The Religious Opinions of Milton, Locke and Newton

Citation preview

PUBLICATIONS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER No. CCLXXVI

THEOLOGICAL SERIES No. VI

THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE AND NEWTON

Published by the University of Manchester at The University Press (H. M. McKechnie, M.A., Secretary), 8-10 Wright Street, Manchester 15

THE RELIGIOUS OPIN OF MILTON, LOCKE AND NEWT

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H. McLACHLAN, M.A., D.D. PRINCIPAL, UNITARIAN COLLEGE, MANCHESTER LECTURER IN HELLENISTIC GREEK, UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS 1941

CONTENTS PAGE

John Milton (1608-1674)

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John Locke (1632-1704). Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) Milton, Locke, Newton, and other Uni¬ tarians ....... Index.

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69 117

I75 219

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PREFACE

ANY biographical studies of Milton, Locke and Newton fail to do justice to their religious opinions by reason of an imperfect acquaintance with the history of that theological movement to which they properly belong. This fact, it is hoped, may justify the attempt to sketch those opinions by one who cannot plead ignorance of their origin and later development. Indebtedness to scholars at home and abroad is patent on almost every page. It only remains to add that a critical examination of a manuscript in Holland, copied by Locke from a script by Newton, has been made impossible by the War. A fresh study of three great Englishmen, to whom liberty and tolerance meant so much, may not prove to be without interest at a time when these basal principles of democracy are seriously menaced by aggressive totalitarian Powers on the Continent. Thanks are due and cordially given to Mr. H. M. McKechnie, M.A., for seeing the book through the Press. H. McLACHLAN. Manchester.

February io, 1941.

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JOHN

MILTON

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JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

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UR grandparents, had they been spared until this year of our Lord (1940), would assuredly have been greatly surprised to learn that John Milton 1 “ was not essentially a religious poet ”, but only “ the greatest of English poets who have made religion their subject “ He was ”, we are told, “ a philosopher rather than a devotee. His imagination was lucid and concrete, unlit by heavenly gleams . . . nor was his moral sensibility a Christian one. The Stoic virtues, fortitude, temper¬ ance, above all, moral independency, were what he valued. He did not live by faith, scorned hope, and was indisposed to charity, while pride, so far from being the vice which Christianity considers it, was to Milton the mark of a superior nature. ... As an exposition of Christian belief, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are failures.” It must be frankly admitted that not every count in Lord David Cecil’s indictment can be fully met. None the less, as a whole, the judgment is much too severe. Undoubtedly Milton was more of a philosopher in his devotional life than is a Roman Catholic or a High Church¬ man. He found no justification in Scripture or in reason —his supreme authorities in religion—for the material¬ ism and magic, latent, and often explicit, in Catholic worship. His pride, in many of its manifestations, is indefensible, but, in part at least, its roots were grounded in a prophetic conviction of a divine call. Alas, faith, hope and charity were but imperfectly understood, or

1

The Oxford Book of Christian Verse, pp. xxi, xxii,

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RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

expressed in thought and life by Milton, as, in some measure, by most Christians these nineteen centuries, not excluding writers of the New Testament. And prob¬ ably no member of any existing church would claim for Milton’s two great poems that they embody his own conception of Christian belief, but this is due to much more than the poet’s defective vision of the true nature of Christianity. Religion, too, cannot simply be identi¬ fied with orthodox Christianity, as every candid student of Comparative Religion, and even of Christianity itself, must needs confess ; nor can the Stoic virtues of fortitude, temperance and moral independence, to name no other, be excluded from Christianity, else much in the Chris¬ tian Epistles merits condemnation as unchristian. Then, however “ concrete ” the imagination of Milton, it is by no means certain that it was “ unlit by heavenly gleams ”. There is abundant evidence that even Protestant Human¬ ists are not utterly devoid of elements of mysticism in mind and spirit.1 It would be hard to deny a sense of religious values to a man, not a canting hypocrite nor a blind self-deceiver, who could say of his dedication to high tasks : “I was confirmed in this opinion ; that he who would not be frustrate of his hope to write well hereafter in laudable things, ought himself to be a true poem ; that is, a composition and pattern of the best and honourablest things ; not presuming to sing high praises of heroic men or famous cities, unless he have in himself the experience and the practice of all that which is praise¬ worthy.” 2 And what he would write was “ not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine; like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming para¬ site ; nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance 1 See pp. 162 ff.

2 Apology for Smectynuiuns (1642).

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JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases ”.1 Happily the test by which Milton is tried by Lord David Cecil peeps out in his adulatory notice of John Donne. No thoughtful reader of Milton’s verse, much less his prose, would say of him as is said of the Caroline mystic that “ the Christian scheme seemed created to express his personal experience “ The Christian scheme ”, as understood by most of his contemporaries and by many churchmen to-day, is precisely what Milton in large part eventually rejected as contradicted by Scripture and reason. Not a few divines of our own time subscribe only with serious qualification, or much misgiving, to “ the Christian scheme ” almost universally accepted by the organized churches of the seventeenth century. The verdict passed by the editor of The Oxford Book of Christian Verse upon John Milton has at least the dis¬ tinction of being not only eminently critical, but also, speaking by and large, characteristic rather of the seven¬ teenth century than of those that have followed. When John Milton died in 1674, his political ideal of Church and State had been rejected with scorn and contumely; he had long been in communion with no church ; his religious pilgrimage had been tortuous and stormy, and his ecclesiastical and theological opinions, though the worst remained unknown, were offensive, in greater or less degree, to every church in Christendom. To-day, most Episcopalians, Presbyterians and even Roman Catholics regard his views, however unsympath¬ etically, as little more than the deplorable infirmities or eccentricities of a great mind essentially religious. Few, if any, Roman Catholics would now say of Milton as F. W. Faber did : “ Accursed be his blasphemous memory ! ” 2 1 The Reason of Church-Government (1641). 2 J. E. Bowden, Life and Letters of F. W. Faber, p. 206.

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RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Independents, Baptists, Friends and Unitarians would gladly count him, if not indeed as one of the fathers in the faith, at least as a gifted brother of long ago, though none of them would endorse all his cherished doctrines. It is otiose to attempt a settlement of friendly differences as to the poet’s religious connexion. An Independent, whether Calvinist, as in Milton’s day, or Arminian, as commonly in ours, is primarily one who accepts with more or less of orthodox theology a certain discipline and theory of church government distinguishing him, among Protestants, from Episcopalians, Pres¬ byterians and Methodists ; a Baptist, whether “ General ” or “ Particular ”, Arminian or Calvinist, allowing “ open ” or only “ closed ” communion, is one who rejects infant baptism, and confines church membership to adults whose profession of faith is sealed and symbolized by the rite of immersion ; a Friend, liberal or conservative in christology, is a follower of George Fox, whose prin¬ ciples relate to both thought and life, but do not require subscription to articles of belief; whilst a Unitarian, be he Arian or Socinian as in the century before last, or Humanitarian, as in this, enjoying freedom from sub¬ scription, is marked off from the rest by insistence upon the strict unity of personality in the Godhead and the subordination of the Son to the Father. Amongst the medley of singular sects in the Common¬ wealth period whose notions were freely vented by voice and pen, it may be assumed that no man would be quite unique whose religious sympathies embraced theo¬ logical or ecclesiastical tenets now associated individually with three or four groups of believers and some others professed by none. In the eighteenth century there were not a few Independents and Baptists of Unitarian opinion; in America, and, to a less extent in England, there are still Quakers of the same mind; whilst the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christians includes

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JOHN MILTON

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a number of congregations founded by Independents and Baptists. Augustine Birrell said : “ Nonconformists need not claim Milton for their own with much eagerness. . . . He was never a church member, or indeed a churchgoer. . . . He was certainly an unsatisfactory Dissenter ”. That Milton was a Nonconformist of a sort Birrell does not deny, but, by reason of his indifference to dissenting conventicles, affirms, in effect, that he was not the sort to suit the heterodox son of an orthodox Baptist minister. The reasons for Milton’s indifference he does not investi¬ gate. It is important to remember in this connexion that to be a member of a Nonconformist church in the seventeenth century meant something more than in the twentieth, and that in the way of doctrinal avowal or assent to catechisms. “ Churchgoers ”, as distinguished from “ members ”, were probably relatively fewer in number in -Milton’s day than in ours ; one reason being that the chief attraction of the Dissenting Meeting House was not an altar, nor a liturgy, much less music, vocal or instrumental, but a pulpit and the doctrine delivered from it. An earlier and shrewder critic than Birrell, William Hazlitt, said that he had “ often wished that Milton had lived to see the Revolution of 1688. This would have been a triumph worthy of him, and which he would have earned by faith and hope.” That Milton was a Nonconformist from early manhood seems indisputable. He had been intended for the Church, but, in his own words,1 “ perceiving what Tyranny had invaded the Church, that he who would take Orders must subscribe slave, and take an oath withal; which, unless he took with a conscience which would retch, he must either strait perjure, or split his Faith ; I thought it better to prefer a blameless silence before the sacred office of 1 The Reason of Church Government Urged against Prelacy

(1641).

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RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

speaking, bought and begun with servitude and for¬ swearing Mr. Anthony Lincoln, however, has recently suggested, by implication at least, that Milton was not a Dissenter at all. “ The Dissenters ”, he says,1 “ had no claim to originality in political teaching as part of polite education. Thus Milton numbered the study of politics among the pursuits necessary in places of instruction.” But surely Milton’s prose and verse alike prove that he was a Puritan who loved Scripture and religious freedom as intensely as he hated Prelacy and Popery, and, amongst all changes of theological opinion, he remained to the end fervently devoted to the written word and steadfast in his antipathy to sacerdotalism and Romanism, those twin enemies of religious and political liberty from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century. As early as 1637 in Lycidas, the young poet said : “In this Monody, the author bewails a learned friend, unfortunately drowned in his passage from Chester on the Irish seas, 1637 ; and by occasion foretells the ruin of our corrupted clergy, then in their height ”. In a famous passage, we read : The pilot of the Galilean lake ; Two massy keys he bore, of metals twain,

He shook his mitred locks, and stern bespake, “ How well could I have spared for thee, young swain, Enow of such as for their bellies’ sake Creep, and intrude, and climb into the fold ! ”

The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But, swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread ;

Here the poet forecasts the polemic against bishops and clergy set forth later in prose. In a fine com1 Some Political and Social Ideas of English Dissent, iy63-1800 (1936), p. 66.

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JOHN MILTON

(1608-1674)

mentary on the passage, Ruskin said,1 “ Clearly, this marked insistence on the power of the true episcopate is to make us feel more weightily what is to be charged against the false claimants of episcopate; or generally, against false claimants of power and rank in the body of the clergy.” A little later, Milton was to go much further and repudiate the underlying conceptions of sacerdotalism which gave rise to rank and power in the clergy. In the Tract Of Reformation in England (1641), he spoke in scathing terms of “ baptism, changed into a kind of exorcism “ the scratch or cross impression of a priest’s forefinger ”, and “ the feast of love and heavenly ad¬ mitted fellowship . . . pageanted about like a dreadful idol ”, whilst in The Reason of Church Government urged against Prelacy of the same year, he declared that the scornful term of laic, the consecrating of temples, carpets and table-cloths, the railing in of a repugnant and contradictive mount Sinai in the gospel, as if the touch of a layChristian, who is nevertheless God’s living temple, could profane dead Judaisms ; the exclusion of Christ’s people from the offices of holy discipline through the pride of a usurping clergy, causes the rest to have an unworthy and abject opinion of themselves, to approach to holy duties with a slavish fear and to unholy doings with a familiar boldness.

Nine years later, in An Answer to Eikon Basilike (1650) he gives a whole section to the defence of the “ Ordinance against the Common Prayer Book ”. It is doubtful if any Nonconformist at any time ever spoke with more vehemence against the religious theory and practice of the Church of England than did John Milton. Unlike John Locke’s, his intolerance towards “ Papists ”, as he always called Roman Catholics, was inspired not by their defects in citizenship, but by their excesses in religion—priestcraft, superstition and idolatry—as he deemed them, and especially by their attitude towards 1 Sesame and Lilies (1882 ed.), p. 31.

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RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Scripture. “ The Papist exacts our belief as to the church due above Scripture ; and by the church, which is the whole people of God, understands the Pope, the general councils, prelatical only, and the surnamed Fathers. . . . No Protestant, of what sect soever, fol¬ lowing Scripture only, which is the common sect wherein they all agree, and the granted rule of every man’s conscience to himself, ought, by the common doctrine of Protestants, to be forced or molested for religion.” That Milton was primarily moved to detestation of Romanism, as Mr. Hilaire Belloc asserts,1 by the quarrel in his father’s family between adherents of the old re¬ ligion and converts to the new lacks both evidence and probability. Early in his career Milton studied the Bible in the original tongues, and also the growth of ecclesi¬ astical doctrine, reached conclusions hostile to Romanism and to the not inconsiderable inheritance from it by Anglicanism, and from these conclusions never departed. For some time actively associated with the Presby¬ terians in their conflicts with the established church, Milton eventually left them to their Catechisms and intolerance, and probably no sentence of his is more familiar than “ New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large ”. In Paradise Lost, to quote the words of Professor Hearnshaw,2 “ While the infernal Parliament was meet¬ ing at Pandemonium, a sub-committee of the Lost withdrew to a quiet place, and discussed the very themes which had engaged the attention of the Westminster divines a few years earlier.” Others apart sat on a hill retired In Thoughts more elevate and reasoned high Of Providence, Fore-knowledge, Will and Fate— Fixed Fate, Forewill, Foreknowledge absolute, Had found no end in wandering mazes lost.

1 Milton (1935), p. 60. 2 English History in Contemporary Poetry, IV, pp. 40, 41. 10

JOHN MILTON

(1608-1674)

As Professor Hearnshaw adds : “ This depicts not only the Westminster Assembly, but also Milton’s contempt for it.” Milton threw in his lot with the freer and more tolerant of the Independents led by Cromwell, and, in his sonnet to “ Cromwell, our chief of men ”, after commemorating his victories, concluded : Yet much remains To conquer still; Peace hath her victories No less renowned than war : new foes arise Threatening to bind our souls with secular chains ; Help us to save free conscience from the paw Of hireling wolves, whose gospel is their maw.

Finally, in advancing years, he forsook the fellowship of all churches, probably not, as his apologists have assumed, simply on account of failing sight and health, but because in none did he find what his soul most craved, simple, undogmatic Christianity. Henceforward, Milton was a solitary in his devotions. In this respect, as in others from an earlier date, his “ soul was like a star and dwelt apart ”. Whilst still a Presbyterian, in the Apology for Smectymnuus (1642), Milton paid tribute to the character of Nonconformists generally ; “ We hear not of any, which are called nonconformists that have been accused of scandalous living, but are known to be pious, or at least, sober men.” As an Independent, in The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates (1649), he begged divines “ to attend the office of good pastors . . . watching in season and out of season, from house to house, over the souls of whom they have to feed ”. In Eikonoclastes, published in the same year, he declared that “ God is no more moved with a prayer elaborately penned, than men more truly charitable are moved with the penned speech of a beggar ”, and, in An Answer to Eikon Basilike (1650), he pronounced judgment, not particularly sober, in favour of “ voluntary prayer ” as against the episcopalian ii

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

liturgy, repeating views previously expressed in Animad¬ versions upon the Remonstrant’s Defence against Smectymnuus (1641), when he said : “A minister who cannot be trusted to pray in his own words . . . should be as little trusted to preach.” In course of time, too, Milton came to believe in the separation of the Church from the State, and celebrated his agreement with Sir Harry Vane on this issue in a sonnet to him in 1652. To know Both spiritual power and civil, what each means, What severs each, thou hast learned, which few have done ; The bounds of either sword to thee we owe ; Therefore on thy firm hand religion leans In peace, and reckons thee her eldest son.

In the Second Defence of the English People (1654), he sought in vain to bring Cromwell to the same way of thinking. He begged him to “ leave the Church to the Church . . . not allowing two powers of utterly diverse natures, the Civil and Ecclesiastical, to commit fornica¬ tion together, and, by their promiscuous and delusive helps, to strengthen but in reality to weaken and finally to subvert each other Finally, in Considerations touch¬ ing the likeliest means to remove Hirelings out of the Church (1659), Milton complained that “ Independents should take that name, as they may justly, from the true freedom of Christian doctrine and church discipline, subject to no superior judge but God only, and still seek to be dependents on the magistrate for maintenance, which two things, independence and state hire in religion, can never consist long or certainly together “ The endow¬ ment of the Church ”, as Mark Pattison remarked,1 “ was to Milton the poison of religion, and in so thinking he was but true to his conception of religion.” For all these reasons, not alone or even chiefly for his admitted eminence as a poet, when Presbyterianism on the Scottish model had practically perished out of the 1 Milton (English Men of Letters), p. 124. 12

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

land, Dissenters for a century and more worshipped, so far as sturdy Protestants might, at the shrine of John Milton. He was, too, though most Nonconformists were prob¬ ably unaware of it, the first of their scholars whose fame was recognized on the Continent.1 Only his younger contemporary, the Baptist tinker of Bedford, rivalled him in the popularity of his writings at home and abroad, and the Baptist’s inimitable works betrayed more marks of the saint than of the scholar. Neither Milton nor Bunyan mentions the other, but neither do Baxter and Fox, who died in the same year (1691), and were both, in different ways, men of saintly character. Saintliness, indeed, could hardly be claimed for Milton by anyone acquainted with his prose, especially in Latin. His poetry never really stood in need of praise, either as to form or content, by the shrewdest critic or the severest pietist. It cannot be claimed that it is all pure gold, but relative to the mass there is little dross. His¬ tory has now passed its verdict. A few modern scholars would revise it. They can hardly hope to reverse it. His prose, written as he said with his “ left hand”, is in a different case, not, it should be said, by reason of its style, which in English, however diffuse and complex, still radiates a glory of its own, and in Latin has at least earned the praise of competent scholars; but from the nature of its subjects, and the language, Latin and English, in which they are discussed. Ben Jonson once regretted that Shakespeare “ never blotted [i.e. erased] a line ”. Milton’s most ardent admirers must often have wished he had “ blotted ” many. Billingsgate in any speech is equally vile. When every allowance has been made for the literary standards of the age and the scurrilous language of his adversaries, it must be 1 “ Milton was the first English poet to inspire respect and win fame for our literature on the Continent of Europe,”— J. G. Robertson, Milton's Fame on the Continent (1908), p. 1.

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RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

allowed that Milton’s controversial style, for which he actually put up a defence, falls below anything in keep¬ ing with his character as a scholar, a gentleman and a Christian. In ecclesiastical circles, Presbyterian not less than Episcopalian, his tracts on Divorce gave most offence. They were notorious as scandalous publications when Areopagitica was little read. Mr. Belloc attributes Mil¬ ton’s opinions on marriage to his bitter experience of matrimony alone, but, however much affected thereby, there is some evidence that his views of bigamy were formed earlier, and had another intent besides that of relieving his feelings and defending his own personal conduct.1 In any event, it can hardly be said with truth that his unfortunate first marriage constituted the decisive turning-point of his life. “ It inflicted ”, says Mr. Belloc, “ a wound which would not heal, it gangrened, and the whole of his inner self was and remained poisoned.” It is really too much to ask us to believe that Paradise Lost and Samson Agonistes, admitted by Mr. Belloc to be “ some of his finest work ”, proceeded from one whose inner self was poisoned. After all, Milton lived twenty-two years after his first wife died; the Sonnet to his second wife commemorates a happy, if brief, union, and his third wife, a woman of twentyfour whom he never saw and married at fifty-four, was by all accounts an active and capable person, who for nearly twelve years surrounded him with every comfort. He was not the first nor the last man of mark to make a mess of marriage, and to be little the worse for it in the long run. In stressing the chronology of Milton’s writ¬ ings, to the exclusion of almost every other consideration, as the criterion for determining the development of the poet’s mind and temper, Mr. Belloc appears to have fallen into the fallacy which text-books of logic describe as “ post hoc, ergo propter hoc ”. 1 See p. 42.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

Happily for Milton’s reputation in dissenting circles of the eighteenth century, especially in those quickened into life by the evangelical revival, his controversial writings in Latin remained unread, whilst his English pamphlets, save for a few like the famous Areopagitica, were apparently closely studied mostly by those hostile to his principles, and were robbed of their sting for puri¬ tanical readers by the glamour and repute of his verse. It need not surprise us, either, that during the reigns of the Hanoverians, even Milton’s poetical works, majestic, musical and handling themes of almost incredible in¬ terest to Protestant Dissenters, seldom stood beside The Pilgrim's Progress or the earlier Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, a companion of the Bible in the homes of those who frequented the plain, unadorned Meeting Houses situated in secluded lanes of villages and in the back streets of towns. When, in the nineteenth century, Milton’s poetry was included amongst literature for family reading on the Sabbath, it can never have pro¬ voked the interest aroused by the adventures of the Pilgrim, nor quickened the emotions like the records of the heroes and martyrs of the Protestant Reformation. From 1571 Foxe’s book occupied a privileged position in cathedrals, quickly made its way into parish churches, and later into dissenting chapels. It was the only book which Bunyan added to the Bible for reading in prison, and Wesley issued an abridged edition of it for his humble Methodist followers. Later, its appeal was potent to the artisans and lower middle classes whose education was confined to the meagre minimum provided by the Education Act of 1870. And surely no tribute to Milton could be found comparable to that paid to Pilgrim's Progress by an aged Nonconformist minister (10 March, 1821). “ Having passed the greater part of my life in the country, I have had large experience of ascertaining that this work is read with avidity by a great number of persons of different ages and conditions ; it is not only

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RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

made a family book with many, but almost their Bible. I have heard it quoted from the pulpit and referred to in private conversation with as much veneration, and often apparently with more effect, than even the Bible itself.” Paradise Lost was probably more praised than read by those who most honoured its precepts. Milton soared beyond their highest flights of imagination, and delved too deep in unfamiliar mines of speculation, whilst, unlike Bunyan’s, much of his speech seemed to belong rather to Greece and Rome than to the home country, his characters to regions beyond space and time (though not without traits of lower origin), and his geography to abodes unknown, certainly not to the counties of “ Merrie England ”. Nevertheless, the doctrine, in large measure, of Milton’s greater poems penetrated the mind, if not the heart, of multitudes of chapelgoers, since it coloured and shaped, for weal and for woe, the theology of their pastors. Milton had been read in the nonconformist academies ; his radical political opinions were congenial to the tastes of their alumni, and his works were not amongst those left dusty on the shelves when students entered the ministry. Hence the high argument of Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, though not canonical writings, was heard from innumerable non¬ conformist pulpits in ministerial reflections, conscious and unconscious, of its drift and design. It was thus it came about that “ The biblicism of Milton has in many directions been more operative than the Bible itself, in shaping the form in which biblical ideas have been admitted into the English mind.” 1 Even “ to this day ”, said John Bailey, “if an ordinary man is asked to give his recollections of the story of Adam and Eve he is sure to put Milton as well as Genesis into them ”.2 Dissenting ministers, in their judgment of Milton’s 1 Alex. Gordon, Heads of English Unitarian History, p. 21. 2 Milton (Home University Library), p. 148.

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theology, did little more than echo the general view expressed in the eighteenth century by Samuel Johnson and in the nineteenth by Charles Symmons. To Samuel Johnson, the Tory high churchman, “ Milton appears to have had full conviction of the truth of Christianity, and to have been untainted by heretical peculiarity of opinion ”. Charles Symmons, a Whig parson and man of letters, in his Life of Milton (1st ed., 1806), said : “ Though no doubt can exist of the sincerity and fervour of Milton’s Christian faith, some questions have resulted from the peculiarities of his religious opinions and prac¬ tice,” not, he adds in a footnote, “ of his theological opinions, for these, so far as it appears, were orthodox and consistent with the creed of the Church of England. The peculiarities of Milton’s religious opinions had reference to Church government and the externals of devotion.” Joseph Trapp, an Oxford man, clergyman, and one¬ time president of Sion College, conspicuous for orthodoxy, translated Paradise Lost into Latin, 1741-4, and asserted that the poem is orthodox in every part, omni ex parte orthodoxum ; otherwise he would not have been at the pains of translating it. Thomas Newton, bishop of Bristol, in the life of Milton prefixed to his edition of Paradise Lost (1749), observed : “ Some have inclined to believe that he was an Arian, but there are more express passages in his works to overthrow this opinion than to confirm it.” Henry John Todd in 1809 spoke 1 of “ the sanctity of manners which Milton’s pages breathe and the Christian lessons which they inculcate ”. “ The theological senti¬ ments of Milton ”, he continued, “ are said to have been often changed ...” but “ from any heretical peculiarity of opinion he was free ”. The writer, an ecclesiastical dignitary and a good high churchman,

1

Some Account of the Life and Writings of John Milton, 2nd ed., p. 13.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

changed his opinion of Milton’s theology sixteen years later. Theophilus Lindsey, severing himself from the com¬ mon opinion in 1778, said :1 “ In Paradise Lost Milton appears entirely to have gone over to the Arian senti¬ ment ”, and “ in his Paradise Regained a nearer con¬ templation of Christ’s character in the evangelists seems to have led him very naturally to what is called Socinianism Five years later, in An Historical View . . . Lindsey, with remarkable candour, acknowledged that this passage (in Paradise Regained) “ too easily per¬ suaded me that Milton was at that time come off his former orthodox sentiments ... I supposed this to be corroborated by a passage in his prose writings (the Tract Of True Religion), but in which I was certainly mistaken ”. The Unitarian minister of Essex Street Chapel was undoubtedly wrong in ascribing Socinianism to Milton, but not so far wrong in his sketch of the poet’s religious development as he imagined. Coleridge also detected Socinianism in Paradise Regained. Writing to Cottle, 26 April, 1814, he says he had stated (in recent lectures at Bristol) as “ a mere matter of fact that Milton had represented Satan as a sceptical Socinian ... as knowing the prophetic and Messianic character of Christ, but sceptical as to any higher claim ”, and adduced as evidence Paradise Regained, Book IV (I. 196 ff.; 500 ff.). Coleridge does not however identify the sentiments of the Prince of Darkness with those of the poet. Indeed, in a discussion with Northcote (26 March, 1804) “ about the disposition of Milton ”, Coleridge made the amazing statement that “ he was next to our Saviour in humility ”.2 Lindsey, then, was the exception that proved the rule. Even John Keats, a close student of Milton’s poetry, whose brother George was a Unitarian, failed to discern the heretical tendencies of the Puritan poet. Writing 1 Sequel to the Apology for resigning Catterick, p. 407, 2 Joseph Farington, Diary, II, 211.

18

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

in 1818 to J. H. Reynolds, he said : “ In Milton’s time Englishmen were just emancipated from a great super¬ stition, and men had got hold of certain points and resting-places in reasoning which were too newly born to be doubted, and too much opposed by the mass of Europe not to be thought ethereal and authentically divine. . . . The Reformation produced such imme¬ diate and great benefits that Protestantism was con¬ sidered under the immediate eye of heaven, and its remaining Dogmas and superstitions, then, as it were, regenerated, constituted these resting-places and seeming sure points of Reasoning. . . . Milton, whatever he may have thought in the sequel, appears to have been content with these by his writings.” Keats died in 1821. Had he lived four years longer, he could hardly have regarded Protestant “ Dogmas and superstitions ” as “ resting-places and seeming sure points of Reasoning ” for John Milton. In general, then, few men in the eighteenth century or early nineteenth doubted Milton’s orthodoxy, and hardly a suspicion of Milton’s orthodoxy crossed the minds of the divines, evangelical or liberal, who im¬ plicitly, if not explicitly, introduced his doctrines to their flocks. The christology of The Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity was above suspicion ; a few prose passages in his pamphlets were not less “ wholesome ”, whilst in the major poems there was much more than a hint of “ sound ” doctrine. Possibly in Paradise Lost the figure of Satan loomed too large, his character appeared too commanding, and his pleas for freedom somewhat too telling, but, on the other hand, like Judas in the sacred narrative, in due course he too went “ to his own place ”.1 Many scholars, like Richard Garnett and Clement Shorter, make Satan the hero of the Epic. It is an ancient view, going back to John Dryden, but, as Stopford Brooke said in a letter to Garnett (i January, 1890), “ Milton slowly 1 Acts i. 25.

x9

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

degrades Satan—in mind and body. Step by step he lowers his image. He leaves him shamed and degraded . . . makes him disappear altogether out of the poem.” Addison observed that “ Paradise Lost is an Epic . . . he that looks for an hero in it searches for that which Milton never intended ”. We must remember, too, with Hazlitt,1 “ that Milton has drawn, not the abstract principle of evil, not a devil incarnate, but a fallen angel. This is the Scriptural account, and the poet has followed it.” Possibly, it would be even more accurate to say that Paradise Lost is the history of a falling angel. There is a steady decline in the character of Satan from sublimity as the poem proceeds ; our admiration is followed by loathing, and we are prepared for the sketch of him which follows in Paradise Regained. Nevertheless, it would seem that in Paradise Losty “ Satan—little as Milton intended it—is made in his poetic creator’s own image, and is endowed with much of his nobility ; he is the personification, not of evil in all its loathsomeness, but only of unsuccess¬ ful rebellion ; he is a being, not hateful or contemptible in immeasurable vileness, but grand in unconquerable courage ”.2 Dr. Temple sets forth his objection to Paradise Lost thus : 3 “ Milton’s attempt to dramatize the Almighty is notorious ; and as he presents God in direct conflict with evil, he substitutes melodrama for tragedy, and also throws the sympathy of his readers on to the wrong side, because an omnipotent protagonist is inevitably a bully. There are many of us for whom the verbal art of Milton is ruined by bad theology, not because we disagree theologically but because we are outraged dramatically. Paradise Lost contains a large dose of drama, and it is very bad drama. Paradise Regained is worse. . . .”

1 2

In Reading Old Books. F. J. C. Hearnshaw, English History in Contemporary Poetry, IV, 40. 3 The Genius of English Poetry (1939), p. 8. 20

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

Certainly the God depicted by Milton can be fitted into no modern scheme of theology. Satan speaks of Him as “ one whom thunder hath made greater ”, and is not far from the truth, whilst He himself is capable of addressing the Son in these terms—(Paradise Lost, Book V): Nearly it now concerns us to be sure of our omnipotence . . . . . . lest unawares we lose This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill.

On the whole, however, the doctrina de Deo in the poem, though banal and in some measure repulsive to our thinking, is, as a product of the seventeenth century, less surprising than its doctrina de Christo. It may be indeed that the Archbishop’s antipathy to Milton’s drama is not altogether unrelated to his dislike of the poet as a theo¬ logian, and, in particular, as a heretic-in christology. At least, those who sat on episcopal benches in the eighteenth century were offended neither by the doctrine nor by the melodrama of Paradise Lost, but then the Treatise on Christian Doctrine, with its clear light on the christology of the poem, had not been discovered. The fact is, as C. H. Herford perceived,1 “ Milton’s Puritanism was divided against itself. If its ethical and religious element, the Hebraic passion for righteousness, made for the degradation and humiliation of Satan, the political passion of the republican involuntarily ennobled and glorified the assertor of liberty against the enthroned despot in heaven.” This Puritan dichotomy escaped observation in the eighteenth century. Moreover, after the Toleration Act, tradition had cast a halo of piety and orthodoxy around the head of the blind and much-tried poet, champion in his day of causes lost, but happily, as his admirers then recalled, not lost for ever. Most orthodox scholars were

1

Bulletin of John Rylands Library, VIII, 223. 21

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

of the same mind as Dr. Thomas Yalden (1670-1736), one of the four minor poets whom Johnson specially recommended for inclusion in his Lives. Religiously, Milton’s poetry was celestial; politically, his prose, infernal. A line or two from Yalden’s poem “ On the re-printing of Milton’s Prose Works 1698. Written in his Paradise Lost ” will show how obtuse churchmen viewed the Puritan poet. These sacred lines with wonder we peruse, And praise the flights of a seraphic Muse, Till thy seditious prose provokes our rage, And soils the beauties of thy brightest page.

Here and there, a few scholars, episcopalians of course and more discerning than the rest, were not quite satisfied with the great Puritan’s theology, and said so, but their voices availed little against the almost universal pre¬ sumption of his orthodoxy, and certainly were unheeded by dissenting divines not wont to take their opinions of heroes of the faith from churchmen. “ On what perhaps Milton cared for most,” says Mr. Belloc,1 “ his growing Unitarian convictions, he was cautious to the end ... he did not in fact publish them ; and that has had a curious effect upon the national reputation of the man. All during the century and a half when his was the highest literary figure in the estimation of his fellow-countrymen, he passed for an orthodox Protestant Christian of the Calvinist colour, like any other of his political group.” Then the unexpected happened. The Treatise on Christian Doctrine was discovered in 1823, and published two years later, edited by an Anglican scholar (Dr. Sumner) soon to be a bishop, first in the original Latin, then in English, and dedicated to the King. It fell like a bomb into the camp of scholarly evangelicals within and without the Church, already sufficiently distressed by the progress of Unitarianism in the country. Joseph 1 Milton (1935), P- 3322

JOHN MILTON

(1608-1674)

Priestley, the persecuted heresiarch, had indeed died in exile twenty years earlier, but four years were still to run before death put an end to the militant propaganda of his able henchman Thomas Belsham. In 1825, too, by the union of earlier societies, the British and Foreign Unitarian Association was founded by a singular coin¬ cidence on the same day as the American Unitarian Association, threatening still more the repose and security of orthodoxy at home and abroad. The Congregational Magazine pronounced the Treatise the offspring of its author’s dotage. The Evangelical Magazine said : “To some of our Baptist brethren it will not be a little gratifying to find that Milton was on their side. The triumph is, however, in some degree moderated by the circumstance that his extreme hetero¬ doxy in other particulars must for ever annihilate him as a theological authority. If, however, they will boast of him, let them not forget that he was an Arian, a Polygamist, a Materialist, a Humanitarian, and in fact an abettor of almost every error which has infected the Church of God.” In the warmth of his orthodox zeal, the writer overlooked the fact that an Arian cannot be a Humanitarian. Baptist journals, for their part, whilst rejoicing in Milton’s avowal of adult baptism, joined with others in lamenting that His Majesty, the Defender of the Faith, had not left the manuscript to slumber on the shelf where it was found. Some writers who noticed the Treatise would not have found it so offensive if it had been published in Latin alone. Bishop Burgess, always ready for the fray when Dissenters, and par¬ ticularly Unitarians, were in the field, made a valiant effort to prove the Treatise unauthentic, the work of a German divine of the seventeenth century, but its genuineness (a little later further attested) was accepted from the first by all serious students of literature and theology. Dr. Sumner, as translator and editor, did his work 23

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

well, though he might have spared posterity his apology for Milton’s heresy that he lived before the days of George Bull and Daniel Waterland, and his regret that “ the mighty mind of Milton, in its conscientious though mistaken search for truth, had not an opportunity of examining those masterly refutations of the Arian scheme ”.1 It is, indeed, more than doubtful if Bull’s Defensio Fidei Nicence (1685) would have made the slightest impression upon Milton, had he lived to read it, for Bull did not seek to establish Christ’s deity from Scripture, but to show that the Anti-Nicene Fathers agreed with the Nicene Creed, presuming an agreement in the Fathers themselves, which he endeavoured to demonstrate. As between the authority of Scripture and the Fathers, there could be but one opinion which Milton would accept, even if unanimity on the part of the Fathers were assumed. The very title of the manu¬ script, edited by Dr. Sumner, Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures alone, is an implicit repudiation of the Anglican acceptance of patristic and conciliar authority in Christian doctrine. Incidentally, one result of the discovery of the Treatise was to direct attention afresh to the theology of Milton’s greater poems. Hereafter it was not difficult to be wise, and pronounce judgment thereon, as it were,y>osif eventum. In the year after the Treatise was published, Henry John Todd,2 having noted its editor’s quotations of poetry and prose attesting the doctrine of the work so recently discovered, hastened to withdraw the statement in his Life of Milton sixteen years earlier, that “ from any heretical peculiarity of opinion Milton was free ”. He now confessed that “ the dormant suspicion of schism was unawakened, while I dwelt upon the magick of his invention, and, like others, I was all ear only to his sweet and solemn-breathing strains. It was left to a minute 1 p. XXV.

2 Some Account of the Life and Writings of John Milton, p. 306.

24

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

inspection of his works for the discovery of his aberra¬ tion, as in the present treatise, from orthodoxy ; and of concurrence in them with the latter both in sentiments and expressions.” Put plainly, this means that the eyes of the stout churchman were opened by the Treatise, enabling him, with the help of Dr. Sumner’s microscope, to see, as never before, clear traces of heresy elsewhere in the writings of Milton. It was only a comparatively slight advance upon this vantage ground of vision, when later scholars ventured to assert that of course heresy, say in Paradise Lost, had always been visible to those who had the least capacity for sight, and did not scruple to exercise it. Thomas Keightley in 1855 could write :1 “In this poem [Paradise Lost] the Arian doctrine respecting the Son was expressed in so plain and unequivocal a manner, that were it not for the cause which we shall hereafter assign, one might wonder that every reader did not discern it.” The “ cause assigned ” appears to be that “ most people believe because their fathers before them believed ”. Richard Garnett in 1890 was even more explicit.2 “ The Treatise on Christian Doctrine would have exerted a great influence if it had appeared when the author designed. Milton’s name would have been a tower of strength to the liberal eighteenth-century clergy inside and outside the Establishment. It should indeed have been sufficiently manifest that Paradise Lost could not have been written by a Trinitarian or a Calvinist; but theological partisanship is even slower than secular partisanship to see what it does not choose to see ; and Milton’s Arianism was not generally admitted until it was here avouched under his own hand.” It is curious that the writer presumes to know when

1

An Account of the Life, Opinions and Writings of John Milton,

p. 158.

2

The Life of Milton, p. 191.

25

C

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Milton had meant to publish the Treatise, though the problem of its non-publication still remains unsolved. Dr. Garnett’s judgment on the relative blindness of theological and secular partisanship may be sound or otherwise. What he does not explain is how it came about that Milton’s Arianism in Paradise Lost was not “ sufficiently manifest ” to “ the liberal eighteenthcentury clergy inside and outside the Establishment Their partisanship, at least, could not have superinduced in them any considerable degree of blindness to Arianism in Milton or in anyone else. Apart from the reasons, already suggested, why Non¬ conformists could see little wrong with the theology of Milton’s poetry, there is the fact that the doctrine of Paradise Lost is not quite so easily made out as Thomas Keightley and Richard Garnett supposed thirty and sixty-five years respectively after the publication of the Treatise on Christian Doctrine. Sir Herbert Grierson, an acute student of Milton’s writings with a profound interest in theology, declares that1 “ If Paradise Lost seems to many people to-day imperfectly Christian, it is not because of any explicitly heretical doctrines the poem gives expression to, such as Arianism, but because Milton’s scales of values is not that of the orthodox and sincere Christian.” Recent research has proved con¬ clusively that in respect of its doctrine, the poem is not a unity throughout. Moreover, poetic allegory, to the inexpert and uninitiated, clerk or layman, episcopalian or nonconformist, tends somewhat to conceal the beliefs it enshrines. Since 1825 the theological relation of the Treatise to the major poems of Milton has been variously under¬ stood. An accurate analysis of it depends upon many facts not readily determined ; the exact chronology of the composition of these works, their kinship in doctrine at different points, their precise agreement or disagree1 Milton and Wordsworth (1937), pp. 99, 100.

26

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

ment with both earlier and later writings, and, not least, upon the finality or otherwise of the theology in a Treatise, obviously the work of many years, yet left unpublished. Dr. H. G. Rosedale, in an address on “ Milton, His Religion and Polemics ” (1908), admits that Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained are probably unorthodox, but finds the former “ less offensive, less dogmatic and less drastic in tone after the sheer declarations and some¬ what wild assertions and denunciations in De Doctrina Christiana Here it is simply assumed, certainly not proved, that the Treatise, in the writer’s own words, “ was not intended by Milton in his later years for pub¬ lication ; it was the work of the younger, passionate partisan, and considered in later years too crude to be given to the public”. The more common, and indubitably the accepted Unitarian view, was expressed by Alexander Gordon in 1908, the tercentenary of Milton’s birth.1 “ There is no doubt ”, he said, “ that Milton’s writing, both in poetry and prose, exhibits a movement of theological opinion, continuous from his early days ; for his was no stagnant mind. Paradise Regained exhibits this movement as compared with Paradise Lost. For the deliberate and reasoned views which he ultimately reached, recourse must be had to his Treatise on Christian Doctrine.” Dr. Oliver Elton, speaking of the theology in Paradise Lost and the Treatise, said : 2 “ Much of this [the theology in the poem], but not all, is set out, article by article, in his prose Treatise on Christian Doctrine, with an array of Scripture texts literally read. Glimpses have been traced of abstruser theory ; of the divine immanence, and of the mysterious ‘ retreat ’ of God into Himself in the act of passing from the ‘ absolute ’ to the ‘ relative ’ and contingent state. This ontology, partly drawn from the Jewish philosophy of the Kabbalah, seems to have

1 2

Milton on the Son of God and Holy Spirit, p. vi. The English Muse (1933), p. 241.

27

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

been known to Milton, and is part of the steelwork. It points to a mystical element in him, quite distinct from the Protestant conception of conversion and ‘ experi¬ ence ’, of which there is no trace. Milton’s experience is worlds apart from Bunyan’s.” Elsewhere, in his prose, Milton betrays acquaintance with Jewish writers, and many scholars have called attention to this fact. In 1903, H. F. Fletcher, in Milton's Rabbinical Readings, discussed the subject in detail, finding clear traces, from 1642, of the use of Buxtorf’s rabbinical Bible, and throughout his prose works a knowledge of “ the Torah, Targums [in the original tongues] and of the biblical, critical, and theo¬ logical literature of his day It is not difficult to see why the poet should have excluded from a treatise based on Scripture, some, at least, of the conceptions drawn, amongst other sources, from Jewish thinkers, and included them in an Epic, founded, indeed, on passages from the Hebrew sacred writings, but requiring ampler sources for the philo¬ sophical and imaginative treatment of the theme in a great poem. As Samuel Johnson said in his Life of Milton : “ Whoever considers the few radical positions which the Scriptures afforded him, will wonder by what energetick operation he expanded them to such extent, and ramified them to so much variety, restrained as he was by religious reverence from licentiousness of fiction. Here is a full display of genius ; of a great accumulation of materials, with judgment to digest, and fancy to combine them. His accumulation of knowledge impregnated his mind, fermented by study, and exalted by imagina¬ tion.” That Milton turned to rabbinic writers for exegesis and expansion of the text of Scripture is an evidence of the influence of the Renaissance upon him, resulting in freedom from the doctrine of Christians in earlier days that the scholarship of Jews was anathema. It had been 28

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

necessary for Zwingli explicitly to repudiate the evil suggestion that he had been taught Hebrew by a Jew, since many Christians in the early sixteenth century believed the chosen race to enjoy free commerce with the devil. It is plain, too, that Milton passed through no experi¬ ence of “ conversion ” in the accepted contemporary religious sense of that word. In common with Emerson, Parker, and other Liberal Christians of the nineteenth century, he belonged to what William James, following F. W. Newman, called “ the once-born” . It was not that he constantly lived, like them, in the sunny atmo¬ sphere of religious certainty, with no shadow cast by doubt, difficulty, or despair, but that from the first he had felt a call, recognized by him as divine, and was never beset by the baser passions of the flesh nor assailed from without by spiritual forces with power to lay him low. Hence visions and voices were alien to his nature, and the question, “ What shall I do to be saved ? ” never agitated his mind. Not for him was Bunyan’s obsession by texts of Scripture, hinting the terrors of the unseen and the hereafter, and finding relief in his salvation through the blood of Christ.1 Scriptural texts were so many words and phrases, of divine origin doubtless, but, in his prose, the proper objects of rational enquiry, or, alternatively, in his verse, the groundwork which, sup¬ ported by helps drawn from near and far, suggested the structure of three great poems. Mystery in divine speech might be above reason, but hardly contrary to it. During the last thirty years much ink has been spilt on the subject of Milton’s religious opinions in Paradise Lost and the Treatise on Christian Doctrine. In 1914 Margaret Lewis Bailey 2 sought to prove that Milton’s theology was deeply influenced by Boehme, the German mystic. In a footnote, she quotes Julius Otto Opel, 1 William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 186. 2 Milton and Jakob Boehme, pp. 115 ff.

29

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

who in 1864 wrote : “ Only Milton is to be compared with Boehme. . . . Boehme is a religious and political Puritan, even though his political inclinations are less apparent. . . . Whole songs from Milton’s Paradise Lost seem to find expression in Boehme’s poetic prose. An assumption that Milton knew Boehme’s writings, or at least similar tracts of German enthusiasts, must be given due consideration, although, so far as I know, it has not been brought forward.” Miss Bailey set out first to establish a possible con¬ nexion between Boehme and Milton through the circle of the poet’s German friends, and especially through Samuel Hartlib, son of a Polish refugee resident in Prussia, to whom he addressed his Tractate on Education, who “ beyond question was intimately acquainted with the teachings and writings of Boehme ”. She then pro¬ ceeds to point out the “ similarity between Milton and Boehme in religious, philosophical, and political ideas To Boehme she attributes Milton’s belief in the “ inner light ” of Paradise Lost and elsewhere. So much the rather thou celestial light Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate ; there plant eyes, all mists from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight

Milton’s choice of subject in Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained is exhibited as related to the central theme of Boehme’s writings, and his views, in these poems and in the Treatise on Christian Doctrine, of God, angels, evil, creation, the fall of man, and punishment are compared with those of the German mystic. Certain doctrines, characteristic of Liberal Christians in general, were common to Boehme and Milton. The English poet agrees with the German shoemaker that “ heaven and hell are within man ”. “ There is nothing that is nearer you ”, said Boehme, “ than heaven or hell.” “ Far off and near is all one and the same thing with 30

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

God.” “ To turn away from God is to be in hell.” Or as it is said in Paradise Lost: The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven ” Cp. I, 254 ;

IV, 20.

Again, the point of Paradise Regained lies in the resist¬ ance to temptation by Christ, and this “ is not in harmony with the Christian doctrine, which places all emphasis upon the sacrificial aspect of Christ’s death “ This very point Boehme makes most impressive ; the conquest of the principle of evil is through the temptation with¬ stood.” “ In man some good is still preserved, and may be brought to control. Paradise is for Boehme not so much a place as a condition, a state of mind and heart. The second of Milton’s poems dealing with this condition of mind and heart represents the process by which man¬ kind is brought back to his original state. The process is again one of temptation, as in the case of the fall of man ; Christ becomes the Redeemer because in him the inheritance of every human heart the * virgin of wisdom ’ comes to its own again. The line of ‘ inner light of direct communication with the origin of life is re-estab¬ lished.” Finally, “ the similarity between Paradise Regained and Boehme’s teaching is to be found in the delineation of the character of Christ. The objection has been made that Milton represents Christ in this poem as essentially human. Boehme’s Christ, the second Adam, was like Adam before the fall, a perfect being ; he was not a human being as we are human, because we are not born perfect, but he was also not yet divine, for he was the son of God only in so far as Adam was a son of God.” This is not modern Unitarianism, neither is it ortho¬ doxy, ancient or modern. It is nearer than either of these to the Arianism of the eighteenth century. Of the

31

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Treatise on Christian Doctrine, it is said : “It represents one of the very first attempts towards a strictly biblical theology, and is the more remarkable in a period in which exegetical studies had almost disappeared from the universities, and scholasticism sought only the traditional authorities of dogma.” “ Equally remarkable is the fact that this work treats not only of dogmas, but of ethics, which the theologians of the reformed church of the seventeenth century almost entirely neglected. The ethical teachings and their character of practical rules for everyday life gave to Boehme’s writings part of their great popularity . . . Boehme’s only authority is the Bible ; he read the works of various men, he tells us, but received from them no help in determining our attitude toward the moral obligations of life. In his Christian Doctrine Milton’s only authority is the Bible.” The proof of Milton’s dependence upon Boehme can’not be said to be completely established, but it is more than probable. Something more than his due may have been attributed to Boehme, and he is allowed a direct influence where more probably it is through his readers, the early Quakers, that the mind of the poet was affected. Indifferent attention to chronology, and to development in Milton’s thought, also to some extent vitiates the argu¬ ment, but, when all is said, the thesis is well founded and sustained, and the case for the indebtedness of Milton to Boehme, direct and indirect, is cogent and convincing. More recently, Professor Arthur Sewell,1 following earlier researches, his own and others, has disproved the theory of the priority of the Treatise on Christian Doctrine as a whole to Paradise Lost, and, at the same time, seri¬ ously challenged the view that we may, in his own words, “ take the Treatise as a fixed point, to which we can refer the rest of his works to establish for them a place in the geography of his ideas ”. He goes further. He denies that Milton “ was satisfied with it ”, contends that what 1 A Study in Milton’s Doctrine (1939).

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

“ he really believed may be something different from the doctrine in it ”, and, finally, asserts that before he died, “ he came nearer to the Calvinism which his spirit never utterly rejected Before examining the validity of these findings with the care which their discussion merits, let us briefly glance at the Treatise itself, and consider some of the judgments it has evoked. George Saintsbury spoke of it in 1911 1 as “ a curious document of its author’s tendency to ‘ ray out ’ non¬ conformity in almost all directions and on almost all subjects; being pantheistic in philosophy, Arian in theology, millenarian in eschatology, semi-Antinomian in ethics (with advocacy of polygamy), and individualistic as regards Church government, the whole, of course, being professedly Biblical in origin Much may be forgiven a literary historian giving in a few lines a synopsis of a theological treatise of 410 pages (4to), with which he was wholly out of sympathy, but even so, it must be said that this description of the Treatise rather too closely resembles a caricature. “ Almost all directions ” and “ almost all subjects ”, so far as this work is concerned, is a gross exaggeration ; Milton is no pantheist, since, as Mr. Sewell observes, “ God in his proper person is other than all things, although his virtue and something of his goodness have been communicated to all the other beings he has made ”, and, as Mr. A. S. P. Woodhouse points out : 2 “ Milton escapes Antinomianism by replacing the outward with an inward Law conceived as ethical and rational in character, and identified with the law of nature, so that the essence of the Law is not abolished but accepted and obeyed in a new spirit of free and voluntary activity.” If the Treatise is only “ professedly Biblical in origin ”, then Milton’s own statements on that point must be

1 2

Cambridge History of English Literature, VII, 129. Puritanism and Liberty, p. 65, n, 2.

33

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

untrue, and it would be interesting to see a treatise that is really so. It is, of course, something more than a mere florilegium of texts. The author of Paradise Lost and of several outstanding controversial pamphlets was proud of his prowess in argument, and was certainly more scrupulous about the accuracy of his texts than about their interpretation. Yet the Bible remained the one chief source of the Treatise. Macaulay, in his Essay on Milton, his first contribution to the Edinburgh Review, for which the publication of the Treatise provided a pre¬ text, characterized it thus : “ Milton’s digest of scriptural texts is certainly among the best that have appeared. But he is not always so happy in his inferences as in his citations.” One reason, indeed, for the comparative neglect of the Treatise on Christian Doctrine since its publication has been the forbidding aspect of a book whose pages are simply crammed with passages of Scripture. Even the stoutest Nonconformists have rightly preferred to read passages from the Bible in the familiar order and setting gratefully accepted by their forbears from the Jacobean episcopalian translators. Another reason for the neglect of the Treatise, operating less early and less widely, but increasingly potent in colleges and schools of sound learning, was that nineteenth-century criticism slowly but surely undermined the foundations of a system of theology inspired by bibliolatry. Mark Pattison, in his notice of the Treatise} hits the mark much more accurately than Saintsbury. “ The traditional terms of the text-books are retained, but they are employed only as heads under which to arrange the words of Scripture. . . . The originality which Milton voluntarily resigns, in employing only the words of the Bible, he recovers by his freedom of exposition. He shakes himself loose from the trammels of traditional exposition, and looks at the texts for himself. . . . He 1 Milton (English Men of Letters), pp. 155-7.

34

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

arranges his texts so as to exhibit in Scriptural language the semi-Arian scheme. ... He exhibits an intimate knowledge of the text of the canonical books, Hebrew and Greek, but references to fathers are perfunctory and second-hand. . . . He did not esteem the judgment of the Fathers sufficiently to deem them worth studying.” In other words, John Milton began where John Bidle did before him and John Locke after him, from the principle of the sufficiency of Scripture interpreted by reason. His Unitarian successors, following his lead since the seventeenth century, have progressed from his starting-point, but, whilst unwilling to acknowledge the Scriptures as the single and final court of appeal in theology, they, no more than their forerunners, will allow that there is any good warrant in the words of the two Testaments for the doctrine of the Nicene and Athanasian creeds. Milton, in his unpublished work, did not altogether neglect the Fathers, nor is it certain that he only knew them “ second-hand ”. His references to them else¬ where suggest the contrary. Besides “ Fathers ” un¬ named, he mentions in the Treatise Ambrose, Tertullian, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory of Nyssa, Hilary, Cyprian, and Chrysostom, but, like most modern exegetes, he declined to remain in bondage to the Fathers of the early church, as his Anglican contemporaries in the main were content to do. Much earlier, he had suggested in Areopagitica that “ Irenasus, Epiphanius, Jerome and others discover more heresies than they well confute ”, and “ oft mistake for heresy what is the truer opinion ”, and, again, in Of Reformation in England (1641), answering the argument that “ the Scriptures are difficult to be understood, and therefore require the explanation of the Fathers ”, he said, “ It is true there be some books, and especially some places in these books, that remain clouded, yet ever that which is most necessary to be known is most easy, and that which is most difficult, so 35

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE. AND NEWTON

far expounds itself ever as to tell us how little it imports our saving knowledge. ... If these doctors, who had scarce half the light that we enjoy could yet find the Bible so easy, why should we doubt, that have all the helps of learning and faithful industry, and the assistance of God as near as ever.” His basis, therefore, in the Treatise on Christian Doctrine was Scripture, but Scripture critically examined as to its variant readings and their authorities, and, in his interpretation, he did not disdain the help of commentaries. It is not quite correct to say, as Pattison does, that “ in the interpretation of texts, Milton withdrew within the fortress of his absolute personality ”. Much of his interpretation of the Old Testament he owed to rabbinical writers. His “ worst offence in the use of Scripture was ”, we are told, “ his many times repeated practice of employing the same verse or verses of Scripture under varying circumstances to support utterly different ideas or practices. But, in doing this, he was in a large company of illustrious fore¬ runners, among whom were the medieval rabbis in their biblical commentaries.” 1 True, Milton “ held that the letter of the text was sacred, but this authority was only absolute as the authority of a text to a scholar ”.2 His translation of the Hebrew text into Latin was often free, and, as all translation necessarily is, to some extent a matter of interpretation. “ Matters of interpretation ”, strictly so-called, “ were to him matters of opinion, and we find him setting himself against many current and conventional interpretations, as when he pointed out that the 8th Chapter of Proverbs referred not to Christ, but to an allegorical presentation of Wisdom as the Spirit of God.” 3 Milton ascribed the Law to Moses, but speaks with less certainty of the other books. Of “ the remain¬ ing books, especially the historical,” he says, “ though it be questionable by whom or at what time they were 1 H. F. Fletcher, Milton’s Rabbinical Readings, p. 303. 2 Ibid., p. 302. 3 Ibid., p. 303.

36

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

written, and though, in their history, the chronology seems frequently at fault, yet their doctrinal part none, or few, have called in question David Masson, the greatest of Milton’s biographers, observes : “ The divine origin and inspiration of the Scriptures, defined as comprising only and precisely those books of the Old and New Testaments, which Protestants have accepted as canonical, is Milton’s assumption throughout.” He then remarks that this assumption Milton does not think it necessary to prove, and accounts for the omission on the ground that Milton wrote as a believer to believers. On this Alexander Gordon said :1 “ Milton does not lie open to this criticism quite as palpably as Masson implies. He distinguishes between the authenticity of the books in question—which he holds may be established, as that of others cannot, by external testimony confirmed by internal evidence—and their binding authority,” respecting which he says: “ The truth of the entire volume is established by the inward persuasion of the Spirit working in the hearts of individual believers.” He further, with many Puritans, as well as Quakers, maintains that while “ the written word is highly important ”, yet, “ the external Scripture ” may be, and has been corrupted ; whereas “ the Spirit that leads to truth cannot be corrupted ”. Milton, in fact, “ escapes the pressure of his Biblicism, at least as regards the New Testament, by pleading the presence of irre¬ ducible variations in the existing text, providentially designed to compel a resort to the guidance of the Spirit ”.2 Gordon’s authority for his judgment may be found in the Chapter “ On Sacred Scripture ”, where Milton noted that “ The Scripture of the New Testa¬ ment, since it has been transcribed and printed with variations, under untrustworthy guardianship, from 1 Milton On the Son of God . . ., p. vii. 2 Alexander Gordon, Addresses Biographical and Historical, P- 39-

37

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

manuscripts showing variations and discrepancy, was frequently exposed to corruption, and has been corrupted. . . . Learned men, such as Erasmus, Beza and others, have, by comparison of manuscripts, edited what has seemed to them most genuine. Truly I know not why it has been the will of Divine Providence that the Scrip¬ ture of the New Testament has been committed to custo¬ dians so uncertain and so slippery, unless it were that this very fact should prove to us that the Spirit is set before us as a more safe guide than the Scripture, and that this is the guide we should follow.” This is, at least, a long way in advance of the Westminster Confession that the original Greek has been by God’s “ singular care and providence kept pure in all ages ”. Many scholars have called attention to Milton’s relation to Quakerism. “ In the last period of his life ”, said Pattison,1 “ there grew up in him a secret sympathy with the mode of thinking which came to characterize the Quaker sect. Not that Milton adopted any of their peculiar fancies. He affirms categorically the permissi¬ bility of oaths, of military service, and requires that women should keep silence in the congregation. But in negativing all means of arriving at truth except the letter of scripture interpreted by the inner light, he stood upon the same platform as the followers of George Fox.” Undoubtedly, in his views of Sacraments and ecclesi¬ astical organization, as of the nature of the Christian ministry, Milton was almost persuaded to be a Quaker, though he may have drawn directly, as has been shown, from Jacob Boehme, for doctrines and practices which Fox and the early Quakers owed to him. Certainly he had no use for liturgies and set forms of worship, and none for what he called a “ hired ministry ”. Recom¬ pense to ministers, he thought, should be in the nature of “ alms ”, not stipends either from the State or from the congregation. This “ aversion to a salaried ministry ”, 1 Milton (English Men of Letters), p. 152.

38

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

as Mark Pattison pointed out,1 was not “ a monomania of sect. It is essentially involved in the conception of religion as a spiritual state, a state of grace.” A pro¬ fessional minister is not ipso facto in such a state, and there is always at least the possibility that a man may be tempted to enter the ministry because it is a pro¬ fession with certain recognized emoluments. “ Any believer ”, in Milton’s words, “ is competent to act as an ordinary minister, and the sacraments are not abso¬ lutely indispensable.” Yet he defined Baptism in the Treatise as “ the rite appointed for the admission of all persons—that is, of all adults ”, and so gave in his adhesion to the Baptists in the central point of their faith. He does not, however, count baptism the first duty of Christians, in certain cases justifies its disuse, and, so far as we know, was never himself baptized. Admittedly, the passage in the Treatise on “ the two¬ fold scripture ” and others of like import are couched in the language of Quakerism, but it is more than doubtful whether Milton understood by the Holy Spirit any immediate revelation in the Quaker sense. Many passages in his writings suggest that he conceived the Holy Spirit as working with and by means of man’s understanding, not superseding, but strengthening and extending reason. In The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth (1660), he asked : “ Who can enjoy anything in this world with contentment, who hath not liberty to serve God and to save his own soul, according to the best light which God hath planted in him to that purpose, by the reading of his revealed will, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit ? ” Again, in A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, he contends that “ we ought to believe what in our conscience we appre¬ hend the Scripture to say, though the visible church, with all her doctors, gainsay . . . they who do so are not heretics, but the best Protestants ”.

1

Ut supra, p. 124.

39

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OP MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

David Masson in 1878 1 wrote an illuminating note on the Treatise on Christian Doctrine, partly reproduced in later editions of the Encyclopcedia Britannica. “ The treatise shows that Milton, in his later life, was not an orthodox Trinitarian, but an Antitrinitarian of that high Arian order, counting Sir Isaac Newton amongst its subsequent English adherents. . . . One of its doc¬ trines is that the Decalogue is no longer the standard of human morality, and that Christian liberty is not to be bounded by its prohibitions, or by any sacerdotal code of ethics founded on these. . . . Altogether, what the Treatise makes clear is that while Milton was a most fervid theist and a genuine Christian, believing in the Bible, and valuing the Bible over all the other books in the world, he was at the same time one of the most intrepid of English thinkers and theologians.” Mr. Tillyard, in his study of the poet,2 says : “ Milton may follow no sect but he certainly follows something besides the Scriptures in the work compiled exclusively from them.” This scholar believes “ the compromise between reason and scripture is the outcome of Milton’s character ”, and notes “ with what amazing masterfulness Milton makes Scripture mean what he wishes. We feel that Milton always held himself free to believe a story figuratively, if it should suit him to do so. And, like /Eschylus, he may mean much by his silences. A good example of this is in his treatment of miracles. He cannot omit the subject altogether, but he confines it to half a page. In his citations from Scripture not a single one of Christ’s miracles is mentioned. Later, in the Treatise, he says : ‘ Miracles have no inherent efficacy in producing belief, any more than simple teaching ’.” As early as 1641, Milton rejected Archbishop Ussher’s interpretation of a passage from Isaiah lxvi, and gave his own as “ the lawful and unconstrained sense of the

1 2

Encyclopcedia Britannica, 9th ed., 1878. Milton, p. 215 ff.

40

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

text ”. True, Milton neither defined reason nor its province, and, to our mind, not a few things which seem unreasonable are accepted because sanctioned by Scrip¬ ture. Yet, far from limiting the bounds of reason, Milton, in his writings, implicitly acknowledged its everextending sphere of action. From our superior vantageground, won by the brave efforts of our forbears, it is easy to look down upon the pioneer attempts to justify its use and authority without breaking with the authority of Scripture by men like Milton, Locke and Newton. To say, with Mr. Belloc, that “ the whole point of the De Doctrina lies in its arguments from the Bible. On that all depends ” is to recognize the authority which Milton acknowledged, but to underestimate the place of reason in its interpretation. The same writer is none the less quick to note and illustrate Milton’s misinterpretation of Scripture. Speaking of his defence of bigamy, he says : “ The innocent might imagine that he would have shirked the very great difficulties of the New Testament in this matter. Far from it ... he picks out every Christian text that might seem to support the horrid idea of one wife only, and expounds its true sense with glorious confidence ”. Whence did Milton’s Antitrinitarianism derive ? Henry John Todd 1 thinks that Milton “ in his specula¬ tions upon the theology of the times had treasured up the unsound positions of writers, who then, more especially in the Dutch and German schools of divinity, proclaimed to the world their dissent from the doctrine of the Trinity ”, and again,2 quoting Nelson’s Life of Bishop Bull, he said : “ About 1680 and for some years before, there were several Arian and Socinian pieces published in Holland, and dispersed in England, written by some learned men that were fled thither out of Poland and Prussia ” ; adding, “ in the interval between the produc¬ tion of his two epic poems, Milton drank largely perhaps

1

Life of Milton (1826), p. 314.

41

2 Ibid., p. 322. D

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

from their turbid streams No evidence is given of Milton’s exact indebtedness to the “ Dutch and German schools of divinity ”, nor of “ the turbid streams ” of Arian and Socinian pieces by Polish refugees, which the poet had swallowed to the irreparable hurt of his erst¬ while orthodoxy. Mr. Sewell’s answer to the question of the sources of Milton’s Antitrinitarianism must be gleaned from more pages than one. In none is he content with the admission that he derives it from Scripture, though he quotes Milton’s own words that “ while still a young man he entered upon an assiduous course of study in the Scrip¬ ture ”, and the words of his nephew, that his object “ was the framing of a body of Divinity out of the Bible ”. It was Milton’s deference to the inspired word that led primarily to his defence of polygamy. The most prob¬ able date of the composition of the Treatise suggests that his divorce pamphlets did not, as is commonly assumed, simply grow out of the circumstances of his domestic life, however gravely affected thereby, and so constitute nothing more nor less than a sort of Apologia pro vita sua. “ Among the Puritans in the Church of England ”, says a recent writer,1 “ the belief was strong that divorce a vinculo was lawful in cases of adultery, cruelty, and even of desertion and incompatibility. William Perkins advocated these views in his Christian Oeconomy, and Milton pushed them to the extreme in his tracts on divorce. The criticism of the divorce laws was a part of the Puritan attack on the ecclesiastical courts. During the Commonwealth, civil marriages and divorce a vinculo for adultery and desertion were introduced.” “ Attack¬ ing the Catholic theory of marriage ”, Milton maintained “ that the happiness of individuals was its only justifica¬ tion. He demanded divorce with the privilege of marry¬ ing again on the simple grounds of incompatibility, and

1

R. B. Schlatter.

1660-88, p. 24.

The Social Ideas of Religious Leaders,

42

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

prophesied that adultery and prostitution would dis¬ appear if persons unsuited to one another were not forced by laws to continue husband and wife. No divine of the Restoration argued the protestant position to its conclusion with the logical vigour of The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce.” 1 Milton, incidentally, was not the only English poet to defend polygamy. William Blake, whose marriage was one of the happiest, from an entry in Crabb Robinson’s Diary, seems independently to have shared Milton’s view of polygamy on the warrant of Old Testament teaching. That polygamy is countenanced and even approved by the Old Testament, no serious student of the Hebrew writings can deny, but few Christian scholars have been candid enough to admit, with Channing, “ We believe it to be an indisputable fact that although Christianity was first preached in Asia, which had been from the earliest ages the seat of polygamy, the Apostles never denounced it as a crime, and never required their con¬ verts to put away all wives but one.” The American essayist allows that “ the practice is censured by implica¬ tion in the words of Jesus (Matthew xix. 9), and considers that the hostility of Christianity to this practice is not the less decided because no express prohibition of polygamy is found in the New Testament ”. Milton was not the first Christian, who, from the attributes and actions of deity in the Old Testament, conceived of God in human shape. This was charac¬ teristic of John Bidle. In certain speculations, Milton was at one with Joseph Priestley, e.g. in his denial of any essential distinction between body and soul, though Priestley changed matter from a substance into a power, and so virtually destroyed it in the attempt to diffuse it. The doctrine of the sleep of the soul between death and resurrection was not peculiar nor original to Milton. It

1

R. B. Schlatter. 1660-88, p. 26

The

Social Ideas of Religious Leaders,

43

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

was held by certain fathers of the church, and, later, not only by Priestley, but by Luther, Dodwell and Edmund Law. As an American scholar has recently said,1 in a discussion of Paradise Lost: “ Conceptions, at times recognized by Miltonic scholarship as heretical, and as stamping Milton as a materialist, probably were not regarded by the poet as heterodox.’* Milton gives the Unitarian interpretation of most of the texts alleged by orthodox scholars to support the doctrine of the Trinity. He explains John x. 30, “I and my Father are one ”, not of unity of essence, but of intimacy of communion ; so also the Three Heavenly witnesses in 1 John v. 7, whose spuriousness he sus¬ pected, but followed Beza in interpreting of “ an unity of agreement and testimony ” ; he knew the variant reading of Acts xx. 28 “ the church of God ” (v. 1., Lord) “ which he purchased with his own blood ”, and understood the last word to mean “ offspring ” or “ son ” ; 1 Timothy iii. 16 “ God was manifest in the flesh ” he understood as the Father manifested in the Son ; of Titus ii. 13 “ our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ ”, he said : “ the definitive article may be inserted or omitted before the two nouns in the Greek without affecting the sense ”, adding, “ surely, what is proposed to us as an object of belief, especially in a matter involving a primary article of faith, ought not to be an inference hunted out by careful research from among articles and particles, nor elicited by dint of ingenuity, like the answers of darker equivocal meaning.” He rejected all the accepted Old Testament passages adduced to prove the eternity of the Son. Like many later Arians, Milton held at one time a lofty doctrine of atonement. Samuel Johnson, on his death-bed, recommended Dr. Brocklesby “ to study Dr. Clarke, and to read his sermons.” “ I asked him why he pressed Dr. Clarke, an Arian.”—“ Because ”, said he, “ he is fullest

1 Grant McColley, Harvard Theological Review, July 1939, p. 220. 44

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

on the propitiatory sacrifice ”. The Lord’s Supper Milton regarded as a memorial rite, and spoke fiercely of the “ numberless absurd speculations which have wellnigh converted the Supper of the Lord into a banquet of cannibals It would be too much to claim that characteristics of Milton’s mind were formed by his study of the Bible, but it is not amiss to note that, son of the Renaissance as he was, in his humour he was Hebrew rather than Greek. “ The comic ”, it is said, 1 “ is something outside of the Jewish dispensation. One would conclude from their records that the Jews were people who never laughed except ironically. . . . This is partly because it is not the province of religious writings to record humour, but it is mainly because Jewish thought condemns humour.” “ Where the Bible triumphs utterly, as in Dante and Calvin, there is no humour.” Such a judgment is too sweeping. The Pilgrim's Progress is a religious writing reflecting in detail Bunyan’s profound interest in Scrip¬ ture, but it is far from wanting in humour. Hence he can make the appeal to the reader in his Apology : Would’st thou divert thyself from Melancholy ? Would’st thou be pleasant, yet be far from folly ? Would’st thou be in a Dream, and yet not sleep ? Or would’st thou in a moment laugh and weep ? O then come hither, And lay my Book, thy Head, and Heart together.

“ The humour of the Old Testament ”, says Robertson Smith,2 “ is always grim and caustic, as we see in the life of Samson ; in the answer of the Danites to Micah ; in the parable of Jehoash ; or in the merciless ridicule with which the book of Isaiah covers the idolaters.” But even the Semites were fond of playing upon words and the simpler forms of verbal wit. So was Milton, and censured by Johnson for “ his play upon words in which 1 Chapman, Hibbert Journal, VIII, 870-1. 2 Lectures and Essays, p. 446.

45

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

he delights too often ”. The reason for the lack of real humour amongst the Hebrews is that they were wanting in sympathy with the natural man, which is an essential thereto. Walter Bagehot, in 1859, noted Milton’s “ want of sympathy with others ”, and marked in him “ two defects exceedingly rare in great English authors ... a deficiency in humour and a deficiency in the knowledge of plain human nature ”. He further observed “ how cer¬ tainly this deficiency in humour and in the delineation of ordinary human feeling is connected with a recluse, a solitary, and to some extent with an unsympathetic life ”. Yet Milton was a master of irony in prose and verse, and, in punning, could rival Thomas Hood, as in his verses on Hobson the carrier. In quick wit and lively fancy, as in his discussion Of Prelatical Episcopacy, he outmatched the ruder and simpler sons of Abraham, but, in the main, his humour was Hebraic. In this matter he was under the Old Covenant, and an apparently natural incapacity for true humour would seem to have been deepened by his reverence for the Old Testament. “ How Milton came to be an Antitrinitarian ”, says Mr. Sewell, “ must always remain matter of conjecture ”. It was “ certainly made possible by his characteristic way of religious thinking ”, his “ dislike of scholastic notions ” and the sophistical subtleties of the terms “ trinity ”, “ trinunity ”, “ coessentiality ” and the like. These phrases are taken from Milton’s last publication, Of True Religion ; and dislike of them, as in the writers of the old Unitarian Tracts, in the seventeenth century, is rather itself indicative of Milton’s Antitrinitarianism than merely “ a characteristic way of religious thinking ”. Again, “ Milton’s Antitrinitarianism ”, we are told, “ seems first to have arisen from a consideration of the mediatorial functions of the Son ”, and his words are given : “I confess myself unable to perceive how those who consider the Son as of the same essence as the Father can explain either his incarnation or his satisfaction.”

46

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

“ Some roots of Milton’s Antitrinitarianism ” are also discovered in his conception of God’s creation, that is, “ God’s purpose to communicate his goodness to beings like Himself Then we are reminded that “ in Thomas Edward’s Gangraena, most of Milton’s heresies are named ”, and that “ whatever may have been Milton’s reasons for subscribing to them, it is certain that he found each of them formulated and defended elsewhere This suggests that Milton was acquainted with the heresies of his day. It may very well be so, but know¬ ledge of them would not mean that they, rather than the Scripture, were for him authoritative. There is really no evidence that he read particular heretical books, with one, or possibly two exceptions, which, singularly enough, Mr. Sewell has not noticed. It is known that Milton possessed the Heptaplomeres of Jean Bodin, a sixteenthcentury political philosopher, a work which embodies a philosophy of rationalism in the form of a conversation between seven learned men. This book circulated in manuscript, and was not printed until the nineteenth century. Of another heretical book almost certainly known to Milton something will be said later. “ Milton ”, adds Mr. Sewell, “ is also indebted to some of the Cambridge Platonists for the formulation of his beliefs ”. “ His Antitrinitarian view is strongly parallel to Cudworth’s remarks on the Platonic Trinity ”, whilst “ one of the most important aspects of Cambridge Platonism is its identification, as by Whichcote, of right reason with the voice of the Lord ”. Here, the similar influence of the Cambridge Platonists on the Unitarian Tract writers, on Locke and Newton, should be noted.1 In all these “ conjectures ” there seems to be a con¬ fusion of secondary with primary sources. Where did Milton, in the first instance, derive his “ views of the mediatorial functions of the Son ”, or of “ God’s purpose in creation ”, if not from Scripture, of which he was so

1

See pp.

47

hi,

198.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

early and so devoted a student ? Coincidences between his interpretations of Scripture and those of others do not cancel out his avowed indebtedness for his system of belief to the Bible, even if it were proved, as it cannot be, that their writings were in his hands, or that by them he was directed to particular points of exegesis. It cer¬ tainly was on independent grounds that earlier and later writers shared his speculations on the sleep of the soul. What Martineau said of early English Unitarians generally applies individually to John Milton.1 “ There is one unorthodox influence so powerfully and so exten¬ sively diffused as almost to supersede inquiry into the personal pedigree of English Unitarians. I mean the English Bible ... A mind surrendered, with the fresh¬ ness and freedom which true piety gives, to the broad characteristics of the Scriptures, could not but suffer estrangement from the very essence of the ecclesiastical theory—first no doubt, escaping from its degrading imposture of priestly mediation, into immediate spiritual relations with heaven ; but ere long, irresistibly impressed by the purely monotheistic character of the Biblical Theology, and the genuine humanism of the Christology. . . . The earlier Unitarians, notwithstanding their repute of rationalism, drew their doctrine out of the Scriptures, much to their own surprise, and did not import it into them.” Biddle, for instance, declares that “ he experi¬ enced his first doubts respecting the Trinity in reading the Bible, before he had even seen a Socinian book ”. One heretical book, and it was Socinian, which Milton must have known is the Racovian Catechism in a Latin edition. According to a Minute of the Council of State, dated “ Tuesday, Jan. 21, 1651/2 ”, as we learn from Masson,2 “ It was resolved ‘ that a warrant be issued to the Ser-

1

Preface to Early Sources of Unitarian G. Bonet-Maury (1884), pp. xii, xiv, xv. 2 Life of Milton . . ., IV, p. 423.

48

Christianity

by

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

geant of Arms to repair to the house of William Dugard, printer, and there to make seizure of a certain impression of books entitled Catechesis Ecclesiarum Poloniae, and to come forthwith to the Council ’.” Masson continues : “ Whether from sympathy with its views, or merely in the interests of literary curiosity and free discussion, Dugard, the Council of State’s own printer, had passed an English edition of it through the press, and for this he was now in trouble.” Later, he gives the proceedings of the House : “ Mr. Millington reported ‘ that Mr. William Dugard is the printer of the Book gives particulars of his examination, and finally “ the Examination of Mr. John Milton, and a Note under the hand of Mr. John Milton of the 10th of August, 1650 ”. “ What may have been the nature of Milton’s concern in the affair ”, says Masson, “ we do not know. Was the note under his hand of August 10th, 1650, anything to which Dugard could refer as a permission or recommendation to print the book received from the Council of State’s own Latin Secretary . . . ? ” Then, in a footnote, he corrects his former opinion of the book. “ I infer that Dugard’s edition had been in Latin, and that the notoriety it had obtained had led to the more daring act of a pub¬ lication of the same in English. There are extant copies of an English translation of the Catechism, dated 1652, but it purports to have been printed at Amsterdam.” If the note “ under the hand of Mr. John Milton ” had survived, it might have thrown some light upon his Antitrinitarian views. He was responsible for what was printed by Dugard at this time, and was not the man to pass for publication a theological pamphlet he had not read. It is known that before 1650 he was engaged on the Treatise on Christian Doctrine ; Mr. Sewell dates the first stage of its compilation as early as 1640. This is supported by what Edward Phillips, nephew and pupil of Milton, tells of his tutor’s dictation from a body of divinity drawn up by the poet from “ Amesius, Wollebius, 49

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

&c.’\ Ames is expressly quoted in the Treatise, and Wolleb, though not named, suggested to Milton the plan of the division “ On the Worship of God ”, and, as Sumner remarked, “ not only the arguments but even whole sentences (in the Treatise) are sometimes identically the same ” as in Wolleb’s Compendium Theologice Chris¬ tianize of 1625. Mr. Belloc, bringing the Treatise into close relation with (for him) the critical year of 1642, says “ the bulk of it belongs to the seven years after the breakdown of his first marriage There is certainly much to be said for Mr. Belloc’s statement, based on the quotations from classical authors and “ the detailed discussion of Hebrew words ” in the Treatise, that it “ is improbable such mat¬ ters could have been dictated by a man after he had lost his eyes Masson is wrong in supposing the English translation of the Catechesis had anything to do with the Council’s action. That, according to the book’s account of itself, was “ Printed at Amsterledam, for Brooer Janz, 1652 Joshua Toulmin, the eighteenthcentury nonconformist historian, conjectured, as did Alexander Gordon a century later, that “ Brooer Janz ” was John Bidle, with whose works the tract is often found bound up. “ Amsterledam ” is a mere subterfuge for London, probably due to the treatment of the Latin edition, which appeared in London and professed to be published at Racow. All copies found of that edition were burnt by order of Parliament. The translation omits the original dedication to James I, has a preface of its own, and takes liberties with the text. Dugard, the son of a clergyman, was a Cambridge graduate and schoolmaster, who, in the year when the Racovian Catechism was burnt, printed a French translation of Milton’s Eikonoclastes. W. G. Tarrant, in a tract on Milton and Religious Freedom (1908), says : “ Milton must have been familiar with the case of John Bidle . . . Five times was Bidle imprisoned under the Puritan rule, a sixth time in 1652, 5°

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

resulting in his dying from disease. That Milton knew of Bidle, and that he was well acquainted with Oliver Cromwell’s action in saving him from the gallows, is as certain as anything can be of which we have no historical evidence.” Possibly, it may be added, Milton’s know¬ ledge of the fact that Bidle had translated a work which, in Latin, had met with his own approval, may even have led Milton, directly or indirectly, to prompt the clemency of Cromwell. However that be, if, in 1650, Milton read the Racovian Catechism, its influence on the Treatise must be allowed for. True, Milton at no time was a Socinian, but the Catechism contained much that must have been congenial to his mind, e.g. its fine plea for toleration and for reason in religion, and its foundation, as a Catechism, on the words of Scripture. The preface to the Translation says : “ The things that are asserted are built upon plain texts of Scripture, without any con¬ sequences.” In the preface to his Treatise, Milton declared : “ For my own part, I adhere to the Holy Scriptures alone—I follow no other heresy or sect. I had not even read any of the works of heretics so-called when the mistakes of those who are reckoned for orthodox and their incautious handling of Scripture first taught me to agree with their opponents whenever their opponents agreed with Scripture.” Observe, he does not say he had not read any heretical works when writing the Treatise, but that he did not owe to them his own inter¬ pretation of Scripture. Obviously, he could only know that opponents of the orthodox “ agreed with Scripture ” by reading their writings. Actually, Mr. Sewell has shown, on good grounds, that Milton did not finish the Treatise until after the Restoration. Throughout his discussion of Milton’s Antitrinitarianism, Mr. Sewell repeatedly asserts in varying phrase that “ the Treatise did not satisfy Milton’s whole spirit, not even his mind It is plain that it does not 1 Preface, pp. xii, cp. pp. 83, 200, etc.

51

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

satisfy Mr. Sewell ! Is it quite as plain that it did not satisfy Milton ? What is the alleged foundation for this psychological analysis leading to the discovery of the conflict between the mind and spirit of the poet ? It rests upon the evident movement of thought in Paradise Lost, “ a certain perplexity ”, as it is called, “ of mind and spirit ”, “ A contrast of the temper in which Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes were written ” compared with that of the Treatise ; upon the fact that the Treatise remained unpublished, and upon the larger toleration displayed in his last writing, the tract Of True Religion, particularly the saying, torn from its context and thrice repeated, that Calvinists are “ not without plea of Scripture ”. Surely this is but a frail foundation upon which to charge Milton with something like double-mindedness in relation to himself and his contemplated readers, “ letting I dare not wait upon I would ”, and leading up to the startling conclusion that what Milton “ really believed may be something different from the doctrine in the Treatise ”, and “ came nearer to the Calvinism which his spirit never wholly rejected ”. It would be idle to deny that relics of Calvinism remained with Milton to the last, but Calvinism had ceased to dominate his thought when the Treatise on Christian Doctrine was written. Mr. Tillyard asks :1 “ Can we be certain that here (in the Treatise) is Milton’s final position ? ” He is content to answer : “ There is little evidence, we cannot be certain either way. Though there is little dogma in Paradise Regained and Samson Agonistes, the argument from silence is not convincing ”. Mr. Belloc however finds in De Doctrina Christiana “ the very self of Milton ”, “ the heart of his mature conviction ”. What might be said is that whilst Paradise Lost is based, as to its christology, on the sacrifice of Christ, Paradise Regained is

1

Milton, p. 225.

52

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

based on the example and obedience of Christ; that in the one he is viewed as Son of God, in the other, as Son of Man, and here is a preparation for what follows in the Treatise on Christian Doctrine. Professor Elton 1 finds evidence simply of “ Milton’s tact in his refusal to load Paradise Regained with hard theology. Little, just enough, is said of propitiation or satisfaction. The Crucifixion and its sequel are barely hinted at, and the Saviour seems to have no forecast of them.” Again, whilst the argument from silence is not conclusive it is doubtful if “ tact ” alone is responsible for the omission of cardinal doctrines from the poem in question. Development in Milton’s theological views has been already admitted ; a certain dubiety and perplexity in Paradise Lost need not be denied, and, in the later poems, especially in Samson Agonistes, to borrow Mr. Sewell’s words, “ acceptance and obedience ”, “ wisdom and calm submission followed the doubts and spiritual con¬ flict out of which was born both the Treatise and the earlier books of the longer poems Probably the “ doubt ” and “ spiritual conflict ” of Milton is here somewhat exaggerated. As we have seen, he was no John Bunyan. But Milton, being what he was, never felt that he had said the last word and solved every doubt on the greatest problems of religious thought. It is a thoroughly characteristic Unitarian frame of mind, springing from a conscious freedom and alienation from the temper of dogmatic certainty on questions, which, from their very nature, cannot be wholly determined by reason. Like his co-religionists in general, Milton was a Unitarian because he was free, not free, because he was a Unitarian. When Alexander Gordon discoursed at length with five Calvinist bishops at Debrezen, one of the prelates remarked : “ Unitarians ! I don’t like the name ; a Unitarian is a man who hasn’t said his last word.” “ I am glad to find you are aware of that ”,

1

The English Muse, p. 246.

53

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

said their guest, a man whose knowledge of Unitarians from the sixteenth century to the twentieth was unrivalled. If “ acceptance ”, “ submission ” in relation to God, and increasing “ wisdom ” in advancing years betoken the growth of Calvinistic opinion, then most religious men in the sixties, without Milton’s bitter experience of frustrated hope and disillusion, are more or less of the Calvinist way of thinking. Moreover, it is not unreason¬ able to urge that the theme of Samson Agonistes did not easily lend itself to the discussion of dogma, whilst it did to the sounding of the note of “ acceptance ” and “ sub¬ mission ”. May we not also conjecture that if Milton had moved away from the doctrine of the Treatise on Christian Doctrine before his death, he would have radically recast it, or destroyed the manuscript, and not left it behind, bearing, in its address to the churches, what was tantamount to an expression of his desire that it should be published ; whether the words “ libri duo posthumi ” came from the lips of the blind poet, or only from the pen of the scribe. In a discussion of “ The Miltonic Ideal ”,x Professor G. A. Wood finds that amongst his many changes of opinion, political and religious, “ Milton’s mind is in one thing at least unchanged. It is the love of liberty that gives consistency and unity to his life and teaching. . . . The conception of Liberty as identical with Virtue is a conception common to all Milton’s writings, both prose and verse. . . . The only worship that can rightly be called worship is the free and active expression of the spirit of man, conscious of being in the presence of God and inspired by His Spirit. . . . Hence Milton’s dislike of the Common Prayer Book . . . hence too, his bitter¬ ness towards Laud’s endeavour to enforce the sacerdotalist and sacramentarian system in the English Church. . . . The same principle holds good in theology. . . . The

1

Historical Essays by Members of Owens College, 364 ff.

54

1902,

pp.

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

living faith is a personal faith. . . . The personal search for truth is the essence of theological study. ... To his opponents, orthodoxy meant belief in a creed, to Milton it meant belief in a principle, ‘ Seek and ye shall find.’ ” Here Milton’s own words in Areopagitica are most pertinent : “ To be still searching what we know not by what we know, still closing up truth to truth . . . this is the golden rule in theology as well as in arithmetic.” Coleridge, in one of his lectures on Paradise Lost seven years before the Treatise on Christian Doctrine was published, defined, with true insight, “ the great ideal, in which and for which the poet lived ” as “ a keen love of truth, which, after many pursuits, found a harbour in a sublime listening to the still voice in his own spirit and as keen a love of his country, which, after a dis¬ appointment still more depressive, expanded and soared into a love of man as a probationer of immortality ”. “ Liberty ”, “ the search for truth, and the absence of creeds ” have been “ marks ” of those churches com¬ monly called Unitarian since the sixteenth century. The importance of Milton’s little tract (13 pages) “ Of True Religion etc.”, published in 1673, is greatly overrated by Mr. Sewell. Sent forth into the world but a short time after the Declaration of Indulgence by Charles II, which aimed, under the cloak of tolerating Dissenters, at finding security for Roman Catholics, this tract was obviously designed to consolidate the forces of Protestantism in England against the “ Papists ”, still by Milton excluded from the toleration now extended to “ Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Arians, Socinians and Arminians ”. With this end in view, he appeals several times to the practices of the Church of England, once even calling it “ our church ”, much as a Dissenter to-day might when distinguishing the English from the Roman communion. When he says (once) that Cal¬ vinists are “ not without plea of Scripture ”, he is not renouncing his almost life-long protest against Cal55

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

vinism, but adducing a proof, identical with that urged in behalf of heretics, that, as with Protestants generally, but not with Roman Catholics, Scripture is professedly the ultimate authority of Calvinists, and conceding that the claim is not wholly unfounded. His actual words are : “ The Calvinists are taxed with predestination, and to make God the author of sin ; not with any dishonour¬ able thought of God, but it may be over zealously asserting his absolute power, not without plea of Scripture.” He then deals similarly with Anabaptists, Arians, Socinians and Arminians. Again, when Milton says : “ It is a human frailty to err, and no man is infallible on earth,” he is not repenting of his Antitrinitarianism, as Mr. Sewell half suggests, but making good his distinction between “ heresy ” and “ error ”. “ Heresy ”, he said, “ is in the will and choice professedly against Scripture ; error is against the will, in misunderstanding the Scrip¬ ture, after all sincere endeavours to understand it rightly.” In the Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes (1659), had declared : “ He who in his best appre¬ hension follows the Scripture, though against any point of doctrine by the whole church received, is not the heretic, but he who follows the Church against his con¬ science and persuasion grounded on the Scripture,” and in the Areopagitica actually went so far as to say “ A man may be a heretic in the truth, and if he believes things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determine, without knowing other reasons, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.” Milton was so far from accepting the common opinion of “ heresies ” that in his lines On the Forcers of Conscience Under the Long Parliament he says, with a reference to the author of Gangraena : Men, whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent, Would have been held in high esteem with Paul, Must now be named and printed heretics By shallow Edwards . . .

56

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

Mr. Tillyard finds in the Treatise on Christian Doctrine two arguments for the existence of God ; “ one, the beauty and order of +he world ”, “ the other, man’s inward conviction “In the later books of Paradise Lost he came to distrust the first, but never abandoned the second. In Samson Agonistes he seems to revert to his original position. Milton’s belief in the inward standard of conduct derived from God direct remains very strong. ... In accordance with his teaching in the divorce pamphlets and in De Doctrina Christiana, the inner prompting overrides all other authority.” When Martineau, in The Study of Religion, unfolded “ the two sources of Religion ” as cause and conscience, though he shifted authority from the written word to the mind and heart of man, he did not depart funda¬ mentally from the position Milton had apparently reached on the basis of Scripture interpreted by reason. Of Paradise Regained Iimile Legouis says :1 “ The poem is entirely human ; its interest concentrated on the temptation of a single soul. Milton, the great heretic, did not see God in Christ, but only superior humanity. It is only metaphorically that he calls him the Son of God.” This may be a somewhat low view of the christology of the poem, but is much nearer the truth than that which would deny its essentially Unitarian nature. “ Already in De Doctrina Christiana,” says Mr. Till¬ yard, “ Milton had showed that he had little sympathy with vicarious atonement, and I cannot see that in ‘ Sam¬ son ’ there is the slightest proof that he had gone any further. His latest pamphlet, Of True Religion, written after ‘ Samson ’, suggests no change from De Doctrina Christiana.” In the pamphlet named, Mr. Tillyard adds that Milton “ advocates the intense private study of the Scripture ; evidence that he has not departed far from De Doctrina Christiana ”. If then, there is no real evidence that Milton aban-

1

A History of English Literature (1933), p. 607.

57

E

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

doned his Antitrinitarianism, why was the Treatise on Christian Doctrine left unpublished ? Mr. Belloc gives a halting answer, which in both its parts is derogatory to the poet. “ His appetite for fame would necessarily lead him to desire its publication ; but are we certain that he was willing to risk the universal outcry, the violent attack that would follow ? ” This paralysing conflict of appetite and fear is fittingly dis¬ covered by one whose book presents as frontispiece a reproduction of the wretched engraving by William Marshall made for the first edition of Milton’s poems, and disclaimed by him as “ a wretched misattempt Despite Milton’s words, the evidence of other portraits, and the earliest tradition of the poet’s appearance, Mr. Belloc is pleased to say that “ the likeness is probably a good one His analysis of the reason why the Treatise remained unpublished is equally original and uncon¬ vincing. Mr. Sewell recognizes three possible reasons why the Treatise remained in manuscript during the lifetime of the poet : (i) that “ Milton was better advised after the preface was written ” ; (2) that “ the Treatise occupied his mind until the end so that he had no time before death to prepare it for the press ” ; and (3) that “ Milton may have changed his mind about publication, may, in fact, have begun to doubt the truth, or at least the importance of his own conclusions ”. It is the last possibility which he adopts : “ Paradise Regained, Samson Agonistes and Of True Religion seem to me to shadow a mind not quite so confident as that expressed in the preface to the Treatise . . . that Milton withheld the Treatise from the press at least partly because his search was not ended. . . . There was delay in publication, perhaps due to the hostile temper of those in power. The delay was fortunate, for Milton became a little more humble about his conclu¬ sions, and was persuaded, indeed, that their importance was not necessary to salvation.”

58

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

The reasons lying behind this conclusion have been already examined, and as to their alleged significance, rejected. Why Milton did not publish his Treatise no man can say with certainty, and, as Dr. A. V. Green, an Anglican bishop, observed, in a preface to a discussion of The Ephesian Canonical Writings (1910), one should refuse to “ dogmatize where certainty seems to be unat¬ tainable. It is not infrequently the part of wisdom and of courage to say, We do not know.” If resort must be had to conjecture, then a combination of elements in the first and second possibilities outlined has much to com¬ mend it. Milton saw, or was advised, after the preface was written, that it was necessary to exercise caution about its publication ; was in fact engaged upon it so late that time was not given him to prepare it for the press. Revisions in the text of the manuscript, to which Mr. Sewell calls attention, support this hypothesis. The problems which Milton handled may well have occupied him to the last, whilst he continued to hope against hope that a day would dawn when political conditions might make its publication possible. On the evolution of Milton’s theology, Mr. Sewell has thrown much light, but does not appear to have traced it quite accurately. That Milton was originally orthodox in christology is shown in his Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, 1629, by bis reference in 1641 to Arians “ as no friends of Christ”, his invocation in Of Reformation in England, 1641, to the persons of the Trinity, concluding with the words “ the one Tripersonal Godhead ”, and in his essay Of Prelatical Episcopacy in the same year, when he asks respecting Tertullian, “ Should he move us, that goes about to prove an imparity between God the Father and God the Son ? ” and thus denounces a doctrine which he afterwards defends. “ It seems probable ”, con¬ cludes Mr. Sewell, “ that Milton held something akin to Trinitarianism as late as 1659.” There is much virtue in the words “ something akin ”. Elsewhere, however, 59

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

he is not so guarded in his language, and speaks outright of his Trinitarianism at a comparatively late date. He finds the “ clue ” to what he calls the Trinitarianism of the early books of Paradise Lost in The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth, 1660. This passage includes an invocation of Christ, which, we are assured, “ implies some kind of co-equality between Father and Son, but a difference in manifestation In Paradise Lost, Book I, Milton depicts the Holy Spirit as a Person, but not in Book XII, whilst in Paradise Regained the parallel apostrophe to that of Book I has little at variance with the view of De Doctrina Christiana, The conclusion is : “ Milton’s view of the Trinity, when he commenced to write the poem (Paradise Lost) was one of three Persons, each of whom manifested in their relations to men something of the nature of Deity. . . .” Justice—the Father; Love—the Son; and Wisdom—the Holy Spirit. Now the invocation of Christ is not confined to Trini¬ tarians. In the sixteenth century it was the invocation and worship of Christ that separated Faustus Socinus, the Polish Unitarian, from Francis David, the founder of the existing Hungarian Unitarian Church. One of the early Unitarian Tract Writers distinguished praying to Christ, for which Scripture proof was declared wanting, from invocation of him, “ which does not imply a recogni¬ tion of the essential attributes of the One True Godomniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent ”. “ The un¬ qualified condemnation of all worship of Christ,” by Theophilus Lindsey after 1774, “ was a novel feature of the Antitrinitarian protest in this country. Neither Arians nor our Socinians had hitherto taken this ground. . . . Doubtless the earlier English Unitarians had set themselves to reduce the worship of Christ to what they deemed its proper proportions. Some of them had thought it best reserved for special phases of devotion ; none had reckoned it wrong, when kept in its due place. 60

JOHN MILTON

(1608-1674)

Most had defended it as subordinate worship, rendered to the Son of God, to the glory of God the Father ; some had rested it on express divine command.” 1 The hymn by Theodore Parker, a nineteenth-century American Unitarian, whose radicalism was distasteful to many contemporary Unitarians in England and America, in its invocation of Christ, is but one example of many : O Thou great Friend to all the sons of men, Who once appeared in humblest guise below, We look to thee.

Martineau’s hymn on the Passion is another, with three verses beginning “ O Lord of sorrow meekly die ”, “ Great Chief of faithful souls arise ! ”, “ O King of earth, the cross ascend ! ” These, and other similar hymns, are included in the latest English Unitarian hymnal, Hymns of Worship (1927). The “ something akin to Trinitarianism ” in Milton is much more closely related to Sabellianism, a type of Unitarianism going back to the third century, and pro¬ fessed by some of the late seventeenth-century tract writers who called themselves Unitarians. “ The earliest defenders of Modalism ”, says Harnack,2 “ were markedly monotheistic, and had a real interest in Biblical Chris¬ tianity ”. “ Sabellianism distinguished between the unity of the divine essence and the plurality of its manifesta¬ tions ”, says Dr. G. P. Fisher,3 and “ The Sabellians are said to have compared the triplicity of God to the Sun, its light and heat. For the proper human soul of Christ, Sabellianism substituted God himself, in one mode of manifestation, streaming through a human body ”. Servetus, burnt by Calvin for his heresy, held with Sabellius that the Word and the Spirit are effluences or 1 Alex. Gordon, Addresses, Biographical and Historical, p. 274. 2 History of Dogma, III, p. 55. 3 History of Christian Doctrine, p. 103.

61

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

manifestations of the one personality of the Father. Mr. Hilaire Belloc mentions Servetus in connexion with Milton, and goes astray both as historian and theologian. “ Calvin ”, he says, “ had burnt Servetus (it is only fair to remember that he tried to save him) for saying openly what, in secret, Milton was to say ”.1 And, Servetus, as already stated, was a Sabellian, as Milton had once been, not an Arian, as Milton was, when he wrote the Treatise on Christian Doctrine. Few phrases used by Milton after his youth, adduced by Mr. Sewell as evidence of “ Trinitarianism ”, do not more clearly betoken Sabellianism, whilst others might even be used by an Arian or a Socinian. In Chapter XVII of the Treatise, the words “ according to his purpose ” are added in the hand of a later amanuensis, and Mr. Sewell argues that “ Milton had first written ‘ Deus pater in Christo ’, a Trinitarian expression ”. Doubtless the words taken from Ephesians iii. n, and discussed earlier by Milton, were intended to bring the passage into line with the poet’s later thought, but it will be news to Unitarians that “ God the father in Christ ” is “ a Trini¬ tarian expression ”. Its Sabellianism is more apparent. When, in A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, Milton writes “ if bought and by him redeemed, who is God ”, it may be granted that “ son of God ” would have expressed more naturally the view of the Treatise, but it is sound Sabellianism as it stands, not orthodox Trinitarianism, and even the Polish Socinians used the word “ God ” of Christ in passages like Romans ix. 5.

1

Milton, pp. 291—2. The bracketed clause unduly flatters Calvin. In two letters written to Viret and Farel in much the same terms shortly before Servetus met his death, Calvin said : “ He (Servetus) offers to come hither, if I like it, but I will not engage my word, for, if he come, provided that my authority prevail, I shall not suffer him to depart alive.” Calvin was as good as his word. At most he may be credited with preferring execution to death by burning, the sentence already passed upon Servetus by the Roman Catholic Church.

62

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

Mr. Sewell proves that i Corinthians xv. 24-8 “ made a very deep impression on Milton’s mind.” “ He quotes it three times in the Treatise, and paraphrases it twice in Paradise Lost. In his comment on it in the Treatise, Milton stressed the fact that the Son ‘ will be subject unto the Father ’ ”, whereas “ in neither of the passages in Paradise Lost is the word ‘ subject ’ mentioned ”. He infers, therefore, that the difference is one between Arianism and Trinitarianism ; it is really one between Arianism and Sabellianism. Even once in the Treatise itself (Chapter IX) “ Milton’s earlier Trinitarianism ” is detected. Commenting on a verse in Jude, and refuting the common belief that Michael is Christ, he says of the words, “ When con¬ tending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, he durst not bring against him a railing accusa¬ tion, which would be an improper expression to use with reference to Christ, especially if he be God.” The last five words indicate not Trinitarianism, as is supposed, but Sabellianism, and since the eighteenth century, Swedenborgianism. The development of Milton’s religious opinions, as it may be recovered from his writings, seems to have been on this wise. Educated at Cambridge under Puritan divines, he accepted as a youth the current orthodoxy. After enter¬ ing for himself upon a close examination of Scripture, he became alienated from its phraseology and much of its doctrine, whilst deeply impressed by the unity of the Godhead, the exalted conception of the work of Christ, and the operation of the Holy Spirit. In the movement away from Calvinism, he may have been influenced by his friend John Goodwin, a stout Republican preacher, who indeed claimed to be a Calvinist, but whom one contemporary did not hesitate to call “ Socinian John ”. Gradually, Milton’s views approached to Sabellianism, an early Unitarian heresy opposed to Ebionitism, and

63

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represented in the later seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries by writers of the Unitarian Tracts. Like Thomas Firmin, who had been won over from Bidle’s conception of the Trinity by Stephen Nye, “ he still thought it right ”, in the words of Alexander Gordon, “ because of Scripture, to apply to Christ the title of God, as the Man in whom pre-eminently the divinity is exhibited in an unmistakeable manifestation ”.1 It was Sabellianism that inspired the early part of Paradise Lost, and traces of it survived still later. A deeper study of the Scripture, and especially of the conception of Deity, led to an Arian view of the person and work of Christ, and to a doctrine of the Holy Spirit hardly to be dis¬ tinguished from that of modern Unitarianism. Arianism, manifested in the later additions to the manuscript of the Treatise, so far as can be seen, was the final phase of his theological development, and nothing written later, in prose or verse, discloses any fundamental break with this type of doctrine, though much evinces a religious spirit more chastened and sober. Probably, like John Bidle, Milton had never heard the word “ Unitarian ”, and certainly, like him, he never used it. Originating in the sixteenth century in Tran¬ sylvania, the word had been introduced from Holland into England by Henry Hedworth in obscure pamphlets only two years before Milton died. Priestley, Lindsey, Belsham and their school would have confined the name to those whose sentiments were their own. Happily they failed in this enterprise, and so Richard Price, William Ellery Channing and John Hamilton Thom are known by a name they espoused and honoured. It is in this comprehensive sense of the word, as it was employed in the late seventeenth and eighteenth cen¬ turies, that John Milton may rightly be called a Unitarian. No scholar has described with more insight and pene¬ tration Milton’s religious opinions than Sir Herbert 1 Addresses, Biographical and Historical, pp. 107--8.

64

JOHN MILTON (1608-1674)

Grierson.1 He finds in De Doctrina Christiana “ the final result of his resolve to have done with traditions and definitions, councils and assemblies, and to formulate for himself, from a study of the text of Scripture, a complete and articulate body of divinity and morality . . . Milton’s faith might be described as Protestant Christianity accommodated to the spirit of the classical Renaissance. ... In this respect Milton’s Arianism, though the most startling, is not the most important of the dogmas which he formulates. Yet it reflects the poet’s temperament, and is in harmony with the religious tone of the two epics. ... A high and austere mono¬ theism is of the innermost texture of Milton’s soul. . . . His was the soul of an ancient Stoic, blended with that of a Jewish prophet, which had accepted with convic¬ tion the Christian doctrine of sin and redemption. . . This definition of “ Milton’s faith ” as “ Protestant Christianity accommodated to the spirit of the classical Renaissance ”, which later writers have endorsed, is most significant, for it was under the influence of humanistic criticism of ecclesiastical tradition on Italian soil that the Antitrinitarian movement grew up in the days of the Reformation, so ably represented by men like Gentilis, Gribaldo, Gallo, Alciati, Renato, Ochino and the Sozzini. As T. M. Lindsey said in his History of the Reformation, “ The spirit of the Renascence prompted them to criticise and reconstruct theology as they found it.” When Antitrinitarianism entered Switzerland from Lyons in the person of Servetus, and from Italy in the persons of some already named, the moment was a critical one for the Reformed Church. “ It was really the case ”, said Harnack,2 “ that in some of the Swiss National Churches Antitrinitarianism came very near being approved. How great was the crisis between the

1

Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics ; see also Milton and Wordsworth (1937). 2 History of Dogma [Eng. Tr.], vii. 134.

6S

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

years 1550 and 1560 is shown by the numerous letters on the Trinitarian question written at that time by the Epigones of the Reformation. . . . The decision lay in Calvin’s hands, and he declared Antitrinitarianism heretical. This settled the matter for Geneva, Switzer¬ land, the Palatinate, and indeed for all the regions that were under the iron rule of the great lawgiver.” But it was Italian thinkers, to one of whom the subsequent organized movement owed its name, that made Unitarianism an influence in many lands, in Transylvania, Poland, Prussia, Holland, England and America. To sum up in brief : It is clear that Milton’s religious opinions cannot be stated in terms acceptable to any single nonconformist church, apart from those which would not be endorsed by any. Anglicanism and Pres¬ byterianism he had tried and found wanting. He be¬ came, in church government, an Independent; in ritual, a Baptist, with decided Quaker tendencies; and, in doctrine, unmistakably a Unitarian. But, in the words of Channing, “ He rendered to mankind a far greater service than that of a teacher of an improved theology. He taught and exemplified that spirit of intellectual freedom, through which all the great conquests of truth are to be achieved, and by which the human mind is to attain to a new consciousness of its sublime faculties and to invigorate and expand itself for ever.” As a German scholar said :1 “ In his repudiation of scholasticism, his strong but free biblical faith, his re¬ ligious zeal and inner conviction, which he opposed to ecclesiastical authority, and in the union of theology and ethics, Milton was quite decidedly a herald and prophet of the new age.”

1

Realencyklopddie fur protestantische Theologie und Kirche, XIII, 81.

66

JOHN

LOCKE

(1632-1704)

J

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

OHN LOCKE was the elder son of a middle-class Puritan churchman, who was clerk to a justice of the peace, and served in the Parliamentary army during the Civil War. Through the influence of his father’s patron, Locke, at the age of 14, entered Westminster School, under Dr. Busby, the celebrated disciplinarian, and at 20 went to Christ Church, Oxford, whose Dean was John Owen, the Vice-Chancellor of the University. Dr. Owen, a one-time Presbyterian, was an Independent of relatively tolerant religious opinions. Locke’s tutor was Thomas Cole, another Independent, who was Prin¬ cipal of St. Mary Hall, 1656-60. After his ejection, he opened a nonconformist academy at Nettlebed, and was one of the original members of the Congregational Board established in 1695. What religious influence these men exercised on the mind of Locke is not clear, though his kinsman Lord King thought 1 that “ by the Independent divines who were his instructors he was taught principles of religious liberty ”, and that “ when free inquiry led him to milder dogmas, he retained the severe morality which was their honourable singularity ”. He had, however, some notable friends amongst the Royalists in Oxford, and greatly admired Dr. Edward Pococke, Regius Professor of Hebrew, whose classes he attended. Pococke gave great assistance to Brian Walton in the production of his magnum opus, the Polyglott, a prospectus of which appeared in 1652, the year Locke entered Christ Church, 1 Life of John Locke, I, p. 330.

69

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

and the great work itself in the years 1654-58. John Owen was one of its severest critics, going the length of saying : “ What use hath been made and is as yet made, in the world, of this supposition, that corruptions have befallen the originals of Scripture, which these various lections at first seem to intimate, I need not declare. It is in brief the foundation of Mahometanism, the chiefest and principal prop of Popery, the only pretence of fanatical anti-scripturists, and the root of much hidden Atheism in the world.” If, as is not impossible, Locke took note of this controversy, there can be little doubt that his sympathies were with his Anglican teacher, rather than with his Independent Dean. However that be, in his reactions against the narrower Puritanism, Locke seems to have welcomed the Restoration, “ for ”, said he in an unpublished fragment written about this time, “ I find that a general freedom is but a general bondage, that the popular assertors of public liberty are the greatest ingrossers of it, and not unfitly called its keepers According to statements he made later to his friends Lady Masham and Jean Le Clerc, he got but little satis¬ faction from his university studies at Oxford, where he graduated February 1653/54. Possibly, an early Essay, not published until 1876, reveals the influence of his studies and contacts in Oxford, as it certainly fore¬ shadows what he later expressed in print. In Reflec¬ tions upon the Roman Commo?iwealth, Locke idealized the religion instituted by Numa as having insisted only upon two articles of faith, the goodness of the gods, and the necessity of worshipping them. Thus it avoided “ creating heresies and schisms ”, “ narrowing the bottom of religion by clogging it with creeds and catechisms, and endless niceties about the essences, properties and attributes of God ”. Locke was lecturer in Greek at the University from 1660 to 1662, then for one year in Rhetoric and for two 70

JOHN LOCKE (I632-1704)

in Moral Philosophy. After a short stay in Germany in connexion with an embassy, in May 1666 he settled in Oxford to study medicine, and received a dispensation from the King enabling him to retain his position as Student of Christ Church, without taking orders. His medical studies, broken by various pursuits, ended when he graduated February 1674/75. His association with Lord Shaftesbury, then Lord Ashley, so eventful for him in every way, cannot here be discussed. To this early period of life belongs an unpublished Essay con¬ cerning Toleration, which only saw the light in Fox Bourne’s biography of 1876. It has been summarized thus : (1) All speculative opinions and religious worship have a clear title to universal toleration ; (2) opinions and actions which are in their natural tendency destruc¬ tive to human society . . . the magistrate ought not to tolerate ; (3) opinions and actions whose “ influences to good or bad depends on the temper of the state and posture of affairs have a right to toleration so far as they do not interfere with the advantage of the public, or serve any way to disturb the government “ Papists ” were excluded from toleration “ because when they have power they think themselves bound to deny it to others ”, whilst Dissenters should be at least tolerated or comprehended in the national church, and in the comprehensive church “ articles in speculative opinions should be few and large, and ceremonies in worship few and easy After Shaftesbury’s political downfall and flight from the country (1683), Locke as a suspect took refuge in Holland, and on 11 November 1684, suffered the ignominy of what amounted to a formal ejection from Oxford University at the instance of the Government, though no proof was forthcoming that he was ever implicated in plots against it. This act followed some eighteen months after an Oxford decree for burning the books of John Milton. 7i

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

In Holland Locke made the acquaintance of the Remonstrants, and, amongst them, in particular, that of Philip van Limborch, professor of theology at Amster¬ dam (1674-1712), who became an intimate friend. This friendship was amongst the formative influences in the development of Locke’s religious opinions. The Remon¬ strants were liberal-minded Arminians, who admitted to their worship and sacraments the Polish Socinians, who had taken refuge in Holland when banished from Poland in 1660. The Remonstrants, though they did not accept the peculiar Socinian tenets, were much in¬ fluenced by their theology, and, in turn, influenced the development of Socinianism, as is evident in the later editions of the Racovian Catechism. With Jean Le Clerc, Locke became friendly in the winter of 1685/86. He was one of the most radical thinkers amongst the Remonstrants, and by his attitude towards scriptural problems, his treatment of miracles and Christian doc¬ trine generally, was frequently charged with Socinianism. His professorship of philosophy at Amsterdam from 1684 he owed to Limborch. “ He had a great influence in breaking up traditional prejudices and showing the necessity for a more scientific enquiry into the meaning of the biblical books.” 1 Locke was persuaded by him to become a contributor to the Bibliotheque Universelle, which Le Clerc edited, and thus entered on his literary career. In 1689 Locke published anonymously the famous Epistola de Tolerantia, addressed to Limborch, which was quickly translated into English, Dutch and French. Limborch revealed the authorship of the Letter to a few friends, to the indignation of Locke, who did not acknowledge it until he made his last Will. The terms in which Locke wrote are important in view of the part he played later when entrusted with a similar secret by Newton. “ If you had confided such a secret to me, 1 Encyclopedia Britannica, nth ed., Art. J. Le Clerc. 72

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

I should never have divulged it to any friend or acquaint¬ ance, or any human being on any condition.”1 The publication of the Letter gave rise to controversy, in the course of which Locke wrote two other Letters, and was engaged on a fourth when he died. The Second and Third Letters were signed “ Philanthropus ”, but despite every precaution to prevent their authorship being known, it seems to have leaked out before Locke died. The major works of Locke, published under his own name during his lifetime, were the Essay concerning the Human Understanding (1690) and Some Thoughts con¬ cerning Education (1693). The Reasonableness of Chris¬ tianity was published anonymously in 1695, and was followed by replies to the critics of this and the earlier Essay. “ Anxious that it should be anonymous, Locke appears to have told none of his friends that he was writing this book (The Reasonableness of Christianity). Edwards had charged him with the authorship, however, and, though he parried the charge very cleverly, the secret could not be kept.” 2 During life, then, John Locke was known as a philo¬ sopher of distinction, an educationalist, and a religious and political thinker of broad and tolerant views. To a few intimate friends, including, as we learn from the preface to his posthumously published Paraphrases of St. Paul's Epistles, “ learned Divines of the Church of England ”, he was also known as a wise and discriminating student of scripture. There was no evidence that he was indebted to Socinian thinkers, and scholars quoted by him were invariably more or less orthodox. Yet, by reason of writings published in his lifetime, he laboured under the suspicion of being heterodox in doctrine. This suspicion was doubtless strengthened by his prac¬ tice of publishing anonymously his theological writings, 1 Fox Bourne, ut supra, II, p. 207. 2 Ibid., II, p. 291.

73

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and led to his being credited with works with which he had nothing to do. Stillingfleet, in his Discourse in Vindication of the Trinity, drew attention to the principles of Locke’s Essay on Human Understanding as favouring Antitrinitarian doctrine, and Thomas Fowler 1 admits that “ it is impossible to deny that his instincts were perfectly sound in apprehending therein grave dangers to the current theological opinions . . . Locke’s handling of many of the metaphysical terms and notions which modern divines, whether Catholic or Protestant, had taken on trust from their predecessors, the fathers and schoolmen, was well calculated to alarm those who had the interests of theo¬ logical orthodoxy at heart Stillingfleet in fact sought to force Locke to declare his doctrine of the Trinity. An anonymous writer in A Brief Enquiry whether Socinianism is justly charged upon Mr. Locke admits that Locke “ expressed some dislike of the temper and bearing of the Socinians ”, but adds, “ though Son of God occurs so frequently in the texts which he cites in some of his writings, yet he never expounds it as importing the deity of Christ, but draws it to another sense ”. In 1700 Le Clerc noted 2 the current tendency to assume that “ no one can be wise, unless he betakes himself to the Socinian camp. ... A conspicuous recent example of this is the excellent and very sagacious John Locke who is defamed as a Socinian ”. Was John Locke a Unitarian ? The discussion of this question, beginning thus in Locke’s lifetime, has been continued down to the present day. Contemporaries attributed to him one of the anonymous Unitarian Tracts entitled “ The Exceptions of Mr. Edwards ...” (1695), which defends his Reasonableness of Christianity. John Edwards was a true son of his father, Thomas Edwards, the infamous author of “ Gangraena : A Dis1 Locke (English Men of Letters), p. 103. 2 Epistola Critica et Ecclesiastica.

74

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covery of many Errours, Heresies, Blasphemies, and per¬ nicious Practices ” (1644), and had freely spattered Locke with coarse charges of heresy. Edmund Law, accepting the tradition named, observed in the preface to Locke’s Works (4 vols., 1777) “ The address to himself that is prefixed must have been made to conceal the true author . . . and, at the same time, show what reason there was for so extremely cautious a proceeding.” John Disney, Lindsey’s colleague at Essex Street Unitarian Chapel, writing in 1795, declared : “ Mr. Locke was a writer in this controversy,” and refers to the same Tract. A copy of the Third Collection of the Tracts, formerly owned by Dr. Lant Carpenter (1780-1840), marks the Tract in question as Locke’s on the title-page, with a note at the foot : “ This great man chose this way of publishing his sentiments and confuting Mr. Edwards, that he might avoid committing himself personally with so furious and ill-mouthed an opponent.” Another scribe is inclined to assign to “ the great and good Mr. Locke ” the letter by a “ Person of excellent learn¬ ing and Worth ” who must be identified with Henry Hedworth, appended to the Brief History of the Unitarians in the First Collection of Tracts. Charles Wellbeloved, in controversy with Francis Wrangham, 1822, adduced as evidence of Locke’s Antitrinitarianism, that “ he was the reputed author of a paper in one of the volumes of the old Unitarian Tracts.” There was good reason for the tradition in the close agreement in many points of doctrine of the philosopher and the Tract writers. Locke had been greatly influenced by Chillingworth and the school of latitudinarian church¬ men in the seventeenth century. Part of Chillingworth’s famous work on The Religion of Protestants formed one Tract in the Second Collection of Unitarian Tracts ; quotations from it are found in several others, and its tenets in most. In the First Collection, for example, it is quoted in support of the practice Locke pursued of

75

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acknowledging the Bible and the Bible alone as the Religion of Protestants. Again, Locke’s doctrine of Toleration was similar not only to that of the Remonstrants, but also to that of the Unitarian Tract Writers. Henry Hedworth, in a letter appended to the Brief History of the Unitarians (1687), afterwards included in the First Collection of Unitarian Tracts, says : “ Unitarians have always been extremely candid to those that differ from them, from a principle common to them and the Remonstrants only, that con¬ science ought to be free in matters of faith. This is a principle with them ; other families of Christians take it up as an expedient.” Henry Hedworth had visited Holland and was well acquainted with the principles of the Remonstrants, and Locke, as we know from his unpublished manuscripts, possessed and used a copy of the Brief History of the Unitarians. Locke excluded Atheists from toleration on the ground that “ Promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon an atheist. Besides, also, those that by their atheism under¬ mine and destroy all religion, can have no pretence of religion to challenge the privilege of toleration.” 1 Antinomians were omitted because theoretically they claimed to set law at defiance. Roman Catholics he excluded, but on political not on religious grounds. His views respecting those not to be tolerated have long since been transcended by his followers, amongst the earliest advo¬ cates of a wider and sounder view being the Unitarians. Locke’s antipathy to Roman Catholics was shown before his first Letter on Toleration was published. About 1673 he translated for his friend Margaret, Countess of Shaftesbury, three Essais de Morale by Pierre Nicole, one of the Port Royal writers. The translation remained in manuscript until 1828, when it was published, edited 1 For a discussion of Locke’s exclusion of Atheists from toleration, see page 190.

76

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LOCKE (1632-1704)

by Thomas Hancock, M.D. In his dedication Locke spoke of it as “ a new French production in a dress of my own Actually, the English version was much more than a matter of apparel. In one essay Nicole had made use of the presumption of men in choosing a religion for themselves, and thereby falling into all kinds of heresy, as an illustration of human weakness. This was too much for Locke, who, without a word of ex¬ planation, deftly interpolated two passages into the text, one of considerable length, reversing the judgment of the author. A single sentence will show what is meant. “ The Hierarchy of Rome, having found the sweet of dominion over men’s consciences, and considered it as an advan¬ tage too great to be parted with, hath always thundered against those, that, asserting their just right, have with¬ drawn from that slavery; and under the name of Hereticks, hath treated them as rebels.” Locke’s additions to Nicole, though quite unwarrantable, are in themselves cogent. According to Locke, a church is “ a free and voluntary society ” ; its purpose is the public worship of God, and the value of this worship depends on the faith that inspires it; in his own words, “ All the life and power of true religion consist in the inward and full persuasion of the mind.” In a letter to Limborch after Locke’s death, Lady Masham said : “ As, during some years before he went to Holland, he had very little in common with our ecclesiastics, I imagine that the sentiments that he found in vogue amongst you there pleased him far more, and seemed to him far more reasonable than anything that he had been used to hear from English theologians. But, whatever the cause, I know that since his return he has always spoken with much affection, not only of his friends in Holland, but also of the whole society of the Remon¬ strants, on account of the opinions held by them.” Fox Bourne notes1 that Limborch “ was busy upon the 1 Life of John Locke, II, p. 8.

77

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Theologia Christiana, when Locke made his acquaint¬ ance ”, and that “ this work proved to be an abler exposi¬ tion of unsectarian and undogmatic Christianity than had ever before been published In his Third Letter on Toleration Locke asked : “Of what use and necessity is it among Christians that own the Scripture to be the Word of God and Rule of Faith, to make and impose a Creed ? ” Again, “ Are these Creeds in the words of the Scripture or not ? . . . If they are, they are cer¬ tainly sound . . . and so they were before as they lay in Scripture.” “ Locke had as little taste for elaborate theo¬ logies as he had for scholastic systems of philosophy.” 1 It may therefore be very much doubted if Leslie Stephen is right when he says : 2 “ Locke’s feeling towards dogmas was apparently compounded of traditional rever¬ ence for their sanctity and disgust for the profane discord of which they had been the symbols.” “ Traditional reverence ” for the sanctity of dogmas is surely somewhat to seek in all Locke’s references to them. To the taunt that he was one of the Unitarian party, but afraid to acknowledge it, Locke replied (1698) that “ he would ultimately be found of no party but that of truth, for which there is required nothing but the con¬ ceiving truth in the love of it. I matter not much of what party any one shall denominate here.” To other similar accusations, Locke was wont to reply in much the same terms as did Stephen Nye in one of the Unitarian Tracts : “I am neither a Papist, nor a Lutheran, nor a Calvinist, nor a Socinian. I am a Christian. I side only with Truth, and take shelter in the bosom of that Catholic Church which stands independently upon any¬ thing that goes under the name of a Party.” The writers of the Tracts were always careful to insist on the several points in which they differed from Socinus. Thus the Fifth Tract in the Third Collection is declared to be 1 Cambridge History of English Literature, VIII, p. 345. 2 English Thought in the Eightee?ith Century, I, p. 101.

78

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by “ no Socinian, but a Christian ”, and the writer of the Fifth Tract in the Fifth Collection observes : “ Those in England who call themselves Unitarians never were in the sentiments of Socinus or the Socinians. Neverthe¬ less, as our opponents have pleased themselves in calling us Socinians, we have not always declined the name, because in interpreting texts of Scripture we cannot but approve and follow the judgment of those writers, who are confessed by all to be excellent critics and very judicious.” Thomas Fowler says 1 of Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity : “To the zealots a statement of doctrine which was silent on the mystery of the Trinity, or rather, which seemed to imply that the Son, though miraculously conceived, was not co-equal with the Father might well seem not to deserve the name of Christianity.” Campbell Fraser spoke of Locke 2 as one “ who had for his ideal the simple or practical Christianity of the Synoptic Gospels ”, adding later, “ He nowhere defines his own relation to the theological doctrines that were disputed in the Trinitarian controversy then going on in England, if indeed he had a positive opinion upon questions which seemed to him not necessarily involved in practical Chris¬ tianity.” Samuel Alexander in 1908 “ thought Locke must be reckoned on the side of the orthodox ; the Deists derived their inspiration from him ”. The latter statement is one of fact and is explicable ; the former is one of mere opinion and must depend upon the writer’s definition of “ orthodox ”. Probably the great Jewish philosopher’s definition would hardly satisfy ecclesiastics of the Church of England. Troeltsch said of Locke : 3 “ Early in life Locke had formulated an essentially independent concept of Puritan¬ ism, and his later theories of the Church and toleration 1 Ut supra, p. 161. 2 In 1890. Locke, p. 92. 3 The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches (Eng. trans.), II, p. 637.

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belong to the sect-life and not to Calvinism. Equally early in life, he conceived theology in a latitudinarian sense, and later on, under the influence of the Arminians and Socinians, he developed these ideas in his own peculiar, very able and original way. . . . His advocacy of freedom of worship meant freedom for philosophical and theological interests, and security for freedom of thought outside the churches.” Fox Bourne’s Life of John Locke (1876) to which all later scholars are indebted, does not expressly discuss Locke’s alleged Unitarianism. As the parish records of High Laver make it plain that Locke commonly worshipped in the Church, and he was undeniably on good terms with the rector, Samuel Lowe, its incumbent for fifty-seven years, it has been denied that Locke was in sympathy with nonconformity at all. On the other hand, Dr. Caleb Fleming, writing in 1764,1 said : “If I have been well informed by an intimate of Mr. Locke’s, so far from being a conformist to the church of England, he, whilst at Lady Masham’s, used to prefer the hearing of a lay-preacher among the Dissenters, because there was no other nonconforming church conveniently near for him ”. This is confirmed by the writer of the preface to the edition of the Letters on Toleration, published in 1768, who says, on the evidence of Locke’s contemporaries, that “ though he communicated occasionally with the National Church, yet, during his long residence at Oates, he generally attended a lay preacher in that neighbourhood, to assert, as is probable, that liberty in his own person which he had strenuously contended for in behalf of all men There was nothing singular at this time in men of Unitarian opinions attending church services, or, for that matter, like most of the Unitarian Tract Writers, con¬ ducting them. Twentieth century Modernists in the 1 Claims of Church of England seriously examined . . ., by a

Protestant Dissenter, p. 27.

80

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

Church of England were not the first clergymen, who reconciled the use of the Prayer Book with views which, to the unsophisticated, it does not appear to sanction. Many Roman Catholics, also excluded from toleration by the Act of 1689, conformed, and introduced sacerdotal practices into the Church. Unitarians for the most part did not, but resorted to Clubs and secular societies, propagating their opinions through the press. Thomas Chubb’s life story illustrates the process by which Deism came into being. At the outset a Churchman of a High Arian type, when the Toleration Act made it impossible for him to open a Meeting House, he started a club for the discussion of religious questions, and ended as a Deist. “ The temptation to heretical conformity was strong, since there was no legal freedom to be gained by going into Dissent, and the prosecution of an untolerated Dissenter was a much simpler matter than the arraign¬ ment of a conformist, however heretical.” 1 In the First Letter on Toleration, Locke spoke of “ True Religion ” as “ not in order to the creating of an external Pomp, nor to the obtaining of Ecclesiastical Dominion, nor to the exercise of Compulsive Force ; but to the regulating of Men’s Lives according to the rules of Virtue and Piety ”, declared it “ above all things necessary to distinguish exactly the business of civil government from that of religion, and to settle the just bounds that lie between the one and the other ”. He defined a Church as “ a voluntary Society of men, joining them¬ selves together of their own accord, in order to the publick worshipping of God, in such a manner as they judge acceptable to Him, and effectual to the salvation of their souls. Some may perhaps object that no such Society can be said to be a true Church, unless it have in it a Bishop, or Presbyter with ruling authority derived from the very Apostles, and continued down unto present time 1 Alex. Gordon, Heads of English Unitarian History, pp. 25, 26.

8l

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

by an uninterrupted succession. . . . Let them show me the Edict by which Christ has imposed that Law upon his Church.” He spoke of “ the Laity, as they please to call us ”, who are “ distinguished by some ecclesiastical character and office ”, and again of (him) “ that pretends to be a successor of the Apostles ”, and said that “ The Church—if a Convention of clergymen, making Canons must be called by that name—is for the more part more apt to be influenced by the Court, than the Court by the Church.” This is not the language of a man in love with the ecclesiasticism, sacerdotalism and doctrine of the estab¬ lished church, but of one who recognized the rights and the virtues of Dissent. Dr. Halley called attention to Locke’s testimony to the Ejected Ministers of 1662.1 “ He did not accept their theology ; he was not on terms of friendship with many of them ; to his calm and contemplative mind their fervent and unreasoning excitement must have been distasteful ” ; but he says, “ Bartholomew’s day was fatal to our Church and religion in throwing out a very great number of worthy, learned, pious and orthodox divines, who could not come up to some things in the Act of Uniformity.” When Edmund Calamy published the Second Part of his Defence of Moderate Nonconformity in 1704, he provided it with an Introduction, which, he said,2 “ had the full approbation of a great number of my brethren ... I had also a message from the ingenious Mr. Locke letting me know that he had read this Intro¬ duction, and thought it such a defence of Nonconformity as could not be answered ; and that, standing to the principles there laid down, I had no occasion to be afraid of any antagonist ”. It was the last expression during 1 Robert Halley, Lancashire, its Puritanism and Nonconformity,

II, p. 142.

2 Edmund Calamy, An Historical Account of My Own Life, ed. J. T. Rutt, II, pp. 30, 31.

82

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life of Locke’s sympathy with Nonconformity. He died on the 28th of October in the same year. In a masterly defence of Nonconformity consisting of animadversions upon Stillingfleet’s Mischiefs of Separa¬ tion, which Locke left behind in manuscript, and from which Lord King published copious extracts in 1829, he said : “ As to the law of the land commanding me to join in communion with the Church of England, till it be proved that the civil magistrate hath a power to command and determine what Church I shall be of ... It is a part of my liberty as a Christian and as a man to choose of what Church or religious society I will be of, as most conducing to the salvation of my soul, of which I alone am judge, and over which the magistrate has no power at all; or if he can command me of what Church to be, it is plain it follows that he can command me of what religion to be, which, though nobody dares say in direct words, yet they do in effect affirm, who say it is my duty to be of the Church of England, because the law of the land enjoins it ”. It was John Owen, the head of Locke’s college at Oxford, who said in 1646,1 “ I never knew one contend earnestly for a toleration of dissenters, who was not one himself ”. It would be difficult to disprove this for the seventeenth century, when most liberals, like Stillingfleet himself, were content to contend for a comprehensive church, and many were more anxious to see the end of Dissent than its legal recognition by the State. On the question of Locke’s attitude towards disestab¬ lishment, Campbell Fraser said : 2 “ While some of his abstract reasonings lead towards a mutual exclusion of the spheres of Church and State, and thus towards the dissolution of that connexion between them ... he was ready to accept the fact of their union. He only pleaded that it should rest upon a basis comprehensive enough to 1 Wm. Orme, Memoirs of John Owen, p. 58. 2 Ut supra, p. 93.

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embrace all whose conduct was in conformity with the spirit of Christ.” Thomas Fowler went further: 1 “ Even at the present day, men who adopt the most liberal and tolerant opinions on religious questions are divided as to the expediency or inexpediency of recogniz¬ ing a State-Church, but those who embrace the latter alternative may, perhaps, fairly claim Locke as having been on their side.” The fact was that Locke, as we have seen, had been in profound sympathy with the movement for the com¬ prehension of Dissenters in the Church, involving the abolition or reduction of doctrinal tests, which even some of the bishops favoured, and which was the avowed aim of the episcopalian writers of the Unitarian Tracts. But, as a consequence of the opposition in the main of the lower clergy, comprehension in the National Church was seen to be impossible, and the alternative, the toler¬ ation of Dissent, was adopted. Commenting on The Reasonableness of Christianity in a lecture on John Locke (1933), Mr. James Gibson said : “ Locke sought to extract the essence of the Christian faith from what he considered to be the extraneous and harmful accessories with which its simple doctrine had become encumbered. In this way he thought to facilitate its appeal to the reason and conscience of all men, and to render possible a wider religious communion in which the distinctions of sects would be submerged.” Locke’s endeavour was very similar, in object if not in method, to that of Harnack’s Das Wesen des Christenturns and Hatch’s Hibbert Lectures on The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, to say nothing of other similar works by Liberal Christians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In his own day, the closest parallels to Locke’s teaching is to be found in the Unitarian Tracts. “ To prove all things, to try the spirits, to search the Scriptures is our 1 Ut supra, p. 166.

84

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wisdom as men, our duty as Christians, our principle and profession as Protestants.” 1 In their use of the available materials for textual criticism, their interpreta¬ tion of Old Testament prophecy, and their exegesis of disputed texts in the New Testament, as in their plea for Toleration, their emphasis upon the moral as con¬ trasted with the speculative element in religion, their repudiation of sacramentalism, and their view of the Thirty-Nine Articles, they were in agreement with Locke. The Virgin Birth, the Miracles, and the Resur¬ rection of Jesus they accepted on scriptural authority, and, on Socinian principles, allowed the worship of Christ. Like Locke, they were conspicuous for ability and moderation to which Archbishop Tillotson, a close friend of Locke, paid tribute. “ They are a pattern ”, he said, “ of the fair way of disputing and of debating matters of religion. They generally argue matters with that temper and gravity, and with that freedom from passion and transport which became a serious and weighty argument. And, for the most part, they reason closely and clearly, with extraordinary guard and caution, with great dexterity and decency, and yet with smartness and subtility enough, with a very gentle heat and few hard words.” 2 One reason for suspicion of Locke’s orthodoxy, in addition to his writings, and also for the tradition already noticed, was his intimacy with Thomas Firmin, the promotor of the Unitarian Tracts. Thomas Firmin (1632-97) was a philanthropist of note in his time, and a pioneer in social reform, who enjoyed the friendship of many Anglican divines, including not a few bishops. He was in no sense a man of letters, and his education had been slight. In the words of his first, contemporary and anonymous, biographer, he was “ A Trader, who knew no Latin or Greek, no Logick or Philosophy, compast 1 An Exhortation to a Free and Impartial Enquiry, Vol. I. 2 Second Sermon on the Divinity of our Saviour, folio ed., p. 71.

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about by an incredible number of learned Friends.” There is no evidence and as little probability that, in the words of Fox Bourne,1 “ he was himself the author of some treatises to prove the unity of God ”, though it is true, as the same writer observes, that “ he was the great friend of John Bidle the father of the Unitarians ”, whom he helped through his persecution. Fox Bourne, indeed, corrects himself in the second volume of his Life. “ Firmin was not, it would appear, himself the author of any of the numerous tracts pub¬ lished at his charge between 1689 ar*d 1695, but he obtained the help of able writers for his anonymous pub¬ lications, and by them succeeded in stirring up all sorts of rival attacks from the various sects of trinitarians and tritheists then included in the Church of England, and thus setting his antagonists to overthrow one another.” 2 William Penn insinuated that “ Firmin’s dinner-table helped him to stand well with the licensary chaplains ”,3 and thus provide immunity for the Unitarian Tracts. As a matter of fact, they were not licensed. Only the first three volumes were published during Firmin’s life¬ time, and, except in reprints, no names of printers are given ; in the fourth and fifth volumes, it is otherwise, and amongst the printers named are two women. These two volumes, in typography and general character, did not form part of the plan of those who fathered the first three volumes, and did not proceed from the same press. Their rarity, as compared with the earlier volumes, suggests that the withdrawal of Firming financial sup¬ port led to a smaller edition and a decreased circula¬ tion. “ The excellent Unitarian merchant’s house was a famous resort of the latitudinarian churchmen, and Locke was one of those who frequented it,” 4 and Professor 1 2 3 4

Life of John Locke, I, p. 311. Ut supra, II, p. 405. Alex. Gordon, Addresses, Biographical and Historical, p. 115. Fox Bourne, ut supra, II, p. 311.

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Aaron admits that “ Firmin undoubtedly influenced his theology ”.1 Firmin’s interests, philanthropic, religious and com¬ mercial were many and varied, and he won the encomiums of his contemporaries, including Samuel Pepys the Diarist. Archbishop Tillotson paid him a notable tribute, and a nineteenth-century Congregational his¬ torian says “ his active and unwearied charity entitles him to a place in the same honourable list with Howard, Fry and Peabody ”.2 Like John Locke, Thomas Fir¬ min, during the publication of the Unitarian Tracts, remained a member of the Church of England. He had joined it in early manhood, after being, as a youth, a member of an Independent Church organized by John Goodwin, the friend of Milton. John Mapletoft, M.D., one of Locke’s most valued correspondents, was a relative of Firmin. In the promotion of the Unitarian Tracts, Thomas Firmin sought to establish Unitarian societies or fraternities within the established church, and failed as completely as did John Wesley’s effort half a century later to set up Methodist societies therein, but whilst the logic of events led to the foundation of the great Methodist Church, the Unitarians, largely clerics who clung to their livings, quietly ceased their propaganda, and the move¬ ment died away.3 Despite Locke’s almost certain knowledge of some of these Tracts and their writers, his own inclusion amongst those writers is a tradition which must be rejected as untrustworthy. Locke himself, in his Will, after enumerating his anonymous, but recognized writings, said : “ These are all the books whereof I am the author, 1 R. A. Aaron, Locke, p. 302. 2 John Stoughton, History of Religion in England (1881), IV, p. 240. 3 For a full discussion of the Unitarian Tracts and their authors, see “ The Unitarian Tracts ” in A Nonconformist Library, by the writer (1923), pp. 53-88.

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which have been published without my name to them.” Internal evidence, moreover, is strongly against his authorship of the Tract assigned to him by tradition, which, on good grounds, must be attributed to Stephen Nye, the Unitarian rector of Little Hormead, Herts., the most prolific contributor to the five collections of Uni¬ tarian Tracts 1691-1703. The case for Locke’s Unitarianism does not depend upon his authorship of one of the Unitarian Tracts, but upon writings published during his lifetime, and upon others which remained until 1829, when his kinsman Peter King published his life, with “ Extracts from his Correspondence, Journals and Commonplace Books The first line of evidence, based upon writings published during his lifetime, depends largely', though not exclu¬ sively, upon the argument from silence, which, though precarious when standing alone, is not without weight when supported by the positive evidence provided by his posthumously published writings, and, still more, by his manuscripts left unpublished. In the preface to The Reasonableness of Christianity, --published anonymously in 1695, Locke defined his atti¬ tude to current doctrinal systems. “ The little satis¬ faction and consistency to be found in most of the systems of Divinity I have met with, made me betake myself to the sole reading of the Scriptures (to which they all appeal) for the understanding of the Christian religion.” In a letter to Limborch shortly before the publication of this book, he wrote : “ This winter I have been seriously considering in what consists the Christian faith, and I have endeavoured to deduce it from the source of the Christian scripture, separated from any opinions or orthodoxies of sects and systems ... I resorted to Calvin, Turretine and others, by whom I am compelled to confess I found the arrangement so managed that I could not possibly receive the doctrine they would inculcate.” In controversy with the Bishop of Gloucester

88

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in 1698, he wrote cautiously, but significantly, on the Trinity. “ You say ‘ a proposition is offered me out of Scripture to be believed, and I doubt about the sense of it. As in the present case, whether there can be three persons in one nature, or two natures and one person ’ ”. “ My lord, my Bible is faulty again, for I do not remember that I ever read in it either of these propositions, in these precise words, ‘ there are three persons in one nature, or, there are two natures and one person 5 ”. Elsewhere Locke declared : “To a man who believes in Jesus Christ, that he is sent from God to be the Saviour of the world, the first step to orthodoxy is a sincere obedience to his law. I lay it down as a principle of Christianity, that the right and only way to saving orthodoxy, is the sincere and steady purpose of a good life . . .”, and he distinguished “ between the orthodoxy required by Christianity, and the orthodoxy required by the several sects, or, as they are called, Churches of Christians Professor Aaron has summarized Locke’s doctrine thus : “ Christianity demands belief in Christ as the—x Messiah, one sent from God to reveal his true nature. Justification by faith does not involve Original Sin, and so it does not involve Atonement in the usual sense. The Atonement is whittled away, and the Cross ceases to be central in Christianity. The Reasonableness of Christianity omits the doctrine of the Trinity from the list of reasonable doctrines.” But whilst Professor Aaron admits that “ The first Unitarians must have derived considerable satisfaction from reading Locke’s works,” he asserts that “ None the less he cannot be classed with them.” The reason for this conclusion is that Locke, in his Vindication against Edwards, “ defin¬ itely states on more than one occasion that he is no Socinian, and does not deny Christ’s divinity ”. “ He believed in the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection from the Dead ”, whilst “ Miracles remain the testimony of the supernatural to the power and authority of Christ.” 89 G

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These arguments for the denial of Locke’s Unitarianism are quite inconclusive. They spring from the writer’s apparent lack of acquaintance with the history of English Unitarianism, and from his identification of Unitarianism in the seventeenth century with Unitarianism in the twentieth. The principles of non-subscription to creeds and of the sufficiency of scripture, and the doctrine of the strict unity of God, left room for diversity of opinion respecting the word and work of Christ. Locke’s con¬ temporaries, the Unitarian Tract Writers, were not at one on these points. What is more, until almost the middle of last century Unitarians generally believed in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection from the Dead, and the “ Divinity ” (not the- Deity) of Christ. For them equally with Locke, “ Miracles remained the testimony of the supernatural to the power and authority of Christ.” When Charles Wellbeloved, principal of Manchester College, was engaged in controversy with Archdeacon Wrangham in 1823, he contended “ not that Mr. Locke was a Socinian, but that he was an Antirinitarian ”, and proceeded to demonstrate that Locke’s opinions of Redemption and the Fall were those which Unitarians might and did accept. The Bishop of Worcester had been unconvinced of Locke’s orthodoxy by his acknow¬ ledgment that the Trinity “ was an Article of the Christian faith ”, and said he should have declared that “ he owned the doctrine of the Trinity as it has been received in the Christian Church ”. To this Locke replied : “ I presume your Lordship, in your discourse . . . intends to give it us, as it has been received in the Christian Church. But if I am to own it, as your Lordship has delivered it, I must own what I do not understand ; for I confess your exposition wholly transcends my capacity.” Locke did not object to a Trinity “ owned as it is delivered in the Scriptures ”. Similarly, Samuel Clarke’s most powerful Arian work was entitled The Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity, and Henry Taylor, another Arian writer, 90

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confessed that he held “ the Christian doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in the New Testament.” Professor Aaron’s fundamental error consists in identifying Socinianism exclusively with Unitarianism. It was but one of three forms of Unitarianism in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries ; the others being Sabellianism and Arianism. Admittedly the term “ Socinian ” was loosely applied to English Unitarians for three hundred years with but little justification. As Theophilus Lindsey said in 1783 : “ Those persons, in our own country, who are called Socinians, are far from espousers of all Socinian opinions. I can speak of myself, and as far as I know of others so called, they never borrowed their sentiments from him, but had embraced them before they had read a page in his works.” Seventy years later William Gaskell protested against Manchester Unitarians being called “ Socinians ”. “ My acquaintance with them ”, he said, “ is extensive, and I do not know a single Socinian amongst them.” Locke did not allow that he was a Socinian, not because he was orthodox, like Stillingfleet, nor a Sabellian, like Stephen Nye, but because he was an Arian, like Samuel Clarke. But even Socinians on the Continent, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, did not reject the points of doctrine enumerated by Professor Aaron, whose belief by Locke is assumed to separate him from the Unitarians. The Tract Writers explicitly denied they were Socin¬ ians, though several admitted their indebtedness to Socinian scriptural exegesis. Like Locke, they were scripturalists, and also like him, most of them were members of the Church of England. Locke and the Tract Writers alike accepted the Apostles’ Creed, though, as Locke said : “ No body who examines the Matter, will have reason to conclude of the Apostles’ compil¬ ing, yet it is certainly of reverend Antiquity, and ought still to be preserved in the Church, but even that

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Creed cannot be imposed by the coercive power of the Magistrate.” 1 When Professor Aaron says : “ Locke differs from Unitarians not because his faith in reason is less than theirs, but because he does not put his faith in reason alone,” he displays conspicuous innocence of Unitarian thought from the sixteenth century to the present day. It may even be said that no Unitarian during that period put his faith in reason alone, though the non-rational element in Unitarianism has not always been one and the same in Socinianism, Arianism and modern Unitarianism. “ It seems ”, adds Professor Aaron, “ as if Locke recog¬ nizes in religion also a religious experience, a feeling and an intuition of God, Pascal’s knowledge of ‘ the heart ’.” This might be said not only of John Locke, but surely with at least equal truth of James Martineau, John James Tayler, Charles Beard and most Unitarians since their day. Again, if Locke accepted the Scripture alone as authori¬ tative, “ he claimed ”, as Campbell Fraser said, “ the personal right of interpreting it in the light of historical criticism ... he was among the first to try to apply to the Bible those logical processes, which, according to the Essay on Human Understanding, are the foundation of all reasonable interpretations of facts—natural and super¬ natural—in this anticipating later Biblical criticism of the Scientific sort ”. What exactly is meant by this is shown by Dr. R. S. Franks.2 He finds the “ novel part of Locke’s doctrinal method ” in his making “ the basis of his doctrine a critical distinction between one part of the New Testament and another ... It contains the principle of the modern science of Biblical theology, which, instead of treating the whole New Testament, and to a considerable extent indeed the whole Bible, as upon the same level, as did the traditional theology of

1

Third Letter on Toleration, p. n. a A History of the Doctrine of the Work of Christ, II, pp. 155-65.

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the Church, notes everywhere advance and development, differences and shades of doctrinal apprehension of Christianity, and furnished dogmatic theology with an entirely remodelled Scriptural basis from which to operate . . . • It substitutes for the arbitrariness of the allegorical method, and the arbitrariness which Socinus often used in working out his metaphysical principle, the methodic science of historical criticism.” In this respect, as has been generally recognized, Locke was followed by Unitarian scholars like Daniel Mace, Edward Harwood, George Benson, James Peirce, John Taylor and many others. Locke prefaced his posthumously published Para¬ phrases of St. Paul’s Epistles (1706-7) with “ An Essay for the Understanding of St. Paul’s Epistles by consulting St. Paul himself ”. The sting is in the tail. His purpose was to set aside the meanings men had read into Paul’s words in order to harmonize his doctrine with their orthodoxy, and to explain the Epistles by the light of history, archaeology, considerations of style, and the comparative study of other scriptural writings ; in other words, by the methods now commonly employed in order to ascertain the sense of ancient books. In the preface he said : “If I must believe for myself, it is unavoidable that I must understand for myself. For if I blindly, and with an implicit faith, take the pope’s interpretation of the sacred Scripture, without examining whether it is Christ’s meaning, it is the pope I believe in, and not in Christ. ... It is the same thing, when I set up any other man in Christ’s place, and make him the authentic interpreter of sacred Scripture to myself.” In this work, Locke revised the common translation, gave side by side with it a paraphrase, which is not a mere version but a reproduction with expansions of what he conceived to be the meaning of St. Paul, and added critical notes, which are mainly interpretative. Campbell Fraser called attention to “an interesting

93

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part of Locke’s interpretation of Scripture. Human immortality is not of the essence of the human spirit or necessarily involved in our personality and identity; nor is it on the other hand predicable only abstractly of Reason, but also of men in their distinct continuous personal existence. A life after death was given by God to men at the first, when it might have been with¬ held, and it has been lost by the fall of mankind in Adam ; but it may be recovered through faith in the Messiahship of Jesus, and sympathy with him in his divine mission. Annihilation is with Locke the ultimate destiny of all who do not retain life after physical death as the reward of the conduct in this life that issues from faith in Christ. This conditional offer of immortality is the chief motive to goodness of conduct, which Christianity supplies, and which gives it its superiority to human philosophy ”. Locke did not believe in Hell, a doctrine seldom absent from the minds of contemporary evangelical divines, episcopalian and nonconformist. In his notes on Paul’s Epistles, Locke not infrequently confesses that he did not understand what the Apostle had written—a confession comparatively rarely made by modern exegetes. In his condemnation of the havoc wrought to the sense of many Pauline passages by the punctuation of the Authorized Version, Locke was one of the forerunners of the makers of modern versions* who have corrected it without compunction. In his Para¬ phrases, there is hardly a Unitarian interpretation of any disputed passage which is not to be found in Locke, either suggested or adopted by him. In the paraphrase of Romans ix. 5, the latter part of the verse is interpreted as an ascription of blessedness to God : “he who is over all, God be blessed for ever ”. He paraphrases 1 Corinthians i. 2. “ All that everywhere are called by the name of Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours ”, and in his note upon it does not interpret the verse as proving the supreme worship of Christ by the early disciples.

94

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His note on Ephesians iii. 9 runs : “ It is to be observed that St. Paul often chooses to speak of the work of redemption by Christ as a creation,” and so disposes of its supposed reference to the creation of the world by Christ. These illustrations might be multiplied. The spirit in which Locke worked on the Epistles is evinced in a letter to Samuel Bold, dated 16 May 1698 : “ Commentators not seldom make it their business to show in what sense a word has been used by other authors ; whereas the proper business of a commentator is to show in what sense it was used by the author in that place, which in the Scripture we have reason to conclude was most commonly in the ordinary, vulgar sense of the word or phrase known in that time, because the books were written and adapted to the people. ... I read the word of God without prepossession or bias, and come to it with a resolution to take my sense from it, and not with a design to bring it to the sense of any system. How much that has made men wind and twist and pull the text in all the several sects of Christians, I need not tell you. I design to take my religion from the Scrip¬ tures, and then, whether it suits or suits not any other denomination, I am not much concerned ; for I think, at the last day, it will not be enquired whether I was of the Church of England or Geneva, but whether I sought or embraced truth in the love of it.” In view of the light thrown on the vernacular character of New Testament Greek by the modern discoveries of papyri, ostraca and inscriptions, Locke’s remark on the “ ordinary vulgar sense ” of its words and phrases “ known in that time ” is noteworthy. Bishop Lightfoot’s prophecy in 1863 has been abundantly verified :1 “If we could only recover letters that ordinary people wrote to each other without any thought of being liter¬ ary, we should have the greatest possible help for the 1 Quoted by J. H. Moulton, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. I 2nd ed., p. 242.

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understanding of the language of the New Testament generally.” As Locke’s notes on Pauline passages show, he adopted the doctrine of justification by faith, but applied it to the reception of Jews and Gentiles alike to the grace dispensed in the gospel of Christ. They were thus placed on a level, but the final condition of both depended on the use made of the opportunities thus afforded. This faith in Christ was the gift of God, since the message of salvation was not dependent on any merit of theirs. Thereafter works were requisite, not as the meritorious cause of salvation, but as an indispensable qualification of subjects in God’s kingdom under his Son Jesus Christ. He ascribed the regeneration of the mind to the “ Holy Spirit ” or the “ Spirit of God ”, but nowhere ascribes personality to the Holy Spirit as a person distinct from the Father. Locke never concealed his contempt for the man “ who at a cheap rate may be a notable champion for the truth, that is, for the doctrines of that sect that chance or interest has cast him into. He need but be furnished with verses of sacred Scripture, containing words and expressions that are but flexible (as all general, obscure and doubtful ones are), and his System, that has appro¬ priated them to the orthodoxy of his Church, makes them immediately strong and irrefragable arguments for his opinion He spoke, too, with disdain of men who “ consult only those who have the good luck to be thought sound and orthodox, avoiding those of different senti¬ ments from themselves in the great and approved points of their System, as dangerous and fit to be meddled with ”. In a letter to Limborch, he wrote : “ I, who seek everywhere truth alone, would with equal readiness receive it wherever found, whether among the heretics or the orthodox.” Miracles he accepted in the manner indicated by Professor Aaron, but declared in 1681, “ Inspiration 96

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

barely in itself cannot be a ground to receive any doctrines not conformable to reason, and even for those books which have the attestation of miracles to confirm their being from God, the miracles are to be judged by the doctrine, not the doctrine by the miracles.” In other words, miracles alone cannot vindicate the divinity of doctrine that is immoral. In a Discourse of Miracles, posthumously published, he defines a miracle “as a sensible operation, which being above the comprehension of the spectator and in his opinion contrary to the estab¬ lished cause of nature, is taken by him to be divine For the generation in which Locke lived, no definition of miracle could be less orthodox, based, as it is, on the evidence of the senses and the limitations of human judgment, and lacking every reference to the action of Deity. On the relation of reason and revelation he says in the same work, “ No mission can be look’d on to be divine, that delivers any thing derogating from the honour of the one, only true, invisible God, or incon¬ sistent with natural religion and the rules of morality ; Because God having discovered to men the unity and majesty of his eternal Godhead, and the truths of natural religion and morality by the light of Reason, he cannot be supposed to back the contrary by Revelation ; for that would be to destroy the evidence and the use of Reason, without which men cannot be able to distinguish divine revelation from diabolical imposture.” On the period during which miracles were wrought, Locke appears to have consulted Newton, for the latter in a letter to him said : “ Miracles of good credit continued in the Church for about two or three hundred years . . . but of their number and frequency I am not able to give you a just account.” This Locke cannot have found very convincing, for, in the Third Letter on Toleration we read : “ He who will build his faith or reasonings upon miracles delivered by Church historians will find cause to go no further than the Apostles’ time, or else not to

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stop at Constantine’s, since the writers after that period, whose word we readily take as unquestionable in other things, speak of miracles in their time, with no less assurance than the Fathers before the fourth century, and a great part of the miracles of the second and third centuries stand upon the credit of the writers of the fourth.” As Campbell Fraser said : “ Now and then Locke’s arguments tend, perhaps unconsciously, to transfer the foundation of Christianity from unreasoned or dogmatic assumption, which he always struggled against, to the response which it finds in the conscience and spiritual constitution of men.” No impassable chasm separates this from Martineau’s doctrine 1 that “ revelation signi¬ fies not some particular historical disclosure authenticated by miracles, but the progressive self-revelation which God makes of His existence and of His character in the divinest experiences of the human soul ”, or, as the Scottish Free Kirk theologian, reported by Estlin Carpenter, said of The Seat of Authority,2 “ The whole book comes to this, that the foundations of religion are in reason, and the conscience and the heart of man.” Locke, of course, never reached this position, but it is impossible to deny that at least he prepared the way for its adoption. The authority of the Bible could not remain unquestioned when its contents and teaching were freely examined. It proved impossible to confine criti¬ cism to the evidences of revelation and deny it a place in regard to its substance. As Professor Aaron showed in an essay in Seventeenth Century Studies presented to Sir Herbert Grierson (1938), Locke’s rationalism had its limits. “ Nothing that con¬ tradicts reason is true. Nevertheless, reason of itself is not enough. Revelation is essential since some truths 1 Drummond and Upton, Life and Letters of James Martineau, II, pp. 290-1. 2 James Martineau, p. 587, n. 1.

98

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lie beyond reason.” The precise nature of these truths, and the particular mode of their revelation, are not now conceived by Unitarians to-day as they were by Locke. Nevertheless in virtue of his recognition of such truths and of the relation posited by him of reason to revela¬ tion, they still remain in some degree his disciples, not¬ withstanding their general abandonment of Locke’s philosophy, as mediated by Hartley and Belsham, in consequence of the work of Martineau, Tayler and others. Locke always warmly repudiated the charge that he was under any obligation to the “ Racovians ”, that is, to the Socinians whose college and printing press were in Racow, Poland. Edwards had said that Locke ex¬ pounded passages of Scripture after the Antitrinitarian manner, and made Adam and Christ sons of God in the same sense as the “ Racovians ” did. To this, Locke said : “I know not but it may be true, that the Antitrinitarians and Racovians understand these places as I do, but ’tis more than I know, that they do so. I took not my sense of those texts from those writers, but from the Scripture itself, giving light to its own meaning, by one place compared with another; what in this way appears to me its true meaning, I shall not decline, because I am told that it is so understood by the Racovians, whom I never yet read ; nor embrace the contrary, though ‘ the generality of divines ’ I more converse with should declare for it.” Locke took every precaution to avoid controversy on the central issue of the personality of God, and a Uni¬ tarian, writing in 1809, before Locke’s posthumous remains saw the light, though well acquainted with his published works, candidly confessed : “ I do not find that he plainly asserts what is now called Unitarian doctrine, though, at the same time, he does not appear to favour the Trinitarian.” Locke’s reticence emerges in his reply to Limborch’s request that, for the benefit

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

of certain friends, he should state the argument for the unity of God (12 April 1695). Locke consented on the following conditions : “ (1) That these gentlemen promise to give me their opinions of what I say, freely and with¬ out reserve. (2) That you do not give a copy of what I write to any persons whatever, and promise to burn the letter whenever I desire you ; to which I wish you to have the goodness to add a third condition, namely, that these gentlemen would do me the honour to com¬ municate to me the arguments on which they themselves establish the unity of God.” Locke appears vto have had something like a genius for friendship. He remained single, and his biographers report no hint of dny affair of the heart in his career, but his personal relations with women were marked by much more than conventional courtesy, whilst with children he exhibited a singularly winsome disposition. Indeed, “ for a bachelor, devoted to medicine and philo¬ sophical studies, zealous in all sorts of public business, Locke certainly had a good deal to do in matchmaking and assisting the matrimonial affairs of his friends ’’j1 and “ there were numerous adopted sisters, wives or daughters, by whose honest affection Locke’s bachelor¬ hood seems to have been cheered at almost every stage of his life ”.2 In many ways Locke was uncommonly like Samuel Alexander, O.M., the great Jewish philosopher, a bachelor and “ the best-loved figure in Manchester ” for nearly forty years, whose admirers included many women. One of his friends was Samuel Bold, the vicar of Shapwick from 1674, who in act never belied his name, to whom Locke addressed a letter in the preface to a Second Vindication of the Reasonableness of Christianity. Bold, though not then personally known to Locke, had sturdily defended under his own name the Reasonableness of Christianity, and fallen under the lash of John Edwards. 1 Fox Bourne, ut supra, I, p. 330. IOO

2 Ibid, II, p. 297.

V

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

For his courageous defence in 1662 of the liberty and character of nonconformists, he had suffered two years of civil and ecclesiastical persecution, and spent seven weeks in prison. He had pleaded too for limiting the confession and creed of the Church to matters absolutely necessary. “ There ought not any thing to be universally required of all men in the service of God, but what has either equal agreeableness to all men’s tempers, or a direct and certain tendency to advance the interest of religion more or less in all men.” Samuel Bold was a clergyman after Locke’s own heart, and a cordial friend¬ ship between the two men may be said to have been almost inevitable. Amongst Locke’s friends were many Unitarians. Sir Isaac Newton, his junior by ten years, was an intimate friend. He sent Locke his critical discussions of the two Trinitarian proof-texts (1 John v. 7 ; and 1 Timothy iii. 16), a mark of extreme confidence in so cautious a person, and Newton, as we now know for certain, was a Uni¬ tarian.1 In the light of Newton’s manuscript remains, Locke’s friendship with him, as with Thomas Firmin, must be given its full weight. Locke, at least, must have clearly realized what was meant by Newton’s destruction of the validity of these texts. Possibly he had in mind not only printed works, but also more manuscripts than one, when, in a letter to Peter King, 30 April 1703, he wrote : “ Mr. Newton is really a very valuable man, not only for his wonderful skill in mathe¬ matics, but in divinity also, and his great knowledge in the Scriptures, wherein I know few his equals.” Samuel Crell (1660-1747) was the great-grandson of John Crell, the famous Socinian scholar. He was a friend of Limborch, a scholar of distinction, and one of the last of the Polish brethren. He made several journeys from Holland to England, and numbered 1 For a full discussion of Locke’s connexion with these Dissertations, see pp. 133 ff.

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amongst his friends in this country Archbishop Tillotson, Sir Isaac Newton and John Locke. To Locke he con¬ veyed a letter from Limborch (18 August 1698) in which the writer condemned the recent English statute “ for the more effectual suppression of Blasphemy and Pro¬ faneness ”, i.e. denying “ any one of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be God Samuel Crell was a member of the Collegiants at Amsterdam, in whose ranks were included exiled Polish Socinians, and it was one of the Collegiants who collected and published in eight folio volumes the works of the Socinians, the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios vocant. William Popple, (see note p. 114) the translator into English (1689) of Locke’s Epistle on Toleration, wrote The Rational Catechism (1689). He was a Unitarian merchant in London, and a nephew of Andrew Marvell, friend and one-time colleague in the Latin Secretaryship of John Milton. J. L. Stocks, in a Tercentenary Address on John Locke (1932) erroneously spoke of him as “ the Quaker William Popple “ He expressed Locke’s thoughts very skilfully ”, says Fox Bourne, “ not only in the version itself, but also in the short preface with which he furnished it.” In his Will, Locke says that the translation was made “ without my privity ” but “ soon afterwards ”, we are told, “ Locke sought him out and made a friend of him ”. (Aaron, Locke p. 296, n. 1) is need¬ lessly doubtful of Popple’s authorship of the preface. “ Who wrote the famous Preface ? Probably William Popple, although we cannot be certain. Its last para¬ graph seems to imply that it was written by the translator. Nevertheless, Locke seems to have been in touch with Popple, and the latter may have prevailed upon him to write a preface.” That seems impossible. If Popple translated the Letter, which no one doubts, but Locke wrote the preface to it, then when Locke said in the preface, “ I have translated it into our language,” he said what he knew was false. It is much more likely 102

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that the omission of Popple’s name as translator from the title-page is due to Locke’s desire to conceal the connexion of a known Unitarian with the English trans¬ lation of the Letter on Toleration. Bishop Law, editing Locke’s Works in 1777, omitted the preface, as not from Locke’s pen. William Popple was Secretary of the Board of Trade of which Locke was a Commissioner from 1696 to 1700, and Fox Bourne is of opinion that he owed his appointment to Locke’s influence. “ All his work was done with wonderful neatness, and, appar¬ ently, with wonderful accuracy.” In the preface to the Letter on Toleration, Popple said, referring to recent legislation, “ We have need of more generous remedies than what have yet made use of in our distemper. It is neither declarations of indulgence nor acts of compre¬ hension, such as have as yet been practised or projected amongst us, that can do the work. Absolute liberty, just and true liberty, equal and impartial liberty, is the thing we stand in need of.” In a letter dated 28 November 1692, Locke had in¬ structions given to his bookseller to send copies of his Third Letter on Toleration, a quarto of 250 pages, to nine persons, amongst whom are named Newton, Popple, and Firmin. He also included the names of Treby and Ker, but erased them, adding, “ these two last, if you think fit, for I am in some doubt whether it be prudent or no. But to none of them as from me Ker may probably be identified with John Ker, the nonconformist tutor of the Academy at Bethnal Green, whose students included Presbyterians, Independents and General Bap¬ tists. He was a layman, a graduate of Leyden, a man of academic gifts, who ventured to enter into controversy on Latin with the great Richard Bentley. In the gift of copies of his work, Locke’s extraordinary caution is evident. It was not altogether without reason. The case of Thomas Aikenhead, a student of 18, 103

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executed at Edinburgh in 1697 by a monstrous inter¬ pretation of a statute which made it a capital offence to revile or curse the Supreme Being or any person of the Trinity, was one in which John Locke was deeply interested. He collected the documents relating to it immediately after the execution, and exhibited his strong disapproval of the proceedings, which, incidentally, in¬ volved the Presbyterian ministers in the city, since they refused to intercede with the King for a reprieve. The persecution of the Arian Thomas Emlyn, a close friend of Samuel Clarke, must at least have been well known to John Locke. For the publication of his Humble Inquiry into the Scripture Account of Jesus Christ, Emlyn was tried (14 June 1703) on a charge of blasphemy and found guilty. He was sentenced to a year’s imprison¬ ment, to a fine of £1,000, to be imprisoned until the fine was paid (he served two years in prison), and compelled to find security for good behaviour during the rest of his life. Bishop Hoadly summed up the case thus : “ The Nonconformists accused him, the Conformists condemned him, the secular power was called in, and the cause ended in imprisonment and a great fine, two methods of conviction, of which the Gospel is silent.” There was every reason, therefore, apart from Locke’s concern with philosophy and politics and his naturally cautious disposition, why it was in extracts from his Common-Place Book, posthumously published, that his Unitarianism should be most clearly seen. Therein he names John Bidle “ the father of English Unitarians ”, five times as one of his authorities. Probably he owed his introduction to Bidle’s writings to Thomas Firmin, who had been one of Bidle’s disciples. Once he names The Brief History of the Unitarians (1687, 2nd ed., 1691, in the First Collection of Unitarian Tracts), published anonymously, written by Stephen Nye, the Unitarian, clergyman and a member of the Firmin circle. This is the more significant, since The Brief History is a history 104

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) only in name. It is really a lucid and powerful argu¬ ment for Unitarianism. Almost certainly Locke knew Nye as an intimate friend of Thomas Firmin. Locke also mentions Crell’s Concerning the One God, the Father, the English translation (1665) of the Latin treatise (1631) by John Crell, the Rector of the Socinian College at Racow, and it is not difficult to suppose that his know¬ ledge of the book was due to his acquaintance with Samuel Crell. Under the heading “ Trinitas ”, he gives four refer¬ ences to Genesis and one to Isaiah, which no modern scholar now adduces in support of the doctrine of the Trinity, and answers the arguments based on them under “Non Trinitas ”, where he gives thirty-two references to passages in the Old and New Testaments. The case is much the same in his discussions of “ Christus Deus Supremus ” and “ Christus Non Deus Supremus ”. Under the heading “ Unitaria ”, he observes : “ The fathers before the Council of Nice speak rather like Arians than orthodox. . . . There is scarcely one Text alleged to the Trinitarians, which is not otherwise ex¬ plained by their own writers. . . . There be a multi¬ tude of Texts that deny those things of Christ, which cannot be denied of God, and that affirm such things of him that cannot agree to him if he were a person of God. In like manner of the Holy Ghost ”... “ Con¬ cerning the original of the Trinitarian doctrine ”, he said, “ from whom they are derived or by whom they were invented, he that is generally and indeed deservedly confessed to have writ most learnedly is Dr. Cudworth, in his Intellectual System. . . . The divinity of the Holy Spirit was not believed, or, as I think, so much as mentioned by any in the time of Lactantius, i.e. anno 300.” In the True Intellectual System (1678), Cudworth gives a “ parallelism betwixt the Ancient or Genuine Platonick, and the Christian Trinity ” that it “ might be of some use to satisfy those amongst us, who boggle so much at 105

H

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

the Trinity, and look upon it as the Choak-Pear of Christianity ; when they shall find that the freest wits amongst the pagans, and the best philosophers, who had nothing of Superstition to determine them that way, were so far from being shy of such an hypothesis, as that they were even fond thereof.” One or two of the Unitarian Tract writers turn the argument the other way, and speak of the fatal influence of ancient philosophy upon orthodox theology. Cudworth was accused with¬ out good reason of being an Arian, a Socinian and a Deist. What his System did was, as Martineau pointed out,1 “ to contradict the exclusive pretensions of both Church and scripture, as media of sacred light, by planting in the natural reason an inward apprehension of Duty and of God.” There was really little in com¬ mon between “ the spiritual fervour of the Cambridge Platonizing school and the less exigent common-sense of Locke’s interpretation of duty and religion ”.2 What attracted Locke to Cudworth was his liberalism, tolera¬ tion and catholicity of sentiment as expressed in his famous Sermon before the House of Commons in 1647, at a time when Presbyterian bigotry was in the ascendant. John Hunt summarized Cudworth’s teaching thus : “ We know that we are Christians not so much by our be¬ lieving a creed, as by keeping Christ’s commandments. Christ was not a master of the school, but of the life. He did not come to give us dogmas about which we are to dispute and wrangle. He came to make our hearts beat towards heaven. True faith is not believing cer¬ tain doctrines, but it is having Christ’s laws written in our hearts, and following it in our lives.”3 Cudworth was one of only two writers whom Locke in his Thoughts on Education recommended to be read in schools. The other was Chillingworth. It was at the residence of Lady Masham, a daughter of

1 3

Types of Ethical Theory, II, p. 431. 2 Ibid., p. 435. Religious Thought in England, I, p. 415.

106

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

Ralph Cudworth, that Locke lived for many years, and died 28 October 1704, after receiving the sacrament from the parish priest, when he professed his “ sincere communion with the Church of Christ, by whatever name Christ’s followers call themselves The evidence, direct and indirect, is conclusive. John Locke was a Unitarian; cautious, conservative and scriptural; in all three respects resembling most Uni¬ tarians before John James Tayler, James Martineau and their disciples changed the character and foundation of Unitarian doctrine, whilst maintaining unimpaired its central affirmation of the unity of personality in the Godhead. It is clear that Alexander Gordon was fully justified when in 1895 he wrote :1 “ John Locke, if we estimate him by his principles (to say nothing of his specific opinions, which were not fully known as Antitrinitarian till the publication of extracts from his Common-Place Book in 1829) may pass for the Socinus of his age. There was the same lay disengagement from scholasticism, the same purpose of toleration tempered by prudence, the same interest in the minimizing of essentials, and the same recurrence to Scripture, interpreted (that is to say, rationalized) by common sense rather than by profound exegesis. Locke’s Reasonableness of Christianity as de¬ livered. in the Scriptures (1695) owes more than its title to Baxter’s Reasons for the Christian Religion (1667); but in cutting down fundamentals (as Baxter would not have done) to the acknowledgment of the Messiahship of Jesus, Locke follows in the track of the Leviathan (1651) by Thomas Hobbes, who was more of a Socinian than Locke. This simplification of the Christian basis, adopted from Locke, was accepted with avidity by liberal Dissenters ; its central thesis retained with them, up to a very recent period, the position of an undisputed axiom.” 1 Heads of English Unitarian History, pp. 31, 32.

107

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The influence of John Locke on Unitarians has been freely recognized. He was read in the liberal academies from 1708—four years after his death—without a break until the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. His philosophy for long held an almost unchallenged sway. It peeps out even in the letters of Lamb to Coleridge, then a professed Unitarian. Lamb, a hearer of Belsham and one who confessed that he “ loved and honoured Priestley almost profanely ”, declared (24 October 1796) that he did not like in Coleridge “ a certain air of mysticism ”, and instanced his allusion to man’s being “ an eternal partaker of the Divine nature ”. He himself clung to “ the New Testament thought of God as Heavenly Father and Friend ”. Later Lamb admitted that the objectionable phrase was Scriptural (2 Peter i. 4), but was afraid lest “ with mystical notions and the pride of metaphysics ” we might give it a meaning “ which the simple fishermen of Galilee never intended to convey ”. In the light of modern criticism, the reference to the unknown author of 2 Peter as one of “ the simple fishermen of Galilee ” is almost ludicrous. More im¬ portant behind Lamb’s remonstrance was the philo¬ sophy of Belsham, ultimately derived from Locke, with its materialistic view of man’s nature, its distrust of mysticism, and its sole reliance upon the revelation of the Gospel, mediated and interpreted by reason. Edward Tagart (1804-58), a fellow-student of James Martineau at York, published in 1855 Locke's Writings and Philo¬ sophy Historically Considered and Vindicated from the Charge of Contributing to the Scepticism of Hume. It won the commendation of Hallam, who wrote (25 Novem¬ ber 1857) : “I think it will have the effect of restoring Locke to the place he ought to take in the estimate of his country.” It is a clever apologia, the result of wide reading and shrewd reasoning, but little more. As its preface indicates, it was evoked not merely to 108

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

correct misrepresentations of Locke, but also to protest against a contemporary movement amongst Unitarians which was undermining his authority alike in phil¬ osophy and in Biblical theology—a movement led by James Martineau. The book may have succeeded in freeing Locke from undeserved censures ; it failed to restore him to the place he once held in the thought of Unitarianism. In the eighteenth century Locke’s reign went almost unchallenged. J. Hay Colligan, the historian of The Arian Movement in England (1913), observed : “ Grotius as a commentator was much esteemed in England, but in the matter of method Locke’s influence was para¬ mount. He and his followers treated the New Testament in such a way, that the halo of verbal inspiration began to disappear, and by the middle of the eighteenth cen¬ tury, the Socinian method of dealing with the Scriptures was universally adopted.” The connexion of Locke with Socinus here indicated by the Presbyterian historian is noteworthy. “ The bond of union among the Presbyterians ”, says John James Tayler,1 “ was the acceptance of the Bible only, as a rule of faith and practice for Christians. Thus a soil was prepared for the reception of Mr. Locke’s philosophy, which struck kindly root in it, and brought forth a harvest of rationalist theology. The Presbyterian theology of this period (early eighteenth century) may indeed be described as the offspring of an alliance be¬ tween the new philosophy of Locke and the Scripturalism of the old Puritans. Scripture was accepted as a Divine record, but upon that record reason was to be exercised with the greatest freedom and impartiality, not only in eliciting its contents, but also in establishing their coincidence with those natural truths which the same reason so clearly affirmed.” Miss Olive M. Griffiths, in a valuable study of liberal 1 Retrospect of Religious Life in England, 1st ed., p. 372.

109

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Dissent,1 has answered the difficult question how it came about that Presbyterians, who, before the ejection of 1662, “ formed the most conservative and rigidly orthodox element in the established church ” became a century and a half later “ members of a dissenting body which refused to impose any test or creed, and whose only formula was a heterodox insistence upon the single personality of God and the proper humanity of Christ The part that Locke played in this process is clearly set forth. “ Locke, in the Essay concerning Human Under¬ standing, a work whose influence upon Presbyterian thought it is almost impossible to overestimate, showed that religion, like any other form of knowledge, is derived from personal experience. Though God has given us no innate ideas of Himself, yet having furnished us with those faculties our minds are endowed with, He hath not left himself without witness, since we have sense, perception and reason and cannot want a clear proof of Him as long as we carry ourselves about us.2 He taught that revealed religion must be tested by reason to dis¬ cover whether it came from an inspired source and whether it overthrew any self-evident truth, in which case it was pertinently false.3 According to Locke, reason rather than authority was the basis of all religion, and to disregard its decisions was the height of impiety.” “ Locke ”, says Professor Aaron,4 “ shared the view of the Cambridge Platonists on the nature and significance of reason in human life, on the relations between reason and faith, on the paramount importance of practical conduct in true religion, on tolerance, and on enthu¬ siasm.” But the differences between them in philosophy were great. Locke had no use for innate ideas in which most Cambridge Platonists laid stress, and their peculiar theories he wholly rejected. 1 Religion and Learning, p. 107 (1935). 2 Locke, Essay, 1823 ed., Bk. IV, c. 10-11. 3 Ibid., c. 18. 4 John Locke, p. 29. IIO

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

Dr. F. J. Powicke, in his study of The Cambridge Platonists (1926), derived one important line of Locke’s influence from the Cambridge men, one, which he trans¬ mitted to the Unitarians. Incidentally, as a testimony of an eminent Congregational historian to the Arians of the eighteenth century, it is of importance, and the influence described represents an element in religion upon which Unitarians from the seventeenth century have strongly insisted. “ The spirit of the Cambridge men, so utterly hostile to any view of religion which disparaged the moral imperative of the Gospel, was not dead. It spoke through Locke, who in this respect, above all, was their disciple. ... It spoke emphatically through those same Arians whom it soon became the fashion to blaspheme as ‘ a pest ’, ‘a gangrene ’, ‘a plague ’, ‘ a fungus \ No one can doubt this who has taken the pains to get at the facts. Like the Cambridge men they found their moral earnestness enlightened and intensified by an honest study of the Scriptures, especially the New Testament; like the Cambridge men they were led to an ever deepening stress on the moral side of religion, but disgust at the ethical barrenness of theo¬ logical dogmatism ; like the Cambridge men, again, they were ‘ gibbeted ’ as traitors to the gospel. How many of them had any acquaintance with the sermons of Whichcote or Smith we cannot say ; probably very few. But they read Locke. They were largely his disciples in Philosophy, and his Reasonableness of Christianity was one of their classics. By this means, then, if not directly, the moral dynamic of the Cambridge School continued to act in the degenerate life of England. It was a service for which the Arian preachers and teachers deserved a credit which they have not received.” Locke’s influence may be clearly seen in the liturgies compiled for the use of liberal dissenters in the eigh¬ teenth and early nineteenth century. Christopher Wyvill, commenting on one drawn up by the minister of Mill hi

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Hill Chapel, Leeds (1801), praised it as “ wholly free from the impure alloy of controversial matter, mixed with the expressions of Christian piety and benevolence . . . these principles are those of Locke, Clarke and Newton ”.1 A letter written by Locke (21 November 1696) to two Quaker women, one of them, Rebecca Collier, a preacher, reveals something of his essential religion as distinguished from his theology. One of his most intimate friends, with whom he lived when an exile in Holland, was a Quaker. Locke had been intimate with William III since the time when both of them had their residence in Holland. He accompanied the King incognito to a Quakers’ meeting, and was so much impressed that he laid aside his objections to the ministry of women. The letter was accompanied by a gift of sweetmeats, one for Rebecca Collier, another for Rachel Bracken, also a preacher amongst the Quakers. My Sweet Friends. A paper of sweetmeats by the bearer, to attend your journey, comes to testify the sweetness I found in your society. I admire no converse like that of Christian freedom, and fear no bondage like that of pride and prejudice. I now see acquaintance by sight cannot reach the height of enjoyment which acquaintance by know¬ ledge arrives unto. Outward hearing may misguide, but internal knowledge cannot err. We have something here of what we shall have hereafter, to “ know as we are known ”. This we, with other friends, were at the first view partakers of; and the more there is of this in this life, the less we need inquire of what country, party or persuasion our friends are, for our own knowledge is more sure to us than another’s. Thus we know when we have believed. Now the God of all grace grant that you may hold fast that rare grace of charity, that unbiassed and unbounded love which, if it decay not, will spring up mightily, as the waters of the sanctuary, higher and higher, until you with the universal church swim

1 Quoted by A. E. Peaston, The Prayer Book Reform Movemerit in the XVIIIth Century (1940), p. 20. 112

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704) together in the ocean of divine love. Women, indeed, had the honour first to publish the resurrection of the Lord of Love ; why not again the resurrection of the Spirit of Love ? And let all the disciples of Christ rejoice therein, as doth your John Locke.1

With his distrust of mysticism and reliance upon reason and scriptural revelation, Locke would have subscribed to Johnson’s definition of “ enthusiasm ” as that word was understood in the eighteenth century, namely, “ a vain belief of private revelation, a vain con¬ fidence of divine favour or communication Indeed Johnson quotes Locke as saying : “ Enthusiasm is founded neither on reason nor divine revelation, but rises from the conceits of a warmed or overweening brain Yet, no more than Charles Lamb, the hearer of the Unitarian Thomas Belsham and thus a disciple second-hand of his own, could John Locke resist the attractions of Quaker piety and practice, and, like Lamb, might have confessed that “ in feelings and matters not dogmatical ” he was “ half a Quaker On July 20 1808, the Morning Post contained an advertisement for subscriptions to erect a monument in St. Paul’s Cathedral to the memory of John Locke. It was fitting that of the fourteen names appended to it, including those of the Lord Mayor and Lord King, the biographer of Locke, were four conspicuous Unitarians, William Frend, the disciple of Theophilus Lindsey, Robert Hibbert, the founder of the Hibbert Trust, and 1 This letter was printed by Fox Bourne from Mrs. Thistlethwaite’s Memoirs and Correspondence of Dr. Henry Bathurst, Lord Bishop of Norwich, published in 1853, from a copy lent by Joseph John Gurney, 4 Sept., 1831. The letter first appeared in print, with some slight variants of reading, in a Unitarian journal, the Christian Reformer, June 1852, copied by the Rev. M. C. Frankland “ from a MS. lent him by a very aged member of the Society of Friends ”. It is dated from “ Gray’s Inn ”, not, as commonly with letters written during the last fifteen years of his life, from Oates, in Essex, Whitehall, or London.

IJ3

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

two ministers, Dr. Abraham Rees and Robert Aspland, the secretary of the Unitarian Fund. Dr. Watson, bishop of Llandaff, writing from “ Calgarth Park, Kendal, June 8, 1809 ”, in answer to the appeal for funds, said : “ Mr. Locke has by his works erected to himself a monument which will remain whilst and wherever there shall remain a veneration for revealed religion or an attachment to the civil liberty of mankind. Notwithstanding this cere perennius monumentum, I will contribute my mite towards erecting one of more perish¬ able materials ; because it will convey an intimation to some among ourselves, and afford a proof to surrounding states, that amid all their corruptions, true patriotism and rational religion are still held in the highest estima¬ tion by the liberal and enlightened inhabitants of Great Britain.” The monument was not erected. Note to page 102.—William Popple was a wine merchant and Le Clerc lived with him for a time at Bordeaux.

SIR

ISAAC

NEWTON

(1642-1727)

I

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

SAAC NEWTON was born in the manor-house of Woolsthorpe, a Lincolnshire hamlet, near Grantham, on Christmas Day, 1643, the year in which Galileo died. At birth he had a struggle for life, being very delicate and extraordinarily diminutive. He was not born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. His father, a yeoman farmer, had died in the previous October. His family tree, so far as known, was only a small shrub. When more than half a century later, Newton “ made a diligent search into his family connexion ... he evi¬ dently could not trace his ancestry further back than his grandfather ”.1 In January 1645, his mother married a clergyman, the Rev. Barnabas Smith, rector of North Whitham, and the child was committed to the care of his maternal grandmother. After an elementary education in two village schools, Isaac Newton, at the age of twelve, went to the Grantham Grammar School. Three years later, his stepfather died, leaving his mother the care of three more children. Apparently Newton spent five school years at Grantham, broken by a stay at home two years and a summer between two periods of schooling, spent in helping on the farm. At school he was a favourite pupil of the Headmaster, who parted with him in sorrow. A nephew and former pupil of the famous Henry More, the Platonist, with whom Newton was afterwards closely associated and by whom he was deeply influenced, was mathematical tutor in the school. When finally he left school there was nothing for the lad to do, 1 L. T. More, Sir Isaac Newton.

ny

A Biography, p. 459.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

in the straitened circumstances of the family, but to turn farmer. His indifferent interest in cattle, pastures, fair and markets, together with his evident bookishness and aptitude for mathematics led his mother’s brother, the rector of Burton Coggles, to suggest that he should go to Cambridge. The rector was probably assisted in the execution of his plan by Dr. Babington, Senior Fellow of Trinity, and a relative of Mr. Clark, of Grantham, with whom Newton lodged, and by Henry More, himself a native of that town.1 With a stepfather and an uncle in holy orders, Newton’s early days must have been spent in the religious atmo¬ sphere of the Church. “ Whatever had been his early training ”, says Professor L. T. More,2 “ he became a convinced believer in the Protestant tenet of the ultimate responsibility of the individual towards doctrines of faith. Intellectually sceptical of the plenary inspiration of the Bible, he yet devoted immense labour to the task of proving its moral inspiration and authority, and its prophetic revelation of future events. Heterodox to¬ wards some of the fundamental articles of the Church of England, he still maintained, unquestionably, his con¬ nexion with the Church.” Again, he observes,3 “ It is altogether probable that ancient history and theology were constantly in his thoughts from youth to extreme age. He was brought up in a religious atmosphere ; it is likely that he went to Cambridge with the expectation of being ordained and of being appointed to a rural parish. And from such a career he was diverted, appar¬ ently, by the discovery of his mathematical and scientific genius, and by a certain intellectual leaning towards Arianism and unorthodox Protestantism.” In view of these undeniably true statements, and par¬ ticularly the last, it is important to attempt to assess the possible religious influences which played upon the mind 1 L. T. More, Sir Isaac Newton. 2 Ibid., p. 134. Il8

A Biography, p. 31. 3 Ibid., p. 609.

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

of Newton in his school and university days. These have been rather unduly neglected by some of his biographers. At Grantham, the officiating ministers of the church were John Angel, a noted divine of the Puritan school, Henry Vaughan and John Starkey. The last two were afterwards ejected for nonconformity. Henry Vaughan1 had been at Oxford, left without graduating, and was ordained by the Manchester Classis, 15 April 1647, at Moreton Say, Salop. Richard Baxter described him in 1671 as “ a worthy minister, lately discouraged ”. Next year he was licensed as a Presbyterian. John Starkey, lecturer at Grantham, was a Peterhouse man, graduated B.A. 1649, an(i M.A., from St. John’s, 1652. After ejection he removed to Lancashire and was licensed as a Presbyterian at Ormskirk in 1672, and was minister at Newington Green, 1686-92. By his Will, n June 1692, he left £50 towards the maintenance of “ such Nonconforming ministers who preach the Holy Word of God to people that are able to contribute but Little to their maintenance ”.2 Baxter spoke of him as “ an able, sober, judicious man of great worth ”. Such were the men whom young Newton would hear on the Sabbath, and their doctrine respecting the Bible, sacerdotalism and ritual assuredly did not fall on deaf ears. Over the Church Porch was an old library, given for the use of clergy and people at the beginning of the century by Francis Trigge,the Puritan clergyman of the neighbouring parish of Welburne. Its contents would serve, in the main, to support the preaching of the ministers, and an omnivorous reader, such as Newton was even in boyhood, would hardly neglect the opportunities this library pre¬ sented for cultivating his taste for theological learning. Whilst at Grantham, too, the Apothecary Clark, with whom Newton lodged, not only encouraged him in his 1 A. G. Matthews, Calatny Revised, pp. 500-1. 2 A. G. Matthews, ut supra, p. 460 ; Alex. Gordon, Freedom after Ejection, p. 358. Il9

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

bent towards chemistry and mechanical invention, but also allowed him the use of a collection of books stored in his attic. With his stepdaughter Newton fell in love, and before he left for Cambridge was engaged to be married. It came to nothing, though there was no breach of friendship, and the lady afterwards made two marriages. During his stay with Clark, Newton tried his hand, not unsuccessfully, at sketches and verse making. Under a picture he made of Charles the First were lines of his composition, attributing to the “ Martyr King ” the traditional piety credited to him by his faithful followers. From this it has been inferred by Professor More 1 that Newton “ was brought up in a family devoted to the Church of England and the Royalist cause ”, and “ was opposed to the prevalent sympathy of the country¬ side to Cromwell—the more significant because, in later life, he became a convinced Whig and anti-Jacobite ; and while he remained a communicant of the Church of England, he adopted a rational Protestantism very similar to that of Milton ”. The premises—the picture and the verse—scarcely justify all the conclusions drawn from them. It is significant that the story of Newton’s sketching comes ultimately from Clark, and the verse, repeated from memory, from his stepdaughter. A young man in love must not be judged too strictly as to his religious and political sentiments from the use to which he puts pen and pencil. The picture and verse may have been little more than one of Newton’s tributes paid by him to his young lady and her family whose opinions were known to be Royalist. On the other hand, the tendencies which led Newton in the direction of “ rational Protestantism ”, based on the Bible and Puritan doctrine, seem to have been planted in his mind at Grantham, and further strengthened at the university. Newton entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in June 1 Ut supra, p. 15. 120

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

1661 as a subsizar, that is, as one of an impoverished class of students with certain menial duties to perform. His tutor, Mr. Pulleyn, appears to have been a good Grecian, if little else, and was elected Regius Professor of Greek in 1674. There is manuscript evidence that as early as 1664 Newton was paying much attention to theological studies. He obtained a Minor Fellowship in 1667, graduated M.A., March 1668, was admitted a Major Fellow, and before the next year ended was actually appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics on the recommendation of Dr. Isaac Barrow, who resigned the chair. In January 1671-72 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, of which from 1703 until his death he was re-elected President annually. He was knighted by Queen Anne at Cambridge in April 1705, and is said to have been the first scientist thus honoured for academic distinction. By a crown patent in 1675 he had been permitted to hold his Fellowship together with his Professorship without taking orders—a course from which he always shrank, for it was not the only occasion on which he had to consider and reject the prospect of entering the Church. From an early period he seems to have recognized that he could not accept the ThirtyNine Articles, and declared that he could best serve the interests of religion as a layman. One of Newton’s closest associates at Trinity College as an undergraduate was John Wickins, his junior by two years, who graduated M.A. in 1670, and received from Paul Foley, afterwards Speaker of the House of Com¬ mons, the living of Stoke Edith, near Monmouth. Foley had distinct Presbyterian sympathies, and employed, as chaplain and tutor of his son, Chewning Blackmore, who had been educated at the famous noncomformist academy at Sheriff hales, Salop, and became the ancestor of several liberal dissenting divines. Paul Foley’s son, later Lord Foley, was for a time a student at the Academy. John Woodhouse, a commoner at Trinity College, Cam121 1

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

bridge, 1655, was silenced in 1662. A Calvinist in theology, Dr. Daniel Williams, who preached his funeral sermon, commended him for “ his great moderation towards all who differed in judgment, which made him acceptable to men of several denominations ”. Plainly, John Wickins, the intimate friend of Isaac Newton, must have had something in common with Paul Foley, and even with John Woodhouse, to win the patronage of the former. He may have been a relative of William Wickins, a Cambridge graduate, who after ejection was licensed as a Presbyterian in 1672, and in 1689 was colleague of John Starkey at Newington Green, and for a time acted as a dissenting tutor. He was one of the ordainers of Matthew Henry, of Chester. Newton’s interest in the spread of the knowledge of the Scriptures, the source of his doctrine, is seen from a letter written by a son of John Wickins, 16 January 172728. Newton for long dispensed a charitable bene¬ faction through Wickins, and, after his death, through his son. The son writes : “We have been the dis¬ pensers of many dozens of Bibles sent by him for poor people, and I have now many by me sent by him for the same purpose.” John Wickins must have been a trusted confidant, and his intercourse with Newton cannot have been without its influence upon his thought. Newton’s unique labours as a scientist must here be passed over. Mention, however, must be made of his avowed intent in writing the epoch-making work, Philosophies Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687), and of the use made of it by a great scholar. Richard Bentley, the first Boyle lecturer (1692), took as his subject A Confutation of Atheism, which replied to the arguments of Hobbes’ Leviathan, published forty years earlier, whose doctrine was widely accepted in Bentley’s day. Bentley took up “ Newton’s great discovery, and applied it to prove the existence of an Intelligent Providence. This view had the express sanction of Newton. His letters 122

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

to Bentley—subsequent in date to the Lectures—re¬ peatedly confirm it. ‘ When I wrote my treatise about our system/ he said, ‘ I had an eye upon such principles as might work with considering men for the belief of a Deity, and nothing can rejoice me more than to find it useful for that purpose/ In the course of four letters, Newton approves nearly all the arguments for the exist¬ ence of God which Bentley had deduced from the Principia. Newton had not previously considered all the possible applications of his own discoveries to the pur¬ poses of theological controversy.” 1 “ It is ”, said Professor L. T. More,2 “ the most striking evidence of the sanity of Newton’s genius that, while he speculated on such problems (as the nature of space, time and substance) because of the natural curiosity of the mind, he saw they could not be included in the scientific method. The conclusion of such speculations always ended for him in the acceptance of a divine provi¬ dence, of whose design we have an intuitive knowledge sufficient for us to predict with considerable accuracy a limited order of events. True science to him is restricted to the world of the finite in space, time, and substance ; both the infinitely large and the infinitely small are inaccessible to discovery through our sense perceptions and by science.” From a letter by William Law (1686-1761) to Dr. Cheyne, we learn that “ When Sir Isaac Newton died there were found amongst his papers large abstracts out of J. Behmen’s works, written with his own hand. This I have from undoubted authority ; as also that in the former part of his life, he was led into a search of the philosopher’s tincture, from the same author. It is evidently plain, that all that Sir I. has said of the uni¬ versality, nature, and effects of attraction, of the three R. C. Jebb, Bentley (English Men of Letters), pp. 25, 26, 28, 30. 2 Ut supra, p. 379. 1

123

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

first laws of nature, was not only said, but proved in its true and deepest ground by J.B. . . . It is my con¬ jecture that Sir Isaac declared so openly, at first, his total ignorance of the source or cause of attraction, to prevent all suspicion of his being led into it from Behmen’s doctrine. . . . Sir Isaac’s silence must have been affected, and for certain reasons which can now only be guessed at.” 1 Law’s statement as to Newton’s manuscript remains has been confirmed within recent years by Professor More. Christopher Walton, to whom we owe this letter of Law, also quotes him as saying,2 “ Newton himself really, though not avowedly ‘ ploughed with Behmen’s heifer ’ in bringing forth his great discoveries, for Sir Isaac did but reduce to a mathematical form the central principles of nature revealed in Behmen ...” Law then accounts for Newton’s reticence thus : 3 “ Sir Isaac well knew that prejudice and partiality had such power over many people’s judgments, that doctrines, though ever so deeply founded in and proved by all the appear¬ ance of nature, would be suspected by some as dangerous, and condemned by others even as false and wicked, had he made any references to an author that was only an enthusiastist.” Even when some allowance is made for the excessive claims of indebtedness to Boehme by Newton, it must be admitted that the caution and temerity of Newton suggested by Law in respect of his obligations to the German mystic are in keeping, as will presently appear, with his conduct as a theologian. When Newton died in 17&7, he had published nothing that could be deemed heretical. But he had written much. His friend John Craig, an eminent mathematician, gave an account of these writings, 7 April 1727, shortly Memorials of William Law (by Christopher Walton), 1854, p. 46. Ibid., p. 3. 3 Ibid., p. 84. 1

2

124

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

after Newton’s death : “ Sir Isaac Newton, to make his inquiries into the Christian religion more successful, had read the ancient writers and ecclesiastical historians with great exactness, and had drawn up in writing great collec¬ tions out of both ; and to show how earnest he was in religion, he had written a long explication of remarkable parts of the Old and New Testament, while his under¬ standing was in its greatest perfection, lest the infidels might pretend that his applying himself to the study of religion was the effect of dotage. That he would not publish these writings in his own time, because they showed that his thoughts were sometimes different from those which are commonly received, which would engage him in disputes ; and this was a thing which he avoided as much as possible. But now it’s hoped that the worthy and ingenious Mr. Conduitt will take care that they be published, that the world may see that Sir Isaac Newton was as good a Christian as he was a mathematician and philosopher.” 1 Such theological writings as were later authenticated were posthumous, and those most decisive for the deter¬ mination of his doctrinal position remained unpublished. None the less, the religious opinions of Newton have formed the subject of discussion by biographers and theologians from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, and, until recently, the most relevant facts for its final settlement remained unknown, or, at least, only partially and imperfectly known. A tradition, going back to Newton’s lifetime, attributed to him one of the earliest Unitarian Tracts (1691-1703), most of them anonymous, whose writers included at least eight clergymen. Even Newton’s friend William Whiston suspected that one Tract might be from his pen, though he admitted that a “ ludicrous paragraph ” in it was beneath Newton’s dignity and alien to his character, “ he being ever grave and serious, and never dealing in 1 Brewster, Life of Sir Isaac Newton, II, p. 249.

I25

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

ludicrous matters at all; and there appearing no positive evidence that he did write it, though I am well satisfied it was written by some masterly hand, and one very well versed in the history of the fourth century, which char¬ acters do not meet more naturally in any one at that time than in Sir I. N ” 1 The Tract in question is The Acts of Great Athanasius (1690) in the First Collection. That Tract includes Brief Notes on the Creed of St. Athanasius, said to “ have been made by another hand ”, and originally “ printed by themselves.” Neither the author of The Acts nor of the Brief Notes can be identified. Possibly the tradi¬ tion arose because something was known by his friends of Newton’s intense dislike of Athanasianism or of his voluminous writings on Athanasius, which remained unpublished. There is, however, no good reason for questioning the verdict of Robert Wallace : 2 “It seems improbable that Sir Isaac Newton was one of the writers of the old Unitarian Tracts.” From what we now know of Newton’s library, he does not appear to have had any of these Tracts amongst his books, though it is known that he possessed a few of the Polish Socinian publications. Voltaire, who was in England about three years, 172629, wrote to M. Theriot in the year of Newton’s death, “ The Arian party is beginning to recover in England, as well as in Holland and Poland. The great Newton honoured this opinion by his approbation. This philo¬ sopher thought that the Unitarians reasoned more geometrically than we.” Two of Newton’s contemporaries went further than the rest in their definitions of his theology. Hopton Haynes (1672-1749), as reported by his friend Richard Baron (d. 1766), declared that Newton was an Arian, and, in the doctrine of Christ’s pre-existence, a Socinian, 1 A Collection of Authentic Records, Part II, p. 1078 (1728). 2 Antitrinitarian Biography (1850), I, p. 305.

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and lamented that his friend Samuel Clarke had stopped at Arianism. To Haynes, Newton is said to have prophesied that “ The time will come when the doctrine of the Incarnation, as commonly received, shall be exploded as an absurdity equal to transubstantiation.” William Whiston (1672-1749) affirmed that Newton was an Eusebian or Arian, and in published writings fre¬ quently alluded to his religious opinions. Richard Baron was a radical religious and political thinker, who, amongst other literary labours, edited the prose works of Milton. Haynes, Baron and Whiston were avowed Unitarians, and presumably knew what was meant by the words they used. What was more, two of them were friends of Newton ; Haynes being his fellow-servant in the Mint for thirty years, and Whiston his deputy and successor in the Mathematical Chair at Cambridge. “ Hopton Haynes’s entrance into the Mint ”, said Alexander Gordon, “ was nearly synchronous with Sir Isaac Newton’s appointment as Warden [19 March 1696], and it is not improbable that he was a protege of Newton, with whom he was very intimate till Newton’s death. He attended the services of the established church, sitting down at certain points ‘ to show his dislike ’, till Samuel Say, the Presbyterian minister, told him his practice was inconsistent, and he never again attended any place of worship.” Amongst his writings were Causa Dei Novatores, two tracts with different sub-titles, pub¬ lished anonymously in 1747, and, posthumously, The Scripture Account of the Worship of God and of the Character and Offices of Jesus Christ, 1762, which ran to four editions. Whiston’s acquaintance with Newton began in 1694. Ten years later his own suspicion that the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity was unknown to the early Christian writers was aroused. This, he tells us, had long been Newton’s opinion. “ About 1704, or not much later it was, that I discovered my friend Mr, Clarke (Dr. Samuel Clarke) had been looking into the 127

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

primitive writers, and begun to suspect that the Athanasian doctrine of the Trinity was not the doctrine of the early ages, which I had not then any particular knowledge of . . . whether Mr. Newton had given Mr. Clarke yet any intimations of that nature, for he knew it long before that time ; or whether it arose from some enquiries of his own, I do not directly know ; though I incline to the latter.”1 For some time Whiston’s friendship with Newton amounted almost to intimacy. He tells us 2 of Newton’s “ making me first his Deputy, and giving me the full profits of the place ; [he] brought me to be a Candidate, as his recommendation of me to the Heads of Colleges in Cambridge, made me his successor ; so did I enjoy a large portion of his favour for twenty years together. But he then perceiving that I could not do as his other darling friends did, that is learn of him, with¬ out contradicting him, when I differed in opinion from him, he could not, in his old age, bear such contradic¬ tion.” It was to Whiston that Newton gave in 1694 the first account of the law of gravitation. In 1707 Newton must have sanctioned the publication by Whiston of his Arithmetica Universalis—an evidence of his confidence, for in Whiston’s words, “ he was of the most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper that I ever knew H. M. Taylor says : 3 “We are not accurately informed how Whiston obtained possession of this work, but it is stated by one of the editors of the English edition ‘ that Mr. Whiston, thinking it a pity that so noble and useful a work should be doomed to a college confinement, obtained leave to make it public ’.” This would appear to be so. Of Biot’s suggestion that the Arithmetica was published by Whiston without Newton’s knowledge, L. T. More says 4 that it “ seems improbable, since the 1 2 3 4

Historical Memorials of Dr. S. Clarke, pp. 8, 9. Memoirs (1749), pp. 293, 294. Encyclopcedia Britannica (nth ed.). Ut supra, p. 529, n. 40.

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manuscript was in the possession of the University, and would not be surrendered without the author’s consent. It is far more probable that another reason caused Newton to republish it in 1712 with Machin’s name as editor. Two years earlier Whiston had been expelled from the University for heterodoxy and irreligion, and Newton would be reluctant to have his name or work associated with one who was a confessed Arian, as he was, himself, suspected of that taint.” Through Hopton Haynes, Whiston had sent to Newton his pamphlet on infant baptism, in which he tried to show that the early Christian Fathers, when they speak of the baptism of little children, mean young persons capable of instruction, and “ desired to know his opinion. The answer returned was this, that they both had dis¬ covered the same before. Nay, I afterwards found that Sir Isaac was so hearty for the Baptists, as well as for the doctrines of Eusebius and Arius, that he sometimes suspected they were the two Witnesses in the Revela¬ tion.” 1 In the opinion of Professor More, “ to tear off the veil behind which Newton carefully concealed his private opinions and to expose them to public criticism, aroused his bitter resentment, and, perhaps, his fear of being involved in a similar punishment ”. Whiston maintained in 1728 that he was persecuted “ for the very same Christian doctrines, which the great Sir Isaac Newton had discovered and embraced many years before . . . and for which, had he ventured as plainly and openly to publish them to the world as I thought myself obliged to do ”, the authorities at Cambridge “ must thirty or forty years ago have expelled and persecuted him ”.2 Certainly, when Whiston was expelled from the Uni¬ versity, 30 October 1710, Newton exhibited no great 1 Whiston, Authentic Records, Pt. II, 1075. 1st ed., p. 206. 2 Ibid., p. 1080. 129

Also Memoirs,

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

concern ; in this respect contrasting unfavourably with the pugnacious Master of Trinity. Dr. Bentley “ took no share in the proceedings against Whiston, endeavoured to persuade him not to court ruin ”, and apparently influenced the postponement of the appointment of a successor “ to give him an opportunity, by timely recanta¬ tion, to resume his status in the University ”.1 We learn little of Newton’s heterodoxy from his acknowledged and posthumous works—the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms (1728) and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733). These are “ dated ” by their contents, and, not unfittingly, are the two writings of Newton most in evidence at second-book shops. It was appropriate that the Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, reprinted in 1831, edited by Peter Borthwick, should be dedicated to Henry Drummond, of Allbury Park, the stout pillar of the Catholic Apostolic Church, which throve on prophecies, ancient and modern. Newton, indeed, did not question the veracity of the Book of Daniel, and declared that to reject its prophecies “is to reject the Christian religion. For this religion is founded upon his Prophecy concerning the Messiah ”.2 In literary criticism, however, Newton was more original. Chris¬ tian commentators hitherto had been dependent upon Jewish and Patristic tradition, and credited Daniel with writing the whole book. Newton held that “ the last six chapters contain prophecies written at several times by Daniel himself; the first six are a collection of historical papers written by others ”.3 Apocalyptic study in all its range and significance was as yet un¬ born, and the modern view of Daniel as “ a tract for the times ” would have seemed in the eighteenth cen¬ tury to strike a fatal blow at the doctrine of biblical revelation. J. H. Monk, Life of Richard Bentley, I, pp. 290-1. 2 Observations . . ., p. 25. 3 Ibid., p. 10.

1

130

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It is worth observing that in a note in this work Newton refers to the ancient prophets “ drawing parables from things that came under their notice ”, adding that “ Christ, being endued with a nobler prophetic spirit than the rest, excelled also in this kind of speaking ”, whilst in another note upon the Apocalypse of St. John, he speaks of the worship described in the fifth chapter as “ the worship of the primitive Christians ”, i.e. a worship which does not name the Trinity or the Holy Spirit, whilst recognizing the redemptive work of Christ —two passages, which, by what is said and left unsaid, could hardly proceed from a Trinitarian. Samuel Morgan, of Cullompton, editing (1791) a revision of the Prayer Book, declared : “ Everything in the Christian Church should be tried by the scriptures, and settled according to the determination of Christ and the declarations of the Apostles. These are the rules of our faith, worship and practice.” He then quotes Newton’s Observations : “ The authority of emperors, kings and princes is human, the authority of councils, synods, bishops and presbyters is human ; the authority of the prophet is divine, and comprehends the sum of religion, reckoning Moses and the apostles among the prophets, and if an angel from heaven preach any other gospel than what they have delivered let him be accursed.” 1 What has been rightly described as New¬ ton’s “ most important work in theology ” is An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of the Scriptures, In a Letter to a Friend, discussing the two Trinitarian prooftexts, 1 John v. 7 and 1 Timothy iii. 16. It was written, in its first draft, between 1687 and 1690, for in it is a reference to a testimony of Dr. Gilbert Burnet as “ lately given in the first letter of his Travels ”, a volume published in 1687, and the existence of the Historical Account in 1690 is certain. 1

A. E. Peaston, The Prayer Book Reform Movement

p. 72.

n

1

•»

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

The texts discussed in An Historical Account are : i John v. 7 (A.V.) : “ For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” i Timothy iii. 16 (A.V.) : “ And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness : God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.”

In his discussion of the first text, Newton may have been anticipated by Richard Simon, the French Roman Catholic biblical critic, whose Histoire critique du texte du Nouveau Testament was published in 1689, and is quoted by Newton ; but, in his criticism of the second, he was breaking new ground. It would seem, however, that Newton’s original draft sent to Locke was written independently of the work of Simon, and probably before it, for, in a letter to Locke, Le Clerc, into whose hands it had come, says : “I believe that it would be better if the author had read with care what M. Simon has said in his Histoire critique du Nouveau Testament.” This hint was clearly passed on to Newton by Locke, for, in reply to a letter from Locke, Le Clerc says that he “ will take care to insert in the dissertation on the passage in St. John the addition which he had sent him Two quotations from Simon are found in the publication based on the manuscript of which Le Clerc spoke. Richard Porson, who thought wrongly that Newton wrote the Dissertation on 1 John v. 7 “ between 1690 and 1700 ”, gives therefore a misleading account of it when he says 1 that Newton “ collected, arranged, and strengthened Simon’s argument ”, though correctly add¬ ing that he “ gave a clear, exact and comprehensive view of the whole question ”. Newton differed from Simon in accusing Jerome of “ having deliberately inserted 1 John v. 7 into the Vul1

Letters to Archdeacon Travis on 1 John v. 7 (1790), p. hi.

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gate ”. “ One of his strongest arguments is the fact that during the loud and bitter controversy at the Council of Nicasa in a.d. 325 which was waged on the doctrine of the Trinity, none of the Athanasian party makes any reference to this witness of ‘ The Three in Heaven k1 The French scholar admits that verse seven is a spurious insertion in the Vulgate, but he claims that it was inter¬ polated in the Latin text by Victor, Eveque de Vite, who lived a century after Jerome.” It is now thought that the verse “ originated either in Spain or Africa before the end of the fourth century ”, and that “ Jerome took over what was already in existence ”.2 Newton had intended to publish his treatise anony¬ mously, but later resolved to suppress it. He sent it to his friend John Locke, then contemplating a trip to Holland. Writing from Cambridge, September 1690, Newton said : “I had answered your letter sooner, but that I stayed to revise and send you the papers which you desire, but the consulting of authors proved more tedious than I expected ...” Six weeks later, 14 November, he writes again : “I fear the length of what I have to say on both texts may occasion you too much trouble, and therefore if at present you get only what concerns the first done into French, that of the other may stay till we see what success the first will have,” adding, “ I may perhaps after it has gone abroad long enough in French, put it forth in English.” Locke, being unable to go abroad, made a copy of it, and sent it without the name of the writer to his friend Jean Le Clerc, professor in the Dutch Remonstrant College, at Amsterdam, for translation and publication. Then, on 1 Cp. J. B. Lightfoot, On a Fresh Revision of the English New Testament, p. 25. “ The very fact that it is nowhere quoted by the great controversial writers of the fourth and fifth centuries has been truly regarded as the strongest evidence against its genuineness.” 2 L. T. More, ut supra, p. 635.

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16 February 1691 Newton wrote to Locke : “I was of opinion my papers had lain still, and am sorry there is news about them. Let me entreat you to stop their translation and impression as soon as you can, for I design to suppress them. If your friend hath been at any pains and charge, I will repay it and gratify him.” In a further letter, three months later, he said he was “ glad the edition was stopped ”. From Le Clerc’s letters to Locke, it is plain he realized the value of the manuscript, wras anxious to publish it, and was convinced the unknown author would not be identified through the guise of the translation. In April 1691/92 he wrote to Locke : “ It is a pity that this dissertation is to be sup¬ pressed. I do not think that any one could possibly recognize it in a translation. In a work of this sort, I should use such freedom in rendering it that no one would suppose it to be a translation. . . .” In a sub¬ sequent letter, he said : “I will take great care of the papers until you tell me what the author would like me to do with them. I can assure you that the authorship neither of this nor of any other anonymous publication issued from this place would be divulged on the spot, so that it could not possibly be knowrn on your side of the channel.” Newton’s hardly concealed view of the Trinity appears in the discussion of both texts. Having observed of the Johannine text that “ in Jerome’s time and both before and long after it, this text was never thought of ”, he says : “ It is now in everybody’s mouth, and accounted the main text for the business ”—a reference to the current Trinitarian controversy. A similar expression occurs in the discussion of the Timothy text. “ In all the times of the hot and lasting Arian controversy, it never came into play, though now these disputes are over, they that read ‘ God manifest in the flesh ’ think it one of the most obvious and pertinent texts for the business.” On 1 John v. 7, he remarks : “ Let them

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make good sense of it who are able; for my part, I can make none. If it be said that we are not to determine what is Scripture, and what not, by our private judgment, I confess it in places, not controversial, but in disputable places, I love to take up what I can best understand. It is the temper of the hot and superstitious part of man¬ kind, in matters of religion, ever to be fond of mysteries, and for that reason, to like best what they understand least.” He preferred “ to believe that the Apostle John wrote good sense ”. Again, speaking of the manuscript of the New Testament, on the authority of which Erasmus was induced to introduce the verse into the third edition of his Greek Testament in 1522, he says : “ After the English got the Trinity into his edition, they threw by them their manuscript (if they had one)1 as an Almanac out of date,” and later, referring to Cyprian, “ He does not say ‘ The Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost as it is in the seventh verse, but ‘ The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost ’, as it is in the Baptism (Matthew xxviii. 19) the place from which they tried at first to derive the Trinity.” The italics are mine. It is safe to say that such expressions as these would not be used by a Trinitarian. It is generally said by Newton’s biographers, including Henry Martin Taylor in the Encyclopcedia Britannica (nth ed.), R. T. Glazebrook in the Dictionary of National Biography, and L. T. More in the standard life of the scientist (but not in the life by Brewster) that after Locke’s death in 1704 Jean Le Clerc deposited the manuscript in the Library of the Remonstrant College. Le Clerc him¬ self, in an Epistle prefixed to Kuster’s reprint of John Mill’s Greek Testament (Rotterdam 1710, 2nd ed. 1723) says (Englished) : in a note on 1 Timothy iii. 16, “ I have Codex Montfortianus, in Dublin, was the authority which induced Erasmus to insert the verse. The MS. belongs to the sixteenth century, and the verse is described by Dr. Souter as “ a forged entry.” 1

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in my possession an elegant dissertation in English, writ¬ ten by I know not whom, and transmitted to me a long time since by that illustrious man, John Locke, in which ‘ quod ’, the reading of the Vulgate is defended. It is well worthy of seeing the light; and perhaps would have been printed ere now, had it not been necessary to translate it into Latin.” In all the critical discussions which he afterwards wrote, Le Clerc made no further allusion to the manu¬ script, or disclosed its contents—an evidence of his scrupulosity, and his loyalty to the injunctions of John Locke. In his own edition of the New Testament (1703), he retained 1 John v. 7, though exhibiting his own con¬ viction of its unauthenticity, and, in what follows, his own lack of courage. “ Neanmoins ce passage etant re$u dans nos Bibles, on n’a pas cru devoir l’omettre, comme Luther l’avait fait dans sa version.” In 1754, an edition of the Dissertations was printed “ for J. Payne, London ”, said to be “ published from the authentick manuscripts in the Library of the Remon¬ strants in Holland ”, and bearing the erroneous title of Two Letters from, Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Le Clerc, late Divinity Professor of the Remonstrants in Holland. The anonymous editor said: “ The manuscript of these Two Letters is still preserved in the Library of the Remonstrants in Holland. It was lodged there by Mr. Le Clerc, and it was sent to him by the famous Mr. Locke, and is actually in the handwriting of this Gentle¬ man. And notwithstanding the Letters have acknow¬ ledged defects, the Editor thought it a pity that the world should be longer deprived of these Two Pieces, as they now are, since they cannot be obtained more perfect, all other copies of them being either lost or destroyed.” What was surmised to have been omitted at the begin¬ ning of the script, as far as page thirteen, is supplied, with a note at the foot: “ The Editor must inform the 136

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

reader, that thus far is not Sir Isaac’s ; the Copy trans¬ mitted to him fairly acknowledges it, and adds, that the four first paragraphs of the Manuscript are lost; and that as there were no hopes of recovering them, they were supplied not out of vanity, but merely to lay before the reader those passages, which the Letter itself plainly shows had been made use of by the author himself; and to the purposes, as is apprehended, they are here sub¬ servient to : and an assurance is also given, that all which follows the words ‘ He makes use of it ’ are Sir Isaac’s own without alteration.” At the end of the Letters, in an “ Advertisement ” of the Editor, it is said : “ The Manuscript is defective in the end of the Second Letter; neither can it be absolutely determined, how much is lost.” It actually ends in the middle of a sentence. The statement that all other copies of the Letters were “ either lost or destroyed ”, as will be shown, was incor¬ rect ; nor was it Le Clerc who deposited the manuscript in the Library. He retained it as long as he lived. In Wetstein’s Prolegomena to his great work the Novum Testamentum Graecum (2 vols., 4to) published in 1751, that is, three years before the publication of the muti¬ lated edition of the Letters, the author writes (Englished) : “ That illustrious man, Sir Isaac Newton, wrote in English two Letters on the true reading of 1 John v. 7 and 1 Timothy iii. 16 ; with such critical judgment and such diligence, having collected from every quarter all the recorded evidence by means of which the problems could be elucidated, from codices, versions, Latin and Greek Fathers and ecclesiastical history, that he almost reduced the question to a mathematical demonstration ; a task which scarcely seemed possible to be effected by any man, and least of all by a person engaged in a totally different line of study. These epistles John Locke transcribed with his own hand, and communicated to Le Clerc, who made mention of them in 1708, in his

137

K

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

letter prefixed to Kuster’s reprint of Mill.” He then quoted the words of Le Clerc given above, and con¬ tinued : “ After the death of the learned Professor Le Clerc (1736), these two Letters, but unfortunately mutilated, the one at the beginning, the other at the end, were put into my hands, along with a bundle of letters written to him, in order that they might be placed in the Library of the Remonstrants ; and I earnestly but ineffectually besought the heirs of Sir Isaac Newton, in whose possession I knew that copies were extant, both in English and translated into Latin by Hopton Haynes, to supply me with what was wanting in our copy. Of these Letters, William Whiston and J. Berriman have also made mention.” In his critical note on the Timothy passage, Wetstein adds an appreciation of Newton’s discussion of it, and states that after his death, he was attacked “ in a Critical Dissertation upon this text, printed at London ten years ago ”. Presumably, some time before 1754, Wetstein placed the manuscript of the Two Letters in the Remonstrant Library, where in the year named it was copied with the addition and notes already named. The addition at the beginning is longer than the corresponding section in An Historical Account, published by Bishop Horsley. Who wrote it ? Locke died in 1707, Le Clerc in 1736. It is improbable that an unknown English student should have enjoyed access to the manuscript, and, even more, should have been able to write the scholarly and critical section in question. As Dr. Abraham Rees observed ;1 “ The author of the new Introduction has shown himself to be a man of learning, well acquainted with the subject.” A casual student at Amsterdam could not speak of “ the Copy transmitted to him ”, as Wetstein could, without the slightest deviation from the truth. Wetstein was a professor at the Remonstrant College, had handed over the manuscript to the Library, and was eminently 1 Lord King, Life of John Locke, I, p. 426. 138

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

capable of making the necessary scholarly addition to it. In 1751 he had acknowledged that he had not been able to amend the manuscript from an authoritative English copy, and in 1754 it is said “ there were no hopes of recovering ” what was lost. If Wetstein were the anonymous Editor, he would doubtless desire to conceal his identity from the heirs of Newton who had refused him a sight of the missing portions of the Dis¬ sertations, and would not sanction his publication of it. It is certainly impossible that the manuscript should have come into the hands of a scholar in England before being placed in the Library. There is the best authority for denying that possibility, namely Wetstein himself in his Prolegomena, when tracing its origin, career and ultimate destination. It was published in English and at London, not merely because that was how and where the Two Letters could best find circulation, but also, if Wetstein were responsible for its publication, that it might remove from his shoulders any responsibility for its appearance. The statement that the manuscript was “ lodged by Mr. Le Clerc ” in the Library might be held to express his ultimate purpose rather than his precise act, and would certainly serve to conceal the identity of the actual editor. The remark that “ All other copies were either lost or destroyed ”, if Wetstein’s, who knew differently, can only be explained as an attempt to justify piracy at the cost of veracity. Even this would not be quite out of accord with the character and practice of Wetstein. He was an astute controversialist, and not afflicted with excessive scruples in the execution of his schemes. All things considered, it seems likely that he was the unknown editor of the mutilated edition of the Two Letters published in 1754. In the critical and ample discussion of Wetstein’s Prolegomena by his latest biographer, Mr. HulbertPowell, published in 1938 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, nothing is said of his handling

139

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of Newton’s Letters. Mr. Hulbert-Powell recognizes Wetstein’s heterodoxy, his rejection from the text of the New Testament of i John v. 7, his omission of the word “ God ” from 1 Timothy iii. 16, and his preference for Newton’s reading of the neuter relative. The bio¬ grapher also supports Wetstein in his textual preferences, and then quotes two Frenchmen who said : “ There are abundant other passages in the New Testament to prove the doctrine of the Holy Trinity.” These are not given. There is more to be said of the Prolegomena and the light it throws upon the existence of Newtonian manu¬ scripts in England. Dr. Abraham Rees said more than a century ago : “ The history of these valuable Tracts is but imperfectly known,” but he too did not mention Wetstein’s contribution to it. Bishop Horsley, in the incomplete list of Newton manuscripts given in his edition of Newton’s Works (1779-85), mentions a Latin translation of An Historical Account, which undoubtedly was that made by Hopton Haynes, whose name, as a convinced Unitarian, he could not bring himself to disclose. Whiston in 1728 said :1 “ These Dissertations were both put into Latin by a common friend of Sir I. N.’s and mine (elsewhere identified as Haynes) many years ago, by Sir I. N.’s desire, and, I suppose, with a design to have them printed . . . they were not printed at that time, and are now in the hands of Sir I. N.’s Executors.” Alexander Gordon says Haynes made the translation “ after 1708 Hopton Haynes himself, in 1747, after referring to the persecution of Thomas Emlyn, says : 2 “ The spirit of Popery is not quite exorcised. It kept in awe, and silenced some extraordinary persons amongst us, Sir P(eter) K(ing), Sir J(oseph) J(ekyl)l, and the greatest man of the age, and glory of the British Nation, I mean, 1 Authentic Records, Part II, p. 1077. 2 Causa Dei Novatores, p. 31.

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the renowned Sir I(saac) N(ewto)n, who, amongst his other MSS., has left behind him a short Discourse upon the pretended text of St. John, which (with others now in the hands of a noble Lord) will, ’tis hoped, be pub¬ lished in convenient time.” Hopton Haynes’s con¬ nexion with a manuscript of the Dissertations attests his friendship with Newton, and confirms his witness to the Unitarianism of his friend Sir Isaac Newton.1 “ The mention of these Letters ” by Whiston, to which the Prolegomena of Wetstein refers, occurs in a letter by him to a certain John Dupee, at Norwich, dated “ April 20, 1738 “ He was a stranger to me ”, says Whiston,2 “ but one that was to communicate the letter to some worthy Unitarians at Norwich, who had desired my opinion and advice in some points of great consequence.” The letter, which is of considerable length, contains the following allusion to Newton’s work : “ The text your Athanasian has pitched upon, i Tim. iii. 16, is unluckily chosen for a determination of such a controversy, since it is so very doubtful whether the true reading had the word ‘ God ’ or not. I have now by me a dissertation of Sir Isaac Newton’s to disprove that reading.” Whiston’s copy must also have been a manuscript, and was in his possession, at latest, three years after Newton’s death. He does not mention the dissertation on the Johannine text, which may not have formed part of the script before him. The manuscript may have been given him by Newton himself, in which event it certainly contributed to the opinion he had formed of its author’s heterodoxy. The fact that he does not mention it when writing of Newton’s heresy may suggest that it only came into his hands after his death ; but, on the other hand, the fact that Newton’s heirs refused a copy to Wetstein tells rather in favour of 1 None of Newton’s biographers exhibit acquaintance with Hopton Haynes’s writings. See p. 127. 2 Authentic Records, Pt. II, p. 1077.

H1

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Whiston having obtained his from Newton, before the two men became estranged. John Berriman (1691-1768), the third person said by Wetstein to have had a manuscript of the dissertations, was an Oxford graduate (1729) and the author of A Critical Dissertation on 1 Timothy Hi. 16, wherein . . . the common Reading of that Text God was manifested in the Flesh, is proved to be the true one. Being the Sub¬ stance of Eight Sermons preach'd at the Lady Moyer's Lecture, in the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, London, in the Years iygy and 1738. (8vo., pp. xxviii + 351) London,

I74I*

In his preface Berriman acknowledges that “ It was by the advice ” of Daniel Waterland, the most distin¬ guished defender of orthodoxy in the eighteenth century, that he “ undertook the Examination of that Text . . . By his assistance it was carried on. He saw every Sermon soon after it was preach’d . . . was pleased to approve of them, and insisted upon a Publication.” He was also greatly indebted to Dr. John Walker, a classical scholar who had assisted Richard Bentley in his New Testament textual researches, for the accounts of manuscripts, as he quaintly says, “ communicated to him with great humanity and civility by the Reverend and very learned Archdeacon ”. Anything less like Sermons than this treatise can hardly be imagined, but endowed lectures delivered from pulpits in the eighteenth century little resembled ministerial discourses in our own day. Besides, three or four years’ revision, and the assistance of the scholars named, may well have transformed the original utterances out of all recognition by their hearers in St. Paul’s. Berriman quotes, and severely criticises, the first three Collections of the Unitarian Tracts, which he calls “ Socinian Pamphlets ”, but exhibits no knowledge of their writers. In the same spirit he discusses references to the Timothy text by four Polish Socinians—Smalcius, 142

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

Schlichtingius, Crellius, and Przipcovius—and alludes to Le Clerc’s “ mention of this curious Dissertation ”. He makes no reference to Newton’s first Dissertation on 1 John v. 7, and apparently never saw it. Whiston’s manuscript also, as we have seen, judging from his silence respecting the “ Three Heavenly Witnesses ” text, contained only the Dissertation on the Timothy passage. But, unlike Whiston and Haynes, Berriman did not know who wrote the manuscript before him, and entertained no respect for his judgment. He speaks of the writer as “ the anonymous Author of a Dissertation on this text ”, “ this Gentleman ”, and “ This writer ”. “A very little matter will satisfy some people ”, he says, “ but this gentleman is the first that ever was, and possibly he may be the last, that will be satisfied . . . that Cassius wrote in Greek.” Elsewhere he plainly implies dis¬ agreement with “ the learned Mr. Le Clerc ”, who thought the manuscript “ worthy to be printed ”. Berri¬ man quotes in extenso two passages from his manuscript, and gives a summary of a third. The first quotation corresponds exactly with the text of both the manu¬ script at Amsterdam published in 1754 and that of Newton’s manuscript published by Horsley ; the second differs from both only in the use of a comparative adjective for a positive. In discussing the first passage Berriman corrects Newton’s account of the reading by Nestorius of the neuter relative for the word “ God ”, and, discussing the second, negatives the assumption that Cassius wrote in Greek. In both respects he was almost certainly right. Other more important arguments he does not examine in his discussion of the Dissertation. There is no evidence as to when or where Berriman obtained the manuscript, and he ventured on no con¬ jecture as to its authorship or significance. Possibly Waterland procured it for his protegd to do his best, or worst, with it. Abraham Rees’ conjecture,1 if it is 1 Lord King, Life of Locke, I, p. 434.

H3

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

nothing more, that besides the manuscript sent to Locke in 1690 Newton “ at a later period must have written many other copies ” is now seen to be justified. Confirming the knowledge of Dissertations by Newton in this country when Berriman and Whiston mentioned the manuscripts, there is the evidence of the Swedish Professor Bjornstahl, writing in German.1 He tells us that he visited (8 December 1774) “ the learned Mr. Fontein, an Anabaptist preacher and scholar, who, in the year 1738 had been to England, made the acquaint¬ ance of the great Bentley, and at Cambridge heard many anecdotes of Newton. He told me Newton had written a Dissertation to prove that the passage (1 John v. 7) was not original, and the text, without this verse, had a much better connection.” The story shows that at Cambridge in 1738 the Dis¬ sertation was spoken of, whether on the evidence of existing manuscripts, or, as is perhaps more likely, as a bit of current academic gossip, not without foundation. Anyhow, Wetstein’s references to Haynes, Whiston and Berriman, and their confirmation, proves that Newton’s Dissertations in manuscript were known to at least three persons in England before their first publica¬ tion in 1754. When these copies were made, by whom, and from what original are questions not easily answered. When Newton sent the first manuscript to Locke in November, 1690, he said : “I have no entire copy besides that I send you, and therefore would not have it lost.” Locke accordingly copied it himself, and returned the original to Newton, who presumably made copies for his friends, doubtless with a view to eliciting their opinions on the subjects of his Dissertations. An Historical Account . . ., printed by Horsley, was said to be “ published entire from a manuscript in the Author’s handwriting in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Ekens, 1 Correspondence of Sir J. Edleston, p. lxxx.

Isaac

H4

Newton

(1850),

edited

by

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

Dean of Carlisle ”, and this manuscript can be traced back to Newton and his heirs. Assuredly, Locke, at least, had no hand in making or circulating copies of the manuscript. He always carefully guarded the anony¬ mity of his own theological writings, and had scrupu¬ lously kept faith with his friend Newton. The same can be said of Le Clerc, his friend being John Locke. As Le Clerc said in 1710 that he did not know who wrote the Letters, it must be that either before he died in 1736 he was better informed and passed on the informa¬ tion to Wetstein, or Wetstein gained his knowledge of Newton’s authorship from Whiston, or some English friend who knew it. Brewster says 1 that Le Clerc “ no doubt learned it from the writings of Whiston, who after Newton’s death, mentioned the Dissertations as his production ”.2 It may be so, but it cannot be assumed that Le Clerc was responsible for the title given to the publication of 1754—Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Le Clerc—for he knew they were not addressed to him, and had nothing to do with that publication. Moreover, in acknowledging to Locke the receipt of the manuscript, he described it as the His¬ torical Account, etc., the title which Newton himself must have given it when he sent it to Locke. John Towill Rutt, writing in 1830,3 goes hopelessly astray in his reference to “ the first form of the Letter ” (on the “ Three Heavenly Witnesses ”) as “ addressed to Le Clerc, of which the original MS. in French, is under¬ stood to be preserved in the library of the Remonstrants in Holland ” Wetstein was in England from August 1715 to July 1716 engaged on New Testament research, and visited, amongst other places, London, Oxford, and Cambridge. 1 Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, II, p. 268.

2 Authentic Records (1728), p. 1077. 3 E. Calamy, An Historical Account of My Own Life, ed. J. T. Rutt, II, p. 443, n.

H5

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

In the summer of 1746 he was again in this country on the same errand. On one of these visits, probably the latter, or in the course of his constant correspondence with English scholars, he must have discovered who wrote the Dissertations, with whose conclusions he was in complete agreement. It is surely not a mere coincidence that, with the exception of John Berriman, who did not know the author of the manuscript he used, all the scholars in England and Holland who are known to have handled the manu¬ script copies of Newton’s Letter—Locke, Le Clerc, Whiston, Haynes and Wetstein—were acknowledged or suspected Unitarians. Apart from Newton’s anxiety not to allow his theological heresies to stand in the way of his scientific pursuits, there was good reason why he should act with great circumspection in the matter of the Dissertations, and also why those entrusted with manuscript copies of it should be above suspicion of unfriendliness towards seemingly “ heretical ” discussions of the sacred text. In the Toleration Act, passed shortly before Newton sent his Letters to Locke, those were excepted from its provisions who wrote against “ the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity ”, and, as Hopton Haynes suggested, the persecu¬ tion of Thomas Emlyn, who had challenged the authen¬ ticity of the “ Three Heavenly Witnesses ” text, had “ silenced ” Newton and other liberals. In 1694 appeared John Smith’s Designed End to the Socinian Controversy, published under his own name, but unlicensed and without printer’s or publisher’s name. The author was a celebrated clock-maker, and had written at least ten works on Clocks, chronology, baro¬ meters, painting and health. His Horological Dialogues (1671) is said by F. J. Brittain, to have been “ probably the first book in English on Watch- and Clock-making ”. His Designed End was probably printed at the author’s expense for private circulation. In a reply to it, A Divine 146

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727) Antidote to a Devilish Poison (1696) by Dr. Francis

Gregory, John Smith is described as “an illiterate mechanic ”, “ apron schoolman ”, etc., and bidden “ mind the springs, wheels and movements of clocks ”, and “ leave the interpretation of scripture to learned men ”. Gregory quotes the “ Three Heavenly Wit¬ nesses ” text seven times, and says of it that it does “ so gall the Socinians, that they would willingly expunge and blot it quite out of the Canon ”. For his publication of the Designed End, Smith was brought before the Spiritual Court in London, and compelled to retract his opinions. The book was suppressed so completely that it was almost unknown until 1793, nearly a century later, when it was accidentally discovered by Michael Dodson (1732-99), a lawyer and a biblical scholar, and reprinted. The identity of Smith and the procedure in Court were not made clear until 1829, when J. Towill Rutt, the editor of Priestley’s Works, brought them to light. To J. S., otherwise John Smith, the fourth Tract in the Second Collection of Unitarian Tracts was dedi¬ cated in 1693. Probably his prosecution and recantation account for the non-inclusion of the Designed End in the Collections. As a member of the Firmin circle, Smith may have been known to Locke, and his case to Newton. In 1698 an Act for the “ Suppression of Blasphemy and Profaneness ” provided that “ whoever by printing, teaching, or advisedly speaking, denied one of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be God ” should “ for the first offence be disabled to have any office or employment, ecclesiastical, civil, or military, or any profit appertaining thereunto ” with much heavier penalties for a second offence. In 1711 Newton’s old friend, William Whiston, was dismissed from his Chair at Cambridge for holding Arian opinions. In 1779-85 was published the definitive edition of Newton’s works, Isaaci Newtoni Opera quae exstant omnia (5 vols, qto.), edited by Bishop Horsley, the HI

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

brilliant but unscrupulous opponent of Joseph Priestley. Horsley included in Vol. V, An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of the Scriptures in a Letter to a Friend. It was printed in full from Newton’s manu¬

script, probably not only because a copy had been printed and circulated in a mutilated form in 1754, but also because manuscript copies of the work were known to be in the country. Its inclusion must have been very distasteful to the zealous champion of orthodoxy, and, commenting on a passage in Newton’s discussion of 1 Timothy iii. 16, he says in a footnote : “ The in¬ sinuation that the Trinity is not to be derived from the baptismal form (Matthew xxviii. 19) is very extra¬ ordinary to come from a writer who was not a Socinian. The italics are mine. The text of this edition, apart from the different opening sections of the Letters of 1754 and its lost con¬ clusion, differs from the earlier work, not only verbally, but also materially by way of addition and correction. Horsley doubtless wished to give the impression that Newton’s manuscript was written once for all in order to discredit the anonymous edition and any possible publication based on another script. Hence he describes the print of 1754 as “ imperfect and erroneous in many places ”, and H. M. Taylor in the Encyclopcedia Britannica simply borrows his words, and then describes Horsley’s edition as “ genuine in contrast to the earlier edition.” But John Locke was not the man to add, or take away, one jot or tittle when copying a manuscript of Newton for publication, and Wetstein may be trusted to have printed exactly as it stood a manuscript of which he thought so highly, written by so eminent a scholar. The fact is, of course, that Newton continued to work on the subject of the two texts long after he sent his first manu¬ script of it in 1690 to John Locke. Evidence of this has been already given in the two quotations from Richard Simon added by Newton after Le Clerc had called Locke’s 148

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

attention to Simon’s work, and to those two quotations in the publication of 1765, Newton added a third in the manuscript published by Bishop Horsley twenty years later. In his preface, or “ Advertisement ” as it is called, Horsley says : “A very imperfect copy of this Tract, wanting both the beginning and the end, and erroneous in many places, was published at London in the year 1754, with the title of Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to Mr. Le Clerc. But in the Author’s MS. the whole is one continued discourse ; which, although it is con¬ ceived in the epistolary form, is not addressed to any particular person.” The “ epistolary form ” was conventional at this date. The Unitarian Tract writers and others made free use of it, and many a man only learnt that a “ Letter ” had been addressed to him when he read it in print or someone informed him of its publication. But An Historical Account is not a letter of that type, for, though “ not addressed to a particular person ”, the opening and the closing paragraphs clearly relate to “ a particular person ”, and that person was John Locke. The opening runs : “ Since the discourses of some late writers have raised in you a curiosity of knowing the truth of that text of Scripture, concerning the testimony of the Three in Heaven, 1 John v. 7, I have here sent you an account of what the reading has been in all ages, and by what steps it has been changed, so far as I can hitherto determine by records.” The “ discourses of some late writers ” refers to those who took part in the Trinitarian Controversy, in which, against his will, Locke’s adversaries would have had him involved. The discussion of the Timothy passage, not mentioned in the opening paragraph, was in the nature of an after-thought. On 14 November 1690, Newton wrote to Locke : “ I send you now by the carrier, Martin, the papers I promised. I fear I have not only made you H9

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

stay too long for them, but also made them too long by an addition. For upon the receipt of your letter, review¬ ing what I had by me concerning the text of ist John v. 7, and examining authors a little farther about it, I met with something new concerning that other of ist Timothy iii. 16, which I thought would be acceptable to inquisitive men. . . .” The last paragraph in Horsley’s edition of An Historical Account runs : “ You see what freedom I have used in this discourse, and I hope you will interpret it candidly. . . . Whilst it is the character of an honest man to be pleased, and of a man of interest to be troubled at the detection of Frauds, and of both to run most into those passions when the detection is plainest; I hope this letter will, to one of your integrity, prove so much the more acceptable as it makes a further discovery than you have hitherto met with in commentaries.” The last sentence may be said to disclose an intimacy between the writer and the recipient of the letter. Now it is these opening and closing paragraphs that are missing in the manuscript deposited in the Remon¬ strant Library, that was printed in 1754. Was that manuscript, copied by Locke, the only one that found its way into print before Horsley published the authorita¬ tive edition of Newton’s works ? There is some evidence that it was not. Dr. Abraham Rees (1743-1825), writing more than a century ago, after noticing the publication of 1754, says :1 “ It may be proper to add, that in some catalogues of Sir Isaac Newton’s works, another edition is mentioned of the date of 1734, under the title of ‘ Two Letters to Mr. Clarke, late Divinity Professor of the Remonstrants in Holland ’. But no opportunity has occurred of consulting this edition, which is stated to be a duodecimo pamphlet.” Fox Bourne, more than fifty years later, says : 2 “ The 1 Lord King, Life of John Locke, I, p. 427. 2 Life of John Locke, II, p. 223.

150

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727) treatise remained in Le Clerc’s hands till he died, and it was not taken from its resting-place in the Remon¬ strants’ Library at Amsterdam, except that some sheets of the manuscript were lost in the interval, until 1734, when all that remained was published in England,” and, in a footnote, he adds, “ With this misleading title 4 Two Letters to Mr. Clarke, late Divinity Professor of the Remonstrants in Holland “ Clarke ” is of course an error for “ Le Clerc ”, with whom Newton does not appear to have had any personal acquaintance. These two accounts of the manuscript in Holland and of its publication in 1734 raise many difficult problems. Neither Rees nor Fox Bourne mentions Wetstein’s con¬ nexion with the manuscript, and apparently had not read his Prolegomena of 1751. The identification of “ Le Clerc’s hands ” with “ the Remonstrants’ Library ” is not supported by Wetstein. The manuscript was certainly not “in Le Clerc’s hands till he died ”, as Wetstein also said it was, if he only held it “ until 1734 ”, i.e. two years before his death. It is difficult to believe that whilst in the Library “ some sheets of the manuscript were lost ”, and more difficult to suppose they were lost whilst in the hands of Le Clerc, whose last letter to Locke on the subject (15 July 1692) assured him : “I will take great care of the papers until you tell me what the author would like me to do with them.” The title of the work said to be published in 1734, omitting the name of Newton and misspelling that of Le Clerc, is strange. Fox Bourne does not claim to have seen a copy of it; his argument required only men¬ tion of the earliest date of publication, and so he does not refer to the publication of 1754, though undoubtedly aware of it, since it was mentioned by Lord King’s Life of Locke, which he used. “ All that remained ”, Fox Bourne’s description of the manuscript, does, however, suggest that he never compared it, or the printed edition of 1754, with Horsley’s edition of the Historical Account. I5I

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

The encyclopaedist’s confession that he never saw a copy of the 1734 edition is significant, since he was well acquainted with eighteenth-century theological literature. That is not all. In 1737, Catharine Conduitt, Newton’s niece, declared in her will the intention to publish the manuscript on “ the three that bear record in Heaven ”, which she would hardly have done if it had been printed two years earlier. John Berriman, who lectured on the Timothy text three or four years after the presumed publication of 1734, did not know it, or he would not have confined himself entirely to a manuscript, much less have remarked that Le Clerc “ thought it worthy to be printed ”, when it had actually been in print seven years when his own lectures were published. Again, Hopton Haynes would not have said in 1747 of the manuscript he knew that he hoped it would “ be pub¬ lished in convenient time ” after it had appeared a dozen years earlier. Wetstein, in 1751, so well-informed as he was about the manuscripts seen by Whiston, Haynes and Berriman, knew nothing of the publication ; otherwise he would not have displayed anxiety to print the Amster¬ dam manuscript, or, as has been already suggested, have furthered the publication of 1754. Horsley knew no other edition of the Two Letters except that of 1754, and no notice of that edition has been found making mention of an earlier one in 1734. All printed copies of the Letters known to the writer are octavo, dated 1754, with Newton’s name and the correct form “ Le Clerc ”. None of our great libraries contains any other edition before that. None finds any place in Halkett and Laing’s Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature (7 vols., 1926-34), nor in the Bibliography of the Works of Sir Isaac Newton, by George J. Gray (1st ed. 1888, 2nd ed. 1907). The evidence suggests that in “ some catalogues ” known to Dr. Rees there was a misprint of 1734 for 1754, and that Rees’ statement misled Fox Bourne, who only wanted the date of the earliest publication. 152

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

Now the manuscript behind the 1754 edition, as acknowledged, lacked the opening and closing paragraphs from Newton’s pen. Manuscripts, as is well known, are wont to suffer at the beginning and end, as the result of more or less rough usage over a long period of years, but not in less than half a century when in the custody of such careful scholars as Locke, Le Clerc and Wetstein, nor yet when housed for a decade or so in a library of repute. The disappearance, then, from the manuscript of these sections which point, even if obscurely, to the recipient of the letters, can hardly have been accidental. Le Clerc for long wanted to publish the manuscript in translation. Obviously he would not mutilate what he prized, and there could be no possible motive for such an act on his part, unless in some way his action was dictated by the wishes of Locke, his only authority in the matter of the manuscript and its treatment. Wet¬ stein tells us he tried in vain to secure from Newton’s heirs the missing parts in order to complete the manu¬ script and publish it, and, finally, it would appear, had it printed and published anonymously with opening sections of his own composition. True, Le Clerc makes no reference, in his allusion to the manuscript, to its mutilated condition, possibly out of respect for Locke, who had handed it over to him, but his own provision for its interment in a Library may be due not only to the ban on publication by Locke, acting under instructions from Newton, but also to his own knowledge of its imperfections. Such evidence as there is points to Locke as responsible, directly or indirectly, for the mutilation of the manuscript. Despairing, after nearly fourteen years, of persuading Newton and his heirs to publish the Dissertations, yet desiring to preserve for the use of scholars the main part of their arguments, Locke may have torn off those portions of the manu¬ script, which, since he was suspected of sharing Newton’s 153

L

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

heresy, might possibly, if brought to light, disclose his own connexions with the discussions. He then passed it on to his scholarly friend without any indication of its authorship. The alternative is to suppose that the instructions for which Le Clerc waited were at last given by Locke to the effect that whenever the manuscript passed out of his hands, he should remove the more or less incriminating passages. Unfortunately, unlike the correspondence of Limborch and Locke, that of Le Clerc and Locke has largely perished ; otherwise it might have been possible to clear up this question of the maltreated manuscript in the Remonstrants’ Library. The fact that something more than the mere personal references in the Letters disappeared may be partly due to the form of the manuscript itself, and the fact that the excision at the beginning is much the longer of the two may have been occasioned by the incriminating character of a passage like the following : “ But whilst we exclaim against the pious frauds of the Roman Church, and make it a part of our religion to detect and renounce all things of that kind, we must acknowledge it a greater crime in us to favour such practices, than in the Papists we so much blame on that account; for they act according to their religion, but we contrary to ours.” Possibly, too, as in his handling of Nicole’s Essays 1 Locke found these sentiments obnoxious in a document which might one day be discovered, and even printed, with his authority alone behind it. Horsley corrected, in the text of his manuscript, a few obvious slips found also in that preserved in the Remon¬ strants’ Library, e.g. reading “ sincere ”, meaning “ true ”, for “ since ”. He modernized the spelling, corrected the punctuation, and transferred references to authorities from the text to the foot of the page. His Greek quotations have only the rough breathings and no accents ; those of the edition of 1754 have breathings 1 See pp. 76-7.

J54

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

and accents. It may be assumed that these were inserted by the editor, Wetstein, a better Grecian than Newton, unless added in the Dutch manuscript by Locke when copying Newton’s script. This, however, is not so likely, though Locke’s Greek in his posthumously pub¬ lished Epistles of St. Paul is furnished with accents and breathings. Once or twice Horsley’s manuscript was faulty, or he was guilty of a slip, as when he says “ the article ” and gives the relative, where the earlier publication based upon the manuscript in Holland, has the correct Greek word. As might have been expected, Horsley adds a few footnotes (signed) correcting the argument in the text, or commenting upon it. One of the worst of these has already been given.1 It must be allowed that the Bishop, on the whole, exercised a marvellous selfrestraint for him. Much more important are the additions in the text as compared with that of 1754, which must be credited to Newton’s working on it long after the first draft was sent to Locke. References are expanded and made more explicit, a few passages are corrected and extended, and there are eleven fresh additions, amounting to some fifty pages of print. One or two of these give information which Newton apparently gained after he dispatched his manuscript to Locke. Thus : “ And because Stephens (editor of the Greek Testament) had some of his various lections from Italy, I will add, that a gentle¬ man, who in his travels, had consulted twelve manu¬ scripts in several libraries in Italy, assured me that he found it (1 John v. 7) wanting in them all. One of the twelve was that most ancient and famous manuscript in the Pope’s library, written in capital letters ”—a reference to the fourth century Codex B, known as Vaticanus. The “ gentleman ” referred to may have been Gilbert Burnet, but probably not. Burnet’s Travels 1 See p. 148.

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was in print, and Newton mentioned him by name in the first draft of his Historical Account sent to Locke, and in his Travels Burnet names not twelve manuscripts, but nine as wanting i John v. 7. He believed all the omissions were due to scribal errors, and, curiously enough, Emanuel de Schelstrate, the Vatican librarian, who showed him Codex B, in his Reflexions on Dr. Gilbert Burnet*s Travels (1688), rejected that theory, and seems to have held that the verse was not authentic. In the discussion of 1 Timothy iii. 16, the most signi¬ ficant emendation in Horsley’s text, compared with that of his predecessor, is that Newton frequently admits that the reading of the masculine relative, and not only the neuter which he thought original, may have been in the Greek texts of Latin authors quoted. It is the masculine which is adopted by most modern editors and translators, including the English Revised Version. The difference between the three readings in dispute, “ Which ”, “ Who ” and “ God ” is that between O, OC and 0C. The change of the second to the third form is the easiest of any possible mutation of letters in the three words. Here it may be said that the “ Heavenly Witnesses ” text of 1 John v. 7, is omitted by all modern editors of the New Testament, both Greek and English, and is not included in our Revised Version, which also omits the crucial word “ God ” from the Timothy passage, as do all recent translators in England, Germany and America. In both particulars, Newton was among the few who anticipated the verdict of modern scholarship. 1 Timothy iii. 16 is now generally regarded as a fragment of an early Christian hymn in an epistle no longer regarded as Pauline, and probably served as a confession of faith amongst the early Christians. Sir Isaac Newton’s critical investigation of these texts, the arguments and language he used, and his evident satisfaction with the conclusions he reached, taken together with the testimony of Haynes and Whiston to 156

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

his Unitarianism, derived respectively from a friend of the former and from the Memoirs and other writings of the latter, led Henry Acton, 1 Henry Green 2 and other Unitarians in the first half of the nineteenth century to declare in pamphlet, tract and sermon, to the horror and resentment of orthodox scholars, that Newton, like Milton and Locke, shared their own views of the Trinity. In agreement with them from the other side was Thomas Chalmers, who, in the preface to Discourses on the Christian Religion (1819) said : “ Amid the distractions and the engrossments of his other pursuits, he (Newton) has not at all times succeeded in the interpretation of the book (the Bible); else he would never, in my apprehension, have abetted the leading doctrine of a sect or a system (the Unitarian), which has now nearly dwindled away from public observation.” Chalmers’s suggestion that Newton’s heterodox interpretation of the Bible was due to the “ distractions ” and “ engrossment ” of scientific pursuits has no more foundation than his estimate of the declining propaganda of Unitarians in the first quarter of the last century. Sir David Brewster, in his Life of Newton (1831), did not hesitate to affirm that Newton was a believer in the Trinity. In his later Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton (2 vols. 1855, 2nd ed. i860), after he had an opportunity of examining the Portland Papers (MSS.), he qualified this judgment so far as to admit that Newton’s orthodoxy was not proved, “ but in the charity which thinketh no evil, we are bound to believe that our neighbour is not a heretic till the charge against him has been distinctly proved ” 3 and, in a footnote,4 says : “ There are certainly, as Professor De Morgan has shown, “ two or three expressions in the Dissertations which a believer in the 1 The Religious Opinions of Milton, Locke and Newton, 1833. 2 Sir Isaac Newton's Views on Points of Trinitarian Doctrine . . 1856. 3 Vol. II, p. 340.

4 Ibid., p. 267, n. 8.

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Trinity is not likely to have used ; but while I freely make this admission, I think Mr. De Morgan will also admit that they would not justify us in considering Newton as an Antitrinitarian. They warrant us only to suspect his orthodoxy.” In the preface to the Memoirs, referring to Newton’s religious opinions, he said : “In the chapter which relates to them I have touched lightly, and unwillingly, on a subject so tender, and in publishing the most inter¬ esting of the manuscripts in which these opinions are recorded, I have done little more than submit them to the judgment of the reader. Though adverse to my own, and I believe to the opinions of those to whom his memory is dearest, I did not feel myself justified, had I been so disposed, to conceal from the public that which they have long suspected, and must have sooner or later known.” This was at least better than the description of the manuscripts by Bishop Horsley, who had access to them, and was responsible for the report that Newton left behind him a cartload of papers on religious subjects, which he had examined, and found unfit for publication, after which he had the audacity to assert that their writer “ was not a Socinian ”, meaning “ not a Unitarian Brewster, however, did far from justice to the manuscript evidence of Newton’s Unitarianism, and thought “ Dr. Horsley exercised a wide discretion in not giving other manuscripts formally to the world ”. Still he printed certain “ Paradoxical Questions concerning the morals and actions of Athanasius and his followers ” and “ Twenty-two Queries regarding the word Homoousios ”. Five of the latter will serve to show Newton’s mind, i. “ Whether Christ sent his apostles to preach meta¬ physics to the unlearned common people, and to their wives and children?” n. “Whether Athanasius, Hilary, and in general the Greeks and Latins did not from the time of the reign of Julian the Apostate, acknow¬ ledge the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be three 158

SIR ISAAC NEWTON

(1642-1727)

substances, and continued to do so till the schoolmen changed the significance of the word hypostasis, and brought in the notion of three persons in one single substance ? ” 12. “ Whether the opinion of the equality of the three substances was not first set on foot in the reign of Julian the Apostate by Athanasius, Hilary, etc. ? ” 13. “ Whether the worship of the Holy Ghost was not first set on foot presently after the Council of Sardica ? ” 14. “ Whether the Council of Sardica was not the first Council which declared for the doctrine of the Consubstantial Trinity ? ” and “ whether the Council did not affirm that there was but one hypostasis of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ” ? The Council of Sardica (a.d. 343) “ was approved of by Constantius ” and “ was to restore the unity of the Church ”.1 This it failed to do. According to Pro¬ fessor L. T. More,2 “ Newton’s purpose, in trying to prove that the doctrine of the Trinity was first decreed by the Council of Sardica, seems to be that he believed that he would then weaken it even in the minds of Catholics. Many medieval theologians held the decisions of a council to be binding only when they were received as such by the whole Church. That resolved itself into the question of which councils were oecumenical, and that of Sardica is never included in the list. But, if such were his purpose, it has no value since the doctrine, however it may have originated, has been affirmed in later oecumenical councils.” This latter remark seems rather to miss the point of Newton’s Query, which relates not simply to the conciliar authority for the doc¬ trine of the Trinity, but to its lack of primitive character as a product of the mind of the early Church. As Pro¬ fessor More himself confesses : “ Newton was wholly committed, as was Milton, to the Protestant doctrine against the authority of the Church Councils.”

1

A. Harnack, History of Dogma (Eng. trans.), IV, p. 68, 2 Ut supra, p. 641, n. 56.

*59

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Of the twelve articles given by Brewster from a manu¬ script “ On our Religion (? Relation) to God, to Christ, and the Church ”, Articles i, 6 and 9 in particular touch on points in controversy between Unitarians and Trini¬ tarians at that date. Art. 1. There is one God, the Father ever living, omniscient, almighty, the maker of heaven and earth, and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. Art. 6. All the worship (whether of prayer, praise, or thanks¬ giving) which was due to the Father before the coming of Christ, is still due to him. Christ came not to diminish the worship of his Father. Art. 9. We need not to pray to Christ to intercede for us. If we pray the Father aright, he will intercede.

The first Article is based on 1 Timothy ii. 5, “ For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus ”, a text which may still be read inscribed on the wall of a Unitarian Chapel. Other papers which 1 “ give Newton’s personal beliefs ” Brewster did not print. Apparently he “ thought that Newton’s religious convictions, the subject which he had meditated deeply and held to be the most important of all, should not be divulged lest they should weaken the faith of others, and lead them towards atheism ”. In one paper, “ Newton lays down fourteen Argumenta in Latin, with supporting passages from the Scriptures, to show that the Son is neither co-eternal with, or equal to, the Father.” Another gives “ seven Rationes, or reasons against the Trinity ”, and “ two short memoranda which really amount to a declaration of his faith in Christ can mean only that he did not believe in the divinity of Jesus ”. “ Homoousion ”, he said, “ is unintelligible. ’Twas not understood in the Council of Nice, nor ever since. What cannot be understood is no object of belief.” Newton, as we have seen, had been a diligent student 1 L. T, More, ut supray p. 641.

160

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ISAAC

NEWTON

(1642-1727)

of the writings of Jacob Boehme, and in theology had been greatly impressed by his mysticism, his dislike of disputation, and ritualism. At Cambridge, too, he had also been influenced by Joseph Mead, of Christ’s College, whose Clavis Apocalyptica is said to have “ modified the religious belief of John Milton ”, and become the acknowledged guide of Newton “ in prophetic inter¬ pretation Newton, we are now told,1 “ had thought out his religious beliefs with sufficient clearness, and there would not have been a long controversy about them if those, who had access to his papers, had not tried to make him appear orthodox Bishop Burgess had protested even against Brewster’s notice of An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of the Scriptures in his first life of Newton, on the ground that Newton had suppressed it, as he had not published it, and also because it supported the contention of con¬ temporary Unitarians that the great scientist had been one of them. Biographers before Brewster invariably sought to con¬ ceal Newton’s heterodoxy, some, in their ignorance of his manuscript remains known to Horsley and Brewster, others, in sheer defence of orthodoxy in the face of printed evidence and the inferences which could alone be drawn from it, even going so far as to misrepresent facts in order to attain their end. The Biographia Britannica, in the article on Sir Isaac Newton, states that “ Whiston represented Sir Isaac as an Arian, which he so much resented that he would not suffer him to be a member of the Royal Society while he was President ”. Robert Wallace in 1850 first pointed out the falsity of this statement, originally made by Bishop Burgess in the Gentleman's Magazine, October 1815, and Augustus De Morgan in 1855 again exposed it. Professor More wrongly credits De Morgan with 1 L. T. More, ut supra, pp. 642, 643.

161

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

having “ first pointed out the falseness of this statement ”.1 De Morgan does not mention Wallace in this connexion, but may very well have known his Antitrinitarian Bio¬ graphy, published five years earlier, for he was always in close touch with Unitarians. His wife was a daughter of William Frend (1757-1841), the Cambridge scholar who followed Theophilus Lindsey out of the Church in 1787, and translated the historical books of the Old Testament for Joseph Priestley. De Morgan called his sons William Frend (the well-known potter and novelist) and Edward Lindsey, and resigned his chair of mathe¬ matics at University College, London, in 1866 as a protest against the refusal of the Council to elect James Martineau to the chair of mental philosophy and logic, which he regarded as a piece of religious intolerance. To return, Whiston, as already stated, declared that Sir Isaac Newton was an Eusebian or Arian, and then, much later, reported that Newton refused to allow his election to the Royal Society because the President could not bear to be contradicted. Two detached statements were joined, with the necessary omissions, in order to make out a case for Newton’s orthodoxy. M. Biot, in the Biographie Universelle, said that New¬ ton’s relations with Whiston and Clarke caused some writers to suppose he was himself an Antitrinitarian, “ mais on ne trouve absolument rien dans les ecrits de Newton, qui puisse justifier ou meme autoriser cette conjecture ”. He further suggested that during parts of 1692 and 1693 Newton suffered a temporary aberration of mind, a statement which the Marquis De La Place improved by asserting that he never recovered his reason, and that his study of theology began only after he had lost his original powers of mind. It is to the credit of Brewster that he disproved the unwarranted aspersions of these two Frenchmen. “To assign the cause of Newton’s interest in religion either to fear, or to mental 1 Ut supra, p. 631, n. 43.

162

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

debility ”, says Professor L. T. More,1 “ is to judge his character quite erroneously. It was the natural outlet of a true piety and humility, and it aroused the highest effort of his intellect and industry. The comparative value of his scientific and theological work is not involved in the question.” There was some mental disturbance during a period due to overwork and loss of sleep, but his theological studies, which began much earlier, were continued later. It has been pointed out 2 that “ New¬ ton’s correspondence with Locke proves that his most important religious work was completed in 1690. . . . He was discussing the prophetic works with Henry More in 1680 ”. The only qualification of these words to be made is that the work in question can hardly be said to have been “ completed ” in 1690, since he continued to work upon it later. In a letter, dated “ Feb. 7, 1690/1 ”, to Locke, who, referring to Daniel vii. had said that “ the Ancient of Days ” is Christ, Newton, then engaged on the work unpublished until six years after his death, asked : “ Whence are you certain that the Ancient of Days is Christ ? Does Christ anywhere sit upon the throne ? ” He referred to these questions again in a letter of June 30th, 1691 : “ Concerning the Ancient of Days, Dan. vii; there seems to be a mistake either in my last letter, or in yours, because you write in your former letter, that the Ancient of Days is Christ; and in my last, I either did, or should have asked, how you knew that. But these discourses may be done with more freedom at our next meeting.” From these questions, Professor More supposes “ that at this time Newton was sceptical of Daniel’s prophecy as predicting the coming of Christ ”. That may be, but there is more in it than that; they show that Newton held firmly the doctrine of the supremacy of the Father. An entry in the Journal of Abraham De La Pryme, a Cambridge student, shows that at the beginning of 1692,

1

Ut supra, p. 392.

2

163

Ibid., p. 611, n. 6,

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Isaac Newton was regarded in the university as “ mighty famous for his learning ” and as “a most excellent divine ”. His private study of theology, as we have seen, dated from a much earlier period, almost from his youth. H. T. Glazebrook, in his life of Newton in the Dic¬ tionary of National Biography (1894), contents himself with observing that “ The views expressed in the two letters (on 1 John v. 7 and 1 Timothy iii. 16) do not prove him to be an Antitrinitarian, but are rather the strong expression of his hostility to the unfair manner in which, in his opinion, certain texts had been treated with a view to the support of the Trinitarian doctrine.” Such an observation indicates that the writer hardly realized the decisive part played by biblical proof-texts in the con¬ struction of Protestant doctrinal systems from the six¬ teenth to the eighteenth centuries. Beza once said it was the foul work of the devil to deprive Christians of the word “ God ” in 1 Timothy iii. 16, as “ There is scarcely another passage in which all the mysteries of our redemption are explained so magnificently or so clearly.” In Sir Isaac Newton, A Brief Account of his Life and Work, by S. Brodetsky (1927), which, in the words of the preface, “ does not claim to be a critical biography ”, it is said : “In 1690 Newton wrote, but did not publish, a discussion of ‘ Two Notable Corruptions of the Scrip¬ tures, in a Letter to a Friend ’, and claimed that the Trinitarian interpretations of these passages were not justified by the correct original text. It is difficult to say whether Newton did or did not believe in the Trinity ; at any rate, it is clear that he did not accept all the tenets of the prevailing Church unquestioningly, and was as independent in theological belief as in scientific investigation.” In Isaac Newton : A Memorial Volume, edited for the Mathematical Association by W. J. Greenstreet (1927), 164

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

we read that An Historical Account of Two Notable Cor¬ ruptions . . . was “ First printed in Vol. V of the Opera Omnia, and reprinted in the Socinian interest in 1830. They are of interest in connexion with the charge of Antitrinitarianism which was made against Newton One might have supposed that “ a mathematician ” would have exhibited more accuracy and less theological bias in his statements. The Letters were, of course, first printed (in a defective form) in 1754, whilst those respon¬ sible for their re-publication in 1830 were not “ Socinians The reprint contains no hint of Socinian apologetic. It is in fact, as stated on the title-page, “ Exactly reprinted from Bishop Horsley’s Edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s Works, Vol. V., 1785 ”, without prefix, note, or appendix. The almost supercilious allu¬ sion to “ the charge made against Newton ” betrays the partisan spirit which dictated the use of the opprobious term “ Socinian ” applied to nineteenth century Uni¬ tarians. There the matter remained until 1934. The story of the Newton manuscripts up to that date may now be told. When Newton died (20 March 1727) a Committee of the Royal Society examined his papers, and decided, in view of the theological character of the greater part, that they should not be printed. However, Dr. Thomas Pellett, F.R.S., was appointed by Newton’s executors to look over them, and determine what might be sent to the press. This work was done 20-26 May 1727. The manuscripts were divided into 82 sets, and no. 30 was described as “ Fifty-one half sheets in folio, being an Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture.” The investigation by Pellett came to little, the publication only of “ The Abstract of Chronology ” and the “ Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms ”. Catharine Conduitt, nee Barton, Newton’s favourite niece, who had lived with him for many years, cannot have been satisfied with this result, for ten years later she

165

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

resolved to publish some of the manuscripts herself. In the codicil to her last Will and Testament, 26 January 1737, she said : “ I will and appoint and ordain that my Executor do lay all the tracts relating to Divinity before Dr. Sykes, and in hopes he will prepare them for the press. There are two critical pieces, one on the three that bear Record in Heaven, and another upon the Text, ‘ who thought it not robbery etc \ which I will have printed, and there’s a piece called Paradoxical Questions concerning Athanasius, another, the History of the Creed, or criticism on it, and a Church History, and many more Divinity Tracts, all of them I ordain shall be printed and published . . . the papers must be care¬ fully kept, that no copies may be taken and printed, and Dr. Sykes desired to peruse them here. . . ,”1 Unfortunately, “ Mr. Conduitt died a few months after the date of this codicil, and Mrs. Conduitt in January, 1739, and there is reason to believe that the papers were never put into the hands of Dr. Sykes. After the mar¬ riage of Miss Conduitt to Mr. Wallop, afterwards Lord Lymington, the manuscripts went into their possession, and some of them, including the Historical Account, were given by Lady Lymington to her executor, Mr. Jeffrey Ekins, from whom they passed successively into the hands of the Dean of Carlisle, the Rector of Morpeth, and the Rev. Jeffrey Ekins, Rector of Sampford.” Catharine Conduitt’s choice of Dr. Sykes as final arbiter in the matter of Newton’s manuscripts on theology is noteworthy. Arthur Ashley Sykes (1684-1756) was a latitudinarian divine, a friend of Dr. Samuel Clarke, an Arian, and an advocate of the widest toleration for Dissenters. As Dr. John Disney, his Unitarian biog¬ rapher, makes no mention of his examination of Newton’s MSS., it is fairly certain that he never saw them. Had he done so, the Historical Account and much else would have been published shortly after 1737. Amongst 1 Brewster,

Life of Sir Isaac Newton, II, pp. 271, 272.

166

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

Sykes’s numerous controversial writings was a Vindication of Sir Isaac Newton's Chronology. Charles Hutton, F.R.S., in his Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary (1795), made a rough catalogue of Newton’s papers, and observed : “ It is astonishing what care and industry Sir Isaac had employed on the papers relating to Chronology, Church History, etc., as on examining the papers themselves, which are in the possession of the family of the Earl of Portsmouth, it appears that many of them are copies over and over again, often with little or no variation, the whole number being upwards of four thousand sheets, in folio, or eight reams of folio paper, besides the bound books etc., in this catalogue of which the number of sheets is not mentioned.” The ban on copying and printing of manuscripts, made by Catharine Conduitt in 1737 in order that Dr. Sykes should determine what should be printed, was plainly continued for other reasons by the clerical family into whose hands the MSS. fell after her death. The Ekins were concerned to conceal, not to make known, the theological opinions of Newton. William Morgan, F.R.S., nephew and biographer of Dr. Richard Price, reports that “ about 1764 a proposal was made to Dr. Price by the booksellers to publish a complete edition of all Sir Isaac Newton’s Works ”, but from modesty and a sense of his incapacity to do justice to the great scientist, he declined the proposal. There is no evidence that he would have had access to the manuscripts though he would certainly have included the Historical Account in his edition, since that had been printed, as we have seen, in 1759. Samuel Horsley, when preparing his edition of Newton’s Works published 1779-85, saw the manuscripts, but printed only the Historical Account, being more anxious to suppress than to make public Newton’s heresies. In 1836, Sir David Brewster examined the manuscripts, “ found various 167

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

theological papers, some of which were so carefully written and others so frequently copied, that they must have been intended for publication ”, and himself pub¬ lished a few. Not however until 1934 did any adequate survey of the Newton manuscripts appear in print. In that year was published the most comprehensive and scientific biography of Sir Isaac Newton, written by Professor Louis Trenchard More, a non-Unitarian, of Cincinnati University, U.S.A. It suffers only from a certain apparent lack of acquaintance with Unitarian history and literature, and, to a less extent, with Unitarian thought in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It proves conclusively that in many points, and not alone in his presentation of Newton’s religious opinions, Brew¬ ster, as a biographer, is untrustworthy. The last chapter is devoted to Newton’s Chronology and Theology. “ When ”, says Professor More, “ I was generously given permission to examine, and to make extracts from the Portsmouth Collection, I was particularly anxious to see whether the vexed question of his religious opinions could not be answered from the documents which Horsley and Brewster did not feel it wise to publish. And I think the answer can now be given.” In the course of that answer, he convicts Brewster, in the first Life of Newton, of resting “ part of his plea for Newton’s orthodoxy on false evidence ”, namely, the garbled state¬ ments in the Biographia Britannica, already examined ; declares that “ Horsley certainly was convinced of New¬ ton’s heterodoxy and refused to publish other of his documents which would reveal his Unitarianism ”, and, after a full and critical discussion for the first time of all the manuscripts (from which excerpts have been freely quoted) concludes : “ Newton was an Arian, since he states definitely that the Father and the Son are not one substance, and that the Son was created and therefore of a different substance. . . . Having placed the source of authority in the Bible and not in the Councils, he shows 168

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

that the Holy Ghost is not a person or substance by calling the two passages in the New Testament spurious which specifically mention the Holy Ghost as a person. He considered the doctrine of the Trinity as of funda¬ mental importance in theology, and by proving the spuriousness of these verses (1 John v. 7 ; 1 Timothy iii. 16) he had shattered the chief and most definite source of the mystery.” True, Richard Simon, the French Oratorian Father, had come to the same conclusion, but that was a very different matter. As Simon said : “ Les Catholiques, qui sont persuades que leur religion ne depend pas seulement du texte de 1’Ecriture maisaussi de la tradition de l’Eglise ne point scandalises de voir que le malheur des temps et la negligence des copyistes ayent apporte des changements aux livres sacres. II n’y a que des protestants preoccupes ou ignorants qui puissent s’en scandaliser.” 1 Newton, says Professor More, “ was absolved in his own mind from accepting ” what he proved to be spurious, and “ by fastening the act of falsifying the Scriptures on Jerome he confirmed one more grievance against the Roman Church ”. He “ had rationally adopted the Unitarian position that Jesus was sent by the Father into the world as a prophet, who differed from other prophets only in the immediacy of his message ”. A manuscript note on Miracles, given by Professor More, displays Newton’s approach to the modern view of these phenomena in the New Testament. “ For miracles are so called not because they are the works of God, but because they seldom happen, and for that reason create wonder. If they should happen constantly according to certain laws impressed upon the nature of things, they would be no longer wonders or miracles, but might be considered in philosophy as a part of the phenomena of nature, notwithstanding the cause of their causes might be unknown to us.”

1

Histoire du O.T., p. 8.

169

M

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

The latest biography of Newton, by Mr. J. W. W. Sullivan (1938), adds nothing material to our knowledge of his religious opinions. “ Newton’s views on the cardinal doctrine of the Trinity ”, it is said, “ were not orthodox. Indeed it may be shown that he did not believe that Jesus Christ was divine at all, but clearly a man, and therefore not an object of worship. It is probable that Newton had early arrived at this conclu¬ sion, for although he was a member of the Church of England, he always refused to take orders in spite of being strongly urged.” From a “ discourse ” with Newton, held by Samuel Clarke and William Whiston, reported by the latter,1 it would seem that Newton’s views of Church govern¬ ment were far from Anglican. He held that “ bishops were first chosen by the people, and then ordained by the neighbouring bishops, and that neither the choice of the people could make a bishop, without the ordina¬ tion of the other bishops; nor could the bishops ordain any one to that office, till they were chosen by the people When in 1698 the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge was founded, and a proposal was made that the Royal Society should provide it with accommodation for meetings, Newton drew up a paper giving his reasons for not entertaining the proposal.2 Amongst them were the following : “ It is a fundamental rule of the Society not to meddle with religion ; and the reason is that we may give no occasion to religious bodies to meddle with us. There are many vestries in London; and it is more proper for a religious society to meet in a vestry than in the house of a Society which is mixed of men of all religions, and meddles with none.” The exact date of these notes is unknown, but, as Newton says he had Authentic Records, Part II, p. 1075. 2 F. Blackburne. Memoirs of Thomas Hollis (1780), pp. 245,

1

246.

170

SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642-1727)

not heard of the new Society, it must have been very shortly after its institution, and he could not have been acquainted with its Plans, one of which was the distribu¬ tion of religious books. From the first, these books con¬ formed to the doctrines of the Church of England, even those peculiar to that church. As Blackburne suspected, “ probably Sir Isaac Newton might have had some such apprehensions, as may be conjectured from his mention¬ ing the vestries of established churches, as the properest places for holding their meetings “ If we comply ”, said Newton, “ we may dissatisfy some of those that are against it; especially those of other religions, and make them leave our meetings, which are already too thin.” By “ other religions ” Newton meant, of course, nonAnglican ; nonconformist and possibly Roman Catholic. Amongst Newton’s distinguished visitors from abroad towards the end of life was Samuel Crell, the descendant of John Crell, the Socinian professor, who came to England for the purpose of printing the last of his works, On The Beginning of John's Gospel. It was published in 1707, and whilst passing through the press, was read, at his own request, by Newton, who made its author a handsome present when leaving. Samuel Crell had been in England before, and in 1698 conveyed a letter from Limborch to Locke. As a scientist, Newton’s eminence is unquestionable, even in these days of Einstein ; but to more than one of his biographers it appears that he esteemed his scientific speculations of less moment than his theological studies. We need not agree with this judgment of his before we regard his religious views as deserving of consideration even in an age of much more scientific biblical and theological research. Notwithstanding certain peculiarities of temper, to which “ honest Will Whiston ” called attention, manifest also in at least one letter of Newton to Locke and in his controversies with several distinguished scientists, the 171

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

great man was deeply religious, and in private life sought to follow humbly in the steps of his Master. The controversy about his religious opinions is ended. Sir Isaac Newton was a Unitarian, and, for his day, of an advanced school. Professor More thinks that “ Newton’s religious heterodoxy, which was so much feared, has now not a particle of influence ”. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that since his time Unitarianism has developed on other lines than his. No single stream of Newton’s influence can be traced in any Christian church, but that is simply because, whilst his biblical chronology and his interpretation of prophecy, with the scriptural foundation of theology on which they are based, have perished beyond a peradventure, many of his principles of criti¬ cism and some of his doctrinal positions have become the common possession of churches, heterodox and orthodox alike. It remains to add that in July 1936, the manuscripts and correspondence of Newton, the property of Lord Lymington, were sold by auction. “ The collection had descended to the vendor from John Conduitt, who married Newton’s niece.” Like his friend John Locke, Newton never married. The papers were auctioned piecemeal, and prominent amongst the buyers from the other side of the Atlantic was Mr. Gabriel Wells. It must be regretted that any of them were allowed to leave England.

172

MILTON,

LOCKE,

OTHER

NEWTON,

UNITARIANS

AND

MILTON,

M

LOCKE, NEWTON,

AND OTHER

UNITARIANS

ILTON, Locke and Newton, poet, philosopher and scientist, by general consent, were amongst the greatest Englishmen of all time. They were con¬ temporaries, Locke being 42 and Newton 32 when Milton died in 1674, and, living before the American Revolution, they belong to America hardly less than to their native country in virtue of the influence of their writings in the great Republic across the Atlantic. They were laymen, not men trained in seminary or university, with an exclusive view to service in the Church, and steeped either in medieval learning or reformation scholas¬ ticism. Similarly, Faustus Socinus, unlike the three great Reformers, Luther, Melanchthon and Zwingli, had been at most a nominal Catholic in his youth, had not been trained for the Church, and was not obsessed by forms of thought belonging to “ the old religion ” as he pro¬ ceeded to work out his Christian doctrine on the basis of scripture and reason. His education, such as it was, had been in literature and law. The three Englishmen thus brought to their theological studies the methods and prin¬ ciples adopted and recognized in classical, philosophical and scientific pursuits. It was a matter of great moment for the shaping of their religious opinions, especially in re¬ spect of those fundamental tenets held in common, which constitute their greatest contribution to modern religious thought, namely freedom in religious enquiry, the applica¬ tion of reason to problems of theology, and the right of all sincere religious enquiry to complete toleration.

US

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

In the Unitarian Movement since their day, scholarly laymen have played an honourable part as translators of the Old and New Testaments. They have filled the highest offices in the Church, not a few have edited The Inquirer (est. 1842), the organ of Unitarian Chris¬ tianity, and many have been recognized preachers in the churches. Milton, Locke and Newton were all, though not in equal measure, versed in the original languages of the Scriptures. Milton could say : “I entered upon an assiduous course of study in my youth, beginning with the books of the Old and New Testaments in their original languages.” He began his poetical career with translations of the Psalms, and, in old age, read the Bible daily in Hebrew and Greek. A dictionary in five alphabets, published at Cambridge in 1693, gives in the Classical Latin part Greek and Hebrew equivalents, and the work was based partly upon “ a large manuscript in three volumes of Mr. John Milton ”.1 Locke had a fair knowledge of Hebrew and a mastery of Greek, whilst Newton, though not proficient in either tongue, was at least able to turn to good account the knowledge he possessed. They were all well acquainted with the literature of theology, Milton pre-eminently so. His reading in this field, judged from his citations and references, must have been both wide and deep, including writings orthodox and heterodox. He tells us, in the Treatise on Christian Doctrine, that he went through, as a youth, “ a few of the shorter systems of divines ”, and “ at length the more copious theological treatises ”. This interest in theology he preserved to the end. Locke for many years was a close student of divinity, as his letters, pub¬ lications and manuscript remains prove, and shared Milton’s predilection of reading both sides of controversial questions. In a small exhibition of some 700 books 1 The Legacy of Israel 176

(1927), p. 352.

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

from his library brought together in 1932, there were, we are told, “ of Bibles and New Testaments more than a score of copies in Greek, Latin and English ; one Greek Testament he had specially bound with inter¬ leaving for his own comments on pages double the size of the text itself ”.1 For Newton’s understanding of Scripture and his theological acumen, Locke always professed the greatest respect. In recent years much light has been thrown on his library.2 Professor L. T. More notes his possession of five works by Richard Simon, the French biblical critic, and observes that Newton in his textual studies “ referred to an astonishing number of Christian Fathers ”, which, “ in almost every case, were in his collection ”.3 The Poet was a classical scholar with a love of art and music, and a rich appreciation of the graces and refinement of the life of culture, but, in mind and habit, above all else he was a Puritan. The Philosopher, as a student at the University, had entered into the Puritan tradition, and throughout life, in personal discipline, devotion to principle, and true piety, was no whit behind the Poet. The Scientist, in thought and conduct, may be said to have been one of the Epigoni of the Puritan Revolution, though by the time he reached manhood Puritanism had lost much of its hold upon private life in consequence of the reactions its excesses had provoked. In character, Locke would seem to have been the most consistent Christian, in the ethical sense of that word. He was less self-centred than Milton or Newton, and, unlike Milton, never confused private interest with political or ecclesiastical policy, nor manifested in his writings an aristocratic disdain for the common people, whose intellectual limitations he yet fully recognized. In controversy, he was frequently ironical, but never bitter nor scurrilous after the Miltonic manner, and did The Times, 9 May 1932. 2 L. T. More, Sir Isaac Newton, p. 542.

1

177

3

Ibid., p. 387.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

not descend to pettiness or exhibit signs of wounded vanity in the Newtonian fashion. When Newton, suffer¬ ing from a brain-storm, attacked him grossly without justification, Locke, on his asking forgiveness, replied in terms which won the encomium of Dugald Stewart as “ written with the magnanimity of a philosopher, and with the good-humoured forbearance of a man of the world ”, demonstrating “ the conscious integrity of the writer and the superiority of his mind to the irritation of little passions If Locke enjoyed no such visitings of prophetic vision as must have been occasionally given to Milton, and was destitute of Newton's soaring genius compassing heaven and earth, he surpassed both in a certain rectitude of mind and in a sustained endeavour to translate Christian principles into practice. Had Locke married, his family life would have borne no resemblance to Milton’s, for he was far from sharing the poet’s Oriental view of women. Newton had little humour, and Milton less, but Locke’s gift of humour is patent in his life and letters, and is not unconnected with his sympathetic disposition to¬ wards men and women cast in the common mould of humanity. Milton, Locke and Newton were at one time in the service of the State, and the first two never lost their interest in political reform inspired by religious principle. Newton was less engrossed with politics, but he took part in the resistance of Cambridge University to the Romanizing policy of James II, and afterwards sat for a short time as a Whig member in the House of Commons. When he was defeated at Cambridge in 1705, the Tory election cry was “ The Church in danger ”. All three, in strict accord with the spirit of Puritanism, sought guidance equally on principle and practice in the pages of Holy Writ. So it was that in A Treatise of Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, addressed to “ The Parliament of the Commonwealth of England, with the Dominions 178

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

thereof ” (1659), Milton stated at the outset: “ What I argue, shall be drawn from the Scriptures only, and therein from true fundamental principles of the gospel, to all knowing Christians undeniable.” In passing, let it be observed that the primary place thus given to the “ gospel ” has something in common with the doctrine of Faustus Socinus that the New Testament was based upon the words of Christ (the Old Testament being of value in so far as it was in conformity with the New), and also with the modern Liberal Christian emphasis upon the word and work of Christ. Milton, however, differed from Locke and Newton in his passionate infusion of religion into politics, so that the two, for him, tended to become one. Hence it came about that, as a worshipper, he refused to bow himself “ in the house of Rimmon ”, and could even recognize the hand of Providence in questionable Crom¬ wellian settlements of ecclesiastical and political prob¬ lems, involving the sacrifice of democratic principles. Politically, Milton was a republican, if that means ex¬ clusively no King, no bishop, and no aristocracy of birth or wealth but only of character and intellect. By temper an aristocrat, at most he was what was after¬ wards called a Whig, and prior to the Restoration he was much more concerned about establishing religious freedom and personal morality in the State than about the foundation principles of democracy, or even the dubious methods adopted to attain his ideals. Pure morality and the rights of conscience, being ordained of God for man, might be purchased at any price. Lord David Cecil is of opinion that for him “ Theology was a superior branch of political science ”. It would be truer to say that he regarded political science as an inferior branch of theology. Locke’s curious connexion with the Repeal of the Licensing Act in 1695, following a division of opinion between the two Houses of Parliament settled as the 179

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

result of reasons submitted to the Upper House, originally drawn up by Locke, brings the philosopher into associa¬ tion with the earlier plea for unlicensed printing so eloquently set forth by the poet. As Macaulay said : Arguments “ suited to the capacity of the parliamentary majority did what Milton’s Areopagitica had failed to do “ Locke, had he tried to do it ”, confessed his greatest biographer,1 “ could not have written so eloquent a declaration as the Areopagitica . . . He therefore pointed out the practical inconveniences resulting from the Licensing Act, and only incidentally made sarcastic reference to the very pernicious principle on which it was based and to its gross contravention of political, religious and social liberty. And therein he did wisely. Milton’s advocacy of ‘ unlicensed printing ’ had no effect upon the presbyterian rulers of England. Locke’s stric¬ tures on the licensing act helped to demolish it.” The effect of this legislation upon the spread of liberal religious opinions can scarcely be exaggerated. Locke gave great assistance in the preparation of the bill for the recoinage of money and securing its adoption in January 1695/96, whilst Newton, a little later, as Warden of the Mint, rendered memorable service by his efficient management of the currency. Milton and Locke were but little enamoured of a State Church. The poet had seen it in the despotic hands of Laud and his minions ; and, again, with its pulpits occupied by Presbyterians, Independents, and even a few Baptists. He came to the conclusion that a State Church was harmful to both Church and State. Locke never formally left the Church, but his theory of the nature of a religious society, and his recognition of the dangers to the Church from its connexion with the State, show that he favoured disestablishment. Locke had a great respect for Richard Hooker, but, like Dr. H. Hensley Henson in his recent volume on the Church 1 H. R. Fox Bourne,

Life of John Locke, ii. 315.

180

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

of England, he must have seen that “ Hooker was an apologist of an Establishment, which rested on assump¬ tions, political, historical and scriptural, which had lost their validity.” As Dr. A. D. Lindsay said in the Beckly Lecture for 1934 : “If there cannot be Free Churches except in a Free State, there cannot be a Free State unless there is in it a Free Church.” In their appreciation of certain principles and practices, notably that of lay-preaching, Milton and Locke were also at one in the rejection of the “ rock ” of sacerdotalism on which the episcopal church is built. Locke favoured comprehension in the National Church so long as the question remained open, but when compre¬ hension was seen to be impossible, he advocated the only alternative, toleration—the toleration of Dissent. Even after the Toleration Act was passed, Tillotson and his friends went on with a scheme of comprehension, and suggested such changes in the Prayer Book as led Calamy, the Independent biographer, to say he thought, if the scheme had been carried out, it would “ have brought in two-thirds of the Dissenters ”. The effort proved in vain. There was not however so rigid a line of demarca¬ tion, at the end of the seventeenth century, between comprehension and toleration as later appeared to be the case. The Toleration Act of 1689 was extended only to those willing to subscribe the doctrinal articles of the Church of England. Again, whereas under Charles the indulgence of nonconformists might be refused without reason given, there was no such option for the authorities in regard to toleration. Under the Indul¬ gence, applicants had to declare their denomination, but no such designation was required under the Toleration Act. “ Protestant Dissenter ” was a vaguer term than “ nonconformist ”; the latter implied divergence of action, dissent might be merely theoretical; and the hope survived that in time, without alteration in the conditions of admission to the Church, those toler181

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

ated would conform. This hope was shared by many Anglicans and Dissenters alike. The tolerated societies of worshippers were congregations of “ Protestant Dis¬ senters ”, and commonly included elements which separ¬ ated later as Presbyterians and Independents, with the rise of Arianism and the discussion of doctrinal differences. As the Trust Deeds of numerous non¬ conformist chapels built after 1689 clearly prove, the possibility of comprehension in a national church did not perish with the passing of the Toleration Act. At Hull, for example, two chapels built in 1696 and 1698 by Presbyterians and Independents respectively contain provisions for two contingencies ; the renewal of perse¬ cution and the possibility of comprehension in the Church of England.1 Open Trusts, in themselves, do not attest the liberalism of the founders of the meeting-houses. They were the rule, not the exception, amongst the Dissenters of the years following the Toleration Act. Apparently they were left open for two reasons : (1) Since the Act permitted no dissent from the doctrine of the established church, it was not foreseen that heresy would arise in these chapels. (2) The founders, not having lost all hope of comprehension, framed their trusts so that the buildings could easily be taken over by the established church when the need arose. Traces of doctrinal liberalism amongst Protestant Dissenters in the decade after 1689 are few and far between. The first minister at Bradford, after his ejection in 1662, though he preached at home on Sunday evenings, regularly attended the Parish Church on Sunday mornings, and ninety years later his successor attended prayers at Church on weekdays, though he always objected to turn to the East at the recital of the Apostles’ Creed. Plainly, at the end of the seventeenth century, non¬ conformity was not generally regarded, whether inside 1 W.

Whitaker,

Art.

“ The

Open

Trust

Myth ”,

Trans¬

actions of the Unitarian Historical Society, I, pp. 303-14.

182

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

or outside the Church, as a necessary or permanent element in the religious life of the nation. Meanwhile, it enjoyed legal protection. As time went on, sub¬ scription to the articles of the Church of England became, by use and wont, less obligatory, and many instances can be cited in the eighteenth century before the Tolera¬ tion Act of 1779 of its complete neglect. After that Act, with its requirement of belief that “ the scriptures . . . contain the revealed will of God ”, not only did heresy spread in nonconformist chapels, but also the hope of comprehension, at least on the side of liberal dis¬ senters—the so-called Presbyterians—strengthened rather than declined, though it was realized that it then involved a radical change in the terms of entrance into the estab¬ lished church, which regarded it with less and less favour. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, indeed, comprehension found few supporters in the Church. William Robertson, a former pupil of Francis Hutcheson at the Dublin Academy and at Glasgow College, entered the Church. He resigned his Irish preferments in 1764, and two years later published his Attempt . . ., in which he would have limited sub¬ scription in the Church to the Bible, revised the Prayer Book to bring it into harmony with the Scriptures, and so open the Church to every heretic, the more the merrier. Ten years later, he turned Unitarian, but did not re-enter the ministry. Lindsey called him “ the father of Unitarian nonconformity ”. His action greatly influenced Lindsey, who in 1772 had strenuously sup¬ ported the Feathers Tavern Petition to Parliament, seeking to substitute for the legal subscription a declara¬ tion of belief in the Holy Scriptures as containing “ a revelation of the mind and will of God ” to be received “ as the Rule of our Faith and Practice ”. The Petition was rejected. Nevertheless, for two centuries, comprehension was an ideal inspiring the minds of some of the noblest of 183

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Liberal Christians, and, amongst Dissenters, especially Unitarians. It was unattainable, though, in different forms, none without grave shortcomings, it enlisted the zeal of men like Baxter, Ussher, Fowler, and Patrick in the seventeenth century, Calamy, Peirce, Chandler, and Towgood in the eighteenth, and Thomas Arnold, James Martineau, Charles Beard, and James Drummond in the nineteenth. Calamy stood on the same ground as Locke, and the Presbyterians who followed Calamy maintained the same tradition. “ I know ”, he said,1 “ many that the world calls Presbyterians that are of no party. These (whether in or out of the Church) whose principles and spirit are against the narrowing or straightening the terms of Christian communion, by adding to what our Lord has plainly appointed, are a very considerable and in¬ creasing number.” The same tone is echoed in the writings of Arians like Peirce, Chandler, and Towgood. In the nineteenth century, comprehension took other forms. The ideal of Martineau and his school sprang partly from a well-grounded distrust of doctrine as the fundamental bond of union between Christians, partly from loyalty to the assumed motives of the so-called Presbyterian founders of the old meeting-houses. Many of them, in point of fact, had been Independents, and others Baptists. Martineau pleaded for a catholicity which he thought he had discovered in the eighteenth century, and laid down three principles, (i) A basis of union as broad as Christianity. (2) An unconditional refusal of doctrinal names. (3) An openness to pro¬ gressive theology. His own position he made plain at the Leeds Conference of 1888 : “If anyone, being a Unitarian, shrinks on fitting occasion, from plainly calling himself so, he is a sneak and a coward. If, being of our catholic communion, he calls the chapel 1

Reply to Hoadly and Olyffe (1705), Part I, p. 259 ;

script, p. 250.

184

Post¬

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

Unitarian, he is a traitor to his spiritual ancestry, and a deserter to the camp of its persecutors ”. Gladstone, in the debate on the Dissenters’ Bill of 1844, had argued in favour of the Presbyterian love of liberty in matters doctrinal. “ If ”, he said, “ the parties who themselves were willing to subscribe, when they came to found meeting-houses, which of course were intended to be used by posterity as well as by themselves, no longer referred to doctrinal tests, but framed their deeds in the largest and most general language, does not that raise a strong presumption that, though they were themselves believers in particular doctrines, yet they objected in principle to binding their posterity to the maintenance of them for ever ? ” Alas, the his¬ torian’s answer to Gladstone’s question must be, as the parliamentarians say, in the negative. James Drummond, in his Provincial Assembly Lecture on Ecclesiastical Comprehension and Theological Freedom (1911) sought to elicit “ something in the English Pres¬ byterian principles which led, perhaps almost insensibly, to openness of mind and freedom from dogmatic bonds He found it in (1) their preference of comprehension to toleration, and (2) their fidelity to conscience. The latter, however, he admits, was not peculiar to them amongst Dissenters. “ These two principles contained implicitly, as their practical result, the rejection of sub¬ scription to articles of belief.” He began with the acceptance of what Alexander Gordon called “ The Open Trust Myth ”. “ Our forefathers . . . based their congregations and their schools of learning, not on a doctrinal, but on a spiritual foundation. Their principle of comprehension required that their terms of fellowship should be as wide as possible ; and their fidelity to conscientious conviction in themselves induced respect for the equally conscientious conviction of their neigh¬ bours. Hence ‘ Fundamentals ’, as they were called, tended to become fewer and fewer, and finally resolved

185

N

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

themselves into what was known as * the Sufficiency of Scripture ’ ”. This theory is now seen to be based on a warrantless assumption as respects the “ Open Trust Deeds Stillingfleet, whose Irenicum of 1660 Drummond quotes with approval, was the bitter opponent of Locke’s doctrinal liberalism. It is admitted bv Dr. Drummond that “ at this time, the Presbyterians were willing to accept the doctrinal articles of the Church of England, and even in regard to the government of the Church, were ready to acquiesce in a modified episcopacy ”, and “ that freedom from subscription in the Presbyterian Churches did not betoken any leaning towards doctrines regarded as heretical ”. He neglects the operative factor distinguishing liberals from traditionalists, namely the place of reason in the interpretation of Scripture, admitted by Milton, Locke and Newton, but denied by the orthodox in favour of creeds and catechisms as determining the meaning of the text. Unnoticed is the presence of this factor in the liberal nonconformist academies, and in the universities of Scotland and Holland, to which their most promising students, many of them afterwards tutors, regularly resorted. How this made for the growth of religious freedom and the progress of Unitarianism has been made clear by Miss Olive Griffiths.1 Dr. Drummond’s whole argument is really a non sequitur. There is no necessary connexion between the admission of variations in the theory and practice of worship and government and that of variations in doc¬ trinal belief, however closely the two may be linked together. They belong to two universes of discourse. Schemes of comprehension, like Baxter’s, which went a considerable way towards satisfying the rival ecclesiastical theories of Presbyterians, Independents and Episco¬ palians, admitted the right of the State to employ force against dissidents like “ Papists ”, Quakers and UniJ

J

1 Religion and Learning (1935).

186

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

tarians, and the existence of Unitarianism in churches professing the Presbyterian, Independent, Episcopalian and, for a time, even Methodist systems of government is an evidence that liberalism is not dependent on a particular form of discipline and government. Whether as a State Church, tolerating no rivals but comprehensive in rites and discipline, with some relaxa¬ tion of doctrinal requirement, or as a scheme for pro¬ viding a school of Liberal Christians furtively within the fold of the Church—the intent of Locke’s contem¬ poraries, the Unitarian Tract Writers—or as a number of old dissenting chapels openly enlisting members of every shade of theological opinion, the aim of compre¬ hension failed to achieve its end. It did not by any means wholly disappear, at least amongst Unitarians. E. P. Barrow, an Oxford man, Tutor of S. Mary Hall 1870-79, and Rector of Cholderton, Wilts., 1879-92, as late as 1894, when minister of Cross Street Chapel, Manchester, pleaded for the comprehension of Dis¬ senters in a National Church. He spoke of “ that hope of comprehension to which the old Presbyterian congre¬ gations always clung. They hoped and longed for a National Church, reformed, but still national. That hope is cherished in the Church of England, and there are many worshipping members of that Church who by a faith unfaithful—if I may use the word—kept falsely true, simply because they cannot allow their hope to be lost to them.” Thirty-four years later, Dr. Henry Gow, of Manchester College, Oxford, could write :1 “ Unitarians, generally speaking, have never enjoyed being Nonconformists. They would always have pre¬ ferred comprehension, if it did not involve unveracity. They have been, like Baxter, unwilling exiles, and many of them still look forward to the possibility of inclusion in a Catholic Church, in which no Creeds will interfere with the sincere and full expression of their Christian faith.”

1

The Unitarians, p. 43.

187

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Probably the last statement would be more accurate if “ some ” were read for “ many Gow confined him¬ self too exclusively to the old Presbyterian line of descent, to the neglect of the General Baptists, Methodists, Uni¬ tarians, Independents, Christian Brethren, and the churches founded in the nineteenth century. To not a few Unitarians the principle of State establishment in religion is as obnoxious as it was to Milton, though Martineau did not share that feeling. Locke’s influence upon the Unitarians in respect of the basis of Christian membership of the church has been noted.1 Richard Baxter would have made the baptismal formula into a personal confession ; “I believe in God the Father, the Son and Holy Ghost ” express “ all the essentials, if intelligently held. In matter of public profession he proposed to limit requirements to the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer and the Deca¬ logue ”.2 No wonder, as Dr. F. J. Powicke said,3 Baxter’s “ mark will be found mostly on those broaderminded Presbyterians . . . who, more or less unwit¬ tingly, opened the way to the Arian movement which, in due course, brought forth modern Unitarianism ”. Liberal Dissenters at first followed Baxter, paying little heed to the avowal of Hobbes, whose bona fides they suspected, that belief in the Messiahship of Jesus sufficed as a Christian profession, until Locke adopted it. There¬ upon they made Locke’s watchword theirs : “ To be a Christian is to admit the Messiahship of Jesus ”, with all its implications. None the less, they retained the Matthean baptismal formula. It is found in the dis¬ senting liturgies of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. Common Prayer for Christian Worship (1862) gives that formula alone. Its revision 1 See pp. 108—112. 2 Alex. Gordon, “ Baxter as a Founder of Liberal Chris¬ tianity ”, in Heads of English Unitarian History, p. 92. 3 Richard Baxter under the Cross (1926), p. 223.

188

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

in The Ten Services, by Martineau, gives also alternative formulae, and in A Book of Occasional Services (1932), as in a few earlier books, the Matthean formula is absent. From the time of Martineau’s rejection of belief in the assumption by Jesus of Messiahship, Locke’s basis of Christian membership ceased to be a “ mark ” of Uni¬ tarian Christianity, though the belief itself is by no means universally denied. Milton, Locke and Newton were among the early advocates of Toleration in England, with which, indeed, Locke’s name is for ever indissolubly associated. True, their Toleration was not unlimited, nor yet was it original to them in this country, to say nothing of the Continent. “To Socinianism alone ”, says Ruffini1 “ belongs the glory of having as early as the sixteenth century, made Toleration a fundamental principle of ecclesiastical discipline, and of having deter¬ mined, more or less immediately, all the subsequent revolutions in favour of religious liberty.” The first State recognition in Europe of the principle of Toleration was the Edict of Torda, published in 1568 by the Diet of Torda, Transylvania, presided over by the young Prince John Sigismund, who had been converted to Unitarianism by Francis David, the leading spirit in the Diet and the founder of the existing Hungarian Unitarian Church. The Edict gave equal liberty to the four churches then organized in the principality, viz. Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist and Unitarian. Francis David advanced in Christology beyond the position of Socinus, and declined, on grounds of Scrip¬ ture teaching, to allow the validity of the worship of Christ. The Edict of Torda antedated the imperfect English Toleration Act of 1689 by 121 years, and the Trinity Act of 1813, which removed the penalties for professing Unitarianism, by 245 years. William Smith, the Unitarian who introduced the Trinity Bill into the House of Commons, sat in the House almost continuously 1 Religious Liberty . .

189

p. 90.

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

from 1784 to 1830, and for over forty years “ took part in almost every discussion on religious disabilities till the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1828 On one view of it, “ Toleration is privilege. From the standpoint of those who tolerate, it is privilege grudged, and seasoned with humiliation ; to those on whom it may be bestowed it is humiliation perpetuated under the varnish of privilege ’k1 This was not how Milton, Locke and Newton regarded toleration. For them, as for Socinus, it was “ the antithesis of dogma¬ tism, and the logical corollary of freedom and reason in religion ”.2 It was not merely, nor even primarily, a policy of Government. “ It was an attitude of mind which is willing to grant another the same right to hold a view as one claims for oneself.” An early biographer of Milton associates him and Locke with the Unitarian Firmin in the matter of toleration. “ I don’t remember ”, he said,3 “ ever to have met with any person who spoke with such disinterestedness and impartiality of our various sects in religion except Thomas Firmin. . . . But the subject is since perfectly exhausted and treated with greater clearness and brevity than ever before in a letter concerning toleration by John Locke.” So far, indeed, as Locke thought of “ the bonds of society ” and of religion as necessary to citizenship, and therefore excluded atheists from toleration, he fell short of the higher ideal of later Unitarians. These, in the eighteenth century, when actually engaged in the defence of Christianity, argued strongly against the persecution of infidels, e.g. Nathaniel Lardner, in his preface to the “ Vindication of Three Miracles . . . against Woolston ” (1729) and in two “ Letters to the Bishop of Chichester ” ; Samuel Chandler, in the preface to the “ Conduct of 1 Alex. Gordon, Heresy . . ., p. 49. 2 E. M. Wilbur, Art. “ F. Socinus.” Bulletin des Comiteinternational des Sciences historiques, 1933, p. 60. 3 J. Toland, Life of Milton, Reprint 1761, pp. 135, 136.

190

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

Modern Deists ” (1727), and Simon Browne, in “ A Fit Rebuke to a Ludicrous Infidel ” (1732). Such writers relied upon the strength of their arguments, and were strongly opposed to the exercise of the civil authority in the defence of Christianity. Even before the seven¬ teenth century had run its course, Toland had spoken of “ those called Presbyterians in England (some few leading men excepted), who are no such enemies to a toleration, and understand no more of the consistorian, classical, or synodical judicatories than they allow of the inquisitions or hierarchy In 1913 Alexander Gordon expressed the ripe consistent Unitarian view when, in the preface to his Essex Hall Lecture on Heresy, Its Ancient Wrongs and Modern Rights in These Kingdoms, he declared it to be his “ intention to uphold, with all the strength he inherited, the honour of an honest con¬ viction, in whatever strange conditions it may chance to be found, and, concurrently, his determination to emphasize, with all the force at his command, the dis¬ credit of a repressive temper, however and wherever it may be found On the undeniable ground of the Socinian indebtedness to the Renaissance, and of its, less probable, indebtedness to Duns Scotus and Occam, many historians of doctrine deny the essential connexion of Socinianism with the larger movement of the Reformation. Apart, however, from the fact that Faustus Socinus regarded himself as a Protestant, Socinianism, without Lutheranism as its fore¬ runner, is almost unintelligible. Luther’s two great treatises of 1520, “ The Babylonian Captivity of the Church ”, with its doctrine of the priesthood of all true Christians, and “ The Liberty of a Christian Man ”, expounding the sanctity of ordinary human callings in contrast with the traditional view of the superiority of the celibate and secluded life, lie at the foundation of much Socinian doctrine. Again, Toleration was implicit in the Protestant idea of justification by faith, since 191

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

whilst works and submission to the Church may be imposed by outward authority, the origin and exercise of faith rest exclusively on the relations between God and the soul. Socinus brought to the surface as a primary principle what Luther permitted to sink into the background of Protestant thought. Mr. Anthony Lincoln has remarked that “ The thirty years which divide the Treatise of Civil Power (by Milton) from the Letters on Toleration (by Locke) might well be three hundred, so great is the contrast between the spirit of the two works.” Yet he admits that “ in the second the two leading ideas of the first have continued to evolve logically and consistently ”. But “ for Locke ”, the issue has become purely political; there are in his works arguments drawn from “ the Gospel of Jesus Christ ”, but the bulk of them are from “ the genuine reason of mankind ”.x In other words, the relation between Milton and Locke is not one of teacher and pupil, but of two independent thinkers discussing the same theme in the face of different ecclesiastical and political situations. What A. L. Smith said of Milton2 might be said also of Locke : “Of religion he demands that it shall purge itself of all contact with material interest and all temptation to support itself by force.” The Free Christians, Unitarians and Non-Subscribing Presbyterians of the Twentieth century, whose chapels and colleges, established on Open Trusts, require no subscription to articles of belief from ministers, members or students, have been faithful since the very beginning of the eighteenth century to the principle of full and complete toleration. In the eighteenth century, Arians and Socinians for long worshipped together, and occa¬ sionally enjoyed the joint ministrations of two divines belonging to the opposite schools of Unitarian philosophy 1 Ut supra, p. 187. ? Cambridge Modern History, vi. 796.

192

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

and theology. In the movement for abolishing penalties upon the expression of honest doubt, whatever its form, Unitarians have been conspicuous. Milton, Locke and Newton were keenly interested in education, and had practical experience as teachers. Milton gave to the world a Tractate Of Education, addressed to his friend “ Master Samuel Hartlib ”; Locke, besides shorter studies, Some Thoughts Concerning Education ; and Newton, though he published nothing on the subject, drafted with great care an elaborate report on the instruction given at Christ’s Hospital, on the invitation of the school directors, which resulted in a new curriculum of study there. He also examined the library and advised on the purchase of suitable books. Milton’s contribution to the theory and practice of education is not esteemed of great value. He wrote the Tractate “ to advocate the foundation of an academy, which would make it needless for Englishmen to seek courtly breeding in a foreign land ’k1 Even as a teacher, the poet made no great mark, if we may judge from the character and literary products of the pupils of whom anything is known. Boswell says that Johnson did not favour the reprinting of Milton’s Tractate on Education. “ So far as it would be anything,” he said, “ it would be wrong. Education in England has been in danger of being hurt by two of its greatest men, Milton and Locke. Milton’s plan is impracticable, and I suppose has never been tried. Locke’s, I fancy, has been tried often enough, but is very imperfect; it gives too much to one side, and too little to the other ; it gives too little to literature.” Johnson’s dictum respecting Milton’s plan is irrefutable, and his criticism of Locke’s is justified, for the philosopher mentions only Cudworth and Chillingworth as writers worth reading, and never mentions even Spencer, Shakespeare or Milton.

1

J. W. Adamson, The Educational Writings of John Locke,

p. 4.

*93

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

But this is not all that may be said. Milton and Locke, whilst not in agreement on all principles and practice, were both in different ways innovators and pioneers, and had been attracted to the educational doctrines of Commenius. The significance of Milton’s letter “ Of Education ” is to be found in its being the earliest Puritan call for educational reform, especially in the universities. Puritan rule in the universities has often met with undeserved scorn. But the historian of Merton College, describing the restoration of ejected fellows on the return of Charles II from his travels, says : “ Naive, indeed, was the astonishment of the Cavaliers on their return, to find Oxford more truly a place of learning, religion, and education than they themselves had ever known it, spite of (or because of) their own expulsion.” Of course the credit for this is not Milton’s, but his share in it as herald and crier may not wholly be denied. “ Locke’s writings ”, says Professor Adamson,1 “ shaped the theory and practice of his own immediate successors outside his own country. His principles and methods still live,” whilst Professor Aaron declares 2 that “ Most of his teaching has long since become part of the general educational theory of this country. In his own day, however, to judge from the evidence to hand, it must have been regarded as highly heretical. . . . Some Thoughts Concerning Education is a very definite step forward in educational theory, and few other English books have influenced educational thought so deeply.” Milton’s scheme of religious instruction, excessively ambitious as it was, included Scripture (in the original tongues), ethics, politics, theology, and “ the end of learning ” is defined as “ to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace

1

Ut supra.

2 John Locke, pp. 294, 295.

194

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

of faith, makes up the highest perfection Locke prescribed “ acts of devotion to God in some plain and short form of prayer ” as of “ much more use to children in religion, knowledge, and virtue, than to distract their thoughts with curious inquiries into his inscrutable essence and being ”. He deprecated “ the promiscuous reading of the Bible. How little are the law of Moses, the Song of Solomon, the prophecies in the Old and the Epistles and Apocalypse in the New Testament suited to a child’s capacity ? ” He approved of the presentation to children of the stories in the Old Testament, the Lord’s Prayer, Ten Commandments and “ the moral rules scattered up and down in the Bible ”. Ethics he would have taught “ more by practice than by rules It is clear that in the educational doctrine of Milton and Locke the place of religion in the curriculum is fully recognized, not simply as one subject amongst many, but as a spirit, moral and pious, animating the teacher and shaping the ethos of the school. The common interest in politics, education and religion as essentially related spheres of human activity, not completely separated by any division of sacred and secular, exhibited by Milton, Locke and Newton, was afterwards reflected in the liberal dissenting academies where their works were studied. “ In their totality ”, said Dr. W. A. Shaw,1 “ the Academies present a brilliant galaxy of talent in fields of learning far removed from mere theological studies. Such a result could not have been achieved, had it not been for the powerful solvent of intellectual freedom which the Unitarian movement brought in its train.” It was interest in politics that determined Priestley’s introduction of History into the curriculum of Warrington Academy. “ My view ”, he said, “ was to facilitate the subserviency to the highest uses ... to contribute to its forming the able statesman

1

See the writer’s Education Under the Test Acts for quotation from Dr. Shaw and the history of the Nonconformist Academies.

*95

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

and the intelligent and useful citizen ”, and it was this interest which led him to enumerate among “ the most important objects of attention to a reader of history ” such items as “ government despotism ” and “ the advantages of democracy Priestley was a pioneer in education, interesting himself in the organization of schools, methods of instruction, and the provision of suitable text-books, and was one of the first teachers to apply psychological principles to education. Unlike many contemporary educationalists he did not believe in a national system of education, because he feared the influence of the Court and Government. Nowadays, this fear seems almost foolish but not if we recall the political conditions of Priestley’s day, or even contemplate the position of educational institutions in modern Ger¬ many. Priestley, of course, was by no means alone in progressive views of education in his day. These were common in the liberal nonconformist academies, which in their text-books, teaching methods, and examination tests were often superior to the old universities, however inferior in libraries, apparatus and equipment generally. Liberty, religious and political, which Milton cherished with an ardent passion, expressed in glowing prose, Locke explained by cool, scientific investigation, so as to bring out clearly its significance for the Christian and the citizen. Freedom for neither was an end in itself, nor even essentially true in character save in so far as it was rooted and grounded in goodness. As Milton declared in the Tenure of Kings and Magistrates, “ None can love freedom heartily (i.e. from the heart) but good men ; the rest love not freedom, but licence ; which never hath more scope or more indulgence than under tyrants.” Congregational historians have paid tribute1 to the fidelity of Unitarians in the second half of the eighteenth century to the principles thus championed by Milton and Locke. “ Neither the Baptists nor the Congregation1 Skeats and Miall, History of the Free Churches, p. 361. 196

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alists, nor both combined, could at this period compare, for mental power and public service to civil and religious freedom, with the Unitarians.” Detailed proof for this statement, and more generally, for the Unitarian Contri¬ bution to Social Progress in England as a whole, may be found in the volume bearing that title.1 Constrained by nature to be freemen and pathfinders in their several pursuits, and possessed in differing degrees by a speculative spirit, Milton, Locke and Newton, neither by the creeds of the Church nor by the Calvinism of Dissent could be induced to confine their enquiries into the meaning and significance of Scripture within the limits of traditional orthodoxy. To each the way had been open to accept orders in the Church, but they had turned aside from that prospect, unwilling to subscribe its articles. Milton proudly trumpeted it forth, Locke and Newton, more cautious and even timorous in temper, clearly implied it in their actions and their references to orthodoxy and systems of belief. All three in this sense at least were Free Christians and Non-Subscribers. Partly the caution of Locke and Newton may have been dictated by the fact that for some time they were in the employ of the Government, and unwilling to engage openly in a conflict with the laws of the realm. Milton, Locke and Newton were conspicuous in their day for independence of thought, and for their consequent progress in liberal theological opinion, which brought them all under suspicion of heresy. The relig¬ ious pilgrimage of Milton, already sketched, was most conspicuous. His early life was spent in a period of revolt against tyrannical authority in Church and State ; a little later in his career, Utopia, religious and political, seemed almost within sight, when, like a mirage in the mist, it disappeared from view with the Restoration of Charles the Second. Milton himself employed another simile in his Letter to General Monk (1660), a last pathetic 1 By R. V. Holt (1938).

197

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

and futile attempt to stave off the downfall of the Com¬ monwealth. “ Where is this goodly tower of a common¬ wealth which the English boasted they would build to overshadow kings, and be another Rome in the West ? The foundation indeed they laid gallantly, but fell into a worse confusion, not of tongues, but of factions, than those at the tower of Babel, and have left no memorial of their work behind them remaining, but in the common laughter of Europe.” The theological development of Locke and Newton, under conditions of more sobriety and less idealism, if not so spectacular, was yet as striking, though its expression was always restrained and often concealed. Ancient formulations of doctrine they ex¬ amined and rejected, with the exception of the so-called Apostles’ Creed, which Theophilus Lindsey retained in the Unitarian liturgy of Essex Street Chapel. None of them took over opinions ready made from that treasury of seventeenth century heresy, the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum quos Unitarios Vocant.

Milton, Locke and Newton were all influenced by the work of the Cambridge Platonists. On Milton that influence affected both his beliefs and his conception of the divine origin of reason ; on Locke it expressed itself in the stress upon the moral doctrines of the gospel and his dislike of dogmatism. In the opinion of Newton’s greatest biographer, “ the influence of More and the Cambridge Platonists on Newton’s ideas of space, time and God was direct and important ’k1 The religious writings of Milton, Locke and Newton, often of necessity controversial, though dissimilar in tone and character, betray a certain identity of interest, especially in the discussion of texts designed to establish the true text of scripture. The establishment of that text was indeed fundamental to their conception of scriptural authority. Milton alone attempted a system of theology, which, written in Latin and unpublished, 1 L. T. More, p. 553, n. 17.

198

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was, in his own words, “ addressed to all the Churches of Christ, and to all who profess the Christian faith through¬ out the world ”, but the fundamental doctrines of Locke, expounded and defended with conspicuous skill, were not less oecumenical in character, and were widely read at home and abroad. Locke and Newton were friends and correspondents ; they exchanged opinions on points of doctrine, and each trusted the other with a sight of works which neither published—Newton handing over to Locke his work on textual criticism and Locke showing Newton some of his paraphrases of St. Paul’s epistles. In Christology, Milton and Locke were Arian, and Newton, as it now appears, humanitarian. All were Unitarian in the essential and historical meaning of the word. In this matter Locke and Newton resembled the Arian Richard Price and the Socinian Joseph Priestley, two friends in the eighteenth century who called themselves Unitarians and were members of the same Unitarian societies, whilst differing from each other not only in philosophy but also in their views of the person and work of Christ. In their attitude towards biblical miracles, Milton, Locke and Newton were in general agreement. Milton made little use of them in his Treatise on Christian Doctrine, and did not regard them as more effective in producing belief than simple teaching. Locke enter¬ tained a higher view of miracles, in particular as to their testimony to the power and authority of Christ, but they were “ to be judged by the doctrine, not the doctrine by the miracles ”, and moreover cannot “ contradict the truths of natural religion and morality ”. Newton, more impressed by natural law than by exceptions to its opera¬ tion, inclined to regard miracles as in a certain sense natural phenomena, thus anticipating in a way the modern theologians who bring the healing miracles of Jesus within the sphere of psycho-therapeutics. In other respects, Milton, Locke and Newton were in i99

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

remarkable agreement—as to the recognized and sole authority for Christian doctrine, and as to the method and criterion for determining its meaning ; whilst, by a singular coincidence, the full disclosure of their Unitarianism was made only in manuscript writings hidden from light long after death, whose publication confirmed suspicions of heterodoxy current during life. Milton had been dead more than a century and a half when the Treatise on Christian Doctrine, published in 1825, revealed the wide range and radical character of his heresies. Four years later, a century and a quarter after Locke’s death, his biographer disclosed his Unitarian sentiments in extracts from unpublished writings. It was twentyseven years after Newton’s death when the printing of an imperfect copy of his Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture re-awakened suspicions of his Arianism, but not till 1934, 212 years after his death, were his religious opinions finally proved, by the critical investigation of manuscript remains, to be wholly Unitarian, in the modern sense of the word. For Milton, Locke and Newton the Bible was one book, a consistent whole from Genesis to Revelation. Its obvious inconsistencies were resolved by the process of interpreting the obscurer by the clearer points of its contents. This is patent on almost every page of Milton’s Treatise on Christian Doctrine, and not only there. Elsewhere in Tracts on private morality and public policy, indeed, in almost all his English prose, texts are quoted indifferently from the Old or New Testament in support of his argument, each and all of apparently equal validity, and sometimes pressed into a service where their surface meaning is by no means evident. Locke not only compared passages in one of Paul’s letters with those in another—a legitimate proceeding from the modern critical standpoint—but also, in his own words, “ compared together places of scripture treating of the same point ”, since “ one part of the sacred text could not fail to give light to another

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

So it was that in a note on Ephesians i. io he felt himself at liberty to quote John x. 16 and Daniel viii. io as elucidating the meaning of the passage, and not merely as illustrating its language. Similarly, Newton in his Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apoca¬ lypse of St. John brings together passages from each,

and adds : “ The event will prove the Apocalypse, and this Prophecy, thus proved and understood, will open the old Prophets, and all together will make known the true religion and establish it.” The keen interest displayed by Milton, Locke and Newton in eschatology, and their patient investigation of apocalyptic writings sprang from reverence for the sacred text. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, Joseph Priestley, a more radical thinker, whose abandonment of the doctrine of the miraculous conception was a matter of grave concern to his friend Lindsey, spent much time in the last years of life, settling, as he said, his “ opinion of the principal prophecies in Daniel and the Revelation.” The primary and fundamental authority in Christian doctrine, then, for Milton, Locke and Newton was the Bible in both its parts, and Christian revelation was conceived as a unity from the creation story “ in the beginning ” to the prayer of the seer of Patmos “ Come, Lord Jesus ”. In the method they employed in using Scripture, as in their rejection of the authority of Fathers, Councils and Creeds, Milton, Locke and Newton followed, con¬ sciously or unconsciously, Unitarian precedents going back to the sixteenth century. When Francis David was in controversy with Calvinists and Lutherans in 1567-68, he explained Scripture by Scripture, one passage by another, and declined to allow his opponents the validity of references to Fathers and Councils for the interpreta¬ tion of particular texts, reminding them also that they did not suffer such authorities to determine the points in dispute between themselves and Roman Catholics. 201 o

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

What Milton said of the “ Papists ” might equally have been said by Locke or Newton. “ They object, that if we must forsake all that is Rome’s, we must bid adieu to our creed ; and I had thought our creed had been of the apostles, for so it bears title. But, if it be hers, let her take it. We can want no creed, so long as we want not the Scripture.” It may be said, of course, that in discarding the authority of Creeds, Fathers and Councils, and accepting only that of the Bible, Milton, Locke and Newton simply substituted one fallible authority for another. The matter is not quite as simple as that. On the modern critical view of it, the Bible is a library of sixty-six books covering a period of more than a thousand years of history. It contains songs (sacred and secular), laws, legends, traditions, histories, chronicles, gospels, letters and apocalypses. Such a Bible neither Milton, nor Locke nor Newton knew, but it is incredible that differences in types of literature should altogether escape them, and certainly the most essential fact in the Bible did not elude them. The Biblical writers independently, and not seldom inconsistently, spoke each as he was moved without reference to external and human authority, whether Jewish or Christian, and occasionally, like Paul, abandoned the literal meaning of a sacred passage in order to secure support for his argument. That the Bible may prove a source of heresy was recognized by the Roman Catholic and Anglican scholars who attacked Chillingworth. Chillingworth had said, “ The Bible only is the religion of Protestants,” and added : “ Whatsoever also they believed besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion, but as matter of Faith and Religion neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others without most high and schismatical presumption.” To which Joseph 202

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

Cressy, the Romanist, replied :1 “ If all be of their body (Protestant) who, whatever their particular tenets be, build their faith upon only-Scripture interpreted by each man’s reason, then not only all heretics of these times, but likewise almost all heretics since the Apostles’ times will be united in the same corporation.” Francis Hare, the Anglican, is in substantial agreement,2 “ Little can be expected of a man who is by his own arguments pushed so home in the defence he would make of Pro¬ testantism that he hath nothing left, but to cry out the Bible : ‘ The Bible, I say, the Bible is the Religion of Protestants ’, and so say all the heretics and schismatics that ever were.” Milton, Locke and Newton, as we have seen, in their exegesis and discussion of disputed texts on Christian doctrine, adopted interpretations common to earlier Socinians and later Unitarians. With a lofty view of revelation in Scripture, they did not overlook the pecu¬ liarities of individual writers, nor go the length of what is known as the “ fundamentalist ” conception of the Bible. Sir Frederic Kenyon, who notes that “ the application of internal criticism to the composition of the Old Testament is not an invention of the nineteenth century ”, quotes what he calls “ the sensible remarks ” of Sir Isaac Newton in his Observations upon the Pro¬ phecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John (1733), and concludes : “ Apart from the habit of attributing to a few well-known names (Moses, Joshua, Samuel, Ezra), which finds a parallel in the eighteenth century habit of assigning all Italian pictures to a few well-known painters, this outline of the composition of the Old Testament is not so far from the conclusions of modern scholarship.” 3 The books of Scripture, then, by their very contents provided a challenge to Milton, Locke and Newton, as 1 P. Des Maizeux, Life of Chillingworth, p. 196 n. 2 Ibid., p. 198 n. 3 The Bible and Archceology (1940), pp. 270, 271, n. 1.

203

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they had done in the sixteenth century to Faustus Socinus. Like him, and unlike Puritans in general, they were men of the Renascence temper, with the detached and critical spirit of laymen and engaged in a crusade for freedom and truth. For them the written word was no mere shibboleth, solemnly accepted, repeated and interpreted on the authority of ecclesiastical tradition; it was throughout a divine revelation designed to be intelligible to human reason, itself regarded as not less divinely given. Socinus similarly had allowed reason a critical as well as an interpretative faculty ; he allowed that the essentials of salvation should be believed not only because God has revealed them but because the truth shines with its own light, and admitted that Scripture sometimes relates physical impossibilities which sensible men gloss in another sense. Given their assumptions as to the nature of Scripture, Milton, Locke and Newton could not have been other than faulty in their exegesis, but it would have been strange if not seldom such men proved to be pioneers in the critical interpretation of the Bible. Milton’s conception of the place of reason in religion has been already illustrated. Writing to Limborch (6 October 1685), Locke said : “If all things which are contained in the sacred books are equally to be regarded as inspired, without any distinctions, then we give philosophers a great handle for doubting of our faith and sincerity. . . .” “ For many things which I have met with in the canonical books have excited in me doubt and anxiety.” These doubts he resolved before 1695 when he published The Reasonableness of Christianity, based on the Scriptures interpreted by reason. The Toleration Act of 1779 included a clause express¬ ing belief that “ the scriptures of the Old and New Testament ... do contain the revealed will of God ”, and that “ the same ” is received as “ the rule of doctrine and practice ”. Liberal Dissenters were ready to affirm that the Scriptures “ contain ” the revealed will of God 204

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

(embedded in much other matter), and received “ the same ”, i.e. the will of God (not the Scriptures generally) as the rule of doctrine and practice. Locke did not get quite as far as this, but he moved in that direction. Newton, in his private reasonings, went further than Locke, but remained to the end even more cautious in avoiding the publication of his views on Christian doc¬ trine. One of the many American disciples of Milton, Locke and Newton said in 1745 : 1 “ There never was, nor can be any Wisdom among men, but which is com¬ municated from God ; nor is there any law of Nature, or Rules of Natural and Moral Wisdom, which we speak of as implanted in the Mind of Man, but which is found in the Bible, and cultivated and improved by that Revelation.” Milton, Locke and Newton agreed that Protestant principles dictated practice precisely the opposite of that of Roman Catholics, based on other principles. Milton spoke of the Roman Catholic and Protestant practice of persecution. “ The Papist, judging by his principles, punishes them who believe not as the Church believes, though against the Scriptures.” Hence, “ the more a man professes to be a Protestant, the more he hath to answer for his persecuting than a Papist ”. A modern Roman Catholic scholar puts it this way. “ Catholics have a right to toleration from Protestants, since toleration is a principle with them, but Protestants have no right to toleration from Catholics, as toleration is not a principle with Catholics ”. Milton had pointed to the authority in each church which led to the rejection and the accept¬ ance of the practice of persecution. Newton spoke of “ pious frauds ” in the treatment of biblical manuscripts. “ We must acknowledge it a greater crime in us to favour such practices, than in the Papists . . . for they act according to their religion, but we contrary to ours.” Locke was in general agreement with Milton and Newton 1 S. Williams, Connecticut Election Sermon, p. 18. 205

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

as to the relation of principle to practice, and all three were led to move in the direction of liberalism in practice by their rejection of Roman Catholic principles, and their common definitions of the principles of Protestantism. One of the main objects of Locke and Newton was to meet the attacks upon Christianity by Deists and sceptics. In this they signally failed. Voltaire, and Deists like Toland, Tindal and Collins, carried to an extreme, even irrational, length the biblical criticism of Locke, whilst they brought out more clearly, and separate from his doctrine of revelation, the materialism and inherent scepticism in his philosophy. Later still, the mechanism of the physical world, unveiled by Newton, was extended to include man, body and mind, and certain early Dar¬ winians preached a materialist and mechanical philosophy as the last word of reason. One thing should not go unnoticed. The rejection of the philosophy of Locke does not involve the repudiation of his principles of biblical criticism. In our own day, the Ritschlian philosophy of Harnack may be said to have perished, but his scientific historical studies and his New Testament criticism are not thereby materially affected, despite a widespread assumption to the contrary. That Milton, Locke and Newton did not labour in vain in the field of Scripture knowledge may be seen from what followed in a circle outside those of deists and sceptics, and numbering in its ranks many able Unitarian defenders both of revelation and of Christian theism, though these have not seldom been classed with their opponents by writers imperfectly acquainted with their teaching. In the English Unitarian academies of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, no subscription to articles or any declaration of faith was required from candidates on entrance ; the scriptural foundation for Christian doctrine was accepted ; and the methods of scriptural investiga¬ tion, adopted by Milton, Locke and Newton, were pur¬ sued without any reference to creeds or systems of 206

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

theology such as were the recognized authoritative inter¬ pretations of the Bible in orthodox seminaries. By these, two expedients were fused into one. On the one hand, the real authority of creeds and articles was made to consist in their agreement with the Bible, and, on the other, the Bible was carefully interpreted in accordance with creeds and articles. In the liberal academies a different practice was followed. Dr. John Taylor, principal at Warrington, was accustomed every year to adjure his hearers “ to attend to evidence as it lies in the holy Scripture, or in the nature of things and the dictates of reason, to assent to nothing taught by him except as it appeared to be supported by him and justified by proper evidence ; to suspect or reject any principle or sentiment advanced by him which afterwards upon careful examination should appear doubtful or false; and finally to keep their minds always open to fresh truth, to banish prejudice, and steadily to assert and fully allow to others the inalienable right of judgment and conscience This admonition was repeated in so many words every session by Charles Wellbeloved at York, where James Martineau was a student. The result was that from the tutors and students of these academies, whose teaching was based upon principles recognized by Milton, Locke and Newton, there pro¬ ceeded a steady stream of works on biblical criticism, exegesis, and fresh translations of both testaments, which were pioneer works in their day.1 Dean Stanley once said : “ The Unitarians have had the rare merit of sustaining at great odds, and amidst all manner of social disadvantages, the spirit of free enquiry and critical discernment, which, in the other noncon¬ formist communities was hardly developed at all, and which, in the Church itself, needed constant replenish¬ ment.” 1 See the writer’s Unitarian Movement in the Religious Life of England, pp. 13-67. 207

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

Milton, Locke and Newton stood precisely on the same ground as William Ellery Channing, the nineteenth century American Unitarian divine, who accepted the Bible in much the same way as they did, and whose Christology was not far removed from theirs. A passage from his Sermon on Self-Denial might well have been spoken by any one of his three illustrious forerunners. “ If after a deliberate and impartial use of our best faculties a professed revelation seems to us plainly to disagree with itself, or to clash with great principles that we cannot question, we ought not to hesitate to withhold from it our belief. I am surer that my rational nature is from God than that any book is the expression of His will. This light in my own breast is His primary revelation, and all subsequent ones must accord with it, and are in fact intended to blend with and brighten it.” Channing, who in essentials stood so near to Milton, Locke and Newton, deeply influenced Unitarianism in England, both directly and through the attraction of his spirit and teaching for James Martineau, whilst upon the Unitarianism of the Non-Subscribing Pres¬ byterian Churches of Ireland, which date from the seven¬ teenth century, he set an even deeper mark. In America, it was his Sermon at the Ordination of Jared Sparks in 1819, defining and defending Unitarianism, that made it a vital reality in the Liberal wing of the Congregational churches of New England. Some orthodox divines did not hesitate even in the last century to assign Unitarians in the after-life to the nether regions. Referring to this, Alexander Gordon said in a Sermon (Good Friday, 1894) : “ Where the patriot music of Milton, and Newton’s all reverent genius, and Priestley’s child-like piety are housed in the eternities of God, cannot be a home unfit for the souls of the brave and free.” Milton clearly belonged to the seventeenth century; Locke and Newton, in spirit and temper, to the eighteenth, 208

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But, in his singular insensibility to the need for order and discipline in the Church, in his apparent lack of any profound sense of sin, and in his almost purely intellectual approach to religious questions, Milton him¬ self was a herald of “ the age of reason In the eighteenth century, rationalism was no monopoly of obscure dissenting sects and a few latitudinarian divines. Many ordained clergymen were heretical in one or another article of faith. Some of them were Arians, others Sabellians, and most, stalwart defenders of the settlement of Church and State effected by “ the glorious Revolution of 1689 ”• A distinguished philosopher, Dr. Norman Kemp Smith, has said :1 “ The typical thinkers of the eighteenth century are, indeed, in striking contrast to those of the seventeenth century, anti-metaphysical; but this did not in the least weaken their conviction that in all matters of controversy reason is the sole ultimate court of appeal. What they had come to recognize—and it is here that Locke following Newton seemed to them to have shown the way—was that while reason is the instrument, it is never in and by itself a source of insight; and that speculation is therefore idle save where we are con¬ strained to it in our efforts to define what it is that is being vouched for by experience ”. A reverent agnosticism and a reasonable religion, taking full account both of the limits of the human mind and of the reality and significance of spiritual experience, have been characteristic of not a few modern thinkers who have combined strict adherence to truth, marking the scientist, with respect for the dictates of conscience so honourably associated with the witness of the Society of Friends. Dr. Silvanus Thompson was in the succession of Milton, Locke and Newton, when he “ set forth his own vision of a simple spiritual Chris¬ tianity, in no wise in conflict with the discoveries of

1

The Adamson Lecture, John Locke (1933).

209

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

research or the attitude of science, a living practical religion which would meet the deepest needs In his own words,1 he was amongst “ the seekers after truth, who by force of character and conviction cannot be indifferent; who realize that the religious instinct in mankind is not to be ignored or set aside ; who per¬ ceive that somehow the ethical and sociological proposi¬ tions of the non-religionist do not furnish adequate motives for right conduct; who recognize that chemistry, mechanics, history, and logic do not constitute everything in the world, that spiritual forces are phenomena to be reckoned with; who, in fact, are of a deeply religious cast of mind ...” Yet “ while they admit that Chris¬ tianity has done much for the world, and freely acknow¬ ledge the intense spiritual elevation and nobility of soul of the great Christian leaders of all ages, they are repelled by the narrowness of its creeds, the artificiality of its observances, the puerility of its rituals, and the materialism of its views on spiritual truth ”. Milton and Newton, in literature, science and theology, were much indebted to Boehme, though neither could properly be described as a mystic. In so far as mysticism entered into their spiritual life and thought, it may be supposed to mark them off sharply from rational Chris¬ tians like Unitarians. Nothing could be further from the truth. The opposition of rationalism and mysticism, assumed by those outside the Unitarian movement, arises in part from the identification of Unitarianism with that form of Liberal Christianity, whose most distin¬ guished representative was Adolf Harnack, the German historian. Harnack’s distrust of mysticism derived from Ritschlianism, with which Unitarianism has never been closely associated, and the absence of mysticism is no mark of Unitarianism. The contrary would be nearer the truth. Mystics, by their instinctive antipathy to stereotyped and mechanical formulas, their emphasis on 1 A Not Unreasonable Religion (1908), p. 6. 210

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

experience, and their claim to spiritual freedom were the forerunners of the Unitarians. Principal J. H. Weatherall, speaking on “ The Validity of Mystical Experience ” in 1936 at the meeting of the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, said : “ There is a strong mystical note in Unitarianism. Martineau, Channing and Emerson are obvious examples of it, and it is prominent in Unitarian hymns, both American and English. Usually the word itself has been avoided. Martineau, for instance, declared himself an opponent of Mysticism, because he identified it with certain Oriental forms which he did not like. Even the pathological side of Mysticism can be found in Unitarian biography. Mysticism is in fact the most commonly shared thing among us.” So far so good. It must be admitted, however, that the term Mysticism is used to cover a vast range of experience. Stopford Brooke truly said of Martineau shortly after his death, “ He was not born with a large and piercing imagination, nor with the deep emotions of a mystic. There are many criticisms, for example, on the story of Christ in the Gospels, which he would not have made had he by nature possessed these qualities.” On the other hand, Rudolf Metz 1 seems equally right in his recognition of a mystical element in Martineau’s philosophy, which again is apparent in his sermons. “For Martineau ”, he declares, “ the relationship of the finite to the infinite is far closer and more intimate, personal, and direct than can be known in the moral consciousness. . . .” Martineau recognizes “ a specifically religious sense or faculty ” “ in that primary feeling of reverence to which he had assigned the highest rank of all in his moral scale of values. It is reverence that first draws us up into the higher sphere and enables us to look upward, to cross the frontier dividing merely phenomenal from true reality, and to compass the ideal. In the feeling of 1 A Hundred Years of British Philosophy, pp. 222, 3, 211

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

reverence we are delivered from the incessant battle of conflicting motives and lifted up into communion with the life and love of God. The moral finds its final fulfilment and completion in the sacred, and the finite soul enters into and is assimilated to the infinite being. And so Martineau’s philosophy of religion dies away in a strain of thought which if not sheer mysticism at least comes close to it.” Charles Beard, one of Martineau’s most faithful disciples, in his Hibbert Lec¬ tures on the Reformation, said :1 “ The line between mysticism and rationalism is easy to draw in theory, but also easy to overpass by a soul of apt constitution ”, and later (page 281), speaking of the limits of rational biblical criticism, he adds : “ the rationalist will still have to go to the mystics if they would learn the whole secret of Christianity.” In a remarkable autobiographical fragment, Joseph Estlin Carpenter related a mystical experience, “ which had been the foundation of his own religion ”. It was quoted with approval by a pupil of his in the Sermon before the General Assembly in 1938, and, though its source was unacknowledged, formed one of a cento of similar passages in an address from the B.B.C. on Whit¬ sunday of the same year. A single brief extract will disclose its essential nature. “ I felt that I had as direct a perception of the being of God all round about me as I have of you when we are together. It was no longer a matter of inference, it was an immediate act of spiritual apprehension. It came unsought, abso¬ lutely unexpectedly. . . . The experience did not last long. But it sufficed to change all my feeling. I had not found God because I had never looked for Him. But he had found me ; he had, I could not but believe, made himself personally known to me.” . . . Alexander Gordon, a lover of Jacob Boehme and a sympathetic biographer of George Fox, was steeped in the 1 p.

186.

212 ,

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

writings of seventeenth century mystics. In a remark¬ able letter on “ Mystical Unitarianism ” (i September 1877), he pleaded for “ the reality of that spiritual ex¬ perience which is known as mysticism ”, and in his last sermon (25 May 1930), protested that “ If you attempt to banish from religion the element of Vision, of Prophecy, of Poetry, that is, in effect, to fling the Sermon on the Mount into the waste-basket.” Like Emerson, as Oliver Wendell Holmes saw him, Gordon “ was an intellectual rather than an emotional mystic . . . He never let go the string of his balloon. He never threw over all his ballast of common sense so as to rise above an atmosphere in which a rational being could breathe.” Other examples could be given, especi¬ ally from sermons of men like John Hamilton Thom. Dr. F. G. Peabody, of Harvard University, in The Church of the Spirit (1925) relates how “ many years ago the saintly and learned German professor Tholuck was walking in his garden with a young American student who confessed himself a Unitarian. ‘ Ah ’, said the great scholar, ‘ the Unitarians, they are mystics \” It was the evidence of an insight which many Unitarians have failed to attain. The strain of ethical and intel¬ lectual protest which they inherited has been reinforced by much experience of controversy and exclusion ; but Tholuck’s judgment was historically sound. The natural affinity of the Unitarians is with that long series of wit¬ nesses to immediate communion with God which unites the mystics of all centuries in spiritual fellowship. This verdict is confirmed by the evidence of Unitarian hymnology, especially in the nineteenth century, the so-called age of materialism. In this field the Americans are foremost. The hymns of Samuel Johnson and Samuel Longfellow in Hymns of the Spirit (1864), of S. C. Beach, J. W. Chadwick, W. C. Gannett and F. L. Hosmer, enshrining the doctrine of divine immanence in forms of lyrical beauty, are instinct with mysticism, and still 213

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

keep alive in Unitarian congregations the sense of the immediacy of God’s presence, and of his direct, unbroken communion with man. As the Rev. H. W. Foote said :1 These writers deal not “ with sacramental conceptions and theological formulas in their hymnody ”, but “ with a personal experience of religion, the life of God in the human soul, like the German mystics, Gerhardt and Tersteegen . . . Some of them have expressed the doctrine of the Inner Light better than anyone else except the Quakers, and among the Quakers only Whittier, and Bernard Barton in one hymn, have given it verse form. ... It has often been assumed that the applica¬ tion of reason to religion was necessarily destructive of spirituality ; yet Harvard has sent forth this abundant stream of noble verse—pure, lofty, intimate, devotional— a generous and worthy expression of the religious life.” In one particular a like experience has been ascribed to Milton, Locke and Newton, which Englishmen may rejoice to know has no great foundation in fact. It has been said that their greatest writings afford sad evidence of the neglect shown in this country to works of genius by their contemporaries. Of Milton’s Paradise Lost an edition of 1,300 copies was sold in eighteen months. Samuel Johnson pointed out that in forty-one years “ only two editions of Shakespeare, probably not 1,000 ” were issued, and the sale of 1,300 copies of Paradise Lost in the period named “ in opposition to much recent enmity and to a style of versification new to all and disgusting to many, was an uncommon example of the prevalence of genius ”. The first edition of Locke’s famous Essay Concerning the Human Under¬ standing (1690) was exhausted in 1692. “ It was cer¬ tainly very satisfactory ”, says Fox Bourne,2 “ that, within a space of hardly more than two years, a work of so solid a nature, and appealing to such a limited circle of

1 2

Transactions of the Unitarian Historical Society, III, p. 109. Life of John Locke, II, p. 269.

214

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

readers . . . should have passed through a first edition.” The second edition came out in 1694, and, within a year, the third. Locke himself, writing to Limborch, 26 October 1694, said : “ The second edition of my book on the Human Understanding has gone off quicker than I could have apprehended.” Newton’s Principia sold with almost equal rapidity. Published about mid¬ summer, 1687, u by ^91 it was very difficult to obtain a copy Much work preceded the issue of the second edition, the editing of which took four years, so that it did not appear until June 1713. Bearing in mind the state of education in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and that in any age the readers of such works as these would be comparatively few, it cannot be main¬ tained that the contemporaries of Milton, Locke and Newton were excessively slow in appreciation of their greatest writings. None the less, it is true that Milton’s prose works were esteemed of little value before the Revolution of 1688. In 1681 rights in Isaac Barrow’s works fetched £470, and in 1688 one edition of Samuel Clarke’s Notes on the Old and New Testaments was sold for £139 155-., whilst in the same year the copyrights of all Milton’s prose works (24 in number) were sold by his widow for the sum of ten guineas. Such a price clearly “ depends on something more than the low value of copyright ”, and is probably due “ to the republican and ultra-liberal teaching of Milton’s writings ”.1 It is now more than a century since the publica¬ tion of Milton’s Treatise on Christian Doctrine evoked Channing’s Remarks on the Character and Writings of John Milton. During that period critical enquiry and discoveries have thrown much new light on the religious opinions of Milton, Locke and Newton, but, in the main, what Channing said in 1825 has only been further confirmed. “ Their theological opinions were the fruit 1 H. J. Rose, Letter in The British Magazine, dated 3 Decem¬ ber 1845. 215

RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF MILTON, LOCKE, AND NEWTON

of patient, profound, reverent study of the Scriptures. They came to this work with minds not narrowed by a technical, professional education, but accustomed to broad views, to the widest range of thought. They were shackled by no party connexion. They were warped by no clerical ambition, and subdued by no clerical timidity. They came to this subject in the fullness of their strength, with free minds open to truth, and with unstained purity of life. They came to it in an age when the doctrine of the Trinity was instilled by education, and upheld by the authority of the church and by penal laws. And what did these great and good men, whose intellectual energy and love of truth have made them the chief benefactors of the human mind, what, we ask, did they discover in the Scriptures ? a triple divinity ? three infinite agents ? three infinite objects of worship ? three persons, each of whom pos¬ sesses his own distinct office, and yet shares equally in the godhead with the rest ? No ! Scripture joined with nature and with that secret voice in the heart which even idolatry could not always stifle, and taught them to bow reverently before the One Infinite Father, and to ascribe to Him alone, supreme, self-existent divinity.” It may be argued that in some important respects, Milton, Locke and Newton differed from one another in their religious opinions, and all of them even more from the faith of Unitarians in the twentieth century. It is undeniable. It follows from the continuous opera¬ tion of principles they so strongly maintained. As Milton said in the Areopagitica : “ Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain. If her waters flow not in a continual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.” Locke, in his more pedestrian fashion, expresses the same thought somewhat differently : “ It is a duty we owe to God, as the fountain and author of all truth, who is truth itself, and it is a duty also we owe to our own souls ... to have our 216

AND OTHER UNITARIANS

minds constantly disposed to entertain and receive truth. . . . Our first and great duty then is, to bring to our studies and to our enquiries after knowledge a mind covetous of truth ; that seeks after nothing else ; and after that impartially, and embraces it, how poor, how contemptible, how unfashionable soever it may seem.” And Newton, in one of his most famous sayings, spoken shortly before his death, modestly observed : “ I do not know what I may appear to the world ; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy, playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself, in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay still all undiscovered before me.”

217

P

\

t

\

INDEX Act for suppressing Blasphemy, 147 Adult Baptism, 39 Animadversions upon Remon¬ strant’s Defence, 12 Answer to Eikon Basilike, 9, 11 Antinomianism, 33 Apocalypse of St. John, 130, 201, 203 Apology for Smectymnuus, 11 Apostles’ Creed, 91, 188, 198 Areopagitica, 15, 55, 180, 216 Arianism, 23, 24, 25, 26, 31, 40, 42, 44, 55, 56, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65, 91, 92, hi, 118, 126, 127, 147, 162, 182, 184, 192, 199, 200 Arithmetica Universalis, 128 Athanasian Creed, 35 Athanasius, 126, 127, 158, 159, 166 Baptists, 6, 12, 23, 66, 103, 129, 180, 196 Bethnal Green Academy, 103 Bibliotheque Universelle, 72 Bigamy, 41, 42, 43 Brief History of the Unitarians,

75, 76 Calvinism, 33, 55, 56, 63, 80, 197 Cambridge Platonists, 47, no, in, 198 Catholic Apostolic Church, 130, 131

Chronology of Ancient King¬ doms, 130, 165 Civil Power in Ecclesiastical Causes, 39, 56, 62, 178, 192 Collegiants, 102 Comprehension, 181-7 Considerations touching . . Hirelings, 12 Council of Nicaga, 133 Council of Sardica, 159 Deists, 206 Diet of Torda, 189 Disestablishment, 12, 83, 84, 180, 188 Dissenters’ Chapels Bill, 185 Dublin Academy, 183 Education, 193, 195, 196 Eikonoclastes, 11 Ejection of 1662, 82, 119 Episcopalians, 5, 14, 186 Eschatology, 201 Essais de Morale, 76, 154 Essay concerning Human Under¬ standing, 73, 74, no, 214, 215

Fathers, 24, 35, 98, 137, 201, 202 Feathers Tavern Petition, 183 Friends (Quakers), 6, 32, 37, 38, 39, 66, 112, 186, 209 Gangraena, 47, 56, 74

219

INDEX On

Hell, 31, 94, 208

Heptaplomeres, 47

the Morning of Nativity, 19, 59

Christ’s

Hilary, 158, 159

Open Trust Myth, 182, 185

Historical Account of . . . two Corruptions of Scripture (see Two Letters), 131, 132,

Paradise Lost, 3, 10, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26,

138,

140,

144,

145,

148,

27, 29, 30, 31, 34, 44, 52,

150,

151,

156,

161,

165,

53, 55, 56, 60, 63, 64, 214

Paradise Regained, 3, 16, 18, 20,

166, 167

27, 30, 3L 52,

Independents, 103,

180,

6,

11,

182,

12,

186,

66, 187,

Paraphrase of Epistles, 73

56,

St.

57

Paul’s

Popery, 8, 9

188, 205

Portsmouth Collection, 168

Invocation of Christ, 60, 61

Presbyterians, Kabbalah, 27

Letter to General Monk, 197 Letters on Toleration, 72, 78, 80, 81, 102, 103, 192

5,

n,

14,

103,

109,

no,

121,

122,

127,

180,

182,

183,

184,

186,

187, 188

Principia

Mathematica,

122,

123, 215

Prophecies of Daniel, 130, 201,

Licensing Act, 179, 180 Liturgies, 11, 12, m, 131, 183, 188, 189, 198

203

Racovian Catechism, 48, 49, 50,

Lord’s Supper, 9, 45

51, 72

Lutheranism, 189, 191, 201

Ready and Easy Way to estab¬ lish a Commonwealth, 39, 60 Reason of Church Government,

Lycidas, 8 Methodists, 6, 15, 187, 188

Milton’s Rabbinical Readings, 28 Miracles, 4, 28, 113, 124, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224 Mysticism, 4, 28, 113, 124, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224

7, 9,

10

Reasonableness of Christianity, 73, 79, 84, 88, 89, 204

Reflections upon the Roman Commonwealth, 70 Religion of Protestants, 75 Remonstrants, 72, 76, 77, 133,

Nettlebed Academy, 69

135,

Nicene Creed, 24, 35

136,

138,

145,

150,

I5L 154

Of Education, 193, 194 Of Prelatical Episcopacy, 46, 59 Of Reformation in England, 9,

Renaissance, 28, 65, 191, 204 Revelation, 98, 113 Roman Catholics, 5, 55, 56, 76, 81, 186, 189, 201, 202, 206

35, 59

Of True Religion, 18, 46, 52, 55,

56, 57

On the Forcers of Conscience, 56

220

Sabellianism, 61, 62, 63, 91

Samson Agonistes,14, 16, 52, 54,

56, 57

INDEX Two

Letters Account),

(see

Historical

136,

138,

139,

60, 62, 72, 74, 79, 80, 90,

141,

143,

144,

145,

148,

91, 92, 102, 109, 126, 165,

149,

150,

151,

152,

164,

175, 179, 189, 192

165, 200

Sheriff hales Academy, 121 Socinianism, 41, 42, 48, 55, 56,

Some Thoughts concerning Edu¬ cation, 73, 193, 194 Swedenborgianism, 63

Unitarians, 6, 18, 30, 35, 48, 53, 60, 61, 64, 66, 78, 86, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93,

101,

104,

Tenure of Kings and Magis¬ trates, 11, 196

108,

109,

hi, 127,

141,

146,

187,

188,

195,

Test and Corporation Acts, 190

197, 203, 208, 213

Thirty-nine Articles, 121

Unitarian Tracts,

Toleration, 71, 76, 78, 79, 83,

85,

175,

189,

190,

191,

205

189,

47,

64,

74,

75, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 90, 91, 104, 125, 126, 142, 147, 149, 187

Toleration Acts, 21, 146, 181,

Vindication . . . against Edwards,

183, 189, 204

Treatise on Christian Doctrine, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27,

29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 4i, 42, 43, 49, 50, 5i, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 60, 63, 65,

175,

199,

89 Vulgate, 133, 136 Warrington Academy, 195, 207 Westminster Assembly, 11 Westminster Confession, 28

200, 215 York Academy, 207

Trinity Act, 189

221

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ENGLISH EDUCATION UNDER THE TEST ACTS BEING THE

HISTORY

CONFORMIST By H.

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