The English Church in the Eighteenth Century Part 9

219.]

[Footnote 169: But Shaftesbury was bitterly opposed to one part of Locke's philosophy. 'He was one of the first,' writes Mr. Morell (_History of Modern Philosophy_, i. 203), 'to point out the dangerous influence which Locke's total rejection of all innate practical principles was likely to exert upon the interests of morality.' 'It was Mr. Locke,' wrote Shaftesbury, 'that struck at all fundamentals, threw all order and virtue out of the world, and made the very ideas of these (which are the same as those of G.o.d) unnatural and without foundation in our minds.' See also Bishop Fitzgerald in _Aids to Faith_.]

[Footnote 170: Locke's _Works_, vol. iv. p. 96.]

[Footnote 171: 'My lord, I read the revelation of Holy Scriptures with a full a.s.surance that all it delivers is true.'--Locke's _Works_, vol. iv.

341.]

[Footnote 172: Locke's _Works_, vol. vii. p. 166.]

[Footnote 173: Locke's _Works_, vol. vii. p. 188, Preface to the Reader of 2nd Vindication.]

[Footnote 174: Locke's _Works_, vol. iv. 259, 260.]

[Footnote 175: 'Mr. Locke, the honour of this age and the instructor of the future'.... 'That great philosopher'.... 'It was Mr. Locke's love of it [Christianity] that seems princ.i.p.ally to have exposed him to his pupil's [Lord Shaftesbury's] bitterest insults.'--Dedication of _The Divine Legation_ (first three books) to the Freethinkers.]

[Footnote 176: It is, however, not improbable that Locke contributed to some extent to foster that dry, hard, unpoetical spirit which characterised both the Deistical and anti-Deistical literature, and, indeed, the whole tone of religion in the eighteenth century. 'His philosophy,' it has been said, 'smells of the earth, earthy.' 'It is curious,' writes Mr. Rogers (_Essays_, vol. iii. p. 104, 'John Locke,'

&c.) 'that there is hardly a pa.s.sing remark in all Locke's great work on any of the aesthetical or emotional characteristics of humanity; so that, for anything that appears there, men might have nothing of the kind in their composition. To all the forms of the Beautiful he seems to have been almost insensible.' The same want in the followers of Locke's system, both orthodox and unorthodox, is painfully conspicuous. And again, as Dr. Whewell remarks (_History of Moral Philosophy_, Lecture v.

p. 74) 'the promulgation of Locke's philosophy was felt as a vast accession of strength by the lower, and a great addition to the difficulty of their task by the higher school of morality.' The lower or utilitarian school of morality, which held that morals are to be judged solely by their consequences, was largely followed in the eighteenth century, and contributed not a little to the low moral and spiritual tone of the period.]

[Footnote 177: The Calvinistic controversy was more bitter, but it belonged to the second, not the first half of the century.]

[Footnote 178: 'They attacked a scientific problem without science, and an historical problem without history.'--Mr. J.C. Morison's Review of Leslie Stephen's 'History of English Thought' in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for February 1877.]

[Footnote 179: See Bishop Butler's charge to the clergy of Durham, 1751.--'A great source of infidelity plainly is, the endeavour to get rid of religious restraints.']

[Footnote 180: Mr. Leslie Stephen, _Essays on Freethinking and Plain Speaking_. On Shaftesbury's 'Characteristics.'--'The Deists were not only pilloried for their heterodoxy, but branded with the fatal inscription of "dulness."' This view is amplified in his larger work, published since the above was written.]

[Footnote 181: _Aids to Faith_, p. 44.]

[Footnote 182: In a brilliant review of Mr. Leslie Stephen's work in _Macmillan's Magazine_, February 1877, Mr. James Cotter Morison remarks on the Deists' view that natural religion must be always alike plain and perspicuous, 'against this convenient opinion the only objection was that it contradicted the total experience of the human race.']

[Footnote 183: Monk's _Life of Bentley_, vol. i. See also Berkeley's _Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher_, 107.]

[Footnote 184: Advertis.e.m.e.nt to the first edition of _The a.n.a.logy_, p.

xiv. See also Swift's description of the d.u.c.h.ess of Marlborough, in _Last four Years of Queen Anne_, bk. i. The first and most prominent subject of Bishop Butler's 'Durham Charge,' is 'the general decay of religion,' 'which,' he says, 'is now observed by everyone, and has been for some time the complaint of all serious persons' (written in 1751).

The Bishop then instructs his clergy at length how this sad fact is to be dealt with; in fact this, directly or indirectly, is the topic of the whole Charge.]

[Footnote 185: He wrote to Courayer in 1726,--'No care is wanting in our clergy to defend the Christian Faith against all a.s.saults, and I believe no age or nation has produced more or better writings, &c.... This is all we can do. Iniquity in practice, G.o.d knows, abounds,' &c.]

[Footnote 186: Watson's _Life of Warburton_, p. 293.]

[Footnote 187: _Guardian_, No. 3.]

[Footnote 188: _Guardian_, No. 88.]

[Footnote 189: _Examiner_, x.x.xix. See also Charles Leslie's _Theological Works_, vol. ii. 533.]

[Footnote 190: _Tatler_, No. 108.]

[Footnote 191: _Tatler_, No. 137.]

[Footnote 192: See _Amelia_, bk. i. ch. iii. &c.]

[Footnote 193: Dedication of first three books of the _Divine Legation_.

See also Pattison's Essay in _Essays and Reviews_.]

[Footnote 194: Farrar's _Bampton Lectures_, 'History of Free Thought.']

CHAPTER IV.

LAt.i.tUDINARIAN CHURCHMANSHIP.

(1) CHARACTER AND INFLUENCE OF ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON'S THEOLOGY.

'Lat.i.tudinarian' is not so neutral a term as could be desired. It conveys an implication of reproach and suspicion, by no means ungrounded in some instances, but very inappropriate when used of men who must count among the most distinguished ornaments of the English Church. But no better t.i.tle suggests itself. The eminent prelates who were raised to the bench in King William III.'s time can no longer, without ambiguity, be called 'Low Churchmen,' because the Evangelicals who succeeded to the name belong to a wholly different school of thought from the Low Churchmen of an earlier age; nor 'Whigs,' because that sobriquet has long been confined to politics; nor 'Broad Churchmen,' because the term would be apt to convey a set of ideas belonging to the nineteenth more than to the eighteenth century. It only remains to divest the word as far as possible of its polemical a.s.sociations, and to use it as denoting what some would call breadth, others Lat.i.tudinarianism of religious and ecclesiastical opinion.

There were many faulty elements in the Lat.i.tudinarianism of the eighteenth century. Those who dreaded and lamented its advances found it no difficult task to show that sometimes it was connected with Deistical or with Socinian or Arian views, sometimes with a visionary enthusiasm, sometimes with a weak and nerveless religion of sentiment. They could point also to the obvious fact that thorough scepticism, or even mere irreligion, often found a decent veil under plausible professions of a liberal Christianity. There were some, indeed, who, in the excitement of hostility or alarm, seemed to lose all power of ordinary discrimination.

Much in the same way as every 'freethinker' was set down as a libertine or an atheist, so also many men of undoubted piety and earnestness who had done distinguished services in the Christian cause, and who had greatly contributed to raise the repute of the English Church, were constantly ranked as Lat.i.tudinarians in one promiscuous cla.s.s with men to whose principles they were utterly opposed. But, after making all allowance for the unfortunate confusion thus attached to the term, the fact remains that the alarm was not unfounded. Undoubtedly a lower form of Lat.i.tudinarianism gained ground, very deficient in some important respects. Just in the same way as, before the middle of the century, a sort of spiritual inertness had enfeebled the vigour of High Churchmen on the one hand and of Nonconformists on the other, so also it was with the Lat.i.tude men. After the first ten or fifteen years of the century the Broad Church party in the Church of England was in no very satisfactory state. It had lost not only in spirit and energy, but also in earnestness and piety. Hoadly, Herring, Watson, Blackburne, all showed the characteristic defect of their age--a want of spiritual depth and fervour. They needed a higher elevation of motive and of purpose to be such leaders as could be desired of what was in reality a great religious movement.

For, whatever may have been its deficiencies, there was no religious movement of such lasting importance as that which from the latter part of the seventeenth until near the end of the eighteenth century was being carried on under the opprobrium of Lat.i.tudinarianism. The Methodist and Evangelical revival had, doubtless, greater visible and immediate consequences. Much in the same way, some of the widespread monastic revivals of the Middle Ages were more visible witnesses to the power of religion, and more immediately conducive to its interests, than the silent current of theological thought which was gradually preparing the way for the Reformation. But it was these latter influences which, in the end, have taken the larger place in the general history of Christianity. The Lat.i.tudinarianism which had already set in before the Revolution of 1688, unsatisfactory as it was in many respects, probably did more than any other agency in directing and gradually developing the general course of religious thought. Its importance may be intimated in this, that of all the questions in which it was chiefly interested there is scarcely one which has not started into fresh life in our own days, and which is not likely to gain increasing significance as time advances. Church history in the seventeenth century had been most nearly connected with that of the preceding age; it was still directly occupied with the struggles and contentions which had been aroused by the Reformation. That of the eighteenth century is more nearly related to the period which succeeded it. In the sluggish calm that followed the abatement of old controversies men's minds reverted anew to the wide general principles on which the Reformation had been based, and, with the loss of power which attends uncertainty, were making tentative efforts to improve and strengthen the superstructure. 'Intensity,' as has been remarked, 'had for a time done its work, and was now giving place to breadth; when breadth should be natural, intensity might come again.'[195] The Lat.i.tude men of the last age can only be fairly judged in the light of this. Their immediate plans ended for the most part in disappointing failure. It was perhaps well that they did, as some indeed of the most active promoters of them were fain to acknowledge. Their proposed measures of comprehension, of revision, of reform, were often defective in principle, and in some respects as one-sided as the evils they were intended to cure. But if their ideas were not properly matured, or if the time was not properly matured for them, they at all events contained the germs of much which may be realised in the future.

Meanwhile the comprehensive spirit which is absolutely essential in a national Church was kept alive. The Church of England would have fallen, or would have deserved to fall, if a narrow exclusiveness had gained ground in it without check or protest.

It is proposed to invite, in this chapter, a more particular attention to the writings of Archbishop Tillotson. He lived and died in the seventeenth century, but is an essential part of the Church history of the eighteenth. The most general sketch of its characteristics would be imperfect without some reference to the influence which his life and teaching exercised upon it. Hallam contrasts the great popularity of his sermons for half a century with the utter neglect into which they have now fallen, as a remarkable instance of the fickleness of religious taste.[196] Something must certainly be attributed to change of taste.

If Tillotson were thoroughly in accord with our own age in thought and feeling, the mere difference of his style from that which pleases the modern ear would prevent his having many readers. He is reckoned diffuse and languid, greatly deficient in vigour and vivacity. How different was the tone of criticism in the last age! Dryden considered that he was indebted for his good style to the study of Tillotson's sermons.[197]

Robert Nelson spoke of them as the best standard of the English language.[198] Addison expressed the same opinion, and thought his writing would form a proper groundwork for the dictionary which he once thought of compiling.[199]

But it was not the beauty and eloquence of language with which Tillotson was at one time credited that gave him the immense repute with which his name was surrounded; neither is it a mere change of literary taste that makes a modern reader disinclined to admire, or even fairly to appreciate, his sermons. He struck the key-note which in his own day, and for two generations or more afterwards, governed the predominant tone of religious reasoning and sentiment. In the substance no less than in the form of his writings men found exactly what suited them--their own thoughts raised to a somewhat higher level, and expressed just in the manner which they would most aspire to imitate. His sermons, when delivered, had been exceedingly popular. We are told of the crowds of auditors and the fixed attention with which they listened, also of the number of clergymen who frequented his St. Laurence lectures, not only for the pleasure of hearing, but to form their minds and improve their style. He was, in fact, the great preacher of his time. Horace Walpole, writing in 1742, compared the throngs who flocked to hear Whitefield to the concourse which used to gather when Tillotson preached.[200] The literature of the eighteenth century abounds in expressions of respect for his character and admiration of his sermons. Samuel Wesley said that he had brought the art of preaching 'near perfection, had there been as much of life as there is of politeness and generally of cool, clear, close reasoning and convincing arguments.'[201] Even John Wesley puts him in the very foremost rank of great preachers.[202] Robert Nelson specially recommended his sermons to his nephew 'for true notions of religion.[203] 'I like,' remarked Sir Robert Howard, 'such sermons as Dr. Tillotson's, where all are taught a plain and certain way of salvation, and with all the charms of a calm and blessed temper and of pure reason are excited to the uncontroverted, indubitable duties of religion; where all are plainly shown that the means to obtain the eternal place of happy rest are those, and no other, which also give peace in the present life; and where everyone is encouraged and exhorted to learn, but withal to use his own care and reason in working out his own salvation.'[204] Bishop Fleetwood exclaims of him that 'his name will live for ever, increasing in honour with all good and wise men.'[205] Locke called him 'that ornament of our Church, that every way eminent prelate.' In the 'Spectator' his sermons are among Sir Roger de Coverley's favourites.[206] In the 'Guardian'[207] Addison tells how 'the excellent lady, the Lady Lizard, in the s.p.a.ce of one summer furnished a gallery with chairs and couches of her own and her daughter's working, and at the same time heard Dr. Tillotson's sermons twice over.' In the 'Tatler' he is spoken of as 'the most eminent and useful author of his age.'[208] His sermons were translated into Dutch, twice into French, and many of them into German. Even in the last few years of the eighteenth century we find references to his 'splendid talents.'[209]

But, as a rule, the writers of the eighteenth century seem unable to form anything like a calm estimate of the eminent bishop. Many were lavish in their encomiums; a minority were extravagant in censures and expressions of dislike. His gentle and temperate disposition had not saved him from bitter invectives in his lifetime, which did not cease after his death. He was set down by his opponents as 'a freethinker.' In the violent polemics of Queen Anne's reign this was a charge very easily incurred, and, once incurred, carried with it very grave implications.

By what was apt to seem a very natural sequence Dean Hickes called the good primate in downright terms an atheist.[210] Charles Leslie speaks of him as 'that unhappy man,'[211] and said he was 'owned by the atheistical wits of all England as their primate and apostle.'[212] Of course opinions thus promulgated by the leaders of a party descended with still further distortion to more ignorant partisans. Tom Tempest in the 'Idler' believes that King William burned Whitehall that he might steal the furniture, and that Tillotson died an atheist.[213] John Wesley, as has been already observed, held the Archbishop in much respect. He was too well read a man to listen to misrepresentations on such a matter, too broad and liberal in his views to be scared at the name of Lat.i.tudinarian, too deeply impressed with the supreme importance of Christian morality to judge anyone harshly for preaching 'virtue' to excess. But Whitefield and Seward were surpa.s.sed by none in the unsparing nature of their attack on Tillotson, 'that traitor who sold his Lord.'[214] It is fair to add that later in life Whitefield regretted the use of such terms, and owned that 'his treatment of him had been far too severe.'[215] With many of the Evangelicals Tillotson was in great disfavour. It is not a little remarkable that a divine who had been constantly extolled as a very pattern of Christian piety and Christian wisdom should by them be systematically decried as little better than a heathen moralist.

The foregoing instances may serve to ill.u.s.trate the important place which Tillotson held in the religious history of the eighteenth century.

They may suffice to show that while there was an extraordinary diversity of opinion as to the character of the influence he had exercised--while some loved and admired him and others could scarcely tolerate the mention of him--all agreed that his life and writings had been a very important element in directing the religious thought of his own and the succeeding age. His opponents were very willing to acknowledge that he was greatly respected by Nonconformists. Why not? said they, when he and his party are half Presbyterians, and would 'bring the Church into the Conventicle or the Conventicle into the Church.'[216] They allowed still more readily that he was constantly praised by Rationalists and Deists. Collins put a formidable weapon into their hands when he called Tillotson 'the head of all freethinkers.'[217] But they also had to own that in authority as well as in station he had been eminently a leader in the English Church. A majority of the bishops, and many of the most distinguished among them, had followed his lead. The great bulk of the laity had honoured him in his lifetime, and continued to revere his memory. Men like Locke, and Somers, and Addison were loud in his praise.

Even those who were accustomed to regard the Low Churchmen of their age as 'amphibious trimmers' or 'Lat.i.tudinarian traditors' were by no means unanimous in dispraise of Tillotson. Dodwell had spoken of him with esteem; and Robert Nelson, who was keenly alive to 'the infection of Lat.i.tudinarian teaching,' not only maintained a lifelong friendship with him, and watched by him at his death, but also, as was before mentioned, referred to his sermons for sound notions of religion.

A study of Tillotson's writings ought to throw light upon the general tendency of religious thought which prevailed in England during the half-century or more through which their popularity lasted; for there can be no doubt that his influence was not of a kind which depends on great personal qualities. He was a man who well deserved to be highly esteemed by all with whom he came in contact. But in his gentle and moderate disposition there was none of the force and fire which compels thought into new channels, and sways the minds of men even, against their will. With sound practical sense, with pure, unaffected piety, and in unadorned but persuasive language, he simply gave utterance to religious ideas in a form which to a wide extent satisfied the reason and came home to the conscience of his age. Those, on the other hand, who most distrusted the direction which such ideas were taking, held in proportionate aversion the primate who had been so eminent a representative of them.

Tillotson was universally regarded both by friends and foes as 'a Lat.i.tude man.' His writings, therefore, may well serve to exemplify the moderate Lat.i.tudinarianism of a thoughtful and religious English Churchman at the beginning of the eighteenth century.

Perhaps the first thing that will strike a reader of his works is the constant appeal on all matters of religion to reason. That Christianity is 'the best and the holiest, the wisest and the most reasonable religion in the world;'[218] that 'all the precepts of it are reasonable and wise, requiring such duties of us as are suitable to the light of nature, and do approve themselves to the best reason of mankind'[219]--such is the general purport of the arguments by which he most trusts to persuade the heart and the understanding. And how, on the other hand, could he better meet the infidelity of the age than by setting himself 'to show the unreasonableness of atheism and of scoffing at religion?' If the appeal to reason will not persuade, what will?

The primary and sovereign place a.s.signed to reason in Tillotson's conception of man as a being able to know and serve G.o.d involved some consequences which must be mentioned separately, though they are closely connected with one another.