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Dryden's Religio Laici and Roman Catholic Apologetics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
For more than a quarter of a century now Professor Louis I. Bredvold's Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden has remained the virtually unquestioned authority on the subject. Only recently have a few dissenting voices been raised against Bredvold's thesis that Dryden's religious development, particularly as that is revealed in Religio Laici, was tainted with skepticism and fideism, and that his conversion, first to Anglicanism, and later to Catholicism, was motivated by irrational considerations. The few voices I refer to are those of Thomas H. Fujimara, whose article “Dryden's Religio Laici: An Anglican Poem,” appeared in PMLA in June 1961, and Elias Chiasson, whose essay “Dryden's Apparent Skepticism in Religio Laici” came out in another journal about the same time. Both of these scholars, working independently, demonstrated the orthodoxy of Dryden's Anglicanism with convincing evidence from texts of Anglican writers extending from Hooker to Jeremy Taylor. But can we go along with such a judgment as that which Mr. Fujimara makes in the conclusion of his study—“that Dryden became a Catholic cannot be explained by anything in Religio Laici”? I think not, for reasons which, I trust, will appear in this article.
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References
1 Louis I. Bredvold, The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden: Studies in Some Aspects of Seventeenth-Century Thought (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1934).
2 lxxvi, 205–217.
3 The Harvard Theological Review, liv (July 1961), 207–221.
4 Fujimara still accepts that part of Bredvold's thesis which finds Catholic apologetics of the seventeenth century fideistic; indeed, he identifies Catholicism as such with fideism: “Anglicanism, as a via media, was thus faced with the particularly difficult task of maintaining a proper equilibrium between a purely rational theology (Deism) on the one hand and fideism (Catholicism) and voluntarism (Puritanism) on the other” (p. 207). Chiasson rejects the Bredvoldian thesis both as regards Anglicanism and as regards Catholicism: “From the time of Hooker to the Restoration and beyond, Anglicans continued to assert the central imperatives of this Christian humanism” (p. 208) “which had, in varying degrees and with varying speculative or practical emphases, been common to patristic, medieval, and Renaissance Christendom” (p. 207); “The difficulty of Anglicans with Catholic infallibility was not, generally speaking, a reflection of greater Anglican confidence in the power of human reason, but a resistance to the exclusive character of Catholic claims” (p. 211); “The brunt of Dryden's attack is directed not against reason, but against the rationalism of the Deists” (p. 214); “His traditionalism can be matched at many points within Anglicanism, and constitutes no evidence of scepticism in him” (p. 220). It may, indeed, be argued that a fideistic principle is at the very heart of the Protestant conception of faith as its own justification. See Louis Bouyer, The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism (Westminster, Md., 1957), p. 162.
5 P. 217.
6 The Poetical Works of John Dryden, ed. W. D. Christie (Globe edition), p. liii.
7 Bredvold, p. 120.
8 See Charles E. Ward, “Religio Laici and Father Simon's History,” MLN, lxi (1946), 407–412.
9 Charles E. Ward, The Life of John Dryden (Chapel Hill, N. C., 1961), p. 212. Mr. Ward has brought to light the fact that in the spring of 1682 a person named Dryden bought at auction 28 lots of books, “a considerable portion of them on religion” (p. 357). See, however, T. A. Birrell, “John Dryden's Purchase at Two Book Auctions, 1680 and 1682” (Eng. Studies, xlii, 1961, 193–217), which casts doubt on the identity of the purchaser, pointing out that most of the 146 books were tomes on obscure theological subjects. But this does not rule out our Dryden. This was just the time that the poet would have been interested in such books.
10 See Bredvold, pp. 130 ff. As early as 1660 Davila's History of the Civil Wars in France (Eng. trans., 1647) had suggested to Dryden the parallel of the Leaguers in France and the Covenanters in England (see Astraea Redux, ll. 101–102), and by the time he wrote Absalom and Achitophel (1680) the Whigs were firmly paired with Dissenters and the Tories with Anglicans.
11 Stillingfleet discusses “The Ground of Faith” in Part i of this book, dealing at length with the Bible as the rule of Faith, the place of the Fathers and Councils in the constitution of this rule, the evidence for the Divine inspiration of Scripture, the Catholic Church's claim to infallibility. (See Edward Stillingfleet, Works, ed. Richard Bentley, 6 vols., London, 1710, iv.) Sometimes the parallel is almost literal—e.g., p. 145: “Why hath your present Church so neglected her Talent this way [i.e., for infallibility], that she hath not decided all the Controversies concerning the difficiliora loca?” Cf. Rel. Laici, ll. 284–287: “But if this mother be a guide so sure, / As can all doubt resolve, all truth secure, / Then her infallibility as well / Where copies are corrupt or lame can tell.”
12 Did Dryden's duties as historiographer royal have anything to do with the writing of Religio Laici? Roswell G. Ham, in “Dryden as Historiographer-Royal,” RES, xi (1935), 284–298, argues that “it is probable that Dryden during these years [the 80's] either supervised or composed a number of tracts published ‘by Royal Command.‘ Their identification, while tantalizing, is not impossible” (p. 287). “But what of Absalom and Achitophel, The Medal, and The Bind and the Panther?” he asks. What of Religio Laici?
13 My citations are, and will continue to be, from G. R. Noyes's edition of The Poetical Works of Dryden (Cambridge Edition: Cambridge, Mass., 1950) (the 2nd edition).
14 The Life of John Dryden, pp. 212–213. The quotation from Bredvold may be found on p. 128 of The Intellectual Milieu of John Dryden.
15 Hugh Paulin de Cressy (1605–74) received his B.A. from Oxford in 1623, his M.A. in 1627; he became a Fellow of Merton College and took Anglican orders. He served as chaplain to Lord Wentworth, then to Lucius Cary, Lord Falkland. With the latter he went to Ireland, where he was made Dean of Leighlin. On the death of his patron in 1643 he travelled through several Catholic countries as tutor to Charles Berkeley, and was converted to Catholicism at Rome in 1646. He then went to Paris, where he wrote his Exomologesis. In 1649 he was professed a Benedictine at St. Gregory's, Douay, and c. 1660 returned to England, where he died. Gillow (A Literary and Biographical History … of the English Catholics, 1895, i, 594–596) lists 19 titles from his pen, many of them controversies with Stillingfleet. “The moderate party in the Church of England,” says the Cath. Enc. article on him, “respected him as a prudent and learned man, and when Dr. Stillingfleet charged him with credulity and want of historical judgment, his defense was taken up by Anthony Wood.” See also Butler, Memoirs of Catholics, iv, 423, and the DNB article on him.
16 The full title of the book (second edition) is: Exomologesis: Or, a Faithfull Narration of the Occasion and Motives of the Conversion unto Catholike Unity of Hugh-Paulin De Cressy, Lately Deane of Laghlin, etc. in Ireland, and Prebend of Windsore in England. Now a second time printed; With Additions and Explications, by the same Author, who now calls himself, B. Serenus Cressy, Religious Priest of the holy Order of S. Benedict, in the Convent of S. Gregory in Doway. Paris, MDCLIII. I have read the first edition (1647) too. The second edition has many additions and revisions. “This Exomologesis,” says Anthony Wood (Athenae Oxoniensis, ed. Bliss, London, 1883, iii, 1014), “was the golden calf which the English papists fell down and worshipped. They brag'd that book to be unanswerable, and to have given a total overthrow to Chillingworthians and book and tenets of Lucius Lord Falkland.”
17 Exomologesis, 1647 text, pp. 481–483; 1653 text, pp. 352–354.
18 See ll. 677 ff.
19 Rushworth's Dialogues. Or, the Judgment of Common Sense in the Choyce of Religion. Last Edition, corrected and enlarg'd by Thomas White, Paris, 1654. Wm. Rushworth, or Richworth, was a native of Lincolnshire. Educated at Douay, and ordained priest in 1615, he was sent to England, where he died in 1637. He left in manuscript The Dialogues of Wm. Rushworth; or, the judgmend of common sense in the choise of Religion, published at Paris in 1640. Thomas White (see n. 22 below) added a fourth dialogue; this enlarged book is the edition published in 1654. Chillingworth and Poole replied to the book. See DNB.
20 See p. 194 below for another parallel to these lines.
21 Ll. 258–269 of Rel. Laici: “If Scripture, tho' deriv'd from heav'nly birth, / Has been but carelessly preserv'd on earth; / If God's own people, who of God before / Knew what we know, and had been promis'd more, / In fuller terms, of Heaven's assisting care, / And who did neither time nor study spare / To keep this book untainted, unperplex'd, / Let in gross errors to corrupt the text, / Omitted paragraphs, embroil'd the sense, / With vain traditions stopp'd the gaping fence, / Which every common hand pull'd up with ease; / What safety from such brushwood-helps as these?”
22 An Apology for Rushworth's Dialogues. Wherein the Exceptions of the Lords Falkland and Digby are answer'd: And the Arts of their Commended Daillé Discover'd, Paris, 1654. Thomas White (1593–1676) was a native of Essex, educated at St. Omer's, Valladolid, and Douay. Ordained priest in 1617, he taught theology at Douay, and became president of the English college at Lisbon in 1630. Three years later he returned to England, where he wrote some forty works which caused a bitter controversy. Several of his opinions were censured by the Inquisition in 1655 and 1657. White attacked the Pope's personal infallibility and taught passive obedience to any established government. See DNB and Cath. Enc. for further information.
23 The full title of the book is long: Fiat Lux, or, A general Conduct to a right understanding and charity in the great Combustions and Broils about Religion here in England, Betwixt Papist and Protestant, Presbyterian and Independent. To the end That Moderation and Quietness may at length hapily ensue after so various Tumults in the Kingdom. The second Edition reviewed and enlarged by the Authour Mr. J.V.C. a friend to men of all Religions. John Vincent Canes (d. 1672) became a Catholic at Cambridge. After studying at Douay he entered the English Franciscan convent there, and was made Professor of Philosophy and Divinity. In 1642 he returned to England, living for the most part in London. He was selected by the Catholics to defend their case against Stillingfleet (See DNB). Gillow says (i, 392), “He was an able controversialist, and united to zeal the most delicate forbearance and charity.”
24 Op. cit., p. 86.
25 See n. 29 below for other anticipations of the figure.
26 This man, born c. 1622 in Lincolnshire, after graduation from the University of Cambridge, had become a convert and, following studies at the English college in Lisbon, had been ordained priest in 1650. From 1653 onward he was in England at intervals, “where his missionary labors,” says Gillow (v, 491 ff.), “met with wonderful success. To the conversion of his relatives he added innumerable others.” There was, he adds, no contemporary Protestant writer of any note whom he did not encounter. He even fell afoul of some Catholic divines, notably Dr. Peter Talbot, archbishop of Dublin. Sergeant died in 1701. Gillow lists 59 titles from his pen. See also DNB and Cath. Enc. Was he the John Sergeant whose evidence with regard to the Popish Plot was printed in 1681 by order of the House of Commons? See Malcolm V. Hay, The Jesuits and the Popish Plot (London: Sands and Co., n.d.).
27 The copy I use is marked “second edition,” London, 1665.
28 Op. cit., p. 89. Bredvold concludes that “though Sergeant begins with a great show of reasoning, his conclusions are as inimical to rationalism as were those of Fiat Lux.” To Bredvold there is never any alternative to rationalism except fideism. Sergeant is, on the contrary, in the matter of the relation between reason and faith—the “rational preambles of faith”—completely orthodox and in the main line of Christian theology. (See Vacant et Mangenot, Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, articles credibilité and foi) He writes, for example (Sure-Footing, p. 9): “[Since] none can rationally assent or fix their judgment where there is left some Doubt or Wavering of Judgment, and the Judgment or Assent of Faith must be rational; It follows, that the Rule of Faith, (which is the immediate Producer and Cause of the Assent of Faith) ought to be of that Nature that it must not onely be plain to the ruder sort, but also contain in itself the Seeds of perfect evidence to satisfy those learned Persons who shall more narrowly examin it.”
29 The comparison of reason to light occurs earlier. Cf., for example, Donne's sermon “preached at St. Pauls upon Christmasse day, 1621”: “Before the sunne was made, there was a light which did that office of distinguishing night and day; but when the sunne was created, that did all the offices of the former light, and more. Reason is that first, and primogeniall light, and goes no farther in a naturall man; but in a man regenerate by faith, that light does all that reason did, and more” (Sermons, ed. Potter and Simpson, 1957, iii, 362); Wm. Laud, A Relation of the Conference between Wm. Laud … and Mr. Fisher, the Jesuit, in P. E. More and F. L. Cross (eds.), Anglicanism (Milwaukee, 1935), p. 100.
30 Worsley was born in Lancashire in 1605. After his conversion he taught philosophy, logic, and Scripture at Liège where he served as rector from 1658 to 1662. In 1655 he was a missioner in London. He died at Antwerp in 1676. See DNB and Cath. Enc.
31 The full title of the book is: Protestancy Without Principles, Or, Sectaries Unhappy Fall from Infallibility to Fancy. It is signed “E.W.” Published at Antwerp, 1668.
32 See Richard Bentley's introductory essay to Stillingfleet's Works (1710), i: “The Life and Character of that Eminent and Learned Prelate, the late Dr. Edward Stillingfleet, Lord Bishop of Worcester. Together with some Account of the Works he has Publish'd.”
33 P. 84, n. 21.
34 Pp. 94–95. Chiasson (art. cit., p. 211, n. 23) has a good note on this passage: “Bredvold's treatment of Edward Worsley illustrates the unsatisfactoriness of such exaggerations [of seventeenth century Catholic fideism]. Worsley, a Catholic apologete, defends himself against the allegation of impugning reason by conceding that ‘Reason ever precedes Faith, and is grounded upon those rational motives which Induce to Believe,’ but that ‘Faith, precisely considered as Faith, relies upon a quite different Object, God's pure Revelation.’ Bredvold regards this as a ‘tangle of logic,’ and as a typical example of fideistic apologetic, in spite of the fact that, as this paper shows, this position is common to Hooker and Laud and the majority of Anglicans.” The full title of Worsley's book is: Reason and Religion, or The Certain Rule of Faith. Where the Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church is asserted, against Atheists, Heathens, Jewes, Turks, and all Sectaries. With a Refutation of Mr. Stillingfleet's Many Gross Errours. Antwerp, 1672. It runs to 681 pages. His third book, The Infallibility of the Roman Catholick Church, 1674, adds nothing materially new to the controversy. It is taken up with particular points of Stillingfleet's charges.
35 Wing lists only two copies, both of the second edition (the first may never have appeared)—one at the Chetham Library in Manchester, the other at the Bodleian. My references are to a microfilm copy of the latter.
36 Abraham Woodhead was born in 1609 and educated at University College, Oxford, of which he was elected Fellow in 1633. He was tutor in several noble families; until 1652 he lived in the household of Lord Cappel, later Earl of Essex, who settled an annuity on him for life. By 1654 he had become a Roman Catholic and left the University, but in 1660 he was reinstated in his fellowship, though because of his religion he retired to the country. He enjoyed the fruits of his fellowship until his death in 1678. Daniel Whitby described him as “the most ingenious and solid writer of the whole Roman party,” and Thomas Hearne declared him to be “one of the greatest men that ever this nation produced.” He wrote numerous works, some of them published anonymously, many left in MSS now at Armitage Bridge House, near Huddersfield. See Gillow, DNB, Cath. Enc.
37 Op. cit., p. 126. This is an old chestnut. Cf. Scott, Life of John Dryden (1808), University of Nebraska reprint, 1963, pp. 265–266; Saintsbury, Dryden (1881), pp. 101–102; A. W. Verrall, Lectures on Dryden (1914), p. 156; John Butt, The Augustan Age (1950), p. 24. Chiasson (p. 210, n. 22) comments pertinently: “It is difficult to see why Chillingworth's professed willingness to adopt Roman Catholicism if infallibility were indeed a fact … is consistent with the sturdy rationalism of Chillingworth and Sherlock [as Bredvold argues], and yet that a similar suggestion in Dryden is conclusive evidence of his hankering for authority.”
38 A Rational Account, pp. 375–418. The Fourth Discourse was published separately in 1686 by Henry Hills “With Allowance,” as a pamphlet entitled The Protestant's Plea for a Socinian.
39 There were editions of the Abridgement in 1650, 1671, 1676 (Douay); 1680, 1687 (Basle); 1734, 1788 (London); 1821 (Belfast); 1827, 1828 (Dublin). The Manuel was reissued in 1671 (Douay), 1686 (London), and 1821 (Belfast). Turberville was born in Dorset c. 1607, and educated at Douay, where he was ordained priest. Sent to the English mission, he acted as chaplain to Henry Somerset, first marquis of Worcester, during the Civil War. He died in London in 1678. See DNB and Gillow.
40 The Catholike Scripturist was reprinted in 1686 and again in 1687. A fourth edition came out in 1767, and 3 editions appeared in the 19th century—1801 (Baltimore, Md.), 1808 (Bath), and 1838 (London). Mumford came of an old Catholic family. He was born in Norfolk in 1606, entered the Society of Jesus at St. Omer's in 1626, and was professed in 1641. After teaching at the English college at Liège and at St. Omer's, he was made rector at Liège in 1647. Three years later he was sent to the English mission and stationed at Norwich, where he was imprisoned for some months by parliamentary soldiers. He died in 1666. His writings include, besides The Catholike Scripturist (said to have been written in prison), several ascetical works. See DNB and Gillow (under “Montford”).