–21Google Scholar.

31 Stillingfleet, Irenicum, 391–3. Whether Cranmer thereby rendered rex sacerdos is debatable, but he was seen as doing so by the Restoration Anglicans. On Cranmer and Henry vra see J. Scarisbrick, J., Henry VIII, London 1968, 414–15Google Scholar and Thompson, W. D. J. Cargill, ‘The Two Regiments’, Cambridge University unpublished Ph.D. thesis, 1960, 247–75Google Scholar.

32 Burnet, G., A Letter occasioned by the Second Letter, London 1685, 2Google Scholar.

33 Hobbes, Leviathan, 325, 356.

34 Parker, Reasons, 46; Long, T., No Protestant but the Dissenters Plot, London 1682, 4–5Google Scholar.

35 Stillingfleet, E., Several Conferences, London 1679, 148–51Google Scholar; Stillingfleet, E., A Sermon Preached at a Publick Ordination at St Peter's, Cornhill, March 15 1684/3, London 1685Google Scholar, Epistle dedicatory.

36 Lowth, Letter to Stillingfleet, 56; Stillingfleet, Sermon, 14. This 1685 formulation marked a change from his position of 1680–1; see below p. 421.

37 Stillingfleet, Irenicum, 418–47. Matthew Tindal noted Stillingfleet's inconsistency in The Rights of the Christian Church Asserted, London 1706, pp. (liv)–(lv)Google Scholar. For Hobbes’ view of excommunication, see his Leviathan, 332–7.

38 Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, p. li; for the vituperation of Alsop, Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, 203; on the impact of Stillingfleet's sermon, Alsop, V., The Mischief of Impositions, London 1680Google Scholar, Epistle dedicatory sig. D3V; on John Locke, Oxford, Bodleian, Locke MS c. 34. I am currently working on this manuscript, composed in reply to Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation as well as his sermon.

39 Stillingfleet, E., The Mischief of Separation, London 1680Google Scholar, Epistle dedicatory sig. A3v.

40 Ibid., 12–14, 19.

41 See, for instance, Dodwell, H., Separation of Churches from Episcopal Government as practised by the Present non-conformists, proved Schismatical, London 1679Google Scholar.

42 Baxter, R., Richard Baxter's Answer to Dr Edward Stillingfleet's Charge of Separation, London 1680, 8Google Scholar.

43 Ibid., 11–12.

44 Ibid., 13, 16, 31.

45 Barret, J., The Rector ofSutton Committed with the Dean of St. Paul's, London 1680, 25–6, 75Google Scholar; Baxter, Answer, 21–2.

46 Barret, Rector, 26, 75.

47 Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, pp. xxii–xxv, liii–liv; Thomas, R., ‘Comprehension and indulgence’, in Nuttall, G. and Chadwick, O. (eds.), From Uniformity to Unity 1662–1362, London 1962, 208–9Google Scholar; Beddard, R. A., ‘Vincent Alsop and the emancipation of Restoration dissent’, this Journal, xxiv (1973), 161–84Google Scholar.

48 Stillingfleet, Mischief, 58; Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, pp. xxiii–xxiv.

49 This was symbolised by Whig failure to repeal the Test Act. Whigs also supported the Occasional Conformity Bill in 1711: Horwitz, H., Revolution Politics: the career of Daniel Finch, Second Earl of Nottingham 1647–1730, Cambridge 1968, 231–5Google Scholar.

50 Goldie, M., ‘The Nonjurors, episcopacy and the orgins of the Convocation controversy’ in Cruickshanks, E. (ed.), Ideology and Conspiracy: aspects of Jacobitism, Edinburgh 1982, 15–16Google Scholar. Tillotson and Tenison became archbishops, Stillingfleet, Burnet, Grove and Fowler bishops.

51 For an attack on the assumption that James’ tolerationism was little more than a political manoeuvre see James’ attitudes in SirDalrymple, J., Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, London 1771–7Google Scholar; ii (i), 177; Burnet, G., History of His Own Time, London 1724, 359, 672Google Scholar. I owe these references to Dr M. Goldie.

52 Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, preface lxxxii–xciii. Narcissus Luttrell commented that Stillingfleet was seen as too moderate in 1683: Luttrell, N., Luttrell's Brief Historical Relations of State Affairs, 1678–1714, Oxford 1857, 1, 246Google Scholar.

53 Sherlock, W., A Discourse About Church Unity, London 1681, 38–40Google Scholar.

54 Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, 132.

55 Clagett, W., A Reply to a Pamphlet Called The Mischief of Impositions, London 1681, 41Google Scholar; Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, 291, 300–1.

56 See also, for instance, Anon., Some Additional Remarks on the Late Book of the Reverend Dean of St. Paul's, London 1681, 16Google Scholar.

57 Humfrey, J. and Lobb, S., An Answer to Dr Stillingfieel's Sermon, being the Peaceable Design Renewed, London 1680, 30–32Google Scholar; Sherlock, Discourse, 587; Sherlock, W., A Continuation and Vindication of the Defence of Dr. Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation, London 1682, 177–8, 183–9, 198–9, 201Google Scholar. On the cause of schism, cf. Sherlock, W., A Letter to Anonymous, In Answer to his Three Letters to Dr Sherlock about Church Communion, London 1683, 7–8Google Scholar. Stillingfleet was citing Charles 1: Stillingfleet, Unreasonableness, 280–1.

58 Baxter, R., Catholick Communion, London 1684Google Scholar, passim; Baxter, R., A Second True Defence of the Meer Nonconformists, London 1681Google Scholar, ‘contents’ (unpaginated), 3, 119–25; Tindal, Rights, pp. liii, liv.

59 Leslie, C., The Charge of Sodnianism against Dr Tillotson Considered, Edinburgh 1695, 14Google Scholar.

60 Tillotson, J., The Protestant Religion Vindicated From the Charge of Singularity and Novelty, London 1680, 9–11Google Scholar.

61 Ibid., 11–12.

62 Ibid., 12.

63 Hobbes, Leviathan, 327, 395.

64 Ibid., 105, 114.

65 Leslie, Charge, 13; Hickes, G., Some Discourses upon Dr Bumel and Dr Tillotson, London 1695, 48Google Scholar; Calamy, E., Memoirs of the Life of the Late Reverend Mr John Howe, London 1724, 75–6Google Scholar.

66 Humfrey & Lobb, Answer, 4–6; Lowth, Subject, 163, 380–3; Collinges, J., Short Animadversions Upon a Sermon, London 1680, 3–4, 12–13Google Scholar.

67 Anon., Some Short Remarks, London 1680, 4–5Google ScholarPubMed; Thomas, S., The Charge of Schism Renewed, London 1680, 3–5Google Scholar.

68 Tillotson, J., Sermons and Discourses, London 1686, iii. 382–3Google Scholar.

69 Leslie, Charge, 13; Hickes, Some Discourses, 50; Anon., Reflections upon a Libel Lately Printed, London 1696, 56–7Google Scholar.

70 Birch, Life, pp. xvii, xix.

71 Hobbes, ‘Answer to a book’, 360–1.

72 Leslie, Charge, 14; Tillotson, J., A Sermon Preached November 5, 1678Google Scholar at St Margaret's Westminster, London 1678, 20Google Scholar.

73 Parker, S., A Discourse of Ecclesiastical Politic, London 1670, title page, 31–2Google Scholar, 187, 308. The bizarre career of Samuel Parker would prove a fruitful subject in its own right.

74 Skinner, Q., ‘The ideological context of Hobbes's political thought‘, Historical Journal, ix (1966), 286–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Thomas Hobbes and his disciples in France and England‘, Comparative Studies in History and Society, viii (1966), 156–67Google Scholar; idem, ‘Hobbes's Leviathan‘, Historical Journal, vii (1964), 321–32Google Scholar. On contemporary polemic see Mintz, S., The Hunting of Leviathan, Cambridge 1962Google Scholar.

75 The metaphor is appropriated from: Pocock, J. G. A., ‘Post Puritan England and the problem of the Enlightenment’, in Zagorin, P. (ed.), Culture and Politics from Puritanism to the Enlightenment, Berkeley 1980, 91Google Scholar.

76 There is even, perhaps, an informative similarity between Hobbes’ undeveloped argument that ‘the apostles and their successors… had received the Holy Spirit’ and ‘represented' God ‘ever since’ and the High Church claim that there was a direct descent of spiritual power from Christ to the bishops of the Church of England. Hobbes, Leviathan, 107, 323.

77 Patrick, S., The Autobiography of Symon Patrick, Oxford 1839, 60Google Scholar.

78 Tenison, T., The Creed of Mr Hobbs Examined, London 1670, 186–201Google Scholar, 208–9; H. Croft, The Naked Truth, n.p. 1675, 7–8. Croft was charged with Hobbism, but for his ‘Fatalism’ see Croft, Naked, 9; Turner, F., Animadversions upon a Late Pamphlet Entitled the Naked Truth, London 1676, 13, 46Google Scholar; Anon., Lex Talionis, London 1676, 15–16Google ScholarPubMed.

79 Clagett, Reply, 32–3, 41, 47–8.

80 Fowler, E., The Principles and Practices of Certain Moderate Divines, London 1670, 325–7Google Scholar (author's italics).

81 Not, however, the only argument. See Wilde, C.B., ‘Hutchesonianism, natural philosophy and religious controversy in 18th-century Britain‘, History of Science, xviii (1980), 1–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.