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Puritan Mysticism and the Development of Liberalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Jerald C. Brauer
Jerald C. Brauer
Affiliation:
Union Theological Seminary, New York City
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Extract

The rise of the liberal spirit in seventeenth-century England is generally equated with the development of Locke's philosophy and the rationalism of English churchmen such as Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and Sharpe. In tracing the emergence of this movement historians of thought have given adequate attention to such factors as the Cambridge Platonists, the earlier Latitudinarians, the impact of Newtonian science, and the general social, political, and economic conditions of the day. One factor has been overlooked. There were certain emphases or characteristics in the mystical element of Puritanism which also appeared later in the rise of the liberal spirit on the English scene. The usual treatment of this phase of the Puritan movement is to grant its fruitfulness in the economic and political spheres, but to consider it a peculiar aberration which is insignificant for subsequent developments in religious thought except for its issue in Quakerism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 1950 , pp. 151 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1950

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References

1 Brauer, J. C., Francis Rous, Puritan Mystic, 1579–1659: An introduction to the Study of the Mystical Element in Puritanism (Chicago: Unpublished dissertation, University of Chicago, 1948).Google Scholar

2 Sir Francis Rous, Peter Sterry, Walter Cradock, Morgan Llwyd, John Everard, and Giles Randall.

3 Brauer, , Francis Rous, 1–32Google Scholar. An attempt was made in this thesis to distinguish theologically between these two types and to show the consequences of the distinction.

4 Jones, R., Mysticism and Democracy in the English Commonwealth (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1932), 58–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Johnson, George A., From Seeker to Finder (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1948)Google Scholar. Dr. Johnson includes within this group Thomas Collier, William Dell, William Erbury, and John Saltmarsh.

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8 The following analysis might appear out of proportion since more space is given to the first point than to the last four points combined. However, such is not the case. The relation between liberalism and the last four points is obvious, but the similarity of emphasis and the relation between rationalistic liberalism and supposedly emotionalistic Puritan mysticism is not so obvious. But, it is precisely this similarity which is so important for the history of thought; therefore, it will be treated more fully.

9 Lovejoy, A. O.. “The Parallel of Deism and Classicism,” Essays in the History of Ideas (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1948), 79.Google Scholar

10 Willey, Basil, Seventeenth Century Backgrounds (London: Chatto & Windus, 1942), 72.Google Scholar

11 Pattison, Mark, “Tendencies of Religious Thought in England, 1688–1750,” Essays and Reviews (London: John W. Parker & Son, 1860), 272.Google Scholar

12 De Veritate was not published in English, but it first appeared in Latin in Paris, 1625.

13 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, De Veritate, 51ff. Quoted in Wiley, Backgrounds, 124.

14 Ibid., 126.

15 Ibid., 128: “One fair day in summer, my casement being opened towards the South, the sun shining clear and no wind stirring, I took my book De Veritate in my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words: O thou Eternal God, Author of the light which now shines upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech thee of thy infinite goodness to pardon a greater request that a sinner ought to snake; I am not satisfied enough whether I shall publish this book De Veritate; if it be for thy glory, I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not I shall suppress it. I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud though gentle noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth) which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as granted, and that I had the sign I demanded, whereupon also I resolved to print my book: this (how strange soever it may seem) I protest before the Eternal God is true, neither am I any way superstitiously deceived herein, since I did not only clearly hear the noise, but in the serenest sky that I ever saw, being without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence it came.”

16 Powicke, F. J., The Cambridge Platonists (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926), 199–205.Google Scholar

17 Whichcote, B., Aphorisms, 76Google Scholar, quoted in Powicke, , The Cambridge Platonists, 23.Google Scholar

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19 Smith, John, Discourse I, p. 4Google Scholar, quoted in Willey, , Backgrounds, 139.Google Scholar “For divinity is something rather to be understood by a spiritual sensation than by any verbal description,….” Again, “That is not the best and truest knowledge of God which is wrought out by the labour and sweat of the brain, but that which is kindled within us by a heavenly warmth in our hearts….” Quoted in Tulloch, John, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century (Edinburgh and London: Wm. Blackwood & Sons, 1872), II, 142 ff.Google Scholar

20 Nuttall, G., The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience (London: Blackwell, 1946), 34–47.Google Scholar

21 Cradock, W., Gospel Libertie (London: M. Simmons for H. Overton, 1648), 117.Google Scholar

22 Ibid., 118–119. Cradoek also admits that men not enlightened by divine grace still have “a spirit of illumination, common knowledge, and right reason: and by common knowledge, and right reason, they may be able to judge farther than many Christians what is the will of God, and what is not, in externall things, though they be strangers from the power of these things.” Ibid. 46–47.

23 Sir Vane, Harry Jr, The Epistle General (London: 1662), 14–21.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 30. The ability of man to follow the law as in his first Nature is “actually restored through the benefit of his (Christ's) death, more or less is every man, by that common Light of Grace which Christ doth no more withhold from any man, than he doth his Rain from raining upon the Just and Unjust.” This meant the ability to keep at least the fundamentals of the moral law.

25 Ibid., 29, 32, 41.

26 Too much stress has been laid on Sterry's distinction between reason and spirit. It is true that he distinguished them, but as in most of the Puritan mystics and spiritualists he left large room for reason. Note his introduction to the Discourse on the Freedom of the Will (London: John Starkey, 1675)Google Scholar. Also, Baxter accuses him of identifying Christ with a universal intelligence or soul of the world. Baxter was not far wrong. De Sola Pinto, V., Peter Sterry Platonist and Puritan (Cambridge: University Press, 1934)Google Scholar, Appendix II.

27 Vane, , The Epistle General, 23.Google Scholar

28 This analysis of George Fox and the inner light is based on the study by King, Rachel H., George Fox and the Light Within (Philadelphia: Friends Bookstore, 1940).Google Scholar

29 King, , George Fox, 105.Google Scholar

30 Nuttall, G., The Holy Spirit, 159, 162 ff., 175.Google Scholar

31 Braithwaite, W. C., The Second Period of Quakerism (London: Macmillan, 1919), 376–396Google Scholar. A good indication of the theoretical relation of the inner light with contemporary movements in thought is given by Willey, B., Backgrounds, 73.Google Scholar “The ‘inner light’ of the Quakers ranks with the ‘Reason’ of the Platonists, the ‘clear and distinct ideas’ of Descartes or the ‘common notions’ of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, as another of the inward certitudes by means of which the century was testing the legacies of antiquity and declaring its spiritual independence.”

32 Note the attitude of some of the spiritualists towards an educated ministry— especially William Dell, William Erbury, and Thomas Collier.

33 “The reaction against individual religion led to this first attempt to base revealed truth on reason. And for the purpose for which reason was now wanted, the higher, or philosophic, reason was far less fitted than the universal understanding which in all men can claim a share…. The appeal from the frantic discord of the enthusiasts to reason must needs be not to an arbitrary or particular reason in each man, but to a common sense, a natural discernment, a reason of universal obligation.” Mark Pattison, “Tendencies,” in Essays, 291.

34 Rous, F., Treatises and Meditations (London: John Wright, 1657), 201.Google Scholar

35 Cradock, W., Gospe-libertie…. Wherein is laid down an exact way to end th present dissentions, and to preserve future peace among the Saints (London: M. Simmons for H. Overton, 1648)Google Scholar. Note especially the introduction.

36 Ibid., 135; cf. 171.

37 Sterry, Peter, A Discourse on the Freedom of the Will (London: Printed for John Starkey, 1675)Google Scholar, preface. Rous, Francis, The Balm of Love (London: John Wright, 1648)Google Scholar, passim; Rous, , Treatises and Meditations (London: Robert Wright, 1657), 156, 192 ff., 203 ff., 209, 214, 240, 314, 338 ff., 386, 502.Google Scholar

38 Brauer, , Francis Rous, 273 ff.Google Scholar

39 Rous, , Balm of Love, 7.Google Scholar

40 Not to be overlooked is the importance of those Puritan spiritualists who made a radical division between the realm of nature and the realm of spirit. There was to be no organic relation between the two realms, but the spiritual life was to be freed from all control and support by the state. Johannes Kühn has traced this background of religious liberty in Toleranz und Offenbarung (Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1923), 16 ff., 140–220Google Scholar. Woodhouse, A. S. P., Puritanism and Liberty (London: J. Dent, 1939)Google Scholar, offers a most enlightening account of this distinction and its consequences for the concepts of liberty and equality in the political realm. A full account with large selections from the sources is Jordan, W. K., The Development of Toleration in England (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938–1940), 4 volGoogle Scholar. Jordan, however, does not make this important distinction.

41 Sykes, Norman, Church and State in Eighteenth Century England (Cambridge: University Press, 1934), 3ff.Google Scholar

42 Note the moralism in Vane's letter to his wife as he was in prison awaiting his trial and execution as one of the regicides. “To bridle and regulate the tongue, order all the language, action, and expression of animal powers aright, is to bridle the whole body, under the government or ruling authority of the Mind or Spirit, considered in its superior and angelical kind of life and acting…. The Mind or Spirit of man thus considered, is as the Piiot that turns the Ship about, whitliersoever he listeth.” Vane, , Epistle General, 96.Google Scholar

43 This has been adequately documented in Schenk, Wm., The Concern for Social Justice in the Puritan Revolution (London: Lougmans, Green, & Co., 1949)Google Scholar, in Nuttall, The Holy Spirit, and in several articles by W. S. Hudson.