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William Chillingworth: a Study
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Extract
Writing to Thomas Barlow in the late seventeenth century, a young correspondent requested information ‘wherein Mr. Chillingworth's peculiar excellency above other writers consisted’. Thomas Barlow replied that this excellency stood not ‘in any extraordinary knowledge he had of Antiquity’ nor in the mere accumulation of learning but ‘did arise from, and consist in his Logick, both natural; and (by exceeding great industry) acquired’. The acumen of Chillingworth's argument, indeed, has long attracted attention. More important, the enigma of much of his character and expression has awakened a mass of commentary and exposition. In the nineteenth century, James F. Stephen, Thomas Arnold, Buckle and Lecky were concerned with him mainly as a rationalist, and the logical incompatibility of much of his thought with authoritarian Laudian churchmanship. In the present century there has been no constant course of interpretation, but a recent trend, notably in the works of D. Mathew and W. Schenk, has been to stress the affinities of Laud and Chillingworth in their appreciation of an ordered Caroline society. In this article, the intention is to attempt a precise delineation of the formation and significance of Chillingworth's thought and belief; a task in which unpublished material—both in the Lambeth Palace Library and the Bodelian Library—has been invaluable.
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References
page 175 note 1 The Genuine Remains of Thomas Barlow, Late Lord Bishop of Lincoln, London 1693, 344 ffGoogle Scholar.
page 175 note 2 See Stephen, J. F., Horae Sabbaticae, London 1892, i. 207–8Google Scholar; Arnold, T., Lectures on Modern History, London 1849, 230–1Google Scholar; Buckle, T., History of Civilisation in England, London 1871, i. 346–9Google Scholar; Lecky, W. E. H., History of the Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism, London 1870, ii. 73–4Google Scholar; Mathew, D., The Social Structure of Caroline England, Oxford 1948, 87Google Scholar; Schenk, W., The Concern for Social Justice in the Puritan Revolution, London 1948, 95Google Scholar.
page 175 note 3 Many questions cannot be attempted in the space of an article. It is not proposed to retrace in detail the familiar lines of Chillingworth's career; nor to trace the participation of Chillingworth in the thesis of a liberal Anglicanism evolved in the late seventeenth century.
page 175 note 4 W. Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants a Safe way to Salvation, first published at Oxford in 1638.
page 176 note 1 Mitchell, W. F., English Pulpit Oratory from Andrewes to Tillotson: a study of its literary aspects, London 1932, 282–3Google Scholar.
page 176 note 2 See, especially, Codices Manuscripti Miscellanei, MS. 943 (Lambeth Palace Library): Tanner MSS. 233, 278 and 72; MS. Rawlinson D. 843; MS. Rawlinson B. 158 (Bodleian Library).
page 176 note 3 We esteeme of Luther, Zwinglius and Calvin as worthy men; but we esteeme them not worthy to bee Lords or Authors of our Faith, or to lead our Understandings captive. We cannot blesse God sufficiently for such Instruments of His Glory, yet we doe not idolise their Persons, or adore their dictates and opinions as if they were divine oracles as Romish Zealots doe with their Pope’: Potter, C., Want of Charitie, 2nd ed., London 1634, 84–5Google Scholar.
page 177 note 1 Baxter, R., Church Government and Worship, London 1659Google Scholar, 6, where he accuses certain among the Caroline Episcopate—notably Montagu and Goodman—of setting at nought the foreign Reformed Churches.
page 177 note 2 Heylyn, P., Cyprianus Anglicus, London 1668, 127Google Scholar.
page 177 note 3 W. Birch, The Life of William Chillingworth, prefixed to the 1742 (London) edition of the Works. Much of this account is based upon Wood's, Anthony àAthenae Oxonienses, London 1691–2Google Scholar, and The Life of William Chillingworth by Maizeaux, Des (ed. with notes, London 1863)Google Scholar.
page 178 note 1 Aubrey, J., Brief Lives, London 1949, 63Google Scholar.
page 178 note 2 Birch, W., The Life of William Chillingworth, prefixed to 1742 (London)Google Scholar edition of the Works. See also The History of the Troubles and Tryal of William Laud, London 1695, 227Google Scholar.
page 172 note 3 The original document is contained in Tanner MS. 72, f. 3. There is a copy in Lambeth Palace Library (Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 935).
page 172 note 4 Tanner MS. 233, ff. 6–27.
page 172 note 5 Tanner MS. 233, f. 6: ‘Temporum ratio suasit, at ante rigidius, nunc vero mitius controversiae nostrae agitarentur et tractarentur. Tune fervor schismatis incalescebat, nunc spes unionis repullulat.’
page 172 note 6 Ibid.: ‘Apostoli Gamalielem, jam tune Christianum, ut ea ratione melius consulere Ecclesiae posset, inter seniores, licet Christi inimicos, occultam et quasi conciliorum participem permanere volebant. … Gamaliel ipse—quasi de veritate dubius loquitum nempe ut quod plane declarando efficere non potuit, paulatim et persanctissimas artes insinuando, affectos eorum ad Christum pelliceret.’
page 179 note 1 Chillingworth, W., The Religion of Protestants, Works, London 1742, 113Google Scholar: ‘By the Craft, I mean, of keeping your Proselytes from an Indifferent trial of your Religion by Scripture, and by making them yield up and captivate their Judgment unto yours.’
page 179 note 2 Ibid., 57.
page 179 note 3 Hyde, Edward, The Life of Edward Hyde … written by himself, Oxford 1759, 29Google Scholar: ‘This made him from first wavering in Religion, and indulging in Scruples to reconcile himself too soon and too easily to the Church of Rome; and carrying still his own Inquisitiveness about him, without any resignation to their Authority, returned with as much Haste from them.’
page 179 note 4 Aubrey, , Brief Lives, London 1949, 63Google Scholar; Lloyd, D., Memoires, London 1668, 542Google Scholar.
page 179 note 5 Calendar State Papers, Domestic, 1631–1633, 290.
page 179 note 6 MS. Rawlinson B. 158, 170: ‘The Bishop (Laud) for this purpose (recovery of Chillingworth) made choice of Dr. Wedderburne, a Scottishman, prebendary of Ely … who presently upon the Bishop's notice came up and received the King–s command to answer that paper.’ Though inaccurate in quoting St. Omer and not Douai and anonymous, this document fills out the action of Laud at this juncture.
page 180 note 1 The letter from Juxon to Laud as reported in the Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1631–1633, where Chillingworth confessed his readiness to be guided by Laud ‘provided he might be recovered of his liberty, in case he were unsatisfied’.
page 180 note 2 Tanner MS. 278, f. 125, where Sancroft writes concerning some transcripts of Chillingworth's work, ‘That which follows here did so in Sir William Haward's MSS. also; as if it were of the same Author; supposed to be written by him (it may be) when he was doubting between both communions and though gone over to the Papists, yet still came to our Churches.’ This may possibly refer to the period 1628–1631 rather than 1633 (the time of Chillingworth's entry into Lady Falkland's circle), but Lady Falkland herself refers to Chillingworth's ‘communicating with the Protestant Church within less than a quarter of a year’ after protestations of Catholicism: The Lady Falkland: her Life, London 1861, 74Google Scholar.
page 180 note 3 Wood, Anthony à, Athenae Oxonienses, London 1691–2, ii.Google Scholar, col. 21, concerning his return, ‘Though the Presbyterians said not but that he was always a Papist in his heart, or as we now say, in masquerade.’
page 180 note 4 The Lady Falkland: her Life, London 1861, 92Google Scholar: ‘He affirmed there were many in Poland and Transylvania of his religion and had ever been since the breach with Rome. … All which arguments, with many more like would he turn back on the heads of Luther and Calvin and their followers.’ There was one step he would not take: see H. P. de Cressy, Fanaticism Fanatically Imputed to the Catholic Church, 1672, 167: ‘from all subordinate but divided English sects he had a horrible aversion and contempt.’
page 180 note 5 Hyde, Edward, The Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon.… written by himself, Oxford 1758, 30Google Scholar: ‘of a very public heart and an indefatigable desire to do good.”
page 180 note 6 E. Hyde, Life, 22. For a recent appreciation of Great Tew circle, Mathew, David, The Age of Charles I, London 1951, 224Google Scholar; for a contemporary viewpoint. Thomas Triplet, in the Preface to Falkland's, Discourse of Infallibility, London 1660Google Scholar.
page 181 note 1 Genuine Remains of Thomas Barlow, Late Lord Bishop of Lincoln, London 1693, 329Google Scholar, where Falkland's direction of Chillingworth's reading is depicted.
See also Hammond, H., A view of Some Exceptions … Made by a Romanist to Lord Falkland's Discourse of the Infallibility of the Church of Rome, Oxford 1646, 21Google Scholar, where the views of the Romanist are quoted by Hammond. On page 94, the Romanist refers to ‘Chillingworth his Commentator’, ‘his scholar Chillingworth’, on p. 100 ‘Chillingworth … who knew much of the Inquirer's mind, though in all things he did not follow his direction’.
page 181 note 2 E. Hyde, Life, Oxford 1759, 22, 23. See also on this point ‘Epistolae et Orationes’, Cod. Wharton 595 (Lambeth Palace Library), p. 17, where a letter from Falkland to Mr. F. M., dated 1636, is recorded.
page 181 note 3 Warwick, P., Memoires of the Reigne of King Charles I, London 1701, 195Google Scholar: ‘He loved his book, and so was a great Master of books; but in temper somewhat hypochondriack.’
page 181 note 4 L. Cary, ‘A Discourse of Infallibility’ in the 1660 (London) edition of the Works, 18.
page 181 note 5 ‘The Lord of Falkland's Reply’, in the 1660 (London) edition of the Works, 138.
page 181 note 6 ‘A Discourse of Infallibility’ in 1660 (London) edition of the Works: ‘It should be to take ill care of Christianity to seek to uphold it by Turkish means.’
page 182 note 1 H. P. de Cressy. See Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, 1691, ii. col. 241. This account covers the friendship and patronage enjoyed from Falkland and Cressy's renunciation of Protestantism in 1646.
page 182 note 2 See the letter of D. Hammond to Thomas Smith of Christ's College, Cambridge, concerning Knott's reply to Chillingworth (Tanner MS. 461, f. 53). See also a letter of Hammond to Gilbert Sheldon (Harleian MS. 6942, f. 31). For general background, see Bosher, R. S., The Making of the Restoration Settlement; the Influence of the Laudians, 1649–1663, Westminster 1951Google Scholar.
page 183 note 1 H. P. de Cressy, Exomologesis, 2nd ed., Paris 1653. Cressy claims that Chillingworth's writing was ‘more ruinous to it (the Church of England) than all the spiteful writings of Cartwright, Knox, Henderson, or all the rabble of Geneva joyned with them’.
page 183 note 2 See B. Hoadley, ‘A letter to Dr. Snape’ prefixed to Mr. Pillomière's, Reply to Dr. Snape's Vindication, London 1718Google Scholar, Preface, xliii onwards. For a diametrically opposed view, Bennett, T., Essay on the 39 Articles, London 1715, 431Google Scholar.
page 183 note 3 Anthony à Wood, Athenae Oxonienses, 1691–2, ii. col. 22: ‘He was a man of little stature but of great soul; which, if the times had been less severe and his life spared might have done incomparable service to the Church of England.’
page 183 note 4 Baxter, R., The Grotian Religion Discovered, London 1658, 29Google Scholar: ‘The True and Only Way of Concord,’ Works, London 1707, iv. 655Google Scholar.
page 183 note 5 Hammond, H., A View of Some Exceptions, Oxford 1646, 30Google Scholar.
page 184 note 1 Chillingworth, W., The Religion of Protestants, Works, London 1742, 357Google Scholar.
page 184 note 2 Ibid., 92: ‘For my part, I profess, if the Doctrine of the Scripture were not as good and as fit to come from the Fountain of Goodness as the Miracles by which it was confirmed were great, I should want one main pillar of my Faith.’
page 184 note 3 Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 863.
page 184 note 4 Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 864: ‘Besides, seeing the false faithe of Mahometans, which undoubtedly proceeds neither from Grace nor reason, is yet as experience shows so alive where it is firme as to produce obedience unto Error and imposure, even to the plucking out of their owne eyes, nay even to death. What reason is there to denye but that a firme beliefe of divine Truth, though proceeding only from meanes indeed insufficient as the authority of parents and teachers, and much more that which by rationall and prudentiall considerations the Holy Ghost works in us may produce the same or a greater effect.’
page 184 note 5 Ibid., 864, wherein Chillingworth states that firmness of adherence is not in itself cogent proof of the truth of the belief ‘yet he knows (this) may be done for a false and irrational faith, for the faith of Heretikes and Mahometans, and therefore their confidence and resolution can be no infallible signe of a justifying faith’.
page 185 note 1 Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 871.
page 185 note 2 The Fourth Sermon in the 1742 (London) edition of the Works (second part), 49. A convincing sense of wonder may be denoted within the following passage: ‘He, by whom all Things were made, even the eternal, almighty Word … He, of Whose Fulness we have all received, did utterly evacuate and empty himself of His Glory and Majesty, denying to Himself such Things which he would not even to the most despised Creatures.
page 185 note 3 Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 909. Here Chillingworth sets forth the argument of two missionaries—one Christian, one Mahomedan—preaching to the heathen. Or. purely prudential considerations, the latter's argument would be more cogent—avoiding ‘great difficultyes in the Mysteryes of the Trinity, Incarnation’, and propounding ‘one only God, rewarder of good and punisher of evill’.
page 185 note 4 The Ninth Sermon, 1742 (London) edition of the Works (second part), 121: ‘Reason alone (by the Help of those worthy grave Precepts, which are extant in the Treatises of Moral Philosophy) hath been able to change many Men from the habitual practice of several Vices to a virtuous (I had like to have said also a Religious) Life.’
page 186 note 1 Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 899. The paper is headed ‘God's Universal Mercy in Calling Men to Repentance’. ‘Let me entreat you first to take heed thou make not way, nay that thou lay not a foundation for the worthishly detested heresy of Faustus Socinus, by saying that God's anger was pacified and men reinstated in God's love, before and therefore without the satisfaction of this justice.’ See also the Fifth Sermon in the 1742 (London) edition of the Works (second part), 58.
page 186 note 2 de Cressy, H. P., Exomologesis, Paris 1647, 244Google Scholar: ‘It may be indeede so excellent a witt as Mr. Chillingworth's … may out of St. Luke's Gospell draw conclusion after conclusion, and so at last inferre propositions contrary to Socinian doctrine: yet he should deny his own principles, if he should call that doctrine a heresy.’
page 186 note 3 Potter, C., Want of Charitie, London 1634, 87Google Scholar: ‘Wherefore the jarres and divisions betweene the Lutherans and Calvinists doe little concern the Church of England which followeth none but Christ.’
page 186 note 4 Chillingworth, W., The Religion of Protestants, Works, London 1742, 356Google Scholar: ‘Following the Scripture, I shall believe a Religion which, being contrary to flesh and blood without any Assistance from worldly Power, Wit or Policy ‥ prevailed and enlarged itself in a very short Time all the world over; whereas it is too apparent that your Church hath got, and still maintains her Authority over Men's consciences by counterfeiting false Miracles … by Wars, by Persecutions, by Massacres, by Treasons, by Rebellions; in short, by all manner of carnal Means, whether violent or fraudulent.’
page 187 note 1 Tanner MS. 233, f. 59, ‘Concerning the Lawfulnesse and expedience of having the Publique service of the Church in a language not Understood by the Assistants,’ f. 67, ‘An Papa sit Judex Controversiis Infallibilis’; f. 83, ‘Errorum in Ecclesia Romana Gradus et Incrementa.’
page 187 note 2 Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 875.
page 187 note 3 This process dated from Christian antiquity. Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 875: ‘From hence I thinke it is easy to collect, that though the fore-named Heretiques were by the ancient Fathers cast out of the Church Communion, yet by more ancient than they, they would have been receaved.’
page 188 note 1 Chillingworth, W., The Religion of Protestants, Works, London 1742, 24Google Scholar: ‘That noble writer Michael de Montaigne was surely of a far different mind; for he will hardly allow any Physician competent, but only for such diseases as himself had passed through.’
page 188 note 2 The following passages give some indication of the human relationships. De Cressy, H. P., Exomologesis, Paris 1647, 141Google Scholar: ‘The mutual friendship betweene us, the great obligations I have to cherish his memory, and the high esteeme of his excellent partes.’ Cheynell, F., Chillingworth Novissima, London 1725Google Scholar, where, despite the vein of constant hostility running through the whole work, there is present a recognition of long acquaintance, and, indeed, respect. On page 38 occurs the passage: ‘One, whom I acknowledged so much above me, in regard to his parts, gifts and experience.’
page 188 note 3 Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 865: ‘That he breakes not the bruised Reed, nor quencheth the smoaking flaxe; wch signifies that he acceptes of imperfect faith and love where it is sincere. Because he commands us by S. Paul to receave those that are weake in faith; and thereby gives us to understand that he will receave them.’
page 188 note 4 Chillingworth, W., The Religion of Protestants, Works, London 1742, 204Google Scholar: ‘Take away this Persecuting, Burning, Cursing, Damning of Men for not subscribing to the words of men, as the words of God.’
page 188 note 5 Apprehension of clerical power is clearly expressed in The Religion of Protestants, where he refers to ‘the strict Necessity of the Laities Dependence’ upon the Roman priesthood (Works, London 1742, 99). But see Chillingworth's apprehension, albeit at the time of his conversion to Rome, of the parallel danger of the intrusion of lay power: ‘Laici non sunt capaces clavium. Potestas jurisdictionis non est potestas clavium.’ (Remarks upon the thirty-nine Articles, Tanner MS. 233, f. 29.)
page 189 note 1 The Seventh Sermon, Works, London 1742 (second part), 83: ‘The thing we reject is that new picklock of Sacramental Confession obtruded upon Men's consciences.’ Writing against the Scots in 1643, Chillingworth reveals his apprehension of religious conviction when expressed, not in terms of individual spiritual life but of power to disrupt national life. ‘The tragedy which the Scots and their confederates are now in Acting, with Bibles in their hands … though, with horrible Blasphemy, they rank it with the Redemption of the Church by the Son of God and the Planting of Christian Religion by his servants.’ (The Beginning of a Treatise against the Scots, Cod. Man. Misc., MS. 943, 879.)
page 189 note 2 Tanner MS. 233, f. 30, ‘Concerning the Lawfulnesse and expedience of having the Publique service of the Church in a language not understood by the Assistants’ (Heads of Arguments). The First Sermon, Works, London 1742 (second part), 1: ‘So commonly we may observe both in Civil conversation, where there is great store of formality, there is little sincerity; and in Religion, where there is a decay of true and cordial piety, there men entertain and please themselves, and vainly hope to please God with external formalities.’