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Heresy, The Social Order, and English Deism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Roger L. Emerson
Roger L. Emerson
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History, The University of Western Ontario
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Extract

Two recent essays dealing with Deism and the religious environment from which it emerged in England have done something to correct accounts which emphasize the philosophic, scientific, or latitudinarian background of English Deism. I refer to Gerald C. Brauer's “Puritan Mysticism and the Development of Liberalism,” Church History, Vol. XIX (September, 1950), and to George L. Mosse's “Puritan Radicalism and the Enlightenment,” Church History, Vol. XXIX (December, 1960). Both articles argue that there were current in 17th century Puritanism elements which could lead to Deism and which “helped to prepare the English scene for the arrival and triumph of liberalism” and Deism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 37 , Issue 4 , December 1968 , pp. 389 - 403
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1968

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References

1. Braner, loe. cit., p. 161; cf. Bolt, Leo F., “Puritanism, Capitalism, Democracy, and the New Science,” American Historical Review, LXIII, No. 1 (10 1967), pp. 18–27Google Scholar, for a discussion of other works touching on Puritanism and rationalism.

2. Cohn, Norman in The Pursuit of he Millenium (New York, 1961)Google Scholar, has pointed out that many accounts of the Ranters and antinomians, even though written by their enemies, are reliable. Edwards and his friends, while they are bitter in their condemnations, seem to have reported the heresies without great distortions. Cf. Cohn, op. oit., Appendix: The “Free Rpirit” in Cromwell's Engiand, pp. 321–78, passim.

3. Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, was not far from this way of thinking. In the introduction to the posthumously published translation of An Account of Virtue (1690) he notes that “Virtue, Grace and the Divine Life… they are all but one and the same thing.” Later (p. 7) he calls the “Boniform Faculty” one of “divine Composition and supernatural Texture.” In More's system it is a means by which we share in supreme goodness, just as Reason allows us to participate in “That Beason or Law eternai which is registered n the Mind Diuine” (p. 15). More, unlike the enthusiasts, never mistook his partial understanding, which must always be limited by man's faculties, for the absolute truth immediately given and completely intuited. His friend Arnie Conway who, like him, began with an interest in Plationism and Descartes, ended as a Quaker. Natural reason and the inner light were nearly the same for her in the end. Cf. Nicolson, M. H., Conway Letters, The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway (London, 1930)Google Scholar.

4. E.g. Vicars, John (1604–1660), The Schismatick Sifted (1646)Google Scholar; Cranford, James (1592–1657), Haereseo-MachiaGoogle Scholar; Hodges, Thomas (fi. 1646), The Growth and Spreading of HeresieGoogle Scholar; Paggitt, Ephraim (1575–1647), Heresiographie (1645)Google Scholar.

5. A Testirmony to the Truth of Jesus Christ, and to the Bolemn League and Covenant, 12. 14, 1647Google Scholar.

6. Ibid., pp. 8f.

7. Ibid., p. 15.

8. Ibid., p. 19; the works alluded to here are analyzed by Frank, Joseph in The Levellera (Cambridge, 1955), pp. 40–44Google Scholar, and in Brailsford's, H. N.The Levellers and the English Revolution (London, 1961), pp. 49–51, 62–71, 379–90Google Scholar.

9. DNB, Paul Best; cf. MeLaelilan, H. T., Socinianisn in Seventeenth-Century England (Oxford, 1951), PP. 150–60Google Scholar. DNB, John Biddle; Wilbur, E. M., A History of Unitaranism (Cambridge, 1952), pp. 193–208Google Scholar; MeLachian, op. cit., pp. 90–3, 134–8, 165–87, 190–216; Whitelock, Bulatrode, Memorias of English Affairs from the Beginning of the Reign of Charles the First to the Happy Restoration of King Charles the Second (Oxford, 1953), II, 208ff;Google Scholar IV, 160.

10. DNB, Biokard Coppin.

11. Evelyn's, John reaction to these men is of interest, vide The History of Religion: A Rational Account of the True Religion (London, 1850), II, 245Google Scholar. Coppe's, A Fiery Flying Roil…with Another Flying Roll… (1649)Google Scholar.

13. Ibid., pp. 366f.

14. Ibid., p. 378.

15. Muggleton, Ludowieke, A True Interpretation of All the Chief Texts and Mysterious Baying by Ludowi eke Muggleton, one of the two last commissioned Witnesses and Prophets of the onely high, immortal, glorious God, Jesus Christ (1655), p. 29Google Scholar.

16. Loc. cit. This develops into an argument against Quakers who have gained only the negative rational insight.

17. Winstanley, Gerrard, The Works of Gerrard Winstanley, ed. Sabine, G. H. (New York, 1965), p. 424; p. 141fGoogle Scholar: “They that will observe God's Ordinances, must walk in the light of pure Reason, or according to the command or example of Reason's Scriptures, in the very letter of them, without making inferences or constructions; for he that gives liberty to do so gives liberty to alter the Scriptures.”

18. Ibid., p.427.

19. Ibid., p. 66—from Sabine's introduction.

20. Ibid., p. 209.

21. Knox, R. N. discusses this development in Enthusiasm (New York, 1961), p. 151Google Scholar; cf. Tolles, P. B., Meeting House and Counting House (Durham, 1963) pp. 209–211Google Scholar.

22. Fox, George, The Journal of George Fox, ed. Jones, R. M. (New York, 1963), p. 481Google Scholar.

23. Hickeringill, Edmund, The Vindications of the Character of Priestcraft, 2nd ed. (London, 1708), p. 8Google Scholar. For details on his life see DNB.

24. Hickeringill, Edmund, Priest-Cfaft, its Character and Consequences, Part II, 3rd ed. (London, 1708), p. 22Google Scholar.

25. Edmund, Hickeringill, The Ceremony Monger (Edinburgh, 1689), P. 44Google Scholar.

26. Hickeringill, Edmund, Priest-Craft, Part I, p. 2Google Scholar.

27. The Druids were a favorite example of John Toland. Cf. Toland's, A Collection of Several Pieces of Mr. Toland, I, 8Google Scholar.

28. Hickerinill, Edmund, The Black Nen-Conformist Discover' in More Naked Truth (London 1682)Google Scholar. The introduction contains such passages as Truth is always prevalent and strongest at long run, if it be not smothered by an Inquisition or a Jayl…”

29. Hickeringill, Edmund, Vindication, p. 59Google Scholar. Cf. Hiekeringill's, Rehearsal Transposed (1673)Google Scholar.

30. A recent essay by Frank, Joseph, “John Milton's Movement toward Déism” (Journal of British Studies, No. 1, 1961, pp. 38–51)CrossRefGoogle Scholar suggests that Milton's beliefs were drifting in a similar direction.

31. Supra note 15; Hailer, William (ed.), Tracts on Liberty in the Puritan Revolution 1638–1647 (New York, 1965), pp. 38–54Google Scholar.

32. Ibid., p. 96f.

33. Cited by Hailer, loc. cit.

34. Gregg, Pauline, Free-born John: A Biography of John Litburne (London, 1961), p. 113Google Scholar.

35. Ashley, Maurice, Major Wildman (London, 1947), cf. pp. 9–11Google Scholar; Burnet, Gilbert, History of My Own Times, ed. Airy, O. (London, 1897), I, 172Google Scholar.

36. Cf. DNE, Henry Marten.

37. DNB, Edwand Sexby.

38. Brailsford, op. cit., Chapter 32.

39. Calvert supported the “good old cause” in both its religious and political forms.

40. Brailsford, loc. cit. Iris Morley seems to have believed that Monmouth's Rebellion marked the end of the Leveller influence, Cf. A Thousand Lives (London, 1954), pp. 101, 220Google Scholar. The Green Ribbon Club contained some members who were rationalists in religion as well as politics—but not lower class. Shaftesbury and Thomas Shadwell might be cited as examples.

41. Their late 17th and 18th century followers were predominantly deistie in outlook. Robbins', CarolineThe Eighteenth Century Commonwealthman (Cambridge, 1961)Google Scholar, contains not only a list of republicans but also a nearly complete tally of the important deistic writers of the period.

42. Burnet, op. cit., p. 98f.

43. Apocalypsie was often bound with another widely circulated pamphlet by Ross, Pansebia or a View of all the Religions in the World (1653).

44. Bunyan, John, The Holy War (New York, 1905), p. 147Google Scholar.

45. Stephens, op. cit., pp. 68f.

46. Ibid., p. 18.

47. Ibid., p. 20.

48. Halyburton, Thomas, The Works of (Glasgow 1833), pp. 276–281Google Scholar: in Halyburton's Works consist of several pieces published posthumously in 1714. His polemical work on Deism, , Natural Religion InsufficientGoogle Scholar, was probably written in 1705 or 1706 since it criticizes the Deism of Charles Gildon who ceased being a deist in 1705, publishing a recantation inspired by the writings of the “high-flyer” Charles Leslie.

49. “A Turncoat of the Times” (1661) set the pattern which others were to follow until their theme was classically expressed in “The Vicar of Bray,” (c. 1689), the usual version of which dates from the first year of the reign of George I.

50. Ward tended to make Deism a mark of republicanism and Leslie had no qualms about saying that: There is a set of Men amongst Us who are Visibly Driving on (whether themselves know it or not) the Ruin of these Nations; by setting up the Principles and carrying on the same Pretence, which began and at last c.ompleated the Bloody Revolution of Forty-One, with the Destruction of the Church, the King, and the Laws.” (Carsandra, p. 7). Among the principles Leslie ascribed to these men were the “radical power of the people,” balanced powers in the constitution, and religious views that were heretical. Evans', AbelThe Apparition (1710)Google Scholar also made Ned Ward's association of Deism with a club to celebrate the anniversary of the beheading of Charles I. In Evans'verses one of the poet's enemies is accused of admiration for “Democracy” and Milton is lumped together with Hobbes, Blount, Vanini, Spinoza, and Tindal as a deist.

51. Edwards, John, Some Thoughts Concerning the Several Causes and Occasions of Atheism (1695), p. 28Google Scholar. Among the causes he listed were the multiplication of sects which engenders doubts, “Cheats and Delusions,” and hypocrisy which is the result of the support given to religious impostors by the knowing. While he was too conservative a thinker to discriminate deists from atheists, the tone of hi arguments suggests that he has no real atheists in mind; the publication date marks out Blount and the Socinians as his likely targets—along with Jeremy Taylor, John Locke, and Arthur Bury (the Unitarian), who are mentioned by name. In tracing the causes of atheism he does seem to point to the Commonwealth and its “melancholiac excesses.”

52. Howe, John, The Living Temple, Part I (London, 1675), p. 222Google Scholar; Cudworth, Ralph, True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) (London, 1842), ed. Harrison, J., I, 267Google Scholar; Casaubon, Meric, Of Credulity and Incredulity (1668), p. 223Google Scholar. Cassubon's Treatise Concerning Enthusiasm and Of Credulity were sometimes bound together. One deals with the madness of the sectaries, the other with the response of “wits” to religious enthusiasm. Casaubon specifically mentions deists as among these wits (p. 223).

53. Vide Baxter, Richard, Appendix to the Reasons of the Christian Religion (1671)Google Scholar; Stillingfleet, Edward, A Letter to a Deist (1677)Google Scholar. Both men were conscious of the dependence of Deism on the Court and London wits, but Stillingfleet knew that it is the religion of men more sober than Rochester, Sedley, Etherege, and Savile.

54. Gordon, Thomas, A Vindication of the Quakere (1730)Google Scholar, reprinted in A Cordial for Low Spirits, Vol. II (London, 1763)Google Scholar.