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The Reasonableness of Christianity? Gilbert Burnet and the Trinitarian Controversy of the 1690s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 January 2017

Martin Greig
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Extract

In the course of the 1690s and into the early eighteenth century a number of English divines and laymen became embroiled in a pamphlet war on the doctrine of the Trinity. It was a wide-ranging debate and its participants included Anglicans, Roman Catholics, Socinians, deists and Arians. Until recently, however, this controversy had received scant attention from historians. It is only within the last few years that an interest in the trinitarian controversy has emerged: a number of works have appeared on the more notable of the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century anti-trinitarian thinkers, and J. C. D. Clark has pointed out the political implications of anti-trinitarian views. There is, nevertheless, one aspect of the trinitarian controversy which has remained relatively untouched, and that is the debate on the Trinity which raged within the Established Church.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , October 1993 , pp. 631 - 651
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1993

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References

1 ‘On Gilbert, late Bishop of Sarum’, Nottingham University Library, MS Portland PM2V.8, fo. 17. I am grateful to Ian Atherton for this reference.

2 Clark, J. C. D., English Society, 1688–1832, Cambridge 1985, ch. vGoogle Scholar. Works on antitrinitarian thinkers published in the past few years include: Daniel, S., John Toland: his methods, manners and mind, Kingston-Montreal, 1984 Google Scholar; Evans, R. R., Pantheisticon: the career of John Toland, New York 1991 Google Scholar; Farrell, M., The Life and Work of William Whiston, New York 1981 Google Scholar; Force, J., William Whiston: honest Newtonian, Cambridge 1985 Google Scholar. Somewhat older is O'Higgins, J., Anthony Collins: the man and his works, The Hague 1970 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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18 Ibid. 4–6. Woodhead's Socinian refers to the following scriptural passages as contrary to the Trinity: John xiv. 1, 28; xvii. 3; 1 Cor. viii. 6; Eph. iv. 5, 6; Col. i. 15; Rev. iii. 14.

19 Woodhead, , The Protestants Plea, 7 Google Scholar. The Protestant's counter passages are: John i. 1; iii. 13; vi. 38; xvi. 28; xvii. 5, 24; Rom. ix. 5; Phil. ii. 6; 1 Tim. iii. 16; Tit. ii. 13; Heb. i. 2, 3, 10; ii. 14; 1 John v. 20.

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28 Ibid. 4.

29 Idem, Rational Method, 17–18.

30 In actual fact, Burnet declares that these innate ideas ‘were born with my Soul’. I am assuming that Burnet held the birth of the soul to correspond with the birth of the body. But even if this is not the case, what is certain is that Burnet believed the soul to have been created at some point, and was therefore not eternal, as Plato maintained: ibid. 18. The phrase ‘common notices’ was borrowed from More's ‘common notions’. More, in turn, had borrowed it from Chillingworth: Lamprecht, S., ‘Innate ideas in the Cambridge Platonists’, Philosophical Review xxxv, 566 Google Scholar.

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37 Powicke, , Cambridge Platonists, 47–8Google Scholar.

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41 Ibid. 177. Patrides accepts Lichtenstein's argument that the Cambridge Platonists contributed to the rise of deism in the latter part of the century, but emphasises much more than Lichtenstein, ‘the importance attached by Whichcote and his Disciples to the “mystery” at the heart of the Christian faith’: Cambridge Platonists, 17 n. 1, 16–17 Google Scholar.

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46 Reedy, Bible and Reason, passim. Reedy's study focuses on four major Restoration divines – Isaac Barrow, Robert South, Edward Stillingfleet and John Tillotson.

47 Patrides, , Cambridge Platonists, 38 Google Scholar.

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49 Ibid. 88–9. See also idem, Rational Method, 38.

50 Ibid. 82.

51 Ibid.

52 Hutton, Sarah, ‘The neoplatonic roots of Arianism: Ralph Cudworth and Theophilus Gale’, in Szczucki, Lech, Ogonowski, Zbigniew, and Tazbir, Jarrusz (eds), Socinianism and Its Role in the Culture of the XVIth to XVIIth Centuries, Warsaw 1983, 140 Google Scholar. Hutton argues that Cudworth's defence of the Platonic Trinity is unsatisfactory.

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56 Ibid.52. For more on moral certainty in seventeenth-century English thought see Van Leeuwan, H., The Problem of Certainty in English Thought, 1630–1690, The Hague 1963 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shapiro, B., Probability and Certainty in Seventeenth Century England, Princeton 1983 Google Scholar.

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58 Burnet, , Rational Method, 38 Google Scholar.

59 ‘There are three that bear witness in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these three are one’: 1 John v. 7.

60 Burnet, G., Some Letters containing an Account of what seemed most remarkable in Switzerland, Italy, etc., Rotterdam 1686/1687, 53–4Google Scholar.

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63 Hill, Vindication, preface.

64 Clarke, and Foxcroft, , Life of Burnet, 320 Google Scholar. Burnet may have got the idea for these meetings from Henry Compton, bishop of London: Carpenter, E., The Protestant Bishop, London 1956, 61 Google Scholar.

65 Hill heard this particular discourse at Warminster in 1693, but it may well have been delivered on more than one occasion: Vindication, preface.

66 Burnet, G., Four Discourses delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Sarum, London 1694, 26–7Google Scholar.

67 Ibid. 27–8.

68 Ibid.

69 Reedy, , Bible and Reason, 122–4Google Scholar.

70 Ibid. 15.

71 Burnet, , Four Discourses, 29 Google Scholar.

72 Ibid. 31.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid.

75 Ibid. 32.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid. 32–3.

78 Ibid. 33.

79 Ibid. 34.

80 Ibid. 35.

81 Ibid.

82 Hag. ii. 6–9.

83 Burnet, , Four Discourses, 36–7Google Scholar. Such passages include John i. 14; 2 Cor. iii. 18; iv. 4, 6; Heb. i. 3.

84 1 Cor. viii. 5.

85 Burnet, , Four Discourses, 36–7Google Scholar.

86 Ibid. 38.

87 Ibid.

88 Burnet refers to the following passages: Matt. iv. 10; Gal. iv. 8; Phil. ii. 10; Thess. i. 1, 9; Heb. i. 6; Rev. v. 8; xix, 10.

89 Burnet, , Four Discourses, 38–40 Google Scholar.

90 The passages cited are: John v. 21–9; vi. 54; xxi. 17; Rom. ix. 5; 1 Cor. ii. 8; Phil, ii. 6; iii. 21; Col. i. 16, 17; 1 Tim. iii. 16; vi. 17, 18; Tit. ii. 13; James ii. 1; 1 John v. 20; Rev. i. 8.

91 Burnet, , Four Discourses, 44 Google Scholar.

92 Ibid. 44–5.

93 Ibid. 46. Those passages he cites in his favour are: Matt. xx. 28; John i. 29; Rom. iii. 25; iv. 25; v. 6, 10–end; 1 Cor. i. 30; xv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 21; Gal. i. 4; Gal. iii. 13; Eph. i. 7; Col. i. 14, 20–1; Tit. ii. 14; Heb. ix. 8, 11–14, 26, 28; x. 10, 12, 14, 19; xiii. 12, 20; 1 Pet. ii. 24; 1 John ii. 2.

94 Burnet, , Four Discourses, 49 Google Scholar.

95 Ibid. 49–50.

96 Ibid. p. ii.

97 Idem, ‘Autobiography’, 507.

98 High Church attacks on Burnet included Hill, Vindication; Holdsworth, T., Impur Conatui, London 1695 Google Scholar; Leslie, C., Tempora Mutantur, London 1694 Google Scholar.

99 Leslie insisted that the ‘Discourse’ had plainly shown that Burnet was a ‘rank Socinian’, Hill accused Burnet of being both a Socinian and a Sabellian, and Holdsworth argued that Burnet's explanation of the ‘Blessed Three’ could be subscribed to by Sabellians, Arians, Macedonians, Socinians, or an ‘Anti-Trinitarian of any sort’: Leslie, , Tempora Mutantur, 1 Google Scholar; Hill, , Vindication, 9–10 Google Scholar; Holdsworth, , Impur Conatui, 71 Google Scholar.