laudable Practice

I have previously suggested that, contrary to many readings of the works of Jeremy Taylor, his 1647 The Liberty of Prophesying was no aberration but, rather, an introduction to a key enduring theme in his works - that of the influence of Remonstrant thought.  Thus, for example, Taylor's relativising of appeals to Augustine, evident in The Liberty of Prophesying , were, of course, also evident in his 1655 Unum Necessarium . At the root of this relativising of Augustine was Remonstrant thought, particularly as seen in the works of Episcopius. This is also the case with how Taylor regards the Apostles' Creed as a sufficient declaration of saving faith. This, of course, is a key theme in The Liberty of Prophesying : And according to the Rule and Reason of this Discourse (that it may appear that the Creed hath in it all Articles primo & per se, primely and universally necessary) the Creed is just such an explication of that Faith which the Apostles preached, viz. the Creed whi...

... and one thing more I shall remark, that at his leaving those parts upon the King's return; some of the Remonstrant Ministers of the Low Countries coming to take their leaves of this great Man, and desiring that by his means the Church of England would be kind to them, he had reason to grant it, because they were Learned Men, and in many things of a most excellent belief, yet he reprov'd them, and gave them caution against it, that they approached too near and gave too much countenance to the great and dangerous errors of the Socinians.  This was Jeremy Taylor, preaching at the funeral of Archbishop John Bramhall in 1663. I have previously pointed to this reference as evidence of Taylor's willingness to critique Remonstrant theology. Recent reading, however, has made me look afresh at this extract. That there is a critique of the Remonstrants here is, of course, obvious: they have been willing to draw too close to the Socinians. Alongside this, however, is high praise f...

Our least reading from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull considered how Bull's 1694 Judicium Ecclesia Catholicae was a response to the use put by English non-Trinitarians of Episcopius' view that the Apostles' Creed did not require the faith of Nicaea. Nelson notes how Bull's work drew on a wider theological tradition to affirm that the Nicene faith was inherent to the Apostles' Creed: he hath given such an Account of the ancient Creeds, and more particularly, of the first and most ancient Creed of all, and the Explications thereof, which are found in Ireneus and Tertullian; as it will be very hard after him to add any further Light to that Matter. For all what the Elder Vossius, with so much Pains and Judgment, had collected up on this Subject, with what our most learned and pious Archbishop Usher had also written hereupon, after mature deliberation upon the whole, will be found applied with great Skill, and set in a very advantageous Light, for removing...

The Dutch Remonstrant theologian Episcopius was, as Nelson notes in his his 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull , an influential figure in Bull's thinking from his student days . Indeed, Episcopius' Institutiones Theologicae  (1650) was regarded by Bull as "the best System of Divinity that had appeared". That said, however, we have seen how Bull's Defensio Fidei Nicaenae  demonstrated a common concern amongst English non-Calvinist Episcopalians that Remonstrant thought could become Socinian-adjacent , a "lurking Poison, which might secretly instil itself into the Minds of unwary Readers". In 1694, Bull returned to this matter, publishing a significant critique of a particular aspect of Episcopius' thought regarding Nicene Christology: In the Year 1694, Dr. Bull, while Rector of Avening, published his Judicium Ecclesia Catholicae , which was printed at Oxford, and written in defence of the Anathema, as his former Book had been of the Faith, pronounced at the...