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Every public office, every bench of justice, every commission of Lieutenancy, was filled with Roundheads. The Tory rectors and vicars were not less exasperated. They accused the men in power of systematically protecting and preferring Presbyterians, Latitudinarians, Arians, Socinians, Deists, Atheists.
Think ye," he continued, "to touch pitch and remain undefiled? to mix in the ranks of malignants, papists, papa-prelatists, latitudinarians, and scoffers; to partake of their sports, which are like the meat offered unto idols; to hold intercourse, perchance, with their daughters, as the sons of God with the daughters of men in the world before the flood Think you, I say, to do all these things, and yet remain free from pollution?
The highest churchmen who still remained were Doctor William Beveridge, Archdeacon of Colchester, who many years later became Bishop of Saint Asaph, and Doctor John Scott, the same who had prayed by the deathbed of Jeffreys. The most active among the Latitudinarians appear to have been Burnet, Fowler, and Tenison. The baptismal service was repeatedly discussed.
He proved an effective champion, against all its real and presumed adversaries Puritans and Nonconformists, Roman Catholics, Latitudinarians and Socinians. An acute controversialist, skilled in the critical knowledge of Scripture, thoroughly versed in the annals of primitive antiquity, he was an opponent not lightly to be challenged.
The King, who was himself the broadest of Latitudinarians, as far as Protestantism was concerned, was not repelled by Wilkins' theological views, and yielded readily to the attractions of a versatile and agreeable man of science. Science was the most creditable of Charles's tastes and occupations; the one in which he took a genuine and enduring interest.
It was in vain that the Jacobites put forth pamphlets about the cruelty with which he had been treated by those who were nearest to him in blood, about the imperious temper and uncourteous manners of William, about the favour shown to the Dutch, about the heavy taxes, about the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, about the dangers which threatened the Church from the enmity of Puritans and Latitudinarians.
I have taken the liberty of giving such emphasis as italics can confer to two brief passages in this brilliant description, because they express Froude's real opinion of Diocesan Conferences and those who frequented them.* Disraeli's audience applauded, partly in admiration of his wit, and partly because, they thought that he was amusing them at the expense of the latitudinarians they abhorred.
Doubtless, it is part of the ideal of the Anglican Church that, under certain safeguards, it should find room for latitudinarians even among its clergy. Still, with these, as with all other genuine priests, it is the positive not the negative result that justifies the position.
The Latitudinarians infused into the Church life, energy, and a sense of duty: they were, he adds, good preachers and acceptable to the king, who, "having little or no literature, but true and good sense," liked sermons "plain, clear, and short."
In his 'History of his Own Time' he introduces Wilkins to his readers in very distinguished company, among the Latitudinarians Whichcote, Cudworth, Tillotson, Lloyd, and Stillingfleet, of whom he says that if such men had not appeared, of another stamp than their predecessors, "the Church had quite lost its esteem over the nation."
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