Abstract
Edward Stillingfleet was born on April 17, 1635, at Cranbourne in Dorsetshire, the seventh son of Samuel and Susanna Norris Stillingfleet.1 The ill-fated Charles I was then in the tenth year of his reign. While Stillingfleet struggled through the natural vicissitudes of infancy and early childhood, Charles was engaged with Parliament in a struggle whose outcome would affect the course of the nation and by consequence the course of Stillingfleet’s life. The political instability of England naturally disrupted the lives of many of her subjects, but the education of the young continued despite the civil wars and parliamentary struggles. Young Stillingfleet completed his grammar school education at Cranbourne under the tutelage of Thomas Garden and it was only six months before Charles was executed that, at the age of thirteen, Garden’s pupil was chosen at St. John’s College, Cambridge. On November 8, 1648, at the nomination of the Earl of Salisbury, Stillingfleet was admitted as a Scholar at St. John’s. Five years later he received his Bachelor of Arts degree and was elected a Fellow of the College. It was during this period that Whichcote, More, and Cudworth were beginning to make their influence felt and the neo-Platonist atmosphere at Cambridge was not without its effect on Stillingfleet. Henry More’s writings against atheism and enthusiasm were especially influential on the young scholar, but the more spiritualistic notions of the Cambridge Platonists seem not to have attracted Stillingfleet’s sympathy.
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Notes
On the source of the names, places, and dates which relate to Stillingfleet’s birth, education, family relations, ecclesiastical preferments, and death see the appended essay on biography, below pp. 159-60.
Brownrigg was the patron of William Sancroft, “the last of the old of school ecclesiastical statesmen.” DNB, art. “Sancroft,” XVII, p. 737. Brownrigg was also the model whom John Tillotson, the first of the new school of ecclesiastical statesmen, took to follow in both his life and preaching style. See DNB, art. “Brownrigg,” III, p. 83.
The younger Edward was educated at St. Paul’s school in London and followed his father’s example in attending St. John’s College. In 1680 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society and in 1692 was made a Doctor of Physic at Cambridge. He died in 1708, leaving a son Benjamin, a man of no profession who became somewhat noted for his naturalist writings and miscellaneous pieces of prose and verse.
Origines Sacrae went through eight editions before the publication of The Works of that Eminent and most Learned Prelate, Dr. Edw. Stillingfleet, Late Lord Bishop of Worcester. Together with his Life and Character, 6 vols. (London, 1710). The eighth edition included a fragment from a revised version of Origines Sacrae which Stillingfleet was working on at the time of his death in 1699. The revised version was subtitled “A Rational Account of the Grounds of Natural and Revealed Religion: wherein the Foundations of Religion, and the Authority of the Scriptures, are asserted and cleared. With an Answer to the modern Objections of Atheists and Deists.” The fragment contains only two chapters of Book I of the intended work. Since reference to Origines Sacrae will be made to the editions in Stillingfleet’s Works, where the fragment is separately paginated, the original version will be cited as OS and the revised version as OSR in future footnotes. In the body of the text the context should make it clear which version is being referred to.
On the latter see F. A. Lange, History of Materialism, trans. E. C. Thomas (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., Inc., 1925), pp. 253ff.
A brief account of the Laud-Fisher controversy is given in Van Leeuwen, Problem of Certainty, pp. 15-16.
Grimstone had been a member of the committee that had recommended Laud’s impeachment and had called the man whom Stillingfleet had defended in Rational Account “the sty of pestilential filth that hath infested the state and government of this commonwealth.” DNB, art. “Grimstone,” VII, p. 700.
Stillingfleet provided Dobyns with the legal arguments for a case against Haynes of Feckenham, accused of having incestuous relations with his sister’s bastard daughter. On the basis of Stillingfleet’s argument presented by Dobyns to the Court, Haynes was awarded a consultation, thereby allowing him to submit to a spiritual penance for his sin, rather than a corporal punishment for his crime. The legal argument is printed in full in Stillingfleet, Works, II, pp. 35ff.
Tyshe’s wife, Anne, was Stillingfleet’s only daughter to survive infancy. Stillingfleet had six other children by his second wife, but besides Anne only a son, James (who became an Anglican clergyman) lived to maturity.
Stillingfleet, A Vindication of the Answer to Some Late Papers Concerning the Unity and Authority of the Catholic Church, and the Reformation of the Church of England, in Works, VI, p. 663.
William Holden Hutton, the author of the DNB article on Stillingfleet, claimed that Irenicum “shows clear traces of the influence of Hobbes.” DNB, art. “Stillingfleet,” XVIII, p. 1262. There is, however, only one reference to Hobbes in Irenicum. “A state of nature,” wrote Stillingfleet, “I look upon only as an imaginary state, for better understanding the nature and obligation of Laws. For it is confessed by the greatest assertors of it (De Cive, I, xi), that the relation of Parents and Children cannot be conceived in a state of natural liberty, because Children as soon as born are actually under the power and authority of their parents.” Stillingfleet, Works, II, p. 175. Hooker is cited only a few times by Stillingfleet. Chillingworth is not cited at all, although John Hales is praised as “as learned and judicious a Divine, as most our Nation hath bred …” (p. 229). The main influences seem to have been Seiden and Grotius.
Gilbert Burnet, History of My Own Time, I, p. 265; cited in Anglistica & Americana (London, 1768), VI, pt. 1, p. 3836, rem. D.
See below, pp. 29-31.
Stillingfleet, Works, II, p. 420.
Ibid., p. 421.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 251.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 244.
Stillingfleet, Works, I, p. 127.
Ibid., pp. 116-17.
Ibid., pp. 183ff.
Stillingfleet, Works, I, p. 94.
Ibid., p. 96.
Ibid., pp. 97-98.
Ibid., p. 98.
Cf. Richard E. Boyer, English Declarations of Indulgence: 1687 & 1688 (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1968), p. 22.
Ibid., p. 21.
Stillingfleet, Works, I, p. 249.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 250.
Ibid., VI, p. 2.
John Owen, An Inquiry into the Original Nature and Communion of Evangelical Churches with an Answer to Stillingfleet’s Unreasonableness of Separation (London, 1680), p. 364.
Stillingfleet, Works, I, p. 285.
Ibid., p. 289.
Ibid., p. 282.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 297.
Ibid., p. 299.
Alsop was a celebrated Non-conformist divine. His anti-Socinian book, Antisozzo (1675), won him a reputation for his scathing wit.
For a more complete account of the controversies intitiated by Stillingfleet’s sermon see C. E. Whiting, Studies in English Puritanism from the Restoration to the Revolution (London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1968), pp. 524-29. Although Whiting does not mention it, Locke’s “Defense of Non-conformity” was written in reply to the “Mischief of Separation.” See Maurice Cranston, John Locke: A Biography (Great Britain: Richard Clay & Co., Ltd., 1957), p. 193. The Lovelace Collection contains copies of Locke’s critical notes on the sermon and on Stillingfleet’s expanded work on the same subject, The Unreasonableness of Separation (1681). While Locke was not in the habit of naming those whom his arguments were aimed at, he must have had Stillingfleet in mind when he composed his now-famous Letter Concerning Toleration in 1685.
John Owen, A Brief Vindication of the Non-Conformists from the Charge of Schisme … (London, 1680), p. 3.
Richard Baxter, Apology for the Non-Conformist Ministry (1669), re-issued in 1681, p. i.
Vincent Alsop, The Mischief of Impositions: or, An Antidote Against a Late Discourse … called the Mischief of Separation (London, 1680), p. iv.
Ibid., p. 27.
Stillingfleet, Works, II, p. 461.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 297.
Henry Compton (1632-1713) was a Bishop of London and a consistent opponent of the Exclusion Bill. Thomas Barlow (1607-1691) was Bishop of Lincoln and a teacher of John Owen. Barlow wished to extend toleration to all (including Jews) except atheists, papists, and Quakers. At Boyle’s request he wrote “Toleration in Matters of Religion,” published posthumously in 1692 in Cases of Conscience. Although Barlow was a friend of Boyle’s, he characterized the work of the Royal Society as “impious if not plainly atheistical” and as somehow related to a popish plot. DNB, art. “Barlow,” I, pp. 1146-47. Herbert Croft, D.D. (1603-1691) was Bishop of Hereford. Like Chillingworth, he had converted to Catholicism and reconverted to Anglicanism. In The Naked Truth, or the True State of the Primitive Church, by an Humble Moderator (London, 1675), Croft argued against enforcing uniformity. DNB, art. “Croft,” V, p. 106.
Richard Baxter, Apology, p. i.
John Owen, A Brief Vindication of the Non-Conformists, p. 3.
Ibid., p. 364. Owen also claimed that Stillingfleet’s accusations had started a series of lies and calumnies to be rumored concerning the Non-conformists taking money from Catholics as payment for keeping up the dissent. John Owen, An Inquiry into the Original Nature of Evangelical Churches (London, 1681), p. i. Owen remarked of Stillingfleet’s Unreasonableness of Separation (London, 1681) that its tendency was “to the raising of new disputes, creating new Jealousies, and weakening the hands of Multitudes, who were ready and willing to joyn entirely in opposition to Popery, and the defense of the Protestant Religion.” Ibid., p. 364.
John Humphry, A Modest and Peaceable Inquiry into the Design and Nature of Some of Those Historical Mistakes that are Found in Dr. St.’s Preface to his Unreasonableness of Separation (London, 1681), p. i. Also, an anonymous author noted the dilemma which Stillingfleet had caused. For, on the one hand, Stillingfleet had exacerbated the situation. But, on the other hand, refutations of him would exacerbate the situation even further. See An Antidote against Dr. Stillingfleet’ s Unreasonableness of Separation (1681), p. iii.
Anonymous, Reflections on Dr. Stillingfleet’s Book of the Unreasonableness of Separation, by a Conformist Minister in the Country: in Order to Peace (London, 1681), p. 5.
Anonymous, A Rational Defense of Nonconformity: Wherein the Practice of Nonconformity is Vindicated from Promoting Popery … (London, 1689), p. 2.
William Chillingworth, The Religion of Protestants (London, 1638), p. 180. Cited by Barret, A Reply, p. 119.
See Several Conferences between a Romish Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome: Being a Full Answer to the Late Dialogues of T[homas] G[odden] (London, 1679), p. 148. Stillingfleet’s defense of his loyalty to the Church of England in Irenicum may be found in his Works, VI, pp. 56ff.
Cf. “A Sermon Preached at a Public Ordination,” March 15, 1685, in Works of Ed. Stillingfleet, I, p. 358.
Ibid., pp. 357-58, 359.
Stillingfleet, Works, II, p. 464.
The following recommendations may be found in Stillingfleet, Works, II, pp. 466-67.
Stillingfleet, Works, I, p. 528.
See Francis Charles Turner, James II (Great Britain, 1948), p. 120.
Cf. The Unreasonableness of a New Separation, on Account of the Oaths: with an Answer to the History of Passive Obedience, so far as related to them (London, 1689).
As a non-juror Sancroft had to step down as Archbishop of Canterbury, thereby paving the way for Tillotson’s advancement to the position left vacant by him. DNB, art. “Sancroft,” XVII, pp. 734-39. It is estimated that about four hundred clergymen followed the Archbishop in remaining loyal to James. Boyer, English Declarations of Indulgence, p. 160.
See, for example, Suarez, De legibus, III.iv.6; Defensio fidei catholicae, Vl.iv.l; and De triplici virtute theologica, XIII.viii.2 and XIII.7.3. These works may be found in Selections from Three Works of Francisco Suarez, 2 vols., in the Classics of International Law, No. 20 (Oxford, 1944). Volume I contains the Latin texts; volume II contains the translations. A brief, but adequately comprehensive, account of Suarez’s position on the right to overthrow a tyrant is given by Frederick Coppleston, History of Philosophy, 7 vols. (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1963), III, pt. ii, pp. 226-228.
See Stillingfleet, The Unreasonableness of a New Separation, in Works, pp. 939ff; and Miscellaneous Discourses (London, 1635), pp. 436ff.
Stillingfleet, Miscellaneous Discourses (London, 1635), p. 431.
Ibid., pp. 428-29.
Ibid, p. 429.
Ibid., pp. 429-30.
Ibid., p. 432.
Ibid., p. 436.
Ibid., pp. 438-39.
Cf. Gerald M. Straka, Anglican Reaction to the Revolution of 1688 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1962), p. 39.
Stillingfleet, Works, III, p. 938.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 939.
Ibid., p. 940.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 941.
Ibid., p. 943.
Ibid., p. 946.
Stillingfleet employed the concept of the de facto monarch, thus avoiding the question of right and having to imply whether or not the king was a usurper. Cf. Straka, op. cit., p. 55.
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Carroll, R.T. (1975). Society, Politics, and Religion. In: The Common-Sense Philosophy of Religion of Bishop Edward Stillingfleet 1635–1699. Archives Internationales D’Histoire Des IdÉes/International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 77. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1598-1_2
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