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Ingenious Piety: Anglican Casuistry of the Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2011

Camille Slights
Camille Slights
Affiliation:
Carroll College, Waukesha, Wisc. 53186
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Extract

In The Country Parson or the Priest to the Temple George Herbert portrays his ideal parish priest not only as a man learned in the works of the Church Fathers and contemporary theology but as one who “greatly esteems also of cases of conscience, wherein he is much versed,” because “herein is the greatest ability of a parson to lead his people exactly in the wayes of Truth.” The case of conscience which the pastor of Bemerton praised so highly was, in the seventeenth century, the characteristic form of casuistry, the branch of theology which attempts to provide the perplexed human conscience with a means of reconciling the obligations of religious faith with the demands of particular human situations. In the case of conscience, the casuist poses, or is posed with, a difficult moral problem and solves it, often with a startling display of erudition and logical ingenuity.

Type
Research Article
Information
Harvard Theological Review , Volume 63 , Issue 3 , July 1970 , pp. 409 - 432
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 1970

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References

1 Herbert, George, The Country Parson or the Priest to the Temple in The Works of George Herbert, ed. Hutchinson, F. E. (Oxford, 1941), 230Google Scholar.

2 Although Roman Catholic casuistry had a long history and flourished particularly in the sixteenth century, the first English casuists were William Perkins (1558–1602) and William Ames (1576–1633). In spite of Perkins’ The Whole Treatise of The Case of Conscience (1603) and Ames’ De Conscientia, eius Jure et Casibus (1630), relatively little casuistry was published in the early decades of the seventeenth century. More cases appeared in the late sixteen thirties, and cases of conscience were numerous in the forties and fifties. The major attempts to treat casuistry systematically were Robert Sanderson's De Obligatione Conscientiae (1660), Jeremy Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium (1660), and Richard Baxter's Christian Directory: or a Sum of Practical Theologie, and Cases of Conscience (1673). The demand for casuistry remained strong immediately following the Restoration, but cases of conscience were becoming old-fashioned in the nineties and had virtually ceased to be written by 1700.

3 Walton, Izaak, The Lives of John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Robert Sanderson (London, 1927), 68Google Scholar.

4 Henson, H. H. includes a brief chapter on casuistry in his Studies in Seventeenth Century Religion (London, 1903)Google Scholar, and Wood's, ThomasEnglish Casuistical Divinity in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1952)Google Scholar surveys Anglican casuistry from a theological point of view. In The Formation of Fuller's “Holy and Profane States” (Cambridge, Mass., 1938)Google Scholar, Houghton, W. E. discusses the impact of casuistry on Fuller, Thomas, and Mosse, George L. treats the political implications of Puritan casuistry in The Holy Pretence: A Study in Christianity and Reason of State from William Perkins to John Winthrop (Oxford, 1957)Google Scholar. Malloch, A. E. investigates JOHN DONNE'S relationship with Roman Catholic casuistry in John Donne and the Casuists, Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, II (Winter, 1962), 57–76.Google Scholar

5 Sanderson's lectures were revised for publication in English under the title Several Cases of Conscience Discussed in Ten Lectures…, trans. Robert Codrington (London, 1660). Taylor's Ductor Dubitantium appears in The Whole Works, ed. R. Heber, rev. C. P. Eden, vols. EX and X (Oxford, 1884). Subsequent references to these editions will appear parenthetically in my text.

6 Taylor lists five kinds of conscience by distinguishing between the doubtful conscience and the probable or thinking conscience. The main difference between the two is that, while neither can assent fully to either side of a question, the probable conscience can choose, while the doubtful conscience cannot.

7 Sanderson, Robert, The Works of Robert Sanderson, ed. Jacobson, William (Oxford, 1854), VI, 358fGoogle Scholar.

8 Both Sanderson and Taylor argue this point at length, refuting the position that Christian liberty frees men from subjection to human authority and that obedience is a matter of prudence rather than of conscience. The casuists argue that human laws bind the conscience not directly by virtue of their intrinsic merit or authority, but indirectly by virtue of power derived from God.

9 Gardiner, Samuel Rawson, ed., The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution (Oxford, 1906), 39Google Scholar.

10 Jacobson prints Washbourne's letter immediately preceding Sanderson's case. Works, V, 17–19.

11 A valuable survey of this debate is provided by Wallace, John, The Engagement Controversy 1649–1652; An Annotated List of Pamphlets, Bulletin of the New York Public Library, LXVIII (1964), 384–405Google Scholar.

12 James, I, Triplici Nodo Triplex Cuneus. Or an Apologie for the oath of allegiance…. Printed in The Political Works of James 1, ed. McIlwain, Charles H. (Cambridge, Mass., 1918), 72Google Scholar.