Note 96 — Chapter XIV · BRITISH FREETHOUGHT IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

From the popular and the eclectic pietist alike the generality of the Anglican clergy stood aloof; and among them, in turn, a rationalistic and anti-mythical habit of mind in a manner joined men who were divided in their beliefs. The clergymen who wrote lawyer-like treatises against schism were akin in psychosis to those who, in their distaste for the parade of inspiration, veered towards deism. Tillotson was not the only man reputed to have done so: fervid dissenters declared that many of the established clergy paid “more respect to the light of reason than to the light of the Scriptures,” and further “left Christ out of their religion, disowned imputed righteousness, derided the operations of the holy spirit as the empty pretences of enthusiasts.”96 Of men of this temperament, some would open dialectic batteries against dissent; while others, of a more searching proclivity, would tend to construct for themselves a rationalistic creed out of the current medley of theological and philosophic doctrine. The great mass of course maintained an allegiance of habit to the main formulas of the faith, putting quasi-rational aspects on the trinity, providence, redemption, and the future life, very much as the adherents of political parties normally vindicate their supposed principles; and there was a good deal of surviving temperamental piety even in the Restoration period.97 But the outstanding feature of the age, as contrasted with previous periods, was the increasing commonness of the skeptical or rationalistic attitude in general society. Sir Charles Wolseley protests98 that “Irreligion, ’tis true, in its practice hath still been the companion of every age, but its open and public defence seems the peculiar of this”; adding that “most of the bad principles of this age are of no earlier a date than one very ill book, and indeed but the spawn of the Leviathan.” This, as we have seen, is a delusion; but the influence of Hobbes was a potent factor.