ARMINIANISM is a general term used to cover the whole High Church and Latitudinarian reaction against the intellectual tyranny of Calvinism (q.v.). Jacobus Arminius (or Hermann) (1560-1609) studied theology in Leiden. There he was greatly influenced by Koornhert, who argued for toleration in religion against the rigid uniformity imposed by the ministers. After some time spent at Geneva he became an important preacher in Amsterdam, and 1603 succeeded Franz Junius as Theological Professor at Leiden. On being appointed to refute Koornhert, who had attacked the doctrine of divine decrees, Arminius examined the whole matter, and developed his position in the direction of free will. His system was developed by his successor, Simon Episcopius. Its chief points are the denial of irresistible grace and the necessary final perseverance of the elect. While not denying the sovereignty of God, from which the whole Calvinistic scheme was deduced by rigid a priori reasoning, Arminius postulated that strong belief in the self-limitation of God's power, involved in the creation of free beings. He was violently opposed by his colleague, Gomarus, and 1610 a number of Dutch ministers, known as 'Remonstrants,' presented a list of articles formulating their dissent from Calvinistic orthodoxy. They secured an edict of the States-General in favour of the toleration of both opposing views in 1614. This, however, only served to bring the matter into the party quarrels between the partisans of the house of Orange and those of the bourgeois and republican ideals of Amsterdam. In 1617 Prince Maurice of Orange imprisoned the Arminian leaders, Oldenbarnevelt and Grotius, and summoned the famous synod of Dort to decide the controversy. This synod was attended by representatives of foreign churches, including some English clergy sent by James I. [REUNION, III.] It passed decrees condemning the Remonstrants, and asserting the main points of Calvinistic doctrine, but leaving open the infralapsarian position. The supralapsarian view asserts that the divine decree predestined the fall of Adam, thus denying all freedom to humanity; the infralapsarian denies this, and though repudiating freedom to all Adam's descendants is not fatal to free will in the abstract.
Whether or no it was due to the presence of English representatives at the synod, there is no doubt that from this time onwards there developed a strong intellectual movement in England against the rigid Calvinism in fashion. Laud (q.v.) and his friends were, [28/29] in Mr. Gardiner's phrase, the 'broad Churchmen' of the day. On a point so complex and profound as the relation of human freedom to divine grace they declined to dogmatise, and adopted the line afterwards suggested by Motley (q.v.) in regard to this very controversy, that it were to be wished that on some subjects the human mind would admit its limitations. Like Arminius and his followers they revolted against the tenet of Calvinism that Christ did not die for all men, but only for the elect. With this negative position in regard to the prevailing Protestant orthodoxy there went for the most part other strong positive views about the nature of the Church and the value of external ordinances. With these we are not here directly concerned. These points, together with Laud's methods of enforcing conformity, enhanced the dislike of the Arminian or court clergy. But from the time of their first favour at the beginning of the reign of Charles I. there is no doubt that the Puritan party felt in them their true adversaries. This was seen in the passionate attack on Richard Mountague [CAROLINE DIVINES], author of the New Gag for an old Goose, and the contest that ensued between the Commons and the King, which was provoked by Mountague's Appello Cesarem. This struggle, which lasted from 1625 to 1629, was closely connected with the general course of politics. Indeed, this case of Mountague alone affords strong evidence of the predominantly religious character of the conflict between Charles and the Puritans. A study of the Parliament which passed the Petition of Right reveals this most clearly. Mountague had been condemned for his Appello Cesarem in 1625, and was made a bishop in 1628. Charles in December 1628 published the Declaration still prefixed to the Articles of Religion (q.v.), which endeavoured to prevent the imposing a purely Calvinistic sense on the Thirty-nine Articles. In this Charles was eminently justified, and was but continuing the policy which directed the whole Elizabethan Settlement (q.v.). The Commons, however, strong in Puritan prejudice, would have none of this. They drew up a Remonstrance, in which the spread of popery and the encouragement of Arminianism were totally condemned, along with the King's claim to levy tonnage and poundage.
Finally, in the next year, 1629, after Buckingham's assassination and Mountague's consecration (they took place on the same day), the great breach with the King took place when the Speaker was held down in his chair, and the three, famous resolutions of Sir John Eliot were passed, the first of which is in the following words:--'Whosoever shall bring in innovation of religion, or by favour or countenance seem to extend or introduce Popery or Arminianism or other opinions disagreeing from the true and orthodox Church, shall be reputed a capital enemy to this Kingdom and Commonwealth.'
From that day began the eleven years' personal government of Charles, and the short-lived triumph of the 'Arminian' clergy. Associated in the popular mind with court favour, unpopular doctrine, and laxity of life, their position was never pleasant. Nor can it be denied that, until the cleansing fire of the Puritan persecution, the party contained in its ranks too many time-servers. Baxter's testimony in regard to the clergy of his youth is perfectly sincere, and may well be trusted. On the other hand, even apart from these other views, their position as opponents of the rigid predestinarianism in fashion was a courageous and necessary protest in favour of a truly Catholic faith against a view of God which made Him the worst kind of Oriental despot. [CALVINISM.] [J. N. F.]
CALVINISM. The name given to the complex of doctrines, which were supposed to be especially characteristic of the Genevan reformers. As a matter of fact, John Calvin, who was not an original thinker, but a systematiser, did not originate the doctrines connected with his name; while in England at least Calvinism is by no means necessarily connected with Calvin's system of Church government. It is tenable with or without a belief in episcopacy, and indicates no more than a belief in the rigid doctrines of predestination and reprobation, and a dislike of all ceremonial in religion, coupled with the denial of any final authority outside the Bible. In regard to predestination, Calvin's Institutio did but state in a more systematic and scholastic form what had been the belief of Luther. In the latter's reply to Erasmus, De Servo Arbitrio, and in numerous other writings, Luther makes it clear that he, equally with Calvin, denied all freedom or responsibility to man, and asserted the entirely predetermined nature of human life, including the sin of Adam. In this, again, the reformers were merely following a tendency that had been very prevalent at the close of the Middle Ages. Wyclif (q.v.) used to say: Omnia qua evenient, de necessitate eveniunt, although it is not quite certain how far Wyclif included in this the action of the human will. Bradwardine, his master, had been a very strong predestinarian. So, as in other sides of Puritanism (e.g. the dislike of the drama), the position taken up by extreme Protestantism was not so much an innovation on the medieval Anschauung as the exaggeration and emphasising of one or more elements within it.
Calvin's system as developed in his [80/81] Institutio Christianae religionis is a logical and compact doctrine, lucid, harmonious, and horrible. It starts from one tenet, and from that argues deductively without any qualification. That tenet is the sovereignty of God. The system is an intellectualist construction, entirely regardless of the facts of life. Since God can only be conceived as sovereign, and since no limits can be set to His omnipotence, for to do so is to deny His freedom, there can be no place for any real choice on the part of a created being; and the place of man in the universe is necessarily decided by divine decree. God's predestination is something more than His foreknowledge, and no consideration is given to the possibility of His limiting Himself by the creation of free beings. There never was nor will be any freedom save that of God's eternal will. It is not merely the case that Adam's descendants all share his nature and therefore his guilt. This view the infralapsarian, while denying freedom to the individual, asserts it for the race, and is in reality, as proved in the case of Arminius, destructive of the sheer monism to which Calvinism leads. But this is not the doctrine of Calvin or Luther. Not merely is sin the corruption of Adam, but Adam's own sin was predetermined, and he had no real choice. At the same time, since human nature is thus evil, it has no rights; every man is ipso jure damned; nor can he complain of the fortunate Jews or Christians, who are elect. Salvation being a matter not of right but of grace, God's freedom is not to be judged, but His abundant mercy praised. In this view Christ died only for a few, and those few, being predestined to glory, cannot by any outward sin sever themselves from their destiny.
Although Calvinism naturally and historically leads on to determinism, it must not be confused with it. The determinist starts with an analysis of human life, and with the conception of cause and effect, mathematically understood. He arrives, in consequence, at a universe which from start to finish is a network of inevitable relations, and has no place for spirit. Calvin, on the other hand, starts from the idea of freedom found in its perfection in God, and so anxious is he to preserve this intact that he allows no real place for that or any other element in the universe of being. This is more naïf in Luther, but there is no doubt of it being present in both. It is the conception of sovereignty unlimited by law, which had governed the minds of the great civilians, and was applied to the Papacy (also to the modern State) transferred to the sphere of religion. In Calvin's work the notion of God as essentially Love simply does not occur.
It is customary to attribute the strength of this system to its logical coherence. But that is surely to allow too much to mere formal consistency, when it is remembered that for so long a time it dominated Protestant Europe. Rather we should be justified in seeing it in the tremendous experience of Luther, repeated in petto in thousands of lesser men. The sense of the 'elect,' that he was in God's hands, that he was being swept in the force of a current stronger than himself, the intimate experience of being one cared for, chosen by a heavenly Father, coupled with the knowledge that many had no such security, and many more no hope of it, and set against a background of a religion that could be construed purely externally, was probably the leverage which gave the new system such strength. It is 'the godly and comfortable doctrine of election.' Strength of one kind or another it undoubtedly had. Few were the minds in the English Church in the mid-sixteenth century whom it did not dominate, and its power in the other reformed communions was little short of tyrannical. Fortunately for England, it failed of complete expression. The Thirty-nine Articles are almost certainly patient of a purely Calvinist interpretation; but they are so adroitly framed that it can be eluded, and despite the ruling influences in the Church of Elizabeth, sheer Calvinism never became authoritative. Often, indeed, have attempts been made to deny this. But the facts are against such denial. If the articles had excluded a non-Calvinist interpretation, why were they never held sufficient by the extreme party? The strongest evidence of all is that afforded by the Lambeth Articles of Whitgift (q.v.). Though a stern upholder of uniformity and no friend to the Presbyterian movement led by Thomas Cartwright (q.v.), he was willing, if not to give the extreme Calvinists all they wanted, at least to go a great deal further than the existing formulae. The Thirty-nine Articles were then to be supplemented by the following. These propositions, generally known as the Lambeth Articles, are as follows:--
1. God from eternity hath predestinated some to life, some He hath reprobated to death.
2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination to life is not the prevision of faith, or of perseverance, or of good works, or of anything which may be in the persons predestinated, but only the will of the good pleasure of God.
[82] 3. Of the predestinated there is a fore-limited and certain number which can neither be diminished nor increased.
4. They who are not predestinated to salvation will be necessarily condemned on account of their sins.
5. A true living and justifying faith, and the Spirit of God sanctifying is not extinguished, does not fall away, does not vanish in the elect either totally or finally.
6. A truly faithful man, that is one endowed with justifying faith, is certain by the full assurance of faith, of the remission of his sins and his eternal salvation through Christ.
7. Saving grace is not given, is not communicated, is not granted to all men, by which they might be saved if they would.
8. No man can come to Christ except it be given to him, and unless the Father draw him. And all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come unto the Son.
9. It is not placed in the will or power of every man to be saved.
But for the prescience of Elizabeth, and the strong common-sense of the lay mind as shown in Burleigh, these would have become the law of the Church. Later on, in the light of the Arminian controversy, the House of Commons endeavoured to maintain that they were the official interpretation of the existing formularies. To this the reply was the Declaration of Charles I.. Thus, first the clerical party and afterwards the laymen failed in imposing them on the Church of England. With the summoning of the Westminster Assembly, however, and the imposition of 'The Solemn League and Covenant,' it seemed as though the day of final triumph had come. That the Westminster Confession and Catechism enshrined the pure Calvinistic faith has never been questioned. Fortunately, however, these were imposed only by the Erastian House of Commons, and the Assembly of Divines had no real ecclesiastical authority. Along with the Directory they may have been held to be the secular law for the Establishment during the period of triumphant Puritanism. Even then it may be doubted whether they any more than the' Holy Discipline' had any wide practical predominance outside London and Lancashire. The provisions of the Instrument of Government and the Humble Petition and Advice made distinctly for toleration in this matter, if not in others. The whole fabric, however, was swept away at the Restoration, and with the Act of Uniformity of 1662 vanished the last danger of a church officially Calvinistic.
In the Methodist and Evangelical revival of the eighteenth century the old controversy arose again. It was largely the ground of the quarrel between Lady Huntingdon (q.v.) and her chaplain, Whitefield (q.v.), and John Wesley (q.v.). Wesley was a strong Arminian, and frequent expressions of disgust at the narrowness of the Calvinist offer of salvation only to a few are to be found in his Journal. The Calvinistic Methodists of Wales testify by their title to the nature of the quarrel and to their difference from other Methodists.
It is impossible to follow the fortunes of Calvinism in other countries. In Scotland the trial of J. M'Leod Campbell (1800-72) for heresy in 1830 because he asserted that Christ died for all is a proof of how greatly the old doctrine still dominated men's minds even in the nineteenth century. In the recent changes, however, even its official authority has been done away. The basis of Union of the Free Kirk and the United Presbyterian, and the fifth clause of the Scottish Church Act, 1905 (5 Edw. vn. c. 12), remove from both established and non-established bodies any obligation to hold to Calvinism in the old literal sense.
The springs of modern philosophic determinism, as expounded by Spinoza and Hegel, have sometimes and with some justice been traced to the denial of human freedom set out by Luther and Calvin. This influence, however, must only be a matter of conjecture, and is at most indirect. Neither is there space here to discuss the exact relation between the predestinarianism of Calvin and that of St. Augustine. It may, however, be said that St. Augustine, even at the cost of some inconsistency, refused to draw the extreme conclusion of either total depravity or divine reprobation in the Calvinistic sense. [J. N. F.]
CREIGHTON, Mandell (1843-1901), Bishop of Peterborough and London, historian of the papacy, was born in Carlisle, educated at Durham under Dr. Holden, and at Merton College, Oxford, of which he was elected Fellow in 1866, gaining first classes in Mods. and Lit. Hum. and a second in Law and History. After living for some few years in Oxford as a Tutor and a very brilliant historical lecturer, he retired to the college living of Embleton in Northumberland in 1875. Besides taking a great part in local activities he was a Guardian of the Poor, and at one time secretary of the Church Congress, and having much to do with the organisation of the new diocese of Newcastle (q.v.), Creighton continued his historical work. In 1882 he published the first two volumes of his History of the Papacy during the Reformation. This work, of which the fifth and final volume went down to the sack of Rome in 1527, forms his main title to fame as a historian. But he published during his lifetime many smaller books, of which those on Wolsey and Queen Elizabeth are the best known. At Embleton, no less than at Cambridge afterwards, Creighton did almost as much historical teaching as learning, frequently having undergraduates as pupils. To Cambridge he removed in 1884, being the first Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History. In this capacity Creighton probably did more than any one else (not excluding Lord Acton) to stimulate the study of history in a University in which it was not the fashion. His lectures, and more especially his conversational classes, were an inspiration to many, while with the actual conduct of the school and the remodelling of the Historical Tripos he had much concern. His part in the social and academic life of the University was large, but it was lessened by his appointment in 1885 to a canonry at Worcester. There he rapidly won influence, partly as a preacher and partly through his interest in all local affairs. His influence in the cathedral chapter was predominant, and he was the main instrument of the improvement at the west end and the river front. In 1886 Creighton became the first editor of the English Historical Review.
In 1890 he had been promoted to a canonry at Windsor, but before he was installed he was nominated to the bishopric of Peterborough. His life was now mainly, though not entirely, occupied with diocesan and ecclesiastical duties. The geniality and sympathy which were so strongly marked in his character combined with his amazing grasp and quickness to win him the respect of his diocese. Before he left it respect had ripened into affection. With the working men of Leicester he was especially popular, and through this fact he was able to exercise a decisive influence in the settlement of the boot strike in 1895. Outside functions were not neglected. He represented the English Church at the coronation of the Czar, Nicholas II., in 1896, just as ten years earlier he had represented Emmanuel College at the tercentenary of Harvard. He delivered in 1893-4 the Hulsean Lectures at Cambridge, producing a very characteristic volume on Persecution and Tolerance. He was Rede Lecturer at Cambridge, 1895, and Romanes Lecturer at Oxford, 1896.
In 1897 he was translated to London. It does not appear that he ever enjoyed his work in London as he did that at Peterborough; and indeed it was fraught with difficulties. He complained of the enormous amount of administrative work and of the lack of human relations with his clergy, owing to the fact that he had only to drive to a church for a function and then drive on to another, whereas in the country diocese of Peterborough it was commonly necessary to stay the night. He was also subject to attacks on all sides owing to the violent agitation against 'ritualism.' This began almost immediately after his appointment by the interference of the late John Kensit, and was stimulated by the Erastian Whig, Sir W. Harcourt. This agitation, in part the natural result of Temple's (q.v.) laissez-faire policy, tested all Creighton's powers of statesmanship and sympathy. In a situation in which entire success was out of the question, he achieved results far more satisfactory than would have fallen to the lot of most of his colleagues on the bench. The whole controversy had one good result: it enabled Creighton to bring his vast store of historical learning and imagination to bear on the problem. He set himself definitely to find out what was the relation of National Churches, of the English Church in particular, to Christendom as a whole. He developed with much acumen the view which scholars like Casaubon had commended in the seventeenth century, that the Church of England is 'based on sound learning,' and in this lies her distinctive quality alike against Rome and Geneva. Creighton, who had, as he put it, 'almost a craze for liberty,' was ever in favour of using persuasion rather than coercive power. While he held that it was wrong for a priest in his diocese to disobey his orders and presumptuous to disregard his expressed wish, he was not prepared to punish this wrong by direct action; and at [166/167] the close of his life and after much misgiving he interposed his veto against the attempt of a Baron Porcelli to get up a prosecution against the incumbent of St. Peter's, London Docks. Partly for this reason he was never understood by either side, while his epigrammatic humour irritated those persons who think a sense of humour out of place in a clergyman. It was on a reference from Creighton to the archbishop, as interpreter of the rubric, that the famous Lambeth Opinions on incense and reservation were promulgated by Dr. Temple. Worn out with his manifold tasks, Creighton, died on 14th January 1901 after an illness of a few months. Shortly before his death he had summoned the representatives of both parties to a conference on the Holy Eucharist.
Both by temper and conviction Creighton was tolerant--a quality which came out in his teaching no less than his rule. This tolerant quality meant a readiness to understand all views, but in no way implied haziness or indefiniteness in his own. A strong High Churchman, with a belief in the sacramental system and the authority of the Church, he hailed the publication of Lux Mundi. Sensitive to all the currents of intellectual life, his hold on the Incarnation and its attendant miracles was never shaken. His breadth of mind and sense of humour made him one of the most brilliant talkers of the day, and he was hailed by Lord Rosebery as the 'most alert and universal intelligence in this land.' He had a wide circle of those who felt for him not merely respect but love. His premature death was mourned in London as that of few of his predecessors had been. Posthumous works have served but to enhance his fame, and the Life, published by his widow, has taken rank among the six best biographies in the language. [J. N. F.]
ERASTIANISM. The principles expounded by Erastus, on the predominance of the civil power in ecclesiastical concerns, have won this name in England owing to the controversies in the Westminster Assembly. They are not known by this name on the Continent. Byzantinism or Caesaro-Papism would be a more accurate term.
Thomas Lüber (or Erastus) was born at Baden in 1524; matriculated at University of Basel in 1542. He became a scientific physician of distinction, and in 1557 was made Professor of Therapeutics at Heidelberg by the Elector Palatine, Otto Henry. In 1559 Otto Henry died, and the new elector proscribed both Catholicism and Lutheranism. The latter had been previously the dominant faith. There now ensued a violent controversy on the subject of the 'Holy Discipline.' An attempt was made by the extremer Calvinists to introduce this brightest jewel of the Puritan crown, and establish ruling elders and the whole paraphernalia made so famous in Geneva and afterwards in France and Scotland. Erastus was the leader of the party who were opposed to this. In 1568 an English refugee, George Wither, offered some theses on the discipline of excommunication, insisting that it existed jure divino entirely apart from the civil [206/207] magistrate. Erastus developed his opposition in his Explicatio Gravissimae Quaestionis, which includes his seventy-five theses, and also in the Confirmatio or reply to Beza, who had, not unnaturally; entered the lists on the other side. In spite of this protest the discipline was introduced, and Erastus was himself excommunicated in 1574. Under a new elector a Lutheran revolution followed, and Erastus left Heidelberg for Basel, where he lectured on ethics, and died in 1583.
In Erastus's lifetime neither his work nor that of Beza was published. What made it famous was the similar controversy in England. In 1589 the Explicatio was published nominally at Pesclavium, really at London, and the real editor was the husband of Erastus's widow. There is evidence that Wolf, the publisher, was rewarded by the Council. There seems little doubt that the publication was an attempt by Whitgift (q.v.) to produce an effective reply to the claim of the Presbyterian leaders in England, Cartwright (q.v.) and Travers (q.v.), to introduce the holy discipline. From this time forth Erastianism became the name for that view, which asserted the entire possession of coercive authority by the civil power in the Church, and denies any to the clergy or to the Church as organised separately from the State. The name of Erastus was involved in the Arminian controversy, and Grotius was the most famous name on that side in his treatise De Imperio Summarum Potestatum Apud Sacra (1614).
What finally naturalised the term in England was the controversy in the Westminster Assembly. The attempts of the Presbyterian divines to introduce excommunication and to make it entirely independent of the civil power were opposed by Selden and others, and were never entirely successful. The theses of Erastus were translated into English, and appeared in 1659 under the title, The Nullity of Church Censures. The controversies which led to the disruption in Scotland in 1844 led Dr. Lee to republish the old translation with an elaborate preface of his own, vindicating Erastus from the charge of Erastianism as commonly understood.
Erastianism in the sense of the teaching of Erastus must be distinguished from its later forms. In Erastus's view, and the same should be said of nearly all the Erastian divines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was no claim to set a purely secular power above the Church. What they claimed was an entire recognition of the coercive jurisdiction of the civil authority in a state which tolerated but one religion and that the true one. What they refuse to allow is any competing jurisdiction. Its later developments are due partly to Selden and Hobbes, partly to the growth of toleration. Selden asks: 'Whether is the Church or the Scripture the judge of religion?' and replies 'In truth neither, but the State.' This is precisely the view of Hobbes, and would make all religious truth the sport of political expediency. But it is not the view of Erastus; what he claims is that in a Christian state the magistrate is the proper person to punish all offences, and since excommunication is of the nature of punishment, it ought not to be imposed without his sanction. With the development of toleration Parliament has come to consist of men of all religions and of none. Modern Erastianism claims the right of a body so composed to adjudicate on matters of belief either in person or by deputy, and would allow ecclesiastical causes to be decided by civil judges, who might every one of them be agnostics.
At the same time Erastus, like Luther or Hooker (q.v.), in his endeavour to maintain the rights of the laity very much exaggerates the function of the civil power. The error of all the parties at this time arose from two causes: (a) the disbelief in religious toleration; (b) the conception of the State as a single uniform society which allowed no inherent rights in any other society. The supporters of the discipline were right in claiming inherent rights for the religious society and denying that they were all derived from the civil power. They were wrong in attempting with such a claim to make the religious society coextensive with the nation, and to use the civil power for that end. The controversy has thus more than one aspect. Inside the body, which may be regarded either as Church or State according to the aspect uppermost at the moment, it is a controversy between the rights of the laity and those of the hierarchy (for ruling elders, though laymen, are part of the hierarchy). Outside these limits it is the controversy between those who push the principle of the unity of the State to an extreme, and those who assert the inherent, underived authority of other societies. It is only finally to be settled by the recognition (a) of the liberty of the individual to choose his religion; (b) the rights of the corporate personality, the Church or family, as guaranteed and controlled but not created by the State. [J. N. F.]
NEWMAN, John Henry (1801-90), cardinal, son of a London banker, was brought up under Calvinistic influences, went through the process of conversion in 1816, which he ever after regarded as a turning-point in his life; was sent up to Trinity College, Oxford, very young, did not highly distinguish himself in the schools, but in 1822 was elected, after examination, a Fellow of Oriel, then the leading college in the intellectual life of Oxford. He became a Tutor of the college in 1826. Hurrell Froude (q.v.) was elected a Fellow in the same year. Newman had united with Froude to vote for Hawkins as Provost against Keble (q.v.). For this he was rewarded in 1829 by Hawkins turning him out of his tutorship, because he insisted on construing strictly the tutor's function in loco parentis to have regard to the moral and spiritual welfare of his pupils. In 1832 he went abroad with Froude and his father, the archdeacon. The journey in which Newman saw Rome for the first time was undertaken for the sake of Froude's health, which it did not permanently re-establish. Newman himself towards the close was alone, and nearly died of fever in Sicily. It was on the voyage back from Marseilles that he wrote 'Lead, kindly Light.' So far as Newman was concerned it was chiefly during the long dream time of this interlude that the thoughts gathered which were to take shape in the Oxford Movement (q.v.). The year of the great Reform Bill was one which foreboded great danger to the Establishment. And the Movement avowedly took its origin in the endeavour to find some defence for the Church of England deeper than that of mere political conservatism. Newman resolved to proceed by the method of short tracts, and becoming the editor, wrote the first with its call to battle, 'I am but one of yourselves, a presbyter.' And the circulation, which was conducted in somewhat primitive fashion, began shortly to affect the country parsonages. Newman had been presented by his college in 1828 to the living of St. Mary's, Oxford. This was to prove his widest source of influence in the English Church. His sermons, though not definitely propagandist, attracted all those undergraduates who listened to sermons at all, and moulded a whole generation of clergy. In 1833 he also published his first volume, The Arians of the Fourth Century, which as an exposition of Catholic doctrine is unrivalled, and as history is far less unsatisfactory than is often supposed, due regard being had to the date of its publication. In 1834 the Movement, which had been proceeding by rapid strides, received a great accession of strength in the person of Pusey (q.v.).
In 1836 came the controversy over Hampden's (q.v.) Bampton Lectures. In this Newman was the main assailant. The same year began the connection with the British Critic (a magazine started in 1814), which was to contain so many solid contributions to theology and some of Newman's best writing. In 1839 the downgrade began. Newman read an article of Wiseman's on 'The Anglican Claim,' and declared that it was the first serious blow he had received from the Roman side. From this 'stomach-ache' he never recovered. He began to fear that the English Church was no better off than the Donatists or the Monophysites, and although he buoyed himself up with fresh arguments, such as the essay on The Catholicity of the Anglican Church, he was never more a wholehearted defender of the Via Media. Influenced partly by Ward and others of the more extreme men who had come late into the Movement, he wrote in 1841 Tract 90, designed to prove that the Protestant interpretation which custom had affixed to the Thirty-nine Articles was not binding, but that they might be construed in a Catholic sense. In the course of this tract he lays down the principles of the ethics of conformity, as they are now almost universally received. The tract provoked an outcry. Four Oxford Tutors, of whom Tait (q.v.) was one, protested against its alleged immorality, and the bishops after some delay began to charge against its author. In obedience to his own bishop Newman stopped the further issue of the Tracts. He had fitted [388/389] up a few cottages at Littlemore as a sort of refuge for men desiring to live in community. There he retired with a few others. In 1843 he published a retractation of all the hard things he had said of the Roman Church, and resigned St. Mary's. One further event greatly moved him, and this was the establishment of the Jerusalem Bishopric (q.v.), the ill-fated project of Bunsen. He wrote a letter to the archbishop publicly protesting against this. But though it may be thought to have intensified his feeling, this incident did not originate or even accelerate his action. In 1845 a successful attempt was made to censure W. G. Ward for the Ideal of a Christian Church, but the proctors' veto (exercised by Church (q.v.) and Guillemard) saved Newman from insult. He was engaged on that essay, afterwards published, On the Development of Christian Doctrine, which is in some ways the most original of all his works. Before the book was really completed he took the final step, and was received into the Roman Church on 9th October by the Passionist, Father Dominic.
After an interlude at various places in England, Newman was sent to Rome for a year. In 1847 he founded the congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Birmingham, which in 1852 was removed to the suburb of Edgbaston. This remained his home for the rest of his life, except for the short and intermittent sojourn in Dublin. In 1850 he delivered the lectures on The Difficulties of Anglicans. The course was designed to show that Rome was the logical outcome of Tractarianism, and that the difficulties felt by many were not vital objections to the Roman system. At this time, 1851, there took place the famous papal aggression. At the inauguration of the 'revived' Roman hierarchy Newman preached that sermon on 'The Second Spring' which Macaulay was declared to have by heart. In view of the outcry provoked by the unwise phraseology of Cardinal Wiseman Newman was induced to deliver the course of lectures on The Present Position of Catholics in England. This volume contains some of the best specimens of his irony. Unfortunately, however, he alluded, in terms entirely justified, to the character of an ex-Dominican, Dr. Achilli, who had been greatly advertised by the ultra-Protestant party. Achilli prosecuted Newman for criminal libel. In the existing state of the public mind, with a judge manifestly prejudiced, it was not surprising that Newman was condemned. This was directly in the teeth of the evidence; but a motion for a new trial failed, and Newman was sentenced to a fine of £100, in a case of which the costs were £14,000. On the whole, however, he had gained; the money was subscribed for him, and the manifest injustice of the verdict turned feeling in his favour. In 1854, at the request of Cardinal Cullen, Newman became the Rector of the Roman Catholic University in Dublin. His position was hopeless from the first. The bishops wanted nothing of Newman but his name; they hampered and insulted him; their ideal was merely a superior sort of seminary; and after three years' disappointing efforts Newman retired. One good result had come of the ill-fated project, the lectures on The Idea of a University. From 1857-64 Newman was also much occupied with another difficult matter. Sir John (later Lord) Acton and others had been for some time endeavouring to raise the standard of culture among Roman Catholics, and as a means to this end they had chosen a magazine. The Rambler, however, became so extravagant in theological liberalism that the authorities were set against it. Eventually, after much negotiation, Newman consented to take over the editorship. He retained it, however, for a very few months. An article of his own on 'Consulting the Laity in matters of Faith,' though it contains one of the best possible expositions of the true principles of authority, was denounced to Rome, and could not but be offensive to strict ultramontanes. After this, the review was bought by Acton, and Newman was invited sometimes to give advice. But the net result of his intervention was that he had awakened the distrust of both sides, and left the breaches unhealed. Probably, however, if it had not been for Newman, Acton and Simpson would not have been able to continue the Home and Foreign Review as long as they did. It should be said that the Oratory School at Edgbaston was founded in 1859. Newman was not headmaster, but exercised a general supervision, and his name had much to do with the success of the school. At this time his position was at its nadir. Distrusted by the authorities of his own Church, openly attacked in the Dublin Review by W. G. Ward, with the influence of Manning (q.v.) on the increase and incurably hostile, Newman had fallen out of public notice; his books had ceased to sell, and his work appeared to be over.
In 1864 came the chance of his life. He took it, and after the publication of the Apologia pro Vita Sua his place in English life was secure. Kingsley (q.v.) began by making a charge of deliberate approval of falsehood against Newman. Invited to give [389/390] his authorities, he was unable to do more than allude to the general trend of a sermon. Pressed still further, he still refused to withdraw his charge, and made even baser insinuations in a rejoinder entitled What then does Dr. Newman mean? Newman discerned that here was the true point at issue--the meaning and spirit of his whole life; and the Apologia, written at white heat and coming out in weekly parts, was the consequence. A public assurance of the sympathy of his co-religionists made him more than ever dangerous to the extreme ultramontanes, like Manning, Ward, and Vaughan, styled by Newman 'the three tailors of Tooley Street.' A suggestion that he should go to Oxford to preside over a Roman Catholic college or hostel was bitterly opposed by his enemies. In the year 1870 he issued his Grammar of Assent. This with the Development and the University Sermons is Newman's most important contribution to the philosophy of religion, and anticipates much that has been recently written from the philosophic side on the nature of belief. The book was approved by Ward, but its strong anti-scholastic tendency made it unpopular with the exponents of the prevailing scholastic orthodoxy. This was the time of the Vatican Council. Newman, though he believed the doctrine of 'Papal Infallibility,' was opposed to its promulgation, and to the influence of Manning and the Jesuits who pressed for it. Thus he was in the strictest sense an inopportunist. Though invited, as one of the theological assessors, by Archbishop Dupanloup, Newman refused to attend the Council. But his views were known, and the unauthorised publication of a private letter gave them more pronounced expression than he would have desired. Despite this, when in 1874 Mr. Gladstone (q.v.) published his pamphlet on The Vatican Decrees in their bearing on Civil Allegiance, all turned to Newman for help. His Letter to the Duke of Norfolk forms not merely a most effective answer to Mr. Gladstone, but is also a very adroit blow delivered at the extreme ultramontanes. Even Acton could say that he might accept the decree with Newman's explanations. The only other event of importance in Newman's life is the offer of the cardinalate. When Pius IX. was succeeded in 1876 by the more liberal Leo XIII., Newman's admirers felt that it was opportune to ask for some recognition. After some difficulty, created by Manning, the honour was conferred in 1878, and Newman lived the last twelve years of his life honoured alike within and without his own communion. He wrote no more books, but in 1881 published an article of liberal tendency on the object of Biblical criticism, and spent much time in arranging his correspondence. After growing gradually more and more feeble, he died on 11th August 1890. The chorus of eulogy which followed his death provoked hostile critics. In Philomythus, Newmanianism, and his two volumes on the Anglican Life of Cardinal Newman, Dr. E. A. Abbott set himself to besmirch his reputation, and employed arguments on a lower level than those of Kingsley.
The personal charm and extraordinary subtlety of Newman's character render him one of the most intimate and alluring of' writers. His contribution to the life of his time may be summed up as follows:--He discerned earlier than most men the terrific strength of the forces that threatened to engulf the Christian faith; he saw that the existing bulwarks, alike intellectual and political, were of little value; and that the true conflict was between rationalism as an accepted principle and the religious sense of men. He saw that those who decide for the religious sense have decided for a power super-individual, and that the collective consciousness of the religious community must be their authority rather than the individual reason. Further he saw that all beliefs must be ultimately determined by their relation to life, and that real assent would be no merely mechanical result. Man is not merely a sort of super-Babbage, grinding out conclusions like a calculating machine. Thus all his religious philosophy arises from the denial to the individual of the power to form entirely valid conclusions once he has accepted the postulate of religion; while in his view of the social consciousness, as incarnate in the Church, he is led to develop the doctrine of organic evolution in the spiritual just as Darwin did in the natural world. It is sometimes a question how far the development allowed by Newman is truly organic, and how far it is a mere logical explication. On the whole, however, the better opinion appears to be that it was the former, or at least that he was feeling his way to it. This seems clear from the famous passage about the Church 'changing that she may remain the same.' It is the viewing of all religious philosophy under the category of life that is Newman's main contribution. Its value is permanent, and his influence is in some ways on the increase.
This he foresaw. In his darkest moments he seems to have felt that he would be appreciated after his death, and the interest [390/391] in him in France and Germany has developed in the last ten years. This is testified by works like those of Henri Brémond in France, and Lady Blennerhassett in Germany.
Of the style so much has been said that it is idle to add a word. Mr. Gladstone described it well as 'transporting.' Its mingling of sweetness and austerity and the depth of its intimaté make it unlike all else. [J. N. F.]
Life and Correspondence, ed. A. Mozley; Life by Wilfrid Ward; Apologia pro Vita Sua.
PURITANISM. The term is exclusively used of an English variety of extreme Protestantism existing both within and without the English Church. Its meaning and spirit are, however, not confined to England or to any one phase of Church history. Apart from the special doctrines associated with it historically, Puritanism has always signified a certain view of spirituality and the means of attaining thereto. The Puritan spirit is a 'world-renouncing' spirit, and seeks God by way of denying all external means; thus it is closely akin to Manichaeism in its view of the material world as essentially evil, and is ascetic in the Oriental as opposed to the Catholic sense. With a denial of all external means, Puritanism also tends to individualism in religion, although that tendency does not manifest itself at first.
Wyclif (q.v.) is justly regarded as the forerunner of English Puritanism. His whole attitude to Catholic doctrine and life is essentially that of the Puritans, and he seems to have shared fully their dislike of art and all amusement. Indeed, ho was far more closely akin to the Puritans than was Luther with his expansive geniality. But the Puritans proper can hardly be said to have appeared in England before the reign of Elizabeth.
The situation in the reign of Elizabeth was of the nature of a reaction. Mary's government had made her religion unpopular. Tired of the Spanish alliance, humiliated by the loss of Calais, and deeply moved by the policy of persecution, the nation was prepared for change. It was not Protestant in spirit (in the ordinary sense), but it desired something like the Henrician system. That desire to a large extent was fulfilled by Queen Elizabeth and her advisers in the new settlement. [ELIZABETHAN SETTLEMENT.] The Act of Supremacy secured the nation against further encroachments on the part of the papal monarchy, and the Act of Uniformity (q.v.) gave them a form of service, tolerable if not popular. For many, [479/480] however, the Book of Common Prayer did not go far enough. The moment it had become clear that no such dangers as those of the previous reign were before them, large numbers of the English Churchmen who had been in voluntary exile returned to this country. In Geneva and Heidelberg they had learned to love the bare services and elaborate preachments of the prevailing fashion. Europe, or a large part of it, owned in Calvin an intellectual and spiritual master, and his authority was more absolute than that of most of the popes. Swayed by these notions such men came back hoping for a 'root-and-branch' revolution, and anxious to reform the Church on the Calvinist Presbyterian model. Thus when it appeared that the new order would not only continue episcopacy, but would enjoin set prayers, sacerdotal vestments, and outward sacramental signs, there was a great outcry. The first few years of Elizabeth's reign were filled with the 'Vestiarian' controversy. Those who had looked for a church entirely purified bitterly complained of the rags of popery, and there was in some cases great difficulty (as there had been in the case of Bishop Hooper, q.v.), in others impossibility, in securing even a minimum of discipline. It was to achieve this minimum of decorum that Parker (q.v.) issued his famous 'Advertisements' (q.v.) in 1566. They had the archiepiscopal not the royal authority, and they were ineffectual at the moment. The bishops were largely Puritan in sympathy, though prepared to enforce order to a limited extent.
Later on in the reign, in the 'seventies, there was a definite and determined attempt to remodel the Church on the Presbyterian lines. This took two forms. First, there was an appeal to Parliament to do what was needful by legislation. Many were the conflicts on the matter between the Queen, who upheld the authority of bishops and Convocation, and the narrow Puritan laymen, e.g. Wentworth and Strickland, who were endeavouring to force a reform over the heads of the clergy. To the Queen's firmness, however, more than to any other cause, it was due that that attempt failed and only came to maturity in the Long Parliament. Apart from this, however, under the influence of Thomas Cartwright (q.v.), the author of the Admonition to Parliament, attempts were made to introduce the Presbyterian form of government as a voluntary system, while complying with the law in the matters of patronage and conformity.
This, however, was defeated largely through the resolution of Whitgift (q.v.), whose tenure of the primacy is of capital importance. It is true that before this time both Brownists and Baptists [NONCONFORMITY, III., IV.] had become definitely organised as separatist bodies. But by the end of the sixteenth century it appeared that the effort to Puritanise the English Church was unlikely to succeed; while Bancroft (q.v.) had already in his famous sermon taken up that line on the divine right of episcopacy, which was ultimately to mean so much more.
When James I. became king the Millenary Petition set forth the state of feeling. It witnessed to the strength of the Puritan clergy in numbers, and to their desire for no more than a toleration. The point made then and at other times was that it was unwise and unchristian to insist on compliance in matters of ceremony, and that toleration within the limits of the Establishment would be but right. Bacon was for indulgence of these 'nonconforming ' clergy. Not so, however, the King, whose experience in Scotland had not led him to love the Puritan ethos. The Government took the course of imprisoning some of the petitioners, and in the Hampton Court Conference (q.v.) which followed it was made abundantly clear that conformity would be enforced as far as possible, and that James was in no mind to weaken the Elizabethan settlement (q.v.). From this time till the Restoration, and indeed till 1688, the relations of the Puritan party to the authorities form the pivot on which all politics revolve. From the very beginning of the reign, in the Apology of Parliament, and right on till its close, the Puritan difficulty is one of the maim causes of misunderstanding between James and his Parliament.
All this was accentuated in the reign of Charles I. (q.v.). This was due to two causes. The King himself was brought up as an English Churchman, and had to the Prayer Book a romantic attachment which was to cost him his life. Thus on his side there were elements of religion and passion added to his regard for the episcopal system and liturgy which were entirely foreign to the mind of James, essentially a foreigner. Secondly, by the beginning of the reign of Charles a new group of clergy had risen into prominence, whose opposition to the Puritans was far deeper than that of the time-serving prelates of Queen Elizabeth, and more conscious, if not logically more real, than that of Matthew Parker. Most of the bishops, and still more of the clergy, of the first fifty years of the Elizabethan settlement, were divided from the Puritans by no very deep or discernible distinction. They differed on matters of Church government, on their notions of their relation to the civil power, on the extent of their dislike to outward forms; but in essentials they were agreed. Above all, they held without qualification that complex of doctrines known as Calvinism (q.v.). This is shown by the readiness of Whitgift to adopt the Lambeth Articles. This, however, was no longer to be the case. The case of Arminius and the Remonstrants had opened men's minds. [ARMINIANSIM.] The speculations which it evolved were far-reaching. There grew up a school of divines who were convinced that the whole doctrine of the relation of God's Providence to man's freedom was a mystery; that in regard to many matters the only wise or Christian attitude is a reverent agnosticism; and that, in particular, the explicit statements of Calvinism are revolting and incompatible with the belief that God is Love. On these matters they were willing to adopt a non-committal attitude; while, on the other hand, they were wedded to the notion of decorum of ceremonial observance and a uniform standard of worship, enforced by authority, and to a high view of the sacraments, not common among the Puritan clergy. Laud (q.v.), their leader, was the personal friend and adviser of the King; and the favour of the Government was consistently shown to those stigmatised as lax or Arminian clergy. The Puritan spirit grew more violent with opposition. It proceeded to attack Richard Mountague [CAROLINE DIVINES] for his alleged anti-Calvinist opinions, and was seeking in every way to make a Calvinistic interpretation of the Articles compulsory, when Charles interposed with the declaration, still prefixed to the Prayer Book, which asserts that no 'gloss' is needed, and is plainly framed to admit freedom inside the limits of subscription. The Laudian rule, coupled with the personal government of Charles, drove every one with a grievance into the Puritan camp. This was interrupted by the attempt, and then the failure of the attempt, to introduce the new Prayer Book into Scotland. Charles faced the Long Parliament (after the brief futility of the Short Parliament) with the knowledge that he would have to yield many points. The unwise canons of 1640 had further aroused opposition, and there was no doubt that the Parliament was determined to put a stop to the tyrannies of the last ten years, and in that sense to put an end to prelacy. Both the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission (q.v.) were abolished. But there was no general desire to alter the form of the Church as by law established.
The history of the months between the opening of the Long Parliament and the outbreak of the Civil War is the history of the way in which episcopacy became the rallying war-cry on either side. At first it appeared that there were only a few members in favour of the 'root-and-branch petition,' but by the time Charles returned from Scotland it was clear that there was a strong party in favour of an entire remodelling of the Church. When Charles wrote the letter to the Lords which announced his resolve to abide by the Book of Common Prayer, he took the step which created the royalist party. He had faced the angry squires and resolute lawyers in 1640 with no support but among a small band of courtiers and officials. Now he had the bulk of the nation on his side. The Civil War was not a war for political power nor for religious liberty. It was a war between two sets of ideas, each of them with a footing within the Church, and each claiming an exclusive right to be enforced by persecution. The Solemn League and Covenant, 1643, which Pym negotiated, drove the Parliamentarians still further in the direction of enforced Puritanism. The Westminster Assembly met in consequence, and after great difficulties there was issued in August 1645 the new Directory of Public Worship and ordinances passed for the introduction of the Discipline. This, however, was never really enforced except locally; England was never in any real sense Presbyterian. With the victory of the army, she ceased to be so even nominally. The Cromwellian rule was an Independent government, during which, in the name of liberty, toleration was denied to the Prayer Book, and in the name of religion the Quakers were harried. With the Restoration, the most popular event in English history, there vanished the last hopes of Puritan rule. The nation showed plainly enough that it would never endure another 'reign of the saints,' and the only question was how much of tolerance the Puritan party could secure. The Act of Uniformity barred, and was intended to bar, the retention of their livings by the bulk of the Puritan clergy. The Clarendon Code was an attempt, no less stupid than barbarous, to stamp them out by persecution. The rest of the subject is better studied under the heading of Toleration (q.v.). But Puritanism was indeed decaying through other causes. The writings of Richard Baxter (q.v.) mark the change. [481/482] His attitude is that of the liberal rationalising spirit of the era of Descartes, and his Reasonableness of the Christian Religion prepared the way for Locke. In Church matters he heralded modern undenominationalism. The Restoration witnessed the gradual secularising of politics; and during the next fifty years the Puritan and Laudian schools alike give way to the Latitudinarian (q.v.), and the forces that made eighteenth-century Deism (q.v.) and Establishmentarianism are seen at work. Until both Church and Dissent were revived by Wesley (q.v.), the old spirit had largely decayed. Although Puritanism represents certain permanent tendencies in human nature, and can be discerned to-day in many ethical and social movements, even apart from religion, English Puritanism in its distinct form can hardly be said to have outlasted the reign of Charles II.
Puritanism, alike within and without the English Church, has had a very strong effect in moulding the English character. It has intensified all those characteristics hostile to art, and by forbidding all other outlets to energy, concentrated on money-making the energies of the middle class. On the other hand, it led to a strong sense of duty, a high level of personal morality, a rigid if unsympathetic integrity, and an austere simplicity. These elements seem to be decaying with the breaking up of the intellectual foundations on which Puritanism was reared; above all, the literal infallibility of the Bible. In some of the great writers of the Victorian Age there can be traced the process of this 'exodus from Houndsditch,' in the phrase of Carlyle, who himself exhibits the retention of the characteristics of English or rather Lowland Scotch Calvinism with the repudiation of its Christian basis. In Matthew Arnold's writings a vigorous polemic was conducted against the literary and artistic ideals which Puritanism had fostered in the middle class; and probably the better educated modern dissenters have been more affected by his influence than they would care to admit. In the novels of Mark Rutherford can be seen depicted the breakdown of provincial Puritanism under the stress of modern knowledge; and Mr. Arnold Bennett's Clayhanger, with his other stories, displays sides of the same process. [J. N. F.]
TOLERATION. This term is commonly used to denote the absence of legal penalties for the expression of opinion of whatever kind. It will so be used in this article, and will not be taken to imply social toleration or the practical equality of all opinions--an ideal which is probably not feasible; nor will it be taken to denote tolerance, that temper of mind which is able without heat to consider the case for any and every opinion--a temper of mind which may be absent in firm believers in legal toleration.
The history of toleration is so much entangled with the history of persecution that it is hard to treat the two separately. The Church abandoned the idea of toleration so [597/598] soon as, having accepted under Constantine the patronage of the Imperial Government, she surrendered the notion of herself as a society distinct from the State, with her own life inherent and independent, and accepted the antique Græco-Roman ideal of a single omni-competent society with no real limits to its power. Henceforth the Empire is to be no more tolerant than it was under the pagan régime, but it is to be the Civitas Dei and, inspired by the Catholic religion, is to enforce uniformity. We can see the change in process in the works of St. Augustine. From the time of Theodosius, who proscribed paganism, until the religious wars of the Reformation had worked themselves out (roughly from 380-1688), toleration was neither enjoyed in practice nor was in theory the ideal of statesmen.
It must be the purpose of this article to trace the process by which a new ideal became general.
The notion of freedom of opinion began to be developed towards the close of the Middle Ages. In the course of the conflict in the fourteenth century between Pope John XXII. and Lewis of Bavaria, Marsiglio of Padua wrote in conjunction with John of Jandun the well-known tractate Defensor Pacis. The purport of this tractate is to deny all coercive authority to the clergy; to identify the Church with the State in the closest way and to democratise the government of it. In the course of his argument Marsiglio of Padua declares more than once that religious persecution as such is un-Christian and unreasonable. On the other hand, he declares also that the suppression of religious opinion may be for political grounds desirable. What Marsiglio disliked was the coercive power of the clergy; he had no dislike to the suppression of opinion as convenient to the State; and his importance as a pioneer has been overrated. On the principles expressed by him it would be possible to justify nearly the whole of the pagan persecutions, the Clarendon Code, and the Penal Laws of Ireland. Yet Marsiglio did make an important step by denying that religious persecution upon religious grounds is ever justifiable. Not long after this, at the close of the conciliar movement, Gregory of Heimburg, one of its last supporters, definitely laid it down that the suppression of religious opinion by force is not admissible. The Hussite wars had naturally caused on the part of many a re-examination of the problem, whether so much bloodshed was in this cause really to be approved.
Such views, however, were largely academic. It was the practical results of the Reformation that forced toleration on the governments of Europe. What happened was briefly this. In the early days of his revolt Luther, with his violent individualism, wrote in a way which might lead in this direction in the Liberty of a Christian Man. This, however, was not his real intention; or if it were, it soon disappeared under the pressure of events. After the Peasants' Revolt Luther showed himself the strongest supporter of the princely despotism; and with the Anabaptist outbreak disappeared the last flicker of any belief in toleration on the part of the leaders of the reform. The desire to stand well with the powers that be, coupled with a real personal love of authority, drove the reformers more and more into the authoritarian camp. It is quite an error to regard them as protagonists of liberty, except in so far as they themselves set at naught the existing authority. On the contrary, as against Castellio and Brentz, who strongly developed the doctrine of toleration, they were all united. Neither Luther nor Melanchthon, nor on the other side Calvin or Beza, desired liberty of opinion. All desired a uniform State, and in process of time came to declare the rightfulness of persecuting Catholics, or idolaters as they were called. Zwingli even not only wrote against the Anabaptists, but demanded the strongest measures against them. Still, steps had been taken. The execution of Servetus awakened a thrill of resentment, and though it was hotly defended, the task was not an easy one. Orthodox Protestantism now took over from mediæval politics the notion of the Christian State or City of God. The only difference was that in the Protestant view the real balance of power was in the hands of a layman, the 'godly prince.' This, of course, was not the case with Presbyterianism. But for Europe in general the theory that seemed to rule was that of Erastus. Brentz, however, laid down a doctrine of toleration (a) if false beliefs lead to crime, the crimes should be punished, not the belief; (b) opinions should never be forcibly repressed, for they may turn out to be true. To persecute is to close the avenues to knowledge. In the religious peace of Augsburg (1556) the doctrine of cujus regio ejus religio was laid down. This, though it is often derided, is a real landmark in the history of toleration. It definitely abandoned in the Holy Roman Empire that Catholic basis on which it rested. It admitted a diversity of religions among the States of which it was composed. True, it recognised no liberty for [598/599] the individual (except that of leaving the country), but in proclaiming toleration for the princes, three hundred in number, it symbolised a vast revolution.
Further results followed. In France the Huguenots had ever been an imperium in imperio; and partly owing to this, Presbyterianism, when it developed in Scotland, came to insist very strongly on the separateness of the two kingdoms, Church and State. Although this doctrine does not always mean toleration, nor did the Presbyterians desire it, yet by asserting the distinctness of the two societies it paves the way for it.
The Huguenots, however, were the cause of further steps in the same direction. The fever of the religious wars and the horrors of St. Bartholomew provoked a reaction. The party known as the politiques put the interest of the State above that of any religion, and though for the most part opposed to toleration of a new sect at the beginning were prepared to grant it rather than attempt the suppression of larger bodies of believers at the cost of civil war. This party finally triumphed with Henri IV., and the Edict of Names (1598) is the symbol. This grants no unlimited toleration, but recognises the existing facts, and permits the Huguenots to retain their worship undisturbed. Its principles had been early proclaimed by the chancellor, Michel de 1'Hôpital, and by the philosopher, Jean Bodin. The idea that uniformity in religion is the necessary basis of the body politic is surrendered.
Somewhat the same was the view of Queen Elizabeth (q.v.), or was at least the position she claimed, and was the line taken by Cecil. She did not, like Philip II., prefer rather not to reign at all, than to reign over heretics. But she gave up any claim to inquire into belief, and the introduction of recusancy fines meant at least this much, that difference of religion might be endured if men were willing to pay a price for their private opinions. At the same time, the State did not give up the idea of a uniform religion, and Roman Catholics were allowed rather than tolerated. The main quarrel until the Restoration was what should be the character of the national religion. Neither Puritan nor High Churchman expected or desired toleration. Each fought for an entire dominance. To this, however, there were exceptions. Robert Browne, the founder of the 'Brownists' and the 'reputed' parent of Independency, in his tract, Reformation without tarrying for any, definitely proclaimed the separateness of the spheres of government and religion, and broke with the great bulk of the Puritan party, who desired to effect their ends through the civil magistrate. But with this and other small exceptions, of which the members of the Baptist sect were an element, the ideal of a State religion homogeneous and coercive still endured. [NONCONFORMITY.] It was the true cause of the Civil War. The logic of facts, however, proved that England could not be homogeneous in this sense.
Under the first two Stuarts came the effort, ever increasing in rigour, to crush Puritanism. With the Long Parliament in 1640 this effort was seen to have failed. Then with the Civil War came the attempt of the other party. With the need of the help of Scotland, the Parliament was compelled to adopt the Solemn League and Covenant. The effect of this was to pledge the party to a further reformation in the Puritan sense, and for a time to make Presbyterianism, as defined at this moment by the Westminster Assembly, the established religion. This uniformity, however, existed only on paper. The 'Discipline' was never enforced except in London and Lancashire; the Erastian party in the Assembly and Parliament had secured the supremacy of the civil power; and the ever-increasing influence of the New Model army broke up the unity for ever. Cromwell came into power as the leader of the Independents. He has been called a believer in toleration, but in the Humble Petition and Advice and the Instrument of Government it is clear that neither popery nor prelacy is to be tolerated, i.e. the religion of the majority of the nation was proscribed. What Cromwell really did was to establish Independency, while he was doubtless tolerant of minor differences of opinion, and in the matter of Quakers less anxious to persecute than most of his followers. He was as tolerant as his position permitted.
The death of Cromwell provoked the Restoration. Charles II. in the Declaration of Breda made a 'liberty to tender consciences ' a capital promise; but it was limited by a reference to Parliament. Parliament would have none of it. The Church party was vindictive and triumphant. There ensued the new Act of Uniformity (1662) and the famous Clarendon Code. Charles's two efforts in favour of toleration, 1662 and 1672, only raised a storm, for the danger of a Roman Catholic State was ever before men. Events, however, proved that the dissenters, as they now were, could not be suppressed by such measures as had been passed; the danger from Rome and Louis XIV. drew Churchmen and their opponents together. This was accentuated in the reign of James II., [599/600] who published ineffective Declarations of Indulgence, 1687 and 1688. At the Revolution the dissenters received the natural reward for their loyalty and refusal to accept the toleration offered by James, and the Toleration Act, 1688, was passed (1 W. and M. c. 18). The toleration did not extend to the Papists or the Socinians, and was a bare toleration, not giving the rights of citizenship, which by the Test Act, 1673 (25 Car. a. c. 2), was dependent on receiving the Communion according to the rite of the Church of England. So far as the Papists were concerned, they were worse off than ever. Infamous laws were passed and enforced in Ireland, nor has England yet recovered from the resentment so caused. Scotch Presbyterianism, now triumphant and established, proceeded to a bitter persecution of episcopalians.
Locke's famous book enshrines the theory of toleration. It is not entire toleration that he enforces, for he would allow no atheists in the State, on the ground that the original compact cannot be enforced on an atheist, for he does not recognise its sanctions. It is really a toleration of indifference which Locke upholds, not the allowance of views believed to be bad.
It was not till 1829 (10 Geo. iv. c. 7) that full toleration came with Roman Catholic Emancipation; there were still disabilities for Jews. These were removed by 9-10 Vic. c. 59 and subsequent Acts. Finally, after the Bradlaugh troubles, an Act was passed which removed all difficulties from atheist members of Parliament (1888, 51-2 Vic. c. 46), and there is now no limit to the toleration enjoyed in opinion and writing, except the following:
1. The King and the Lord Chancellor must be members of the Church of England.
2. The Blasphemy Laws.
3. The Law of Libel.
The Blasphemy Laws are commonly defended, on the ground that people ought not to have their feelings needlessly outraged, but it is doubtful if they can be upheld on principles of pure toleration. The Law of Libel, as it is at present enforced, is approved as a necessary protection to the individual against calumny.
The theory of toleration was expounded in the light of the mid-century individualism by J. S. Mill in his stirring pamphlet on Liberty, which provoked Sir James Fitzjames Stephen's reply, Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. From the Christian point of view probably the most important book since Jeremy Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying is the late Bishop Creighton's Hulsean Lectures on Persecution and Tolerance. Whether religious toleration will maintain itself as a principle in view of the prevailing drift against all individualism is a very doubtful question. Certainly there would be few now who would accept that distinction between acts self-regarding and social acts on which Mill's argument is based. Recent events in France and Portugal afford strong evidence that a persecution not by but of religion would be an early effort of any triumph of unbelievers. Comte, of course, asserted the right of persecution. As Creighton pointed out, toleration results in practice from a variety of contributing forces, which might very easily change. [J. N. F.]