 Section XI of Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy, Volume I by John Tulloch. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter IV. John Hales of Eaton. Religion and Dogmatic Orthodoxy, Part III. The acknowledged writings of Hales are contained in three small volumes, edited by Lord Hales, Sir D. Dalrymple, and published at Glasgow about the middle of the last century by the well-known printers of the name of Fulis. During his lifetime he published, or permitted to be published, only one or two sermons which he had preached at Oxford and St. Paul's Cross, and a sermon on duels which he had preached at The Hague. The tract on schism was also published during his lifetime, apparently in an unauthorized form. After his death his friend Mr. Farrandon undertook to prepare a collection of his writings and to prefix to it a memoir. But in writing to the London Bookseller who had urged him on the subject he says, I am like Mr. Hales in this, which was one of his defects not to pen anything till I must needs. The result was that he died before he had completed his preparations. Dr. Pearson, the well-known Bishop of Chester, so far took up his unfinished task, and the golden remains of the ever-memorable Mr. John Hales of Eaton College, etc., appeared in 1659 but without any memoir. The bishop prefixed, however, any pistol to the reader in which he drew a careful character of the author, from which we have already quoted. Pearson can exceed the enthusiastic admiration of this well-known and highly orthodox divine for Hales' genius, learning, and theological capacity. He was a man, he thinks, of as great a sharpness, quickness, and subtlety of wit as ever this or perhaps any nation bred, and, as a Christian, none was ever more acquainted with the nature of the gospel because none more studious of the knowledge of it or more curious in the search. The following additional sentences from Bishop Pearson's Elogeum on Hales, to which allusions will be found in the text, may be quoted. Quote, his industry did strive, if it were possible, to equal the largeness of his capacity, whereby he became as great a master of polite, various, and universal learning as ever yet conversed with books. Proportionate to his reading was his meditation, which furnished him with a judgment beyond the vulgar reach of man, built upon unordinary notions raised out of strange observations and comprehensive thoughts within himself, so that he really was a most prodigious example of an acute and piercing wit of a vast and illimited knowledge of a severe and profound judgment. Close quote, end of footnote. Second and third editions of the remains appeared in 1673 and 1688, and also, in 1677, a new volume containing several additional tracks without preface or advertisement. On Lord Hales's edition, which professes to be complete, all these writings are collected and presented in a uniform shape, prefaced by various testimonies concerning the author. The value of Hales's writings consists not in any elaborate treatment of theological questions, but in the singular spirit of enlightenment and calm penetrating comprehensive wisdom which pervade them. They contain no special treatise to which subsequent ages have appealed as a model of theological exposition or argument. They are only tracks, sermons, or letters, and the sermons are neither rich with the jeweled eloquence of a Jeremy Taylor, nor weighty with the solid reasoning and systematic power of a barrow. But there is, in all our author's writings, exactly that which so many theological writings want—the light of a bright, open-eyed, candid intelligence, which sees frequently far beyond the range of the most powerful systematic intellect straight to the truth—an acute and piercing wit, a wise, calm and profound judgment. A great reader and student, versed in a various and even, according to Bishop Pearson, a universal erudition, he is yet entirely free from the pedantry of learning, a rare attainment for his age. His accumulated knowledge of books and systems never encumbers him. He never or rarely uses it as materials of exposition or stuff for dilating and parading arguments in themselves worthless after the prevailing fashion. But all his knowledge has become an enriching basis of his own thought and raises him above the vulgar reach of man to see for himself clearly and widely. It has entered into the very life of his quick and genial intellect and contributes to the wealth of his meditative insight and his tolerant, comprehensive, and sweetly-tempered genius. The simplicity and breadth of his religious thought are astonishing for his time. He goes to the heart of controversies and distinguishes with a delicate and summary skill the essential from the accidental in religion as in other things. Hales's works may be said to be of two classes—miscellaneous tracts and pieces, such as mostly Phil I of the three volumes to which we have adverted—and sermons, which compose the greater part of the two remaining volumes. About the half of the third volume is occupied by his Letters from the Synod of Dort. These letters, of course, with the exception of his Oratio few-neighbors on the founder of the Bodleian Library, are the earliest of all his writings. As to the others, it is impossible to fix their relative chronological position. We have already given our reasons for believing that the most significant of his undated tracts, that on the Lord's Supper, belongs to about the same period as his tract on Schism, and most of his sermons probably belong to the same or a still earlier period, although not collected nor with a single exception published till long afterwards. The Sermon of Duels, which he preached while resident at the Hague, and a Footnote. There is no evidence of his writing anything after the commencement of the troubles in which he and his friends are so directly involved, and no trace in the volumes of allusion to subsequent events or the special controversies which they called forth. It is impossible, therefore, and unnecessary to attempt any further arrangement of his writings. His favorite ideas are scattered here and there through them all, now simplified and popularly illustrated in a sermon, and now urged with more brevity, sharpness, and incision in a tract. We shall accordingly draw our quotations from them as may suit our purpose and endeavor to present his ideas under some sequence of thought or subject rather than in any order of growth or time. One. The first aspect of his teaching which deserves attention is his clear exposition of the principle more or less underlying all his thought, that theological or dogmatic differences are not really religious differences and should not break the unity of common faith and worship. All theological opinion implies certain human additions to the religious element, certain conceits of men, which in their very nature provoke and admit of diversity of criticism. But this diversity is no ground of religious separation. There is no reason why men of very differing opinions in such matters should not worship together. The liberty of judging, which Hales took to himself, he not only extended to all, but he felt that such liberty was an inherent Christian right, which it was the business of the Church not only to tolerate, but, so to speak, to educate and find room for. It was not difference of opinion which the Church had to fear, but the hardness and perversity of will which turned such difference into a cause of un-Christian estrangement. Truth and error were, after all, each man's own responsibility, and even those who fell into error might be nearer the truth in spirit than those who professed to hold it. He thought, says Clarendon, that other men were more in fault for their carriage towards them than the men themselves who erred, and he thought that pride and passion, more than conscience, were the cause of all separation from each other's communion, and he frequently said that that only kept the world from agreeing upon such a liturgy as might bring them into one communion. This is the keynote of a great deal of his writing. It is not the variety of opinions, he says in one of his sermons, but our own perverse wills, who think it meet that all should be conceited as ourselves are, which have so inconvenienced the church. Were we not so ready to anathematize each other, where we concur not in opinion, we might in hearts be united, though in our tongues we were divided, and that with singular profit to all sides. It is the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace, Ephesians 4-3, and not identity of conceit which the Holy Ghost requires at the hands of Christians." Then he gives an instance in which there is plainly a reminiscence of the Synod of Dort. I will give you one instance in which at this day our churches are at variance. The will of God and his manner of proceeding in predestination is undissurnable, and shall so remain until that day wherein all knowledge shall be made perfect. Yet some there are who, with probability of scripture, teach that the true cause of the final miscarriage of them that perish is that original corruption that befell them at the beginning, increased through the neglect or refusal of grace offered. Others, with no less favorable countenance of scripture, make the cause of reprobation only the will of God, determining freely of his own work as himself pleases without respect to any second cause whatsoever. Were we not ambitiously minded every one to be lord of a sect, each of these tenets might be profitably taught and heard, and matter of singular exhortation drawn from either. For on the one part doubtless it is a pious and religious intent to endeavor to free God from all imputation of unnecessary rigor and his justice from seeming injustice and incongruity, and on the other side it is a noble resolution so to humble ourselves under the hand of Almighty God as that we can with patience hear, yea, think at an honor that so base creatures as ourselves should become the instruments of the glory of so great a majesty, whether it be by eternal life or by eternal death, though for no other reason but for God's good will and pleasure's sake. The authors of these conceits might both freely, if peaceably speak their minds, and both singularly profit the church. For since it is impossible, where scripture is ambiguous, that all conceits should run alike, it remains that we seek out a way not so much to establish an unity of opinion in the minds of all, which I take to be a thing likewise impossible as to provide that multiplicity of conceit troubled not the church's peace. A better way my conceit cannot reach unto than that we would be willing to think that these things, which with some show of probability we deduce from scripture, are at the best but our opinions, for this peremptory manner of setting down our own conclusions under this high commanding form of necessary truths, is generally one of the greatest causes which keeps the churches this day so far asunder, when, as a gracious receiving of each other by mutual forbearance in this kind, might per-adventure in time bring them nearer together. This mode of thought is now sufficiently familiar, but it was far from familiar in Hale's time, and it may be inferred from his letters that it had only gradually grown up in his mind as the fruit of much reflection and experience of religious controversy. His spiritual insight, his sense, moderation, and candid deference to facts had borne him out of the current of religious partisanship and opened up to him a higher vision than was common to his contemporaries. His mind was evidently in continual quest of truth. He did not take up his opinions and then no more trouble himself to examine them. He was continually going deeper in search of principles and mastering them with a clearer sight so as to recognize their true meaning and bearing and the modifications which they undergo. A healthy modesty and constantly penetrating and subtle delicacy and consequence mark his conclusions. He is reverential in the highest sense, and yet keenly original. He is reserved, and yet he speaks out his mind in the face of what he must have known to be cherished prejudices. There is a highly important passage from the tract on schism on the same subject. It hath been the common disease of Christians from the beginning not to content themselves with that measure of faith which God and the Scripture have expressly afforded us, but out of a vain desire to know more than is revealed they have attempted to discuss things of which we can have no light, neither from reason nor revelation. Neither have they rested here, but upon pretence of church authority, which is none, or tradition, which for the most part is but figment, they have peremptorily concluded and confidently opposed upon others a necessity of entertaining conclusions of that nature, and to strengthen themselves have broken out into divisions and factions opposing man to man, synod to synod, till the peace of the church vanished without all possibility of recall. Hence arose those ancient and many separations amongst Christians occasioned by Arianism, Eutichianism, Nestorianism, Photinianism, Sibelianism, and many more, both ancient and in our time, all which indeed are but names of schism, howsoever, in the common language of the fathers they were called heresies. For heresy is an act of the will, not of reason, and is indeed a lie, not a mistake, else how could that known speech of Austen go for true, Herare, Possum, Hereticus, Essenolo. Indeed, Manichaeism, Valentinianism, Marcianism, Muhammadinism are truly and properly heresies, for we know that the authors of them received them not, but minted them themselves, and so knew that which they taught to be a lie. But can any man avouch that Arius and Nestorius, and others that taught erroneously concerning the Trinity, or the person of our Saviour, did maliciously invent what they taught and not rather fall upon it by error and mistake? Till that be done, and that upon good evidence, we will think no worse of all parties than needs we must, and take these rents in the church to be at the worst but schisms upon matter of opinion. In which case what we are to do is not a point of any great depth of understanding to discover, so be distemper and partiality do not intervene. I do not yet see that Opinionum varietas et Opiniantium unitas are hasustata, or that men of different opinions in Christian religion may not hold communion in sacras and both go to one church. Why may not I go, if occasion require, to an Arian church, so there be no Arianism expressed in their liturgy? And were liturgies and public forms of service so framed as that they admitted not of particular and private fancies, but contained only such things as in which all Christians do agree schisms on Opinion were utterly vanished? For consider of all the liturgies that are or ever have been, and remove from them whatsoever is scandalous to any party, and leave nothing but what all agree on, and the event shall be that the public service and honor of God shall no ways suffer, whereas to load our public forms with the private fancies upon which we differ is the most sovereign way to perpetuate schism unto the world's end. Prayer, confession, thanksgiving, reading of scripture, exposition of scripture, administration of sacraments in the plainest and simplest manner, were matter enough to furnish out a sufficient liturgy, though nothing either of private opinion or of church pomp, of garments, of prescribed gestures, of imagery, of music, of matter concerning the dead, of many superfluities which creep into the churches under the name of order and decency, did interpose itself. For to charge churches and liturgies with things unnecessary was the first beginning of all superstition, and when scruples of conscience began to be made or pretended, then schisms began to break in. If the spiritual guides and fathers of the church would be a little sparing of encumbering churches with superfluities and not over rigid, either in reviving obsolete customs or imposing new, there were far less danger of schism or superstition, and all the inconvenience were likely to ensue would be but this, they should in so doing yield a little to the imbecilities of inferiors, a thing which Saint Paul would never have refused to do. Meanwhile, wheresoever false or suspected opinions are made a piece of the church liturgy, he that separates is not the schismatic, for it is alike unlawful to make profession of known or suspected falsehoods as to put in practice unlawful or suspected actions. 2. The great practical question of church authority here suggested is the next under which we may sum up Hales's views. He thus briefly speaks of bishops and their due position. They do but abuse themselves and others that would persuade us that bishops by Christ's institution have any superiority over other men further than of reverence, or that any bishop is superior to another further than positive order as agreed upon amongst Christians hath prescribed, for we have believed them that hath told us that in Jesus Christ there is neither high nor low, and that in giving honour every man should be ready to prefer another before himself. Romans 12.10. Which, saying, cuts off all claim most certainly to superiority by title of Christianity, except men can think that these things were spoken only to poor and private persons. Nature and religion agree in that neither of them hath a hand in this heraldry of secundum sub et supra. All this comes from composition and agreement of men among themselves. This and the preceding passage are amongst the most decisive in the famous tract on Schism, which only extends in all to twenty ordinary pages. It is somewhat astonishing to reflect now how much noise this tract made, not only when first written and circulated amongst Hales's friends, but afterwards when republished amongst his golden remains on the eve of the Restoration. The pen combat betwixt Andrew Marvel and Parker Bishop of Oxford on the subject was only one of several manifestations of the interest which had excited at this later period and the significance attached to its utterances. Stillingfleet quotes it at length and with high appreciation in his ironicum, and, as late as 1678, a probendary of Exeter, Thomas Long B.D., published an elaborate examination and censure of it. Its very brevity and the light felicity and sense with which it touched a thorny subject contributed to its circulation and influence. The opening sentences very well represent these characteristics of the writer. Heresy and schism, as they are in common use, are two theological mormos or scarecros, which they who uphold a party and religion used to fright away such as making inquiry into it are ready to relinquish and oppose it if it appear either erroneous or suspicious. For, as Plutarch reports of a painter who, having unskillfully painted a cock, chased away all cocks and hens, that so the imperfection of his art might not appear by comparison with nature, so men willing for ends to admit of no fancy but their own and ever to hinder an inquiry into it by way of comparison of somewhat with it, per adventure truer, that so the deformity of their own might not appear. He defines schism as, an unnecessary separation of Christians from that part of the visible church of which they were once members. It is ecclesiastical sedition or a willful and open violence against that communion which is the strength and good of all society, sacred and civil. Yet the great benefit of communion notwithstanding there are occasions on which consent were conspiracy and open contestation is not fraction or schism but due Christian animosity, and these occasions are when either false or uncertain conclusions are obtruded for truth and acts either unlawful or ministering just scruple are required to be performed. While therefore speaking generally it is a crime hardly pardonable to break the knot of union amongst Christians, yet in speaking of schisms in particular many things are to be considered and the judgments of antiquity by no means to be accepted without hesitation. There may be a schism where the real schismatic is not he that separates but he that causes the separation, and again there may be a schism where both parties are the schismatics. He then explains with some detail that all schisms have crept into the church by one of three ways, either upon matter of fact or matter of opinion or point of ambition. He takes in illustration of the first mode of schism the question of Easter as controverted in the early church. This matter he says, quote, the most unnecessary, most vain, yet caused as great a combustion as ever was in the church, the West separating and refusing communion with the East for many years together. In this fantastical hurry I cannot see but all the world are schismatics, neither can anything excuse them from that imputation excepting only this, that we charitably suppose that all parties out of conscience did what they did, close quote. From the Donatist schism, on the other hand, the blame is found to lie on one side. The Donatists were plainly the schismatics, yet he sees no reason why either of these questions should have broken the unity of the church. Quote, for why might it not be lawful to go to church with the Donatist, or to celebrate Easter with a Quarto Deciman, if occasion so require? Since neither nature nor religion nor reason does suggest anything to the contrary, for in all public meetings, pretending holiness, so there be nothing done but what true devotion and piety brook why may not I be present in them and use communication with them, close quote. The two further grounds of schism, variety of opinion and episcopal ambition, he expounds with special interest, but we have already quoted the main passages of this exposition. From the general purport and tone of the tract it seems hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that Hales had in view the state of the Church of England at the time he was writing, and that he condemned by implication the arbitrary exercise of ecclesiastical authority then so prevalent. Insofar, therefore, as he yielded to the personal influence of lawd, or turned aside the obvious application of the great truths laid down by him, he must be accused of timidity. To some extent, no doubt, he merits the accusation. The apologetic tone of his letter on the occasion has been already condemned, yet it is only fair to him to show that, notwithstanding all the deference of his personal attitude and his lack of courage, he did not in any respect compromise his principles. While having no wish for himself to dispute the fact of ecclesiastical authority, he still claimed to have his own opinion as to the origin of this authority, and only to yield to it insofar as his conscience and reason dictated. His language plainly enough implies that he did not abandon his position as to the natural source of ecclesiastical power, although he did not choose to urge it further. Let titles of honor and dominion go as the providence of God will have, yet quiet and peaceable men will not fail of their obedience. No more will I have ought, so be that God in good conscience command not the contrary. A higher degree of duty I do not see how any man can demand at my hands, for, whereas the exception of good conscience sounds not well with many men, because off times under that form pertinacity and wilfulness is suspected to couch itself. In this case it concerns every man sincerely to know the truth of his own heart, and so accordingly to determine of his own way whatever the judgment of his superiors be, or whatsoever event befall him. For since, in case of conscience, many times there is a necessity to fall either into the hands of men or into the hands of God, of these two whether is the best I leave every particular man to judge, only I will add this much. It is a fearful thing to trifle with conscience, for most assuredly, according unto it, a man shall stand or fall at the last." 3. His rational attitude and clear sober-mindedness are especially marked in the two tracks on the Lord's supper and on the power of the keys. In both he goes very plainly and directly at his point. The first has been already characterized as one of the most significant of Hale's's writings. It is so in its treatment of the sacrament of the supper, but particularly in what it says of the relation of general councils or assemblies to Christian dogma, or the settlement of Christian truth. The full title of the tract is, On the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper and Concerning the Church's Mistaking Itself about Fundamentals. Hale's controversy equally the Romanist and current Protestant view of the Lord's Supper. The latter no less than the former appears to him to imply that the words of consecration are not a mere trope, but really add something to the nature of the right. In his view the words are entirely figurative, and the right complete without them. In instituting the holy ceremony our Lord commands us to do what he did, but, quote, leaves us no precept of saying any words. Neither, he adds, will it be made appear that either the blessed apostles or primitive Christians had any such custom, nay the contrary will be made probably to appear out of some of the ancient astritings of the church's ceremonials. Our Saviour indeed used the words, but it was to express what his meaning was. Had he barely acted the thing, without expressing himself by some such form of words, we could never have known what it was he did. But what necessity is there now of so doing? For when the congregation is met together to the breaking of bread and prayer and see bread and wine upon the communion table, is there any man can doubt of the meaning of it, although the canon be not read? It was the further solemnizing and beautifying that holy action which brought the canon in, and not an opinion of adding anything to the substance of the action. For that the words were used by our Saviour to work anything upon the bread and wine, can never out of scripture or reason be deduced, and beyond these two I have no ground for my religion, neither in substance nor in ceremony." St. Ambrose seems to be responsible for the prevalent mistake. It was he who said, and posterity have too generally applauded the maxim, exced at verbum ad elementum, ad fiat sacramentum. But this is, quote, an unsound, ungrounded conclusion, and implies the false persuasion that to make up a sacrament there must be something said and something done, whereas indeed to the perfection of a sacrament it is sufficient that one thing be done whereby another is signified, though nothing be said at all. Close, quote. The Geneva view of receiving, in the supper of the body and blood of Christ, not after a carnal but after a spiritual manner, finds no favor in his eyes. This view owes its authority, he thinks, to Calvin and Beza, who have spread it over the face of the reformed churches. End of footnote. To speak in any real sense of the flesh of Christ in connection with the bread appears to him as unmeaning as the Roman Catholic phraseology as to the blood of Christ being sacrificed and shed in the sacrament, but only in cruente, unbloodily. According to him there is nothing whatever given in the communion, but bread and wine. As Christ is eaten at the communion table in no sense, neither spiritually, by virtue of anything done there, nor really, neither metaphorically, nor literally. Indeed that which is eaten, I mean the bread, is called Christ by a metaphor, but it is eaten truly and properly. Close, quote. And in this sense the spiritual eating of Christ is, as he says, common to all places as well as the Lord's table. Finally he adds, quote. The uses and ends of the Lord's supper can be no more than such as I mention in the scriptures, and they are but two. One, the commemoration of the death and passion of the Son of God, specified by himself at the institution of the ceremony. Two, to testify our union with Christ, and communion one with another, which ends St. Paul hath taught us. In these few conclusions the whole doctrine and use of the Lord's supper is fully set down, and whoso leteth you beyond this doth but abuse you. Quick quid ultra queritur non intelligitur, close, quote. According to the further question, whether the church may err in fundamentals, he concludes first that every Christian may err that will. Otherwise there could be no heresy, heresy being nothing else but willful error. But admitting this, his supposed questioner still asks, can Christians err by whole shoals, by armies meeting for defense of the truth in synods and councils, especially general? He answers emphatically, some may suppose brusquely, quote. To say that councils may not err, though private persons may, at first sight is a merry speech. As if a man should say that every single soldier indeed may run away but a whole army cannot, especially having Hannibal for their captain. And since it is confessed that all single persons not only may, but do err, it will prove a very hard matter to gather out of these a multitude of whom being gathered together we may be secured they cannot err. I must for my own part confess that councils and synods not only may and have err'd, but considering the means how they are managed it were a great marvel if they did not err. For what men are they of whom those great meetings do consist? Are they the best, the most learned, the most virtuous, the most likely to walk uprightly? No, the greatest, the most ambitious, and many times men neither of judgment nor learning. Such are they of whom these bodies do consist? And are these men in common equity likely to determine for truth? Sikut invita ita incausis quoque space in probas habent, as Quintilian speaks. Again, when such persons are thus met, their way to proceed to conclusion is not by weight of reason, but by multitude of votes and suffrages, as if it were a maxim in nature that the greater part must needs be the better, whereas our common experience shows that nun quam ita bene agitur qu'um rebus humanis, ud pluris sint melioris. It was never heard in any profession that conclusion of truth went by plurality of voices the Christian profession only accepted. And I have often mused how it comes to pass that the way which in all other sciences is not able to warrant the poorest conclusion should be thought sufficient to give authority to conclusions in divinity to supreme empress of sciences. This is one of the passages quoted by Hallam to illustrate his allegation that Hale's language is rough and audacious and that his theology has sometimes ascent of wreck-how. From the charge of Sosinianism we have already sufficiently vindicated our author, and Hallam's theological perceptions, if occasionally acute and subtle, are too deficient in penetration and compass to make it at all necessary to renew the subject. What appears to him, sent of wreck-how, is merely the strong odor of common sense and reason. With his usual instinct this historical critic shrinks from directness and earnestness of speech, and his cold, bald refinement takes offence at the plainness of Hale's as at the warmth and natural robustness of Luther. Our rhetorical swordmaster, like Bosway, is his model of a divine. But a touch of nature, we confess, even if it be somewhat rough, is of more value than any degree of mere external polish even in a theologian. The passage which provokes his criticism, in the present case, is a forcible, but by no means too forcible, statement of an important truth. For surely there are a few things more extraordinary than the prevalent confidence of all churches, Protestant as well as Catholic, in the formal decisions of general councils or assemblies. Is it not astonishing that such decisions, attained by mere plurality of votes, should be supposed to impart a special stamp of authority, a sort of sacredness to spiritual truth? The survival of such a confidence in the face of the facts of human history, and the common experience of the motives which more or less rule all such assemblies, show how strong are the roots of reverence in the human mind, and the delusion is all the more remarkable that it seems to rest for its only justification on a still deeper delusion as to such assemblies being specially under the guidance of the divine spirit. Quote, it is given out, as Hale's says, that Christian meetings have such an assistance of God and his blessed spirit, and let their persons be what they will, they may assure themselves against all possibility of mistaking. I should doubtless, he continues, do great injury to the goodness of God, if I should deny the sufficient assistance of God to the whole world, to preserve them both from sin in their actions and damnable errors in their opinions. Much more should I do it if I denied it to the church of God. But this assistance of God may very well be, and yet men may fall into sin and errors. Christ hath promised his perpetual assistance to his church, but hath he left any prophecy that the church should perpetually adhere to him? If any man think that he hath, it is his part to inform us where this prophecy is to be found. That matters may go well with men, two things must concur. The assistance of God to men, and the adherence of men to God. If either of these be deficient, there will be little good done. Now the first of these is never deficient, but the second is very often, so that the promise of Christ's perpetual presence made unto the church infers not at all any presumption of infallibility. In order to show this more fully, he analyzes the term spirit, which is so much taken up in such cases, and shows how it must signify either, quote, a secret elapse or supernatural influence of God upon the hearts of men, or that in us which is opposed against the flesh and which denominates us spiritual men. Now, of these two he concludes, the former it is which the church seems to appeal unto, in determining controversies by way of counsel. But to this I have little to say. One, because I know not whether there be any such thing, yea or no. Two, because experience shows that the pretense of the spirit in this sense is very dangerous, as being next at hand to give countenance to imposter and abuse, which is a thing sufficiently seen and acknowledged both by the Papist and Protestant party, as it appears by this that though both pretend unto it, yet both upbrate each other with the pretense of it. But the spirit, in the second sense, is that I contend for, and this is nothing but reason illuminated by revelation out of the written word. For when the mind and spirit humbly conform and submit to the written will of God, then you are properly said to have the spirit of God, and to walk according to the spirit, not according to the flesh. This alone is that spirit which preserves us from straying from the truth. For he indeed, that hath the spirit, urs not at all, or if he do, it is with as little hazard and danger as may be, which is the highest point of infallibility, which either private persons or churches can arrive to." The brief essay concerning the power of the keys is also highly characteristic. It is a clear, sharp, sensible treatment of a subject which hundreds of pens have obscured rather than illuminated. A single passage will sufficiently show this and indicate its line of interpretation. The power of the keys is simply the privilege of declaring or opening the message of divine love to mankind. It has no relation to any priestly or judicial function in the Christian ministry, and all who themselves have received the divine message, or to whom the kingdom of heaven has been opened, have equally, with the clergy, the keys of this kingdom committed to them. Everyone, of what state or condition so ever, that hath any occasion offered him to serve another in the ways of life, clergy or lay, male or female, whatever he be, hath these keys, not only for himself, but for the benefit of others. To save a soul, every man is a priest. To whom I pray you, is that said in Leviticus, Thou shalt not see thy brother's sin, but thou shalt reprove and save thy brother. And if the law binds a man when he saw his enemies cattle to stray, to put them into their way, how much more doth it oblige him to do the like for the man himself? See you not how the whole world conspires with me in the same opinion? Doth not every father teach his son, every master his servant, every man his friend? How many of the laity in this age, and from time to time in all ages, have, by writing for the public good, propagated the gospel of Christ, as if some secret instinct of nature had put into men's minds thus to do? You conceive that forthwith, upon this which I have said, this needs follow some great confusion of estates and degrees. The laity will straightway get up into our pulpits, we shall lose our credit, and the adoration which the simple sort do yield us is in danger to be lost. Sir, fear you not. The sufficient and able of the clergy will reap no discountenance but honour by this. For he that knows how to do well himself will most willingly approve what is well done by another. It is extreme poverty of mind to ground your reputation upon another man's ignorance, and to secure yourself you do well, as you perceive perchance that none can judge how ill you do. Be not angry, then, to see others join with you in part of your charge. I would all the Lord's people did preach, and that every man did think himself bound to discharge a part of the common good, and make account that the care of other men's souls concerned him as well as of his own. CHAPTER IV HALES IS NOT ONLY ALWAYS RATIONAL IN SPIRIT, HE HAS A VERY DEFINITE SYSTEM OF THOUGHT. HE SEES CLEARLY THE DRIFT OF HIS PRINCIPLES, AND IS SATISFIED THAT THE GROUND ON WHICH HE STANDS IS THE ONLY SATISFACTORY GROUND OF RELIGIOUS CONVICTION. The following extracts from a very significant sermon of enquiry and private judgment in religion will set his rational theory of Christianity in its systematic relations fully before the reader. The central question with him, as with Falkland, is infallibility. He describes the craving of men after it and shows them where alone it is to be found, with themselves and with God. QUOTE And infallibility there must be. But men have marvelously weary themselves in seeking to find where it is. Some have sought it in general counsels, and have conceived that if it be not there to be found it is for certainty fled out of the world. Some have tied it to the Church of Rome and to the bishop of that sea. Every man finds it, or thinks he finds it, accordingly as that faction or part of the church upon which he has fallen doth direct him. Thus, like the men of Sodom before Lot's door, men have weary themselves and have gone far and near to find out that which is hard at hand. We see many times a kind of ridiculous and jocular forgetfulness of many men, seeking for that which they have in their hands. So fares it here with men who seek for infallibility in others which either is or ought to be in themselves. As Saul sought his father's asses whilst they were now at home, or as Oedipus in the tragedy sent to the oracle to inquire the cause of the plague in Thebes, whereas himself was the man. For infallibility is not a favor appropriated to any one man. Beauty alike expected at the hands of all, all must have it. St. Paul, when he gives this precept, Galatians 6-7, directs it not to councils, to bishops, to teachers and preachers, but to all of the Galatian churches, and in them to all of all the churches in the world. Unto you, therefore, and to everyone, of what sex, of what rank, or degree, and place, so ever, from him that studies in his library, to him that sweats at the plow, belongs that precept of St. Paul. Be not deceived. But if any man should reply upon our blessed apostle and tell him, Am I like God that I should look not to be deceived? This cannot excuse him. For behold, as if he had purposely meant to have taken the subjection away, the apostle joins together both God and us, and tells us, as God cannot, so we must not be deceived." He amplifies the subject in a decisive manner, well conscious of the novelty of his views. A man must know, he argues, not only what he has to believe, but why he is to believe. I comprise it all in two words, what and wherefor. They that come and tell you what you are to believe, what you are to do, and tell you not why, they are not physicians, but leeches. And if you so take things at their hands, you are not like men, but like beasts. I know that is something and hard doctrine for the many to bear. Neither is it usually taught by the common teachers. But it is nevertheless true that every man must bear his own burden, and this burden consists not merely in the substance of what we believe, but the reasons why we believe. That part of your burden which contains what you willingly take up, but that other which comprehends why, that is either too hot or too heavy, you dare not meddle with it. But I must add that also to your burden, or else I must leave you for idle persons. For without the knowledge of why, of the true grounds or reasons of things, there is no possibility of not being deceived. Your teachers and instructors whom you follow, they may be wise and learned, yet may they be deceived. But suppose they be not deceived, yet if you know not so much, you are not yet excused. Something there is which makes those men not to be deceived. If you will be sure not to be deceived, then know you that as well as they. Is it divine authority? You must know that as well as they. Is it strength of reason? You must know it as well as they. You can never know that you are not deceived until you know the grounds and reasons upon which you stand. For there is no other means not to be deceived, but to know things yourselves. I will put on this doctrine further and convince you by your own reason. It is a question made by John Gerson, sometime Chancellor of Paris, wherefore hath God given me the light of reason and conscience, if I must suffer myself to be led and governed by the reason and conscience of another man. Will any of you befriend me so far as to assail this question? For I must confess I cannot. It was the speech of a good husbandman. It is but a folly to possess a piece of ground except you till it. And how then can it stand with reason that a man should be possessive so goodly a piece of the Lord's pasture as is this light of understanding and reason which he hath endowed us with in the day of our creation if he suffer it to lie untilled or so not in it the Lord's seed?" He then inquires into reasons why men are so generally willing in points of religion to cast themselves into other men's arms and leaving their own reason to rely so much upon another man's. He finds the explanation partly in the natural sloth of men who are well content to take their ease and call their sloth modesty and their neglective inquiry filial obedience, partly in the fault of the ministry who are afraid to advise men to search into the reasons and grounds of religion in case it breed trouble and disquiet, in this manner acting as the Siborites who, to procure their ease, banish the smiths because their trade was full of noise. But also in the fact that, quote, the dregs of the Church of Rome were not sufficiently washed from the hearts of many men, closed, quote. He feels that the Protestantism around him of the common teachers is but a poor and imperfect Protestantism which does not reach to the uttermost grounds on which religious knowledge, like all other knowledge, must rest. There is no other way than going to the root of the divinely planted reason and conscience in each of us. Quote, David found this by his own experience. I am wiser than my teachers, said he, in his Psalm 119, verse 99. Why? Because he believed them? This would never have made him so wise, much less wiser. Why, then? For thy testimonies, saith he, are my studies. Therefore is he wiser than his teachers, because that knowing all that they could teach him he stayed not there but by his own search and study he arrives at a degree of knowledge beyond his masters. St. Basil, in his sermons upon some of the Psalms, taxes a sort of man who thought it a sin to know more of God than the traditions of their fathers would give them leave and would not advance or improve the knowledge of the truth by any faculty or industry of their own. Beloved, there is not a more immediate way to fall into the reproof of St. Basil and to hinder all advancement and growth of Christian knowledge amongst the common sort of men than this easy and slothful resolution to rest themselves on others' wits. Close quote. Having thus vindicated personal inquiry and individual thoughtfulness as the basis of all true religion, he considers in conclusion the various substitutes on which men repose when they put off the care of their faith and religion from themselves on other men and condemns them in succession. Extended quote. I will show at you by the particular examination of every one of these, which I will the willing or do because I see these are the common hackney reasons which most men use in flattering themselves in their mistakes. For all this is nothing else but man's authority thrust upon us under diver's shapes. For, first of all, education and breeding is nothing else but the authority of our teachers taken over our childhood. Now, there is nothing which ought to be of less force with us or which we ought more to suspect. For childhood hath one thing natural to it, which is a great enemy to truth and a great furtherer of deceit. What is that? Credulity. Nothing is more credulous than a child, and our daily experience shows how strangely they will believe either their ancients or one another in most incredible reports. For to be able to judge what persons, what reports, are credible is a point of strength of which that age is not capable. The chiefest sinew and strength of wisdom, sayeth Epicarmus, is not easily to believe. Have we not then great cause to call to better account and examine by better reason whatsoever we learnt in so credulous and easy an age, so apt like the softest wax to receive every impression? Yet not withstanding this singular weakness and this large and real exception which we have against education, I verily persuade myself that if the best and strongest ground of most men's religion were opened it would appear to be nothing else. Secondly, antiquity, what is it else God only accepted but man's authority borne some ages before us? Now for the truth of things, time makes no alteration. Things are still the same they are, let the time be past, present, or to come. Those things which we reverence for antiquity, what were they at their first birth? Were they false? Time cannot make them true. Were they true? Time cannot make them more true. The circumstance therefore of time in respect of truth and error is merely impertinent. Yet thus much must I say for antiquity that amongst all these balancing and halting proofs if truth have any advantage against error and deceit it is here, for there is an antiquity which is proper to truth and in which error can claim no part, but then it must be an antiquity most ancient. This cannot be but true, for it is God and God is truth. All other parts of antiquity, deceit and falsehood will lay claim to as well as truth. Most certain it is truth is more ancient than error, for error is nothing else but deviation and swerving from the truth. Were not truth, therefore first, there could be no error, since there could be no swerving from that which is not. When, therefore, antiquity is pleaded for the proof of any conclusion commended to you for true, be you careful to know whether it be most ancient, yea or no. If it be so, then it is an invincible proof and pleads for nothing but the truth. If otherwise, though it be as ancient, I say not as Inacus, but as Satan himself, yet it is no proof of truth. Thirdly, universality is such a proof of truth as truth itself is ashamed of, for universality is nothing but a quainter and trimmer name to signify the multitude. Now human authority at the strongest is but weak, but the multitude is the weakest part of human authority. It is the great patron of error, most easily abused and most hardly disabused. The beginning of error may be, and mostly is, from private persons, but the maintainer and continuer of error is the multitude. Private persons first beget errors in the multitude and make them public, and publicness of them begets them again in private persons. It is a thing which our common experience and practice acquaints us with that when some private persons have gained authority with the multitude and infused some error into them and made it public, the publicness of the error gains authority to it and interchangeably prevails with private persons to entertain it. The most singular and strongest part of human authority is properly in the wisest and most virtuous, and these, I trow, are not the most universal. If truth and goodness go by universality and multitude, what mean then the prophets and holy men of God everywhere in Scripture so frequently, so bitterly, to complain of the small number of good men careful of God and truth? Neither is the complaint proper to Scripture. It is the common complaint of all that have left any records of antiquity behind them. Could wishing do any good I could wish well to this kind of proof, but it will never go so well with mankind that the most shall be the best. The best that I can say of argument and reason drawn from universality and multitude is this. Such reason may, per chance, well serve to excuse an error, but it can never serve to warrant a truth. Fourthly, counsels and synods and consent of churches, these indeed may seem of some force. They are taken to be the strongest weapons which the church had fought with, yet this is still human authority after another fashion. Let me add one thing, that the truth hath not been more relieved by these than it hath been distressed. At the Council of Nice met three hundred eighteen bishops to defend the divinity of the Son of God, but at Aramenum met well near six hundred bishops to deny it. I ask, then, what gained the truth here by a synod? Certainly in the eye of reason it more endangered it, for it discovered the advantage that error had among the multitude above the truth, by which reason truth might have been greatly hazarded. I have read that the nobility of Rome, upon some fancy or other, thought fit that all servants should wear a kind of garment proper to them so that it might be known who were servants, who were free men. But they were quickly weary of this conceit, for perceiving in what multitudes servants were in most places they feared that the singularity of their garment might be an item to them to take notice of their multitude and to know their own strength, and so at length take advantage of it against their masters. This device of calling counsels was but like that fancy of the Roman gentleman. For many times it might well have proved a great means to have endangered the truth by making the enemies thereof to see their own strength and work upon that advantage, for it is a speedy way to make them to see that which for the most part is very true that there are more which run against the truth than with it. These are but a few of the numerous passages full of wise and truthful thought to be found in Hale's's three volumes. We have confined ourselves mainly to one aspect of his writings, but they possess many independent merits. He is before his age not only in his reach of thought on general religious questions, but also as an expositor of scripture. Some of his expositions are fine specimens of exegetical argument, as for example that of the sin against the Holy Ghost in the first volume. It is quite singular how the loads of technical difficulty by which such a subject has been obscured disappear under his clear, quiet, direct analysis, keeping close to facts and laying them bare in the face of the pseudo interpretations which have turned attention away from them. He is strong for the literal sense of scripture, the literal plain and uncontroversable meaning without any additions or supply by way of interpretation. His elaborate sermon in the third volume of The Abuses of Hard Places of Scripture is a mine of wise and just criticism which it is strange to think has produced so little effect as it has done. This is a reflection indeed which constantly occurs in the perusal of such a writer as Hale's. The reader is constantly coming upon remarks and trains of thought which astonish him by their coincidence with the last lessons of Christian criticism and philosophy. That the Bible must be interpreted like any other book would not have been any novelty to him, only he would have added that with all our pains in interpreting it there would still remain hard and intricate texts in regard to which our duty is to wait and pray for light and not rashly to attempt any solution. It is the craving of men for certainty in matters which God has left in obscurity and which no wit of man can penetrate which is the chief source of controversy in the Church. I verily persuade myself that if it had pleased those who in all ages have been set to govern the Church, to have taught men rather not to have doubted than to have expected still solutions of their doubtings, to have stopped up and damned the originals and springs of controversies rather than by determining for the one part to give them as it were a pipe and conduit to convey them to posterity. I persuade myself the Church would not have suffered that inundation of opinions with which at this day it is overrun. When we seceded from the Church of Rome our motive was because she added unto Scripture her glosses as canonical to supply what the plain text of Scripture could not yield. If in place of this we set up our own glosses, thus to do were nothing else than to pull down Baal and set up an ephod, to run round and meet the Church of Rome again at the same point in which at first we left her." Again in the same sermon which abounds in pertinent and choice sayings which a reader instinctively notes as he proceeds, quote, if he that abases the Prince's coin deserves to die, what is his dessert that instead of the tried silver of God's word stamps the name and character of God upon Nehustan, upon base brazen stuff of his own, close quote. There are few theological writers who present more scattered beauties, both of thought and expression, sayings which surprise the reader for their quiet profundity and ripe store of meaning. A quaint humor plays along his page at times and a quick, frequent variety of illustrations which make his sermons and tracts as fresh and interesting as when they were written. If one reflects how difficult it is to read some of the best theological writers of the seventeenth century, men like Andrews or Hammond on the High Church side or Owen or even Howe on the Puritan side, this will seem no ordinary praise. It is the complete rational activity of the man, the life of thought within him which fuses together his stores of knowledge and gives them forth in breathing and not dead forms. This interest animates all he does. His wealth of illustration, if sometimes excessive and occasionally irrelevant, is never tiresome. Drawn from a copious and diversified learning, it is never put forward for the sake of effect. It has no air of ostentation or pedantry. It is the natural play of a richly cultured mind. His patristic and classical allusions come in rapid and easy succession, nimbly tripping up one another in their course as if they ran a race in his fertile brain. It is no uncommon thing to find Aristotle, Chrysostom, and Cicero or Horus all studying a single page of a sermon and fitly lending point or beauty to the thought. A happy phrase or sentence from one father suggests a happy phrase or sentence from another, and both are wrought with felicitous touch into the texture of his own composition, as in the following example which strikes us as quite a curiosa felicitas. Prayer added unto diligent labour is like a sweet voice to a well-tuned instrument, and makes a pleasing harmony in the ears of God. The good housewife, Seath Chrysostom, as she sits at her distaff and reaches out her hand to the flax, may even thus lift up, if not her eyes, yet her mind unto heaven, and consecrate and hallow her work with earnest prayer unto God. The husbandman, Seath St. Jerome, at the plow-tail, may sing a hallelujah. The sweating harvest-man may refresh himself with a psalm. The gardener, whilst he prunes his vines and arbours, may sound some one of David's sonnets. But our criticism is sufficiently extended. We have quoted enough to show what Hales was as a writer, especially as a thinker, what a genuine breadth of reason and of spiritual apprehension there was in him. The combination which he presents of simplicity and grasp of view, of modesty and depth, of sobriety and yet freedom of judgment, is particularly attractive. Liberal, as are his opinions for the age, he exhibits no rashness or intemperance of statement. He sees the folly of mere deference to authority and religion. He exposes the main vice of theology in all ages, the substitution of human opinion or conceit in the place of divine truth. He expresses himself bluntly at times, but never coarsely, and his intellectual temper upon the whole is admirably balanced. In a true sense his mind is unshackled. He has thrown himself loose, that is to say, from many prejudices. But he is nevertheless always reverent, earnest and moderate. He sees very well that it is not the clergy or any particular class of men that are mainly to blame for prevailing bigotries. It is rather the natural sloth and prejudice of human nature. He is content therefore to unfold the evil and point the remedy. He knew human nature too well, and had studied human history too intelligently to suppose that he could speedily enlarge men's thoughts on such a subject as religion. He held up a higher light in his own teaching, but he was aware how many, from weakness of reason or strength of passion, would continue to turn away from it. He was no more fitted to be a reformer than a martyr. His reason was too wide and large, and he felt all the difficulties of a subject too keenly to thrust his own views impatiently or violently upon others. He was clarined and tells us, feigned to keep his opinions to himself, as being far from confident that they might not harm others less calm and sensible than himself, who might entertain other results from them than he did. This led him to be very reserved in communicating what he thought himself on those points in which he differed from what was received. And there is something to be said in behalf of this spirit of reserve. A constant experience makes it evident that there are certain minds constitutionally incapable of any freedom of opinion in religious matters. They neither desire it for themselves nor understand it in others. A freedom of speculation like Hales's startles and confuses them without awakening in them any higher thoughts. They seem only capable of receiving the truth in some partial half superstitious form. And if the superstitious vesture is stripped away, truth itself is apt to follow. They have none of our author's power of discriminating the essential from the accidental in religion. And Hales knew this very well. He knew also the violent and harmful prejudices which persons of this contracted turn are apt to entertain towards men of a more liberal thoughtfulness. He had heard both himself and his friend Chillingworth denounced with coarse violence as Sosinians. To a man of quiet, scholarly temper such things are odious. It is not only that they feel them unmerited, but that they also feel that no vindication they could make would be intelligible to the men who urged them. For those who deal in such charges are invariably incognizant of the deeper grounds of religious opinion. They judge of religious differences from the outside, from superficial resemblance or antagonism. With no finer edges either to their intellect or their conscience, with no subtlety or depth of spiritual imagination, they cannot penetrate below the most obvious distinctions of belief. And especially they cannot understand minds which, like Hales's, are constantly seeking a unity of religious conception, which delight in search after such a unity to strip off the scholastic folds in which religious opinion has been swathed, and to see divine truth according to the simplicity which is in Christ. But, reserved as Hales was as to some of his opinions, there was one point on which he expressed himself with frank boldness. Nothing troubled him more, says Clarendon, quote, than the brawls which were grown from religion, and he therefore exceedingly detested the tyranny of the Church of Rome, more for their imposing uncharitably upon the consciences of other men than for the errors in their own opinions, and would often say that he would renounce the religion of the Church of England tomorrow if it obliged him to believe that any other Christian should be damned, and that nobody would conclude another man to be damned who did not wish him so, close quote. It is sufficiently obvious that, quiet and unobtrusive as Hales's life may have been, he was a man of marked influence upon a few higher minds. Personally he had no ambition, and apparently but little activity. He kept aloof from the fierce practical controversies of his time. It was his nature to do so, to brood and meditate on the principle's underlying religious controversy rather than to take any active part in it. His intellectual refinement, his sympathies with the past, his love of the concrete and tolerance of the historical results to which Christian usage and opinion had gradually grown in England, made him inclined to the royalist party with which he ultimately threw in his lot and whose misfortunes he shared. In no circumstances can he be conceived a Puritan. Those instincts of political liberty which were the highest and most aggressive element of Puritanism, if not uncongenial, could only have feebly influenced him, while his ideas of religious freedom were plainly of a more thorough and comprehensive, in a word of a more rational, character than Puritanism has ever shown itself capable of attaining. The importance attached by the Puritan party to minute matters, details of worship or special interpretations of doctrine were scarcely intelligible to a mind like his. Their dogmatic handling of scripture, their love of formal theory and abstruse logic openly repelled him. Like his friend Falkland, therefore, he stands significantly aside from both extremes. He is a church man without narrowness, a friend of authority who must yet have hated in his heart and deeply felt the folly of Lod's tyranny. In freedom of thought and clearness of faith he greatly excels the mere professional divine of any age. He is evangelical without dogmatism and preaches grace without despising philosophy. At once conservative in feeling and liberal in opinion he hates all extremes as of the nature of falsehood and a prolific source of wrong. He is the representative, the next after hooker, of that catholicity yet rationality of Christian sentiment which has been the peculiar glory of the Church of England. Chapter 5 William Chillingworth, The Bible, The Religion of Protestants Part 1 1. William Chillingworth is a more prominent figure in the history of religious opinion than John Hales. His name is widely known to English Protestants and his great work, if not really read and studied so much as it deserves to be, is yet generally acknowledged as a bulwark of Protestant argument and one of its chief trophies in the long waged, still unfinished conflict with sacerdotal theory and ecclesiastical exclusiveness. Chillingworth was eighteen years younger than Hales, having been born in Oxford in October 1602. His father was mayor of Oxford, and William Lod, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, then a fellow of St. John's College, was his godfather. Footnote Our main authorities for the facts of his life are Woods, Aténa Oxoniensis, and the historical and critical account of the life and writings of William Chillingworth by Maizot, the latter a work of a more elaborate character than the memoir by the same author of Hales. End of Footnote This connection was a significant one in his after history. He was educated in grammar learning under Edward Sylvester, a noted Latinist in Grecian, and at the age of sixteen became a scholar of Trinity College under the tuition of Mr. Robert Skinner. He was admitted master of arts in 1623 and fellow of the same college in 1628. He was there observed, says Wood, to be no dredge at his study, but being a man of great parts would do much in a little time when he settled to it. According to the same authority he was also noted, thus early, for his keenly intellectual and argumentative disposition. He would often walk in the college grove and contemplate, but when he met with any scholar there he would enter discourse and dispute with him purposely to facilitate and make the way of wrangling common with him, which was a fashion used in those days, especially among the disputing theologists or among those that set themselves apart purposely for divinity. Aubrey's version of the same circumstance is characteristic. He did walk much in the college grove and there contemplate and meet with some cod's head or other and dispute with him and baffle him. He thus prepared himself beforehand. He was the readiest and nimblest disputant in the university. Perhaps none hath equaled him since." He did not confine his studies to divinity, but applied himself with great success to mathematics and even obtained some reputation as a poet. He finds a place, along with his friend Hales, in Sir John Suckling's session of the poets. When Chillingworth was thus engaged, studying and disputing at Oxford, the country was in a state of great controversial excitement. The anti-papal fever, of which we have already spoken, was in full vigor. Even before the death of King James in 1625, the court had shown signs of a leaning to Rome. The Calvinistic enthusiasm, which found vent in the patronage of the Synod of Dort, had passed away. The High Church Party, mainly Arminian in its doctoral tendencies, was acquiring power. The Romanists began to raise their heads once more and priests traversed the country without molestation. On the accession of Charles I and his marriage with the Princess Henrietta, sister of Henry IV of France, Popesh influences were permitted still greater scope. The Queen, as a Roman Catholic, had stipulated for the free exercise of her religion and a due attendance of its ministers, a bishop with twenty-eight priests or monks, and a chapel wherever she might happen to reside. The children of the marriage were to be trained under her care till they were thirteen. The natural consequence of all this was great party activity and excitement. It seemed then, as on so many subsequent occasions, that England might be once more gained to the Catholic fold. Several Jesuits and seminary priests, as they were called, were very active among the youth of the universities, and made not a few converts who were generally conveyed to English seminaries abroad. The attention of Parliament was aroused to this evil, and it petitioned the King on the subject in 1628, the same year in which Chillingworth obtained his fellowship. The words of the petition are emphatically descriptive of the state of feeling in the country. They pray that his majesty, quote, would be pleased to command a sureer and straight watch to be kept in and over his majesty's ports and havens, and to commit the care and charge of searching of ships for the discovery and apprehension, as well of Jesuits and seminary priests brought in, as of children and young students sent over beyond the seas to suck in the poison of rebellion and superstition unto men of approved fidelity and religion. And such it should be convicted to have connived or combined in the bringing in the one or conveying of the other that the laws might pass upon them with speedy execution, close quote. The King agreed to grant the prayer of the petition and to give orders to see it fully executed, but nothing came of the royal promises and the Parliament continued its complaints. The Popesh missionaries were intrepid and persevering and easily succeeded in eluding the feeble attempts that were made to search for and apprehend them. It is in connection with the state of religious and political excitement that we come across a story which casts discreditable reflections upon Schillingworth as a young man. The story, we need hardly say, is partly attributable to Aubrey, although it has assumed in later hands a more definite form than can be found in his pages. We have already given our reasons for discrediting Aubrey's scandals. It is plain in reading them that they are often the various gossip without any evidence or even the pretense of evidence. It was enough for him to have heard anything from anybody to lead him to commit it to paper. His professed authority in the present case is Sir William Davenant, poet Laureate, whose word certainly cannot be held to give any weight to statements otherwise incredible, and consistent with all we know of Schillingworth's character, both from his friends and as depicted in his own writings. The story is that Schillingworth, notwithstanding in Aubrey's language his great reason, was guilty of the detestable crime of treachery. He acted in short, according to the insinuation, as a sort of spy for lawd, his godfather and great friend, giving him weakly intelligence of what passed in the university. And special trace of this spy system is supposed to be found in connection with information lodged against a certain Mr. Gill, a son of the head of St. Paul's school and one of Milton's preceptors. This younger Gill, friend and correspondent as he was of Milton, seems to have been something of a fool. He had been bred at Oxford, taken orders, and afterwards become usher in the school under his father, where he had come in contact with Milton and apparently assisted in his education. All this might be supposed to guarantee of respectability, but there was a mad humor in the man that might have proved fatal to him. Not content with writing letters to his friends at the university stuffed with dangerous nonsense about the court, he was in the habit of running down to Oxford on a visit to his old haunts there. On one of these occasions, in the autumn of 1628, following the assassination of the Duke of Buckingham by Felton, he was in Trinity College cellar drinking with divers others when the talk fell upon the events of the time. Gill became boisterous over his cups and, as reported to have said that, our king was fitter to stand in a cheap-side shop with an apron before him and say, What lack ye than to govern a kingdom? And further that, the Duke was gone to hell to meet James there. He is further represented as having drunk Felton's health, saying, He was sorry Felton had deprived him of the honour of doing that brave act. All this nonsense was communicated to Lord. Gill was arraigned and tried before the star chamber and condemned, as the consequence of his folly, to be degraded from his ministry and degrees in the university, to be fined heavily and to have his ears taken off, the one at London and the other at Oxford. The fine and corporal punishment were remitted on the earnest petition of old Mr. Gill to his majesty, and the son lived, as such braggarts often do, to change entirely his political tune. He became a very servile courtier and even a literary lackey to the Archbishop. Professor Masson has told this story of Milton's friend in his life of Milton, and the question occurring of how the report of Gill's escapade could have reached Lod's ears leaves it to be inferred that Schillingworth may have been his informant. Putting together Aubrey's scandal and the statements of certain documents in the State Paper Office that one Mr. Schillingworth, along with others, was present when Alex Gill spake his lewd words, it appears to him that Aubrey had got some true inkling of the fact, though he hopes, in a form unnecessarily discreditable to Schillingworth. The whole affair seems altogether too paltry to be mentioned with the name of Schillingworth, who, whatever may have been his faults, was a true and generous-minded man incapable of such meanness as the story implies. Clarendon, who in some respects has by no means drawn a flattering portrait of him, emphasizes the conspicuous sincerity of his heart and the innocence and candor of his nature. The whole structure of the scandal, moreover, falls to pieces when closely examined. Aubrey, in his more detailed statements, not only does not say anything of Gill's mad freak and speeches at Oxford, but gives a version of his conduct quite different from and inconsistent with the story repeated by Mr. Masson. He says that young Gill and Schillingworth held weakly intelligence one with another for some years wherein they used to nibble at State Matters, and that, in one of his letters, Gill called King James and his son the old fool and the young one, which letter Schillingworth communicated to W. Lod A. B. Cant. Now, any grain of truth there may be in this story cannot well refer to an event which happened in 1628, three years after King James' death. The only thing which can be said to be proved, in the whole matter, is Schillingworth's presence, along with three other persons, when Gill made his mad speeches. There is not the slightest reason, apart from Aubrey's malice, for supposing him to have been Lod's informant. And if it be necessary to make any supposition about the informant, there is a person of the name of Pickering mentioned amongst those present whom Gill jeers or insults on the occasion, because he refuses to enter fully into his wild humor and drink the toast to Felton's health. This Pickering may have taken his revenge by having some hint of the matter conveyed to the Archbishop. And on such a supposition it is further conceivable that the Archbishop, from his personal relations with Schillingworth, may have asked him as to the truth of the story. This is all that can possibly be imagined. Aubrey's charge of treachery stands entirely by itself on the authority of Davenant. And when the question lies betwixt a man, as his letters show, and all his friends testify of even sensitive honour, and a roving, maggoty-headed gossip reporting the speech of one who, besides his looseness of character, may be supposed to have had malicious intentions towards our author, there cannot be said to be really any question at all. Davenant was one of the numerous Catholic perverts of the time, and it is notorious with what feelings of enmity this class regarded the author of the religion of Protestants, whose own experience of Romanism and subsequent refutation of it had so much damaged their cause. The great asperity and reproaches of the Roman Catholic faction against him was a matter of common remark. It was Schillingworth's fate to be thoroughly misunderstood by religious blockheads and partisans on both sides. Blind Papist and blind Puritan alike feared and disliked him, and the aptitude of both in the arts of detraction is well known. Neither certainly spared Schillingworth, as we shall find in the course of our narrative. His own personal connection with the Romanist movement, the manner in which he was hurried away by it, and then again restored to the English church, made him a conspicuous object of attack. Among the Roman missionaries there was one known under the name of John Fisher, a Jesuit of great acuteness and of enthusiastic ambition in the work of proselytism. He was a native of Durham and a convert from Protestantism. His proper name was Purse, or he is described as a generosas atleta Christi, who feared neither pain nor imprisonment in the service of his faith in making converts in which he was very successful. Footnote. This is the same Jesuit with whom Lod had his conference, who was instrumental in the conversion of the Duchess of Buckingham in 1622, and whose continual cunning labours had well nice seduced the duke himself from the Church of England. See Lod's Diary, page 5, and History and Trial of Archbishop Lod, page 226. And a footnote. Fisher was much conversant in Oxford. He devoted himself to the students, especially such as gave promise of future distinction. Chillingworth very soon attracted his attention, and he used all means possible to be acquainted with him. He drew him into controversy which could not have been a difficult task. Chillingworth's mind was already excited on the question of an infallible living judge in matters of faith, and this became the great topic of dispute between them. The Jesuit was master of his controversial weapons, and succeeded in silencing Chillingworth. He found himself unable to answer the arguments of the Jesuit, nor was he pleased with the solutions which were given him by those of our learned divines to whom he proposed the said arguments. These solutions did not seem to him to meet the case. He craved, as so many minds before and since have done, for a decisive tribunal and religious controversy as the only refuge from the doubts which tormented him. Romanism alone professed to offer such a tribunal, and the consequence was that he forcik the Anglican Communion and sought satisfaction in that of Rome. He wrote a letter on the subject to his friend Sheldon, urging upon him the serious consideration of the two following queries. Quote, First, whether it be evident from scripture and fathers and reason, from the goodness of God and the necessity of mankind, that there must be some one church infallible in matters of faith? Second, whether there be any other society of men in the world beside the Church of Rome, that either can, upon good warrant, or indeed at all, challenge to itself the privilege of infallibility in matters of faith? An attentive consideration of these questions appeared to him, in his present state of mind, to lead necessarily to an affirmative conclusion in the first and a negative conclusion in the second. He expressed his happiness as to the way in which he had entered, and hoped that it might please God to draw his friend after him. Fisher did not, of course, lose sight of so promising a pupil. He induced him to set down in writing his motives or reasons for embracing the Roman Catholic religion, and also to proceed to the College of the Jesuits at Douay, with a view to his more perfect training in its characteristic principles. The exact date of his journey to Douay has not ascertained, but he made only a short stay there. It was a luckless step in Chillingworth's case sending him to a Jesuit seminary. Close contact with the system which he had embraced was all that was needed to arouse the higher susceptibilities of a mind like his. It had been his restlessness of inquiry, his frank fearlessness in search of truth which had led him to Romanism. The Roman Catholic appeared to him for the time to have the best of the argument, with the fullest attention which he could give to the subject. But a mind so truth-loving, candid, and keen-sighted could not halt in the investigation on which it had entered. He was especially ill-fitted to fall in with the routine of a seminary, and the dialectic and practical studies by which Jesuitism sought to confirm converts and bring them under the full discipline of their new faith. Never was man less fitted to become a Jesuit priest and give up his mind to the service of others. Moreover, Lod, then Bishop of London, having heard of his conversion with great concern, entered into a correspondence with him. Chillingworth responded with, A great deal of moderation, candor, and impartiality, and the prelate continued to press him with several arguments against the doctrine and the practice of the Romanists. The result was that Fisher's convert passed speedily out of his hands. His inquisitive, argumentative spirit dug deeper into the heart of the subject beneath the fallacies which had puzzled and captivated him. The atmosphere of Douay became unendurable, and he returned to England in 1631, paid a visit to Lod who welcomed him with kindness, and then, with the bishop's approval, returned to Oxford in order to complete the important work he was upon, a free inquiry into religion. FOOT NOTE MAISAU PAGE XIII In his trial before the House of Lords, history of the Troubles and trial of William Lod, et cetera, page 227, Lod pleaded in favor of his own Protestantism his connection with Chillingworth and the influence he had exercised in reconverting him from Romanism, and we are bound to remember this great service, whatever judgment we pronounce on Lod's ecclesiastical legislation. FOOT NOTE Such is, in brief, the outward history of Chillingworth's conversion to Rome and reconversion to the Church of England. Of his life and occupations at Douay he has not given us, nor do we possess otherwise any account. From hints, however, that occur in his writings, there can be little doubt that his experience there was greatly disappointing. FOOT NOTE Aubrey, of course, has something to say on this point, so entirely like himself, and so unlike Chillingworth that it may deserve to be quoted. At Douay he says, they made him, Chillingworth, the porter, which was to try his temper and exercise his obedience, so he stole over and came to Trinity College again. Such statements are hardly worthy of notice, save to show how incapable a man like Aubrey was of understanding Chillingworth and the low habits of thought which cling to him as to all gossips, literary or otherwise. FOOT NOTE He found, as he says in one of his casual writings, termed additional discourses, quote, that the Roman religion is much more exorbitant in the general practice of it than it is in the doctrine published in books of controversy, where it is delivered with much caution and moderation, nay, cunning and dissimulation, that it may be the fitter to win and engage proselytes, close quote. The special point of which he is speaking is as to whether incense was really offered to the Virgin Mary. The Roman Catholic disputant had maintained that this was a foul slander, and that insensing in every case was understood by all sorts of people to be directed to God only. He appeals to his own experience and refutation of this, and in proof of the fact that, in processions, incense was offered to the images of the saints. Quote, I myself, unless I am very much mistaken, was present when this very thing was done to the picture of St. Benet or St. Gregory in the cloister of St. Vodastus in the monastery in Douay. Close quote. In the course of his arguments in the religion of Protestants, he also appeals unfavorably to his conversation with his Roman teachers. I knew, he says, quote, a young scholar in Douay licensed by a great casuist to swear a thing as upon his certain knowledge, whereof he had no knowledge but only a great presumption, because, forsooth, it was the opinion of one doctor that he might do so. Close quote. Such allusions are sufficient to show that there were things at Douay which served to repel him, but we should mistake if we attributed too much influence to such matters, or to any external agencies whatever, in the process of religious conflict through which Chillingworth now passed. Whatever may have been the effect of arguments addressed to him from the one side or the other, or of incidents helping to enlighten his unsuspecting confidence, there can be no doubt that his motive power throughout was from within rather than from without. This is clear to anyone who really understands the character of his mind and the account which he himself has given of the principles which continually animated and guided him. In the preface to his great work he says that it was his desire, quote, to go the right way to eternal happiness, and whether this way lie on the left or straightforward, whether it be by following a living guide or by seeking my directions in a book, or by hearkening to the secret whispers of some private friend, to me it is indifferent. And he that is otherwise affected, and half not a traveller's indifference, which Epictetus requires in all that would find the truth, but much desires in respect of his ease or pleasure, or profit or advancement or satisfaction of friend or any human consideration that one way should be true rather than other, it is odds but he will take his desire that it should be so for an assurance that it is so, close quote. This was not his case unless he deceives himself. On the contrary he is and was unwilling to take anything upon trust and to believe it without asking himself why. Nor was he disposed to follow like a sheep every shepherd that should take upon him to guide, or every flock that should chance to go before, but most apt and most willing to be led by reason this way or that, submitting all of the reasons to this one. God hath said so, therefore it is true. He explains further that he did not expect mathematical demonstrations on matters plainly incapable of them. All that he wished were reasons which, being weighed in an even balance, held by an even hand with those on the other side, would turn the scale and make the one religion more credible than the other. He has left us, besides, a special paper which brings out clearly the self-directed and highly rational character of the arguments which influenced him on the one side and the other. The paper is entitled, an account of what moved the author to turn papest with his own computation of the arguments that persuaded him there too. He explains distinctly in the outset why he reconciled himself to the Church of Rome. He thought he had sufficient reason to believe that there was and must be always in the world some church that could not err and that the Church of Rome was that church. He was put into doubt of this way of thinking by Dr. Stapleton and others who limit the Church's freedom from error to things necessary only. He alludes no doubt to a Roman Catholic divine of this name in the preceding century who was, for a time, Professor of Divinity in the College at Douay and whose writings were greatly esteemed there. Peron pronounced him to be the first polemical writer of his age. Dr. Stapleton's writings had probably been commended to Chillingworth to establish him in the faith, and it is highly characteristic of his acute and restless intellect that the very means adopted for strengthening his convictions should have been the means of again unsettling them. Reflecting, quote, that most of the differences between Protestants and Roman Catholics were not touching things necessary, he concluded that he had not sufficient ground to believe the Roman Church either could not or did not err in anything, and therefore no ground to be a Roman Catholic. But he was not yet free from the toils of the controversy. Again he was persuaded that while it was possible for the Church to err in things not necessary, the Church itself must yet be held to be the only judge of things necessary and not necessary, and that consequently all must be believed which the Church teaches as matters of faith. In other words, he was brought back to the point that the Church is and can be our only guide in the way to heaven. He was brought to this conclusion, first, because there was nothing that could reasonably contest with the Church about this office but the Scripture, and the Scripture seemed to him to depend for its authority on the Church, and secondly, because it appeared to him, from a passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, that there must be to the world's end a succession of pastors infallibly fitted to guide men in matters of faith. And by the confession of all other societies of pastors there was no such succession elsewhere but in the Church of Rome. Such was Chillingworth's second standing ground as a Romanist. But the argumentativeness which drove him to this point soon again drove him away from it. Gradually it was demonstrated to him, in reference to the first point, that the ground on which Scripture is to be accepted as the Word of God was not the authority of the Roman Church, but the general consent of Christians of all nations and ages, a far greater company than that of the Church of Rome. Further he became convinced that it was unreasonable to think that any one reading Scripture with no other end but to find the will of God should have it imputed to him as a fault than in any respect he mistook that will. This seemed to him inconsistent with the Divine Goodness. It will be afterwards seen how frequently he recurs to this thought and draws it out in every possible form of emphasis. As to the second point, he came to see that the passage in the Epistle to the Ephesians, instead of teaching, when rightly viewed, an infallible succession of pastors, really furnished a strong argument against the idea of any such succession. Saint Paul there speaks of the appointment of certain officers in the Church, but without any reference to their perpetuity. And, quote, it is evident that God promised no such succession because it is not certain that he hath made good any such promise. The apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors, which our Savior gave upon his ascension, were given by him that they might consummate the saints, do the work of the ministry, edify the body of Christ until we all come into the unity of faith, that we be not like children wavering and carried up and down with every wind of doctrine. The apostles and prophets, etc., that then were, do not now in their own persons and by oral instruction, do the work of the ministry, to the intent we may be kept from wavering and being carried up and down with every wind of doctrine. Therefore they do this some other way. Now there is no other way by which they can do it, but by their writings, and therefore by their writings they do it. Therefore by the writings and believing of them we are to be kept from wavering in matters of faith. Therefore the scriptures of the apostles and prophets and evangelists are our guides, therefore not the Church of Rome. This passage and the whole course of thought analyzed in this paper give a clear insight into the character of Chillingworth's mind and furnish the true key to his changes of opinion at this period. Religion was from the first with him a subject of free, honest, persevering inquiry. He had no idea of attaching himself to a side or cause without a clear, well-grounded conviction of the part he was acting. Not only was he inaccessible to the motives of grosser self-interest of any kind, but equally so to the subtler self-interest which many minds obey in such matters, the prepossession of personal feeling, the impulse of the affections, or in its highest form, some phase of mental passion which irresistibly impels towards conviction and faith of some kind rather than mental light and the calm reasoning thoughtfulness which is continually asking higher questions and aiming at a clearer sight. It was his special characteristic to inquire till he reached some basis of principle on which he could rest in the full light of his own luminous reason. He has himself explained his standpoint so fully that we cannot do better than quote his own words, words bright with a Christian sense and wisdom now as much needed as ever. A friend of the name of Lugar, who had become with him and according to some accounts under his influence, a convert to Romanism, sent him a very angry letter after his reconversion, renouncing his friendship and excommunicating him. His reply is very noble. He does not conceal his pain. The loss of a friend goes very near unto his heart. But he is calmly interrogative in the face of abuse. Extended quote. If this proceed from passion or weakness, I pray mend it. If from reason, I pray show it. If you think me one of those to whom St. John forbids you to say, God save you, then you are to think and prove me one of those deceivers which deny Christ Jesus to become in the flesh. If you think me an heretic and therefore to be avoided, you must prove me auto cattacriton, condemned by my own judgment, which I know I cannot and therefore I think you cannot. If you say, I do not hear the church, and therefore am to be esteemed and heathen or publican, you are to prove that by the church there is meant the church of Rome. And yet, when you have done so, I hope Christians are not forbidden to show humanity and civility even to pagans. For God's sake, Mr. Lugar, free yourself from this blind zeal, at least for a little space, and consider with reason and moderation what strange crime you can charge me with that should deserve this strange usage, especially from you. Is it a crime to endeavor with all my understanding to find your religion true and not to be able to do so? Is it a crime to employ all my reason in justification of the infallibility of the Roman church and to find it impossible to be justified? I will call God to witness who knows my heart better than you, that I have even the scale of my judgment as much as possibly I could, and have not willingly allowed any one grain of worldly motives on either side, but have weighed the reasons for your religion and against with such indifference as if there were nothing in the world but God in myself. And is it my fault that that scale goes down which hath the most weight in it, that that building falls which hath a false foundation? Have you such power over your understanding that you can believe what you please, though you see no reason? If you have, I pray, for our old friendships' sake, teach me that trick. But until I have learned it, I pray, blame me not for going the ordinary way. I mean, for believing or not believing, as I see reason. If you can convince me of willful opposition against the known truth, of negligence in seeking it, of unwillingness to find it, of preferring temporal respects before it, or of any other fault which is in my power to amend, if I amend it not, be as angry with me as you please. But to impute to me involuntary errors, or that I do not see that which I would see but cannot, or that I will not profess that which I do not believe, certainly this is far more unreasonable error than any which you can justly charge me with. For let me tell you, the imputing Sosinianism to me, whosoever was the author of it, was a wicked and groundless slander." He then enters upon the great question which had been the determining one in all his investigations, the question of infallibility as claimed by the Church of Rome, and concludes against the claim, especially on the ground, that it was unknown to the primitive Church. Scripture and universal tradition appeared to him the only firm and safe foundation on which to build the Christian faith. He had afterwards several discussions with his friend, who was moved by the tone of his letter. Other discussions were also forced upon him, all more or less on the same subject. He worked out in the course of these discussions many of the special trains of thought afterwards embodied in the religion of Protestants. The details of the controversy were taken up by him in succession till his mind became thoroughly imbued with them, and he was amply furnished for the great task awaiting him. The occasion for the exercise of his powers soon arose. A Jesuit who went by the name of Not, but whose true name was Wilson, a native of Northumberland, published in 1630 a little book entitled, Charity Mistaken, the aim of which was to prove Protestants to be beyond the pale of salvation. Dr. Potter, of Queen's College, Oxford, published in 1633 a reply to the Jesuits pamphlet, and the Jesuit responded in the following year in a more elaborate treatise under the title Mercy and Truth or Charity Maintained by Catholics. Chillingworth undertook to answer this reply and set himself to his work with great earnestness. For this purpose he appears to have retired to the residents of his friend Lord Falkland, whose society we described in a former chapter, and whose library was peculiarly rich in controversial and patristic divinity. His lordship himself also was well versed in the literature of the controversy. Here assisted by his friend's learning and stimulated by the conversational brilliancy of the convivium theologicum, he completed after a considerable interval his task. It appears to have engaged him during the years 1635, 1636, and 1637. In the end of this last year it was published. End of Chapter 5, Part 1