laudable Practice

From a visitation sermon by Bishop Bull, on the text James 3:1, urging his clergy to preach with the spirit of Grotius and Erasmus. This invocation of two great advocates of an eirenic Christian vision encapsulates a significant and attractive characteristic of 18th century Anglicanism, reflecting the One who is "the author of peace and lover of concord".  It is also rooted in the earlier eirenicism of Casaubon , and the praise for Erasmus and Grotius from Jeremy Taylor , echoed in Timothy Puller's  defence of the Restoration Church . In other words, the Erasmian and Grotian character of 18th century Anglicanism flowed from this earlier eirenicism. In our own age of secular and ecclesiastical culture wars, we might also heed Bull's call to follow after Erasmus and Grotius, seeking "cloven tongues of fire" with which to enlighten, rather than burn. To this it will not be amiss to add what Grotius wisely observes, that the admonition of the Apostle concerning...

In his defence of an eirenic vision of the churches of the British Isles and of Europe - amidst bitter division and bloody conflict - Taylor invoked two towering eirenic figures, Erasmus and Grotius. That he did so in his highly controversial works outlining a non-Augustinian account of Original Sin ( Unum Necessarium and Deus Justificatus ,   published in 1655) only added to the controversy: the Papist Erasmus and the Arminian Grotius were hardly likely to endear Taylor to his critics.   The praise Taylor heaped on Erasmus and Grotius in these two works gives some idea of the esteem in which he held them and their thinking: I shall not be ashamed to profess what company I now keep ... the great Erasmus, and the incomparable Hugo Grotius ; Erasmus and Grotius, who are to be reckoned amongst the greatest, and the best expositors of Scripture, that any age since the Apostles and their immediate successors . What Taylor valued in how Erasmus and Grotius handled Scripture is...