William Chillingworth, theologian, was born at Oxford in 1602, the son of a prosperous citizen, and in 1618 became a scholar, in 1628 a fellow of Trinity. Through the arguments of an able Jesuit, “John Fisher,” be embraced Catholicism, and in 1630 went to Douay, where, urged to write an account of his conversion, he was led to renounce that faith by examination of the questions at issue. He became thereafter involved in controversies with several Catholic divines, and his answers are contained in his “Additional Discourses.” In the quiet of Lord Falkland’s house at Great Tew in Oxfordshire he wrote his famous book, “The Religion of Protestants a safe Way to Salvation” (1637)—a demonstration of the sole authority of the Bible in the matter of salvation, and of the free right of the individual conscience to interpret it. His conclusion is, in his own oft-quoted words: “The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants.” He left also nine sermons, and a fragment on the apostolical institution of episcopacy. In 1638 he took orders, and was made Chancellor of Salisbury, with the prebend of Brixworth in Notts annexed. In the Civil War be accompanied the king’s forces, and before Gloucester devised a seige-engine like the old Roman testudo. At Arundel Castle he fell ill, and after the surrender was lodged in the bishop’s palace at Chichester, where he died, 30th January 1643.

Personal

  Chillingworthi Novissima: or the sickness, heresy, death, and burial of William Chillingworth; (in his own phrase) Clerk of Oxford, and in the conceit of his fellow-soldiers, the Queen’s Arch Engineer and Grand Intelligencer. Set forth in a letter to his eminent and learned friends. A relation of his apprehension at Arundel, a discovery of his errors in a brief catechism, and a short oration at the burial of his heretical book, by Francis Cheynell, late Fellow of Merton College.

  He was a little man, blackish haire, of a saturnine complexion. The lord Falkland (vide [life of] lord Falkland) and he had such extraordinary clear reasons, that they were wont to say at Oxon that if the great Turke were to be converted by naturall reason, these two were the persons to convert him. He lies buried in the south side of the cloysters at Chichester, where he dyed of the morbus castrensis after the taking of Arundel castle by the parliament: wherin he was very much blamed by the king’s soldiers for his advice in military affaires there, and they curst that little priest and imputed the losse of the castle to his advice. In his sicknesse he was inhumanely treated by Dr. Cheynell, who, when he was to be buryed, threw his booke into the grave with him, saying, “Rott with the rotten; let the dead bury the dead.” Vide a pamphlet of about 6 sheets writt by Dr. Cheynell (maliciously enough) where he gives an account of his life.

  He was then observed to be no drudge at his Study, but being a Man of great Parts would do much in a little time when he settled to it. He would often walk in the College Grove and contemplate, but when he met with any Scholar there, he would enter into discourse, and dispute with him, purposely to facilitate and make the way of wrangling common with him; which was a fashion used in those days, especially among the disputing Theologists, or among those that set themselves apart purposely for Divinity. But upon the change of the Times, occasion’d by the Puritan, that way forsooth was accounted boyish and pedagogical…. He was a most noted Philosopher and Orator, and without doubt a Poet also, otherwise Sir Joh. Suckling would not have brought him into his poem called “The Session of Poets;” and had such an admirable Faculty in reclaiming Schismatics, and confuting Papists, that none in his time went beyond him. He had also very great skill in Mathematics, and his Aid and Council was often used in making Fortifications for the King’s Garrisons, especially those of the City of Gloucester, and Arundell Castle in Sussex.

Religion of Protestants, 1637

  “The Religion of Protestants a safe way to Salvation,” against Mr. Knot the Jesuit: I will not say, “Malo nodo malus quærendus est cuneus,” but affirm no person better qualified than this Author, with all necessary accomplishments to encounter a Jesuit. It is commonly reported that Dr. Prideaux compared his book to a Lamprey; fit for food, if the venomous string were taken out of the back thereof: a passage, in my opinion, inconsistent with the Doctor’s approbation, prefixed in the beginning of his book.

  Besides perspicuity, there must be also right reasoning, without which perspicuity serves but to expose the speaker. And for attaining of this, I should propose the constant reading of Chillingworth, who, by his example, will teach both perspicuity and the way of right reasoning, better than any book that I know, and therefore will deserve to be read upon that account over and over again, not to say any thing of his argument.

  Knott is by no means a despicable writer: he is concise, polished, and places in an advantageous light the great leading arguments of his church. Chillingworth, with a more diffuse and less elegant style, is greatly superior in impetuosity and warmth. In his long parenthetical periods, as in those of other old English writers, in his copiousness, which is never empty or tautological, there is an inartificial eloquence, springing from strength of intellect, and sincerity of feeling, that cannot fail to impress the reader. But his chief excellence is the close reasoning which avoids every dangerous admission, and yields to no ambiguousness of language. He perceived, and maintained with great courage, considering the times in which he wrote and the temper of those whom he was not unwilling to keep as friends, his favorite tenet,—that all things necessary to be believed are clearly laid down in Scripture.

  The celebrated work by Chillingworth on the “Religion of Protestants,” is generally admitted to be the best defence which the Reformers have been able to make against the church of Rome. It was published in 1637, and the position of the author would induce us to look for the fullest display of bigotry that was consistent with the spirit of his time. Chillingworth had recently abandoned the creed which he now came forward to attack; and he, therefore, might be expected to have that natural inclination to dogmatize with which apostasy is usually accompanied…. If we turn now to the work that was written under these auspices, we can scarcely believe that it was produced in the same generation, and in the same country, where, only twenty-six years before, two men had been publicly burned because they advocated opinions different to those of the established church. It is, indeed, a most remarkable proof of the prodigious energy of that great movement which was now going on, that its pressure should be felt under circumstances the most hostile to it which can possibly be conceived; and that a friend of Laud, and a fellow of Oxford, should, in a grave theological treatise, lay down principles utterly subversive of that theological spirit which for many centuries had enslaved the whole of Europe. In this great work, all authority in matters of religion is openly set at defiance.

  This is one of the most closely and keenly argued polemical treatises ever written: the style in which Chillingworth presses his reasoning home is like a charge with the bayonet.

  His style is, indeed, admirably suited at once to the matter and to the form of his work. He commands a considerable vocabulary, and although his sentences are often loosely constructed, he writes, when he is at his best, with point and carefully chosen phrase. His rhetorical weapons are retort and homely illustration. His manner of building up an argument is, indeed, worthy of Locke’s encomium. If he desires to deal a specially heavy blow he reduces his reasoning to a formal syllogism, and crushes his opponent with it. He has a keen scent for a fallacy, and exposes one when he finds it with trenchant humour. He never condescends to quibbling, but all throughout an argument maintains a dignity which, more than anything else, gave him his strength in debate. It was a mind of no common order that could give unity to a work constructed on such a plan as “The Religion of Protestants.” Even in the graces of composition, Chillingworth excels his contemporaries. The flexibility and pointedness of his style are virtues as great as the richness and power of Hooker’s and Bacon’s, and, for his purpose, of greater value. The heat of debate sometimes hurries him into undue vehemence, but he never loses his temper. His other works are not important.

  His great book was a strong plea for liberty. While it made a strong protest against the all-embracing dogmatism of Rome, and accepted the “religion of Protestants” as exemplified in the English Church as a “safe way of salvation,” it was content to accept the guidance of a free and rational inquiry, which, though it might lead to some errors, was strong in the sanction of intellectual honesty, and the absence of exclusive and narrowing definitions. It was the work of an academic thinker not very intimately in touch with the problems of life, but it had that force of initiation which belongs not infrequently to scholastic speculation. Its free and rational appeal gave a new basis to Anglicanism, and started philosophic inquiry on a fruitful quest.

  The book is an admirable controversial exercise, the logical accuracy of which won a warm eulogy from Locke. It is in reality an overgrown pamphlet, free indeed from the worst blemishes of contemporary pamphlet literature, and full of careful argument and wide learning, but not rising far enough above its temporary purpose to become a monumental work like Butler’s “Analogy” or Hooker’s “Ecclesiastical Polity.” Its style, though clear and vigorous, is not marked by strong individuality, and its line of argument is academic rather than popular.

General

  Was justly esteemed the acutest and closest disputant of his time.

  His frequent changes proceeded from too nice an inquisition into truth. His doubts grew out of himself; he assisted them with all the strength of his reason; he was then too hard for himself; but finding as little quiet and repose in those victories, he quickly recovered by a new appeal to his own judgment, so that in all his sallies and retreats he was, in fact, his own convert.

  A notably militant and loyal mind, the most exact, the most penetrating, and the most convincing of controversialists, first Protestant, then Catholic, then Protestant again and for ever, has the courage to say that these great changes, wrought in himself and by himself, through study and research, are, of all his actions, those which satisfy him most. He maintains that reason applied to Scripture alone ought to persuade men; that authority has no claim in it; “that nothing is more against religion than to force religion;” that the great principle of the Reformation is liberty of conscience; and that if the doctrines of the different Protestants sects are not absolutely true, at least they are free from all impiety and from all error damnable in itself, or destructive of salvation. Thus is developed a new school of polemics, a theology, a solid and rational apologetics, rigorous in its arguments, capable of expansion, confirmed by science, and which, authorizing independence of personal judgment at the same time with the intervention of the natural reason, leaves religion in amity with the world and the establishments of the past.

  The style of Chillingworth is the natural expression of his thought—simple, strong, and earnest, occasionally rugged and vehement. Particularly like his thought, it is without any artifice. He is concerned with what he has to say, not with his mode of saying it; and having thrown aside almost all the scholastic pedantries which in his time still clung to theological style, he gives fair play to his native sense and vigour. His vehemence is apt to hurry him into disorder, but also often breaks into passages of lofty and powerful eloquence. If we compare his style with that of Hooker or Bacon, it is inferior in richness, compass, and power, but superior inflexibility, rapidity, and point. It turns and doubles upon his adversary with an impetuosity and energy that carry the reader along, and serve to relieve the tedious levels of the argument. If he must be ranked, upon the whole, greatly below such writers as we have mentioned, he is yet in this, as in other respects, much above most of his contemporary divines. The pages of Laud, or of his biographer Heylin, or even of Hammond, are barren and unreadable beside those of “The Religion of Protestants;” and even the richer beauties of Taylor, embedded amidst many pedantries and affectations, pall in comparison with his robust simplicity and energy.

  Chillingworth did little more than put in a clearer and more logical form, with all its excrescences stripped away, the contention of Laud in the conference with Fisher. That which marks the pre-eminence of the younger writer is his clear sense of the subordination of intellectual conviction to moral effort…. It is not given to any one man, even if he be a Chillingworth, to make out with complete fulness the remedies needed for the evils of his age…. Chillingworth’s mind was too purely intellectual to enable him to understand how any given ritual could either raise admiration or provoke hostility.

  On the purely literary side the merits of Chillingworth are very great. His argumentative clearness was regarded by Locke as a model, and although his book is the criticism of another treatise, he has contrived to give it unity by the impress of the order of his own mind. Sustained and dignified his argument moves steadily on; he is never captious nor sophistical; he never strains a point against his adversary, but overwhelms him by the massiveness of his learning and the loftiness of his intellectual attitude. Yet Chillingworth’s learning never overmasters him, and there is no display of erudition; in fact he does not rest on precedents, but on the reasonableness of his conclusions in themselves…. In fact, Chillingworth’s views, as lofty as they were, laboured under the defects of an academic thinker whose experience of intellectual problems was larger than his knowledge of the world and of human nature. Still, he put forward a conception of rationalism which was destined to influence other branches of speculation besides theology, and he stated an idea of toleration which was soon fruitful of results.

  If laudari a laudato be a safe rule for estimating a writer’s merits, the name of Chillingworth ought to stand nearly as high in English ecclesiastical literature as those of Hooker and Butler…. Chillingworth’s style, indeed, is not only one of the greatest attractions of his book, but is also perhaps the strongest indication which it supplies of the extraordinary qualities of his mind. Its naked severity and nervous simplicity are occasionally dashed by a vein of eloquence which breaks out unexpectedly and with prodigious effect, especially as it depends neither upon a musical ear nor upon pleasure in ornament, but upon the excitement of strong masculine feeling roused by an adequate cause—the feeling, generally speaking, of indignation against oppression, sophistry, and falsehood. An earnest and indeed passionate love of truth was the great characteristic of Chillingworth’s mind.

  It seems to me that the chief value of Chillingworth for our day is to be found in the moral impetus given by the study of his writings, in the influence of his transparent love of truth and his ardour in its search, which with honest hearts is infectious. Nor can one fail to admire his resolve to bring himself into a strict relation with facts. If evidence be insufficient, he never will allow his desires to add one grain to the scale.

  This divine was somewhat slighted in his own age, as giving little show of learning in his discourses; but the perspicuity of his style and the force of his reasoning commended him to the Anglican divines of the Restoration. It is characteristic that Tillotson had a great admiration for this humane latitudinarian, and that Locke wrote, “If you would have your son reason well, let him read Chillingworth.” The masterpiece of Chillingworth stands almost alone, in a sort of underwood of Theophrastian character-sketches.