GROTIANA

Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 brill.com/grot

‘Socinianism Truly Stated’: John Toland, Jean

Leclerc and the Eighteenth-Century Reception
of Grotius’s De Veritate*

Justin Champion
Royal Holloway, University of London
Email: J.Champion@rhul.ac.uk

Abstract
This paper investigates the later seventeenth reception of Grotius De veritate, contextualis-
ing the presentation of editions with the various theological attempts to identify and defend
a ‘reasonable’ religion. In particular it focuses on the intellectual relationships between the
projects for a ‘non-mysterious’ Christianity advanced by John Toland, and the more sincere
ambitions of the most learned editor of Grotius in the eighteenth century, Jean Leclerc. The
major themes context the theological arguments and reception to changing conceptions of
the power and function of the established Church.

Keywords
John Toland, Jean Leclerc, anticlericalism, reason, criticism, church government, scripture,
pastoral power

Although it is a truism, the intellectual turbulence of the long seventeenth

century saw a transformation of post-reformation religious and intellectual
culture into an ‘enlightenment’ world: Grotius’s De veritate religionis christi-
anae, because of its extensive, persistent and complex textual afterlife and
reception, is an excellent device for exploring and establishing the process
of intellectual change at work over these decades.1 The precise book history
of the circumstances and contexts for the preparation and publication of
editions, translations and responses have been expertly addressed by

* I am very grateful to Hans Blom for co-ordinating the conference The true faith? A cos-
mopolitan project in the early Enlightenment at the University of Potsdam and HBPG,
Potsdam.
1 Grotius’s contribution to recent Enlightenment historiography seems under-played.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/18760759-03300002

120 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

others in particular by the magisterial work of Jan Paul Heering. The inten-
tion here is more particular in exploring how the meaning of Grotius’s text
operated in the intellectual climate of early eighteenth century English
ecclesiological debate.2 Before engaging with the specific examples and
detail of that reception in the interstices of English political controversy
and debate, it is worth outlining a few more general remarks. This contribu-
tion will not claim that Grotius’s De veritate, alongside his other works of
history, jurisprudence and biblical criticism, had any necessary and causal
connection to the transformations of intellectual culture across the period.3
It does, however, suggest that the evidence of the nature and trajectory
of its reception is a convenient and valuable device for monitoring the
stages and progress of intellectual and religious change. The afterlife of the
De veritate is a sensitive litmus-paper for the historical transformations in
attitudes to reason, revelation, liberty and doctrinal orthodoxy.
This approach, conveniently, draws support from the discussion of the
religious origins of the Enlightenment outlined some years ago by Hugh
Trevor-Roper.4 Raising the question of how it was that enlightened minds
recognised and configured their precursors, Trevor-Roper described a tradi-
tion of intellectual culture descending from Erasmus through Grotius and
Jean Leclerc to the eighteenth century, and which combined a powerful
cultural blend of scepticism, critical scholarship, lay reason and human
liberty. A powerful and persistent theme established the cultural conse-
quences of such applications of critical human reason to the problems of
religious texts and institutions. Underpinning this set of intellectual issues
was a more practical concern with the relationship between clerical insti-
tutions and lay power. As Trevor-Roper deliberately noted, one of the turn-
ing points in the 1640s was the victory ‘of the laity over the clergy, and
therefore in intellectual matters the victory of lay ideas over clerical ideas’.5
The battle over both the nature and control of the ‘Church’ combined

2 J.P. Heering, Hugo Grotius as apologist for the Christian religion (Brill, 2004); M. Barducci
‘Clement Barksdale, Translator of Grotius: Erastianism and Episcopacy in the English
Church, 1651-1658’, Seventeenth Century 25 (2010), 265-280.
3 But see M. Somos, ‘Secularisation in De Iure Praedae: from Bible criticism to interna-
tional law’, Grotiana 26-28 (2005-2007), 147-191. See also J. Lagrée, ‘Grotius: Natural Law and
Natural Religion’, in Religion, Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe, ed. by R. Crocker
(Dordrecht, 2001) pp. 17-39.
4 H. Trevor-Roper, Religion the Reformation and Social Change (3rd edition London, 1977)
chapter 4, ‘The religious origins of the Enlightenment’, pp. 193-236. For some valuable discus-
sion see J. Robertson, ‘Hugh Trevor-Roper, intellectual history and ‘The religious origins of
the Enlightenment’, English Historical Review 124 (2009), 1389-1421.
5 Trevor-Roper, ‘The religious origins of the Enlightenment’, pp. 198, 207, 220, 232-33.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 121

intellectual disputes about the ‘truth’ with political debates about the rela-
tionship between ecclesiastical authority and toleration. The traditional post-
reformation ambition to establish a powerful relationship between the
engines of church and state was not confined to Catholic societies alone,
but was core to the political ambitions of Protestant states too. Against
this dominant ambition, the Erasmian idiom aimed to cultivate civil and
religious peace, to pursue religious truth and to protect dissident but pious
minorities. The traditional post-reformation state sought uniformity, the
Erasmian project embraced diversity. One of the core conceptual issues
that these various debates engaged and reflected upon was the difficult
relationship between the pursuit of ‘truth’ and the defence of intellectual
liberty. For some thinkers, and most churchmen, the absolute priority was
enabling the accurate and certain identification of truth; for others the
defence of the rights of intellectual enquiry and the liberty of philosophical
reason was more significant.6
John Toland’s (very brief) Socinianism truly stated (1705) – a purported
letter between ‘a Pantheist’ and an ‘Orthodox Friend’ – is a convenient
device for exploring the complex afterlife and reception of Hugo Grotius’s
De veritate religionis christianae.7 It is useful because it brings together
some of the core ideas and personalities which shaped the intellectual and
ecclesiological contexts in which Grotius’s texts and arguments operated.
First, Toland himself, a freshly made celebrity, as a consequence of his
initially anonymous Christianity not mysterious (1696, 1702), but also a
writer embedded in the cosmopolitan republic of letters which produced
defences of Protestantism, of the Hanoverian succession, of the republican
canon of political thinking, whilst also dabbling in clandestine heterodoxy.8
Second, the short text itself, in the process of discussing key ideas – the
relationship between reason and revelation, the problem of religious diver-
sity, the nature of public religion – was the platform for Toland implicating
one of his probable associates – the erudit Jean Le Clerc (for the purposes
of this discussion especially significant as ‘editor’ of Grotius’s text) into his
project.9

 6 See the still valuable study by H. Baker, The wars of truth. Studies in the decay
of Christian humanism in the earlier seventeenth century (New York, 1952).
 7 See J.A.I. Champion, ‘John Toland: the Politics of Pantheism’, Revue d'Synthese
116 (1995), 259-280.
 8 See J.A.I. Champion, Republican learning: John Toland and the crisis of Christian culture
1670-1722 (Manchester, 2009).
9 See J.J. V.M. de Vet, ‘Jean Leclerc, an enlightened propagandist of Grotius’ “De Veritate
Religionis Christianae” ’, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 64 (1984), 160-195.
122 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

As the sub-title indicated, the pamphlet aimed to explore ‘fair Dealing in

all Theological Controversys’, and in doing so recommended ‘Indifference
in Disputes’. The pamphlet – notable for the first use in English of the word
‘Pantheist’ – announced its intentions and deeper purpose to wise readers,
by the inclusion of a Latin phrase on the title-page which read ‘Tota ruit
Babylon; disjecit Tecta Lutherus, Calvinus Muros, & Fundamenta Socinus’.
Supposedly the epitaph on Faustus Socinius’ tomb just outside Cracow, the
epitaph – which could be translated in the following way ‘As Luther
destroyed the houses of Babylon, Calvin the walls, so Socinus subverted
the foundations’ – provides a very broad historical context for Toland’s
ambitions, and indeed for the relevance of Grotius’s works over the long
seventeenth century.10 The suggestion that the legacy of ‘Socinianism’ rep-
resented the logical endpoint of the Reformation was novel and provoca-
tive for contemporaries – but again given Trevor-Roper’s remarks it is,
for the purposes of discussion here, a useful one to engage with. Grotius’s
De veritate was read by men like Toland, Leclerc, and other eighteenth
century contemporaries, as a work which characterised this intellectual
legacy. The neat epitaph will also allow some reflection on the relationship
between ‘Reformation’ and ‘Enlightenment’ – especially in the light of the
persisting value of insights into the religious origins of the enlightenment,
and indeed of Hugo Grotius’s contributions to that achievement.
Toland asserted that thinking for oneself was the fundamental principle
established by the reformation: in Socinianism truly stated he explored the
nature of doctrinal and confessional controversy.11 Given the diversity of
dispositions evident in human society, an ambition for ‘any uniformity in
man’s opinions’ was impossible: neutralising the hostility of the ‘men-
devouring monsters’ of persecution, Toland recommended ‘a perfect indif-
ference’ of temper. Aiming to combine the pursuit of truth with that of civil
peace, he insisted, ‘the opinion of others cannot hurt your judgement, if
you govern it by sound reason’. Counter-intuitively, Toland suggested that
variety, diversity and controversy ought to delight rather than annoy
the  contemplation of the pantheist. Zeal, vexations, cruelty were the

10 ‘Tota licet Babylon destruxit tecta Lutherus Muros Calvinus sed fundamenta Socinus’
see the record of Socinus’ epitaph in Joshua Toulmin, Memoirs of the life, character, senti-
ments, and writings of Faustus Socinus (London, 1777), p. 12. Apparently the epitaph is not
legible today. The original notion may have come from the painting Gregorio Pauli, a Polish
anti-Trinitarian, commissioned representing himself, Luther and Calvin: see, Monthly
Magazine, Or British Register 26 (1808) p. 453.
11 See J. Toland, The State anatomy of Great Britain (1717), pp. 26-32.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 123

mischievous effects of ‘mistaken persuasion’, rather than truth. Signalling

his intimacy with men of learning Toland invoked the reputation of Jean
Leclerc by citing the latter’s review of the German Divinity Professor Johann
Fabricius’ Consideratio variarum controversiarum (1704) which explored
the full range of contemporary controversy ‘now on foot about Christianity’
between Lutherans, Calvinists, Socinians, Papists, Jews, Mahometans and
Atheists.12 According to Leclerc, Fabricius acted with fairness and modera-
tion in his accounts of religious controversy – ‘an equal lover of Peace
and Truth’ he treated his adversaries with ‘Sincerity, meekness, and charity,
without wresting their words, calumniating their persons, or provoking
them by malicious insinuations or injurious expressions’. The trinity
of truth, piety and peace were commended as the outcome of rational
controversy.
Toland went further in his approval of Leclerc’s account of a ‘Socinian’
approach to the question of religious controversy by reproducing a
‘Digression’ from the Bibliotheque universelle at length.13 The starting point
for this discussion was the three-fold distinction of ‘opinions’ into those of
religion, of controversy and of theology. The first – ‘of religion’ – concerned
beliefs which determined salvation; the second related to judgements con-
cerning doctrines which held no soteriological significance. The last cate-
gory – of ‘theology’ – ‘are scarce understood by any but those of the Trade,
and which the People never pry into or comprehend’. While all Christian
societies were shaped by these divisions, the digression deliberately
explored the Socinian example – with a view arguably – to commending it.
The fundamental premise of Socinian doctrines of religion was, ‘That there
is an eternal Being, all-wise, all-good, and all-powerful’. That the New
Testament contained ‘all that ought to be believ’d concerning God and
Jesus Christ’ was a similarly foundational opinion. All these points were ‘so
clearly contain’d in the holy Scripture, that they glory in them, as being
every receiv’d and still believ’d by all Christians’. Leclerc confirmed that
these opinions were plainly contained in the ancient creed of the Apostles.
The powerful point that followed, raised in the name of moderation, was
that ‘whether a man who sincerely reads the holy Scripture, and that finds
in it no more than these points; who believes and observes them with all his
heart, being likewise further prepar’d to believe and observe whatever he

12 Toland, Socinianism, p. 8.
13 Toland, Socinianism, pp. 11-15.
124 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

shou’d discover in it besides: whether a man, I say, with his persuasion, and
dispos’d after this manner, were unworthy of the mercy of God’.14
The other types of opinion – controversial and theological – saw the
rejection of the ‘Trinity of person in one Divine Essence’ because ‘they
believe they are not reveal’d, nor at all to be found in the holy Scripture,
without greatly forcing the literal Signification, and joining several
Scholastick Ideas’. Commonplace accounts of the Trinity ‘are contrary to
right Reason, which Revelation does not destroy but suppose’. Leclerc
recognised that such mysteries were properly above human reason, and as
a consequence, ‘may even puzzle the wisest’. Socinians did not however
make the rejection of such opinions in other Christians a matter of salva-
tion: indeed, ‘In their Judgement, one might be ignorant of all these dis-
putes, without being the less acceptable to Almighty God’. The point was,
and it was one drawn from a reading of Grotius, that differing in such
matters (when there was agreement in the fundamental articles of religion)
ought be of no great consequence. It was not just to damn those ‘merely for
the sake of their Opinions of Controversy about difficult and obscure
subjects’.15
The significant character of Socinian theological or philosophical opin-
ions (neatly rehearsed here) was that they were not imposed on either
divines, or laity: ‘they look on these and the like as difficult problems, where
men may follow different sentiments’. As a consequence refutation of these
‘theological’ opinions implied no threat to the ‘truth’ of their doctrines of
religion: if a person combined these religious fundamentals with virtuous
Christian conduct they were still capable of attracting the mercy of God.
Such believers might therefore ‘be securely tolerated till God is pleas’d to
grant ‘em greater Light’. The concluding point was then, that where the
essential beliefs of Christianity were held in common, matters of difference
in theological speculation should be pardoned, or accommodated, in the
name of peace. For both Toland and Leclerc, this was a profoundly hetero-
dox position to hold: Toland had brought huge controversy upon himself
with the publication of Christianity not mysterious (1696) which (in defend-
ing the rationality of Christian belief) had been accused of blasphemy,
socinianism and irreligion and subjected to a number of legal prosecu-
tions in England and Ireland.16 Leclerc’s enquiries into the possibilities of

14 Toland, Socinianism, p. 13.

15 Toland, Socinianism, pp. 14-15.
16 For a full discussion of the reception and prosecutions see, J.A.I. Champion, ‘Making
authority: belief, conviction and reason in the public sphere in late seventeenth century
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 125

settlement in England were rebuffed because of his poor ‘Socinian’ reputa-

tion.17 The suggestion that ‘Socinianism’ was both tolerable, and a model of
peaceful religious conduct was certainly provocative and probably unwise.
For the purpose of exploring the contexts for the transformations of the
later period, a focus on the reception and significance of Jean Leclerc’s 1709
Amsterdam edition of Grotius’s De veritate, which was translated into
English by John Clarke (1682-1757) in 1711 is significant.18 As de Vet has estab-
lished, Leclerc reworked and expanded Grotius’s original text – amplifying
and correcting textual citations, improving references and adding a layer
of new notes. Connecting the work very specifically to English ecclesiologi-
cal circumstances, the new edition was dedicated to Thomas Tenison,
Archbishop of Canterbury. Additional material (appended to the volume)
reproduced correspondence which suggested Grotius’s admiration for the
Church of England.19 The publication of the English translation in 1711 in
the immediate aftermath of the catastrophic state prosecution of the High
Church cleric Henry Sacheverell which prompted the triumph of the cleri-
calist Tory party was a provocative act.20
That Clarke (younger brother of the Newtonian cleric Samuel Clarke)
saw the pertinence of the work to current debate was underscored in his
translator’s preface. The design of the book, according to Clarke, was ‘to
show the Reasonableness of believing and embracing the Christian Religion
above any other’.21 Of equal concern was the state of dissention within

England’, in Libertinage et Philosophie au XVII siècle, 3: Le public et le privé, ed. by

A. McKenna, P. Moreau (St. Etienne, 1999), pp. 143-190.
17 For Leclerc’s career see, A. Barnes Jean Le Clerc (1657–1736) et la république des lettres
(Paris, 1938); S. A. Golden, Jean Le Clerc (New York, 1972); M.-C. Pitassi, Entre croire et savoir.
Le problème de la méthode critique chez Jean Le Clerc, (Leiden, 1987); M. I. Klauber, ‘Between
Protestant Orthodoxy and Rationalism: Fundamental Articles in the Early Career of Jean
LeClerc’, Journal of the History of Ideas 54 (1993), 611-636.
18 H. Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion. In six books by Hugo Grotius. Corrected
and illustrated with notes, by Mr. Le Clerc. To which is added a seventh book concerning this
question, what Christian church we ought to join our selves to; by the said Mr. Le Clerc. Done
into English by John Clarke, M.A (London, 1711).
19 De Vet, ‘Jean Leclerc’.
20 See J.P. Kenyon, Revolution Principles. The politics of party 1689-1720 (Cambridge, 1977),
and G.A. Holmes, The Trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London, 1973) esp. pp. 21-47. The clericalist
perspective is to be found in G.V. Bennett, The Tory Crisis in Church and State 1688-1730
(Oxford, 1975).
21 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, ‘The Translator’s preface to the Christian
Reader’. This is un-paginated but runs to 8 pages: reference will take the form p. i
[unpaginated].
126 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

Christianity: the ‘spirit of faction’ evident since the days of Paul, Apollos
and Cephas was still abroad.22 The origin of this division was the abandon-
ment of the doctrine of Christ in favour of the sectarian opinions of an indi-
vidual apostle or teacher: the ‘fictions or inventions of men’ had rent the
‘one universal, regular, uniform’ church of Christ. In the imposition of doc-
trine invented by ‘humane authority’, lay the power of the antichrist.23
Ecclesiastical history exposed the variable fashion of doctrine: there were
as many schemes of religious truth as there were parties of men, ‘thus
instead of making the Scripture the only rule of faith, Men make Rules of
Faith of their own, and interpret Scripture according to them’. Clarke, sum-
marising Grotius’s arguments, was adamant that scripture alone contained
the truth: God had ensured that scripture was accessible to all capacities
and conditions of mankind. Only scripture commanded: there was no other
power in the world which might legitimately impose on believers.
Conversely each believer had a duty of diligent and attentive study of scrip-
ture: even the narrowest intelligence could comprehend what was neces-
sary – ‘Thus all men are obliged to form a judgement of religion for
themselves, and to be continually rectifying and improving it’. While men
might offer assistance and advice, ‘no one can finally determine for another;
everyman must judge for himself’ and do so sincerely. Each person was
accountable ‘to God only’. For Clarke the best advice, to end Christian divi-
sion, was for ‘every man [to be] allowed to take the scripture for his only
guide in Matters of Faith’ – charity, peace and unity would follow. As he
insisted, ‘We must cease to make needless Fences of our own, and to divide
ourselves into small separate Flocks’.24
Clarke’s interpretation of Grotius’s objectives was not simply irenic. The
politics of a rational or ‘reasonable’ Christianity from the 1630s to the 1690s
had always implied more than an epistemological position. Arguing that
human reason had the capacity to comprehend the fundamental doctrine
of Christianity through a disciplined encounter with Revelation implied a
distinctive and controversial account of the relationship between ‘reason’
and ‘mystery’. This suggested that the grounds of personal faith (and thereby
salvation) lay in the understanding rather than a process of inspired grace.

22 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, ‘The Translator’s preface to the Christian
Reader’ p. iii [up]; see Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. by N. Malcolm, 3 vols (Oxford, 2012),
III.3.47, p. 1116.
23 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, ‘The Translator’s preface to the Christian
Reader’ p. iv [up].
24 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, ‘The Translator’s preface to the Christian
Reader’ pp. vii-viii [up].
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 127

The debates about the certainty or assurance of belief, about the status of
doctrine which might be ‘contrary to’, or ‘above’ reason, and about the ‘gifts’
of a priesthood, although epistemic in presentation, were also fundamen-
tally political. The principle that ‘every man must judge for himself’ under-
cut the authority of both Church and State: in the ecclesiological context of
the early eighteenth century where debates about the limits of tolerance
and the disciplinary power of the Church were intimately connected to
national politics, Grotius’s text assumed (perhaps) a more radical complex-
ion.25 The claim to establish a reasonable, peaceful, ‘indifferent’ public reli-
gion, by necessity, refuted the powerful and robust claims of many types of
churchman whether sacramental, inspired or apostolic.
Both in the edition of 1709, and subsequent revisions, Jean Leclerc incor-
porated two substantial authorial (rather than editorial) additions to
Grotius’s work. These were comprised of two dissertations: the first
‘Concerning the choice of our opinion amongst the different sects of
Christians’ and the second (and later) ‘Against indifference in the Choice of
our Religion’. In effect, in these texts, Leclerc aimed to operationalise
Grotius’s arguments by posing very practical questions about how good
Christians ought to behave themselves as individuals in communities and
societies. For an audience in England, in the immediate aftermath of the
resurgence of the High Church keen on imposing uniformity and restrain-
ing diversity, this might have prompted very pertinent consideration.26
Leclerc’s advice suggested that Christians had a duty to profess their con-
victions, but that joining together in fellowship was only wise after examin-
ing the credentials of the assembly. This was a requirement especially in
circumstances where there were rival and contentious claims: if no society
met with the basic requirements of truth then separation was legitimate
‘that we betray not the Truth and utter a falsity’.27 As Leclerc noted, Grotius
did not prove any modern sect of Christians to be true, but ‘only of that
Religion which was taught Mankind by Christ and his apostles’. Put simply

25 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, ‘The Translator’s preface to the Christian
Reader’ p. vii [up]. The origins of the principle almost certainly lies in the Roman Law
maxim ‘Quod omnes Tangit’. See G. Post, Studies in medieval legal thought. Public law and the
state 1100-1322 (Princeton, 1964), especially pp. 163-238.
26 For the political and religious background see, Kenyon, Revolution principles passim;
G. Holmes, British politics in the reign of Queen Anne (London, 1967); the broader conspectus
engaging with the persistence of religious politics in the period is J. C. D. Clark, English soci-
ety 1688-1832: ideology, social structure and political practice during the ancient regime
(Cambridge, 1985; new edition, 2000).
27 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, pp. 292, 294-95.
128 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

the most commendable confession was the one with the least ‘mixture of
human invention’. The claim of tradition, unlike the authority of the New
Testament, was controverted and therefore could not demand obedience.
The determinant of true Christianity remained firmly in the fountainhead
of Scripture, without the additional doctrinal definition or interpretation
of the Church. The encounter with scripture, and the consequent true
knowledge, was to be unmediated. Salvation was not accorded to the main-
tenance of ‘this or that controverted opinion’ but to a sincere conviction
and Christian action.28
Leclerc’s repeated point was that there were no grounds for the imposi-
tion of any doctrine: individuals must be led by what they gathered them-
selves from the New Testament, but no one else could require subscription,
‘because belief cannot be extorted by force; nor will any one who fears God,
and is a lover of Truth, suffer himself to profess what he does not believe, for
the sake of another’.29 In defending Christian liberty this was not to legiti-
mate radical diversity – that ‘there will be as many Religions as there are
men’ – because scripture established a secure and ‘firm bottom’ of funda-
mental doctrine comprehensible to anyone of sound mind and determined
to find the truth. God had permitted ‘differences and errors’ because he had
created men free and mutable, that they might ‘pass from Vice to Virtue,
and again from Virtue to Vice’. The exercise of free choice was shaped by the
authority of the New Testament and not subjected to the ‘Yoke of human
opinions’. Prudence suggested it was peaceable to form communion with
Christians who forbore from imposing doctrine: the sacrament was a token
of love rather than a mark of distinction. Avoiding idolatry and not treat-
ing  others badly were good conditions for fellowship.30 For Leclerc (and
Grotius) the question of Christian fellowship was distinct from that of
ecclesiastical discipline. All societies required a form of order and govern-
ment, but neither of the dominant examples (Episcopal and Presbyterian)
were necessary conditions of salvation. Leclerc acknowledged that Grotius
preferred the ancient Episcopal form of government, but noted impor-
tantly, that he did not either require all to agree with him, nor condemned
those that supported alternatives.31 Leclerc’s concluding point reinforced
the Grotian premise that fallible and sincere men ought not to force others
to their own convictions, nor to promote bitterness against diversity.

28 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, pp. 297, 303-305.

29 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, pp. 305, 306.
30 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, pp. 315-17.
31 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, pp. 320-25.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 129

That Leclerc was sensitive to the dangers that liberty of choice might lead
to insincerity and indifference was evident in the arguments of his second
appended essay.32 Against those who argued that all religion was all delu-
sion and deceit, useful only for political ends, Leclerc insisted that human
well being and happiness was only formed by knowing, and embracing, the
truth. The human condition established an ‘eternal alliance betwixt Truth
and the Mind of Man’ and so God’s ‘abundant mercy’ was indulgent of sin-
cere error and pitied ‘our imperfect virtues’. The light of reason established
the authority of Revelation: to renounce the findings of reason was to reject
our humanity and become bestial.33 Unlike Grotius, contemporaries of
Leclerc had the intellectual challenges of Hobbes, Spinoza and the eigh-
teenth century freethinkers to contend with. A primarily pious mind like
Leclerc saw ample opportunity in Grotius’s text for constraining Christian
dissonance and for elevating the morally virtuous components of the New
Testament over the doctrinal complexity of post-reformation creeds and
articles. Embellishing Grotius’s text with the ample findings of contempo-
rary erudition made it fit for the cosmopolitan world of the eighteenth
century republic of letters. The project aimed, by elevating reason as the
instrument of a true Christian hermeneutic, at making Christianity ‘mod-
ern’, refurbished from the dogmatic falsity of scholastic systems of divinity.
Leclerc understood Grotius to be saving Christianity from corrupt and irra-
tional churchmen, restoring it to its foundational condition. But it was also
a useful work to deploy against those infidels who regarded all public reli-
gion as either delusory imposture, or a politically contrived civil religion.34
Despite the insistence on order in church government this project was
anticlerical since the ambition of avoiding clerically inspired disorder was
primary. Grotius’s distinction between necessary and unnecessary doctrine
was a useful device for building consensus, but also a means for removing
the negative role of ‘theologians’.35 For Grotius the pursuit of truth was also
a means of promoting civil peace: dogma which provoked dissention were
problematic and usually the result of human invention. Although ‘reason’
assumed an elevated role, especially in relation to the traditional authority
of churchmen, it was clear that religious truth was not derived by means of
reason alone. Revelation provided certainty: the faculty of human reason

32 See ‘Against indifference in the choice of our religion’. This second work was appended
to the 1755 edition of The truth of the Christian religion, at pp. 322-337.
33 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, (1755 edition) p. 322.
34 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, (1755 edition) pp. 334-345.
35 Heering, Hugo Grotius, p. 71.
130 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

was of divine origins, and scripture was accessible to reasonable enquiry.

Combined with the reliable testimony of miracles there was enough evi-
dential authority in the transactions between individual reason and scrip-
ture to establish a true faith. Importantly this was possible without the
participation or contribution of a sacerdotal institution. Heering has
expertly established how Grotius combined a variety of theological tradi-
tions within the De veritate to confect an argument which combined a
natural theology with an emphasis on the authority and competence of
scripture to produce a consensual creedal minimalism.36 The pursuit of a
theology of truth rather than the defence of a specific doctrinal programme,
by default marginalised the role of an ‘expert’ clerical body. Even in the
account of the authority of scripture in Book 3, De veritate, Grotius was
careful to establish the integrity of revelation without recourse to the rein-
forcing interpretative role of either Roman Catholic tradition or the
Protestant Holy Spirit. Drawing from Socinus, Grotius’s defence under-
scored the reliability, authenticity, textual integrity and veracity of the
Bible, and supplemented it with the confirming testimony of miracles.37
Aware of the advances and arguments of contemporary biblical erudition,
Grotius recognised the minor variations and inconsistencies in the canon,
but insisted that this did not compromise the overwhelming value found in
them. Although anticlerical, Grotius’s project was still profoundly pious.38
The arguments Grotius advanced in favour of a doctrinal minimalism,
achieved by the unaided encounter of individual Christians with Revelation,
were a powerful tactic for transcending or dampening the threat to civil
peace caused by confessional difference. As Peiresc, Grotius’s friend, noted
with applause, the ambition of being ‘indifferently enclined towards all
men’ irrespective of religious identity was a good thing.39 The intellectual
position also prompted a number of profoundly hostile responses. The sep-
aration of apologetics from dogmatics was unacceptable to those con-
vinced that all key doctrines – the Trinity was the most obvious – needed
primary defence. The view that doctrinal difference was not theologically

36 Heering, Hugo Grotius, passim.

37 Heering, Hugo Grotius, pp. 127-134.
38 Compare with the much more critical biblical criticism of men like Hobbes, Spinoza
and Simon, see J.A.I. Champion, ‘Hobbes and biblical criticism: some preliminary remarks’.
Bulletin Annuel Institut d'Histoire de la Reformation 31 (2010), 53-72; idem ‘Richard Simon and
Biblical Criticism in Restoration England’, in Everything Connects, ed. by J. Force and
D. Katz (Brill, 1999), pp. 37-61.
39 P. Miller, Peiresc’s Europe. Learning and virtue in the seventeenth century (Yale, 2000),
pp. 105-107.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 131

important, but merely the result of the conceit of men, was challenged by
churchmen who saw such devout commitment to such dogma as founda-
tional for Christian institutions. The attempt to disentangle religious com-
mitments from the turbulence surrounding the legitimacy of public
institutions (both civil and ecclesiastical) was of course central to the vari-
ous manifestations of ‘Socinianism’ in the seventeenth century. Much of
these arguments (against the claims of infallibility in matters of religious
truth) insisted that since there was no prescriptive ecclesiastical model
discernable in scripture, the church had consequently no soteriological
function.40
Despite this rejection of the role of any form of church government in the
economy of grace, men like Grotius argued that there was space for a valu-
able public ecclesiastical function: such institutions were legitimated if
they intended to secure peace and order rather than imposing dogmatic
discipline. Although Grotius had initially defended an Erastian account of
public religion, by the end of his life his review of the evidence of historical
erudition suggested he favoured an Episcopal model.41 As Sarah Mortimer
has explored, theologians such as Henry Hammond managed to combine a
Grotian account of the ‘reasonableness’ of Christian doctrine with a defence
of the Trinity and episcopacy. For these Anglican apologists, drawing from
Grotius, the government of the Church was also a matter of rational revela-
tion. Christ had established not only a moral theology and the promise of
salvation, but also a rule for the Church.42 The tension between what could
be called an epistemological anticlericalism (individuals had autonomous
rational access to the truth without the necessary support of the clergy)
and the requirement of a public ecclesiastical settlement (public religion
required some sort of national Church), provided different opportunities in
the afterlife of Grotius’s works.43

40 S. Mortimer, Reason and Religion in the English Revolution (Cambridge, 2009), discus-
sion at pp. 67-70.
41 Hence the inclusion of favourable commentary on Grotius’s support for the Church of
England in the various editions of De veritate. Of course, over the course of the decades since
its first publication, the nature of the doctrinal and ecclesiological character of the Church
of England had been transformed. For some valuable comments on this process see J.G.A.
Pocock, ‘Within the margins: the definitions of orthodoxy’ in Heterodox Writing and Cultural
Response, 1660–1750, ed. by R.D. Lund (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 33-53.
42 Mortimer, Reason and Religion, pp. 123, 127-131, 138.
43 See the important overview, still influential in characterisations of the nature of ‘eras-
tianism’ from Luther to Hobbes, J. N. Figgis, ‘Erastus and Erastianism’, Journal of Theological
Studies 2 (1901), 66–101.
132 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

Evidence of one such ‘radical’ use against mainstream ecclesiastical insti-

tutions can be seen in the controversy surrounding the publication and
reception of Matthew Tindal’s (1706) Rights of the Christian Church.44
Tindal’s work, if his opponents are to be believed, was contrived from the
conversations he had with other ‘freethinkers’, to challenge the claims to
‘independent’ authority in the Church of England, and to defend the
Protestant principle of freedom of conscience.45 Deploying a range of
Erastian ecclesiological arguments the Rights drew on earlier traditions of
thinking about both the nature of church jurisdiction and its fundamental
ordo. As Tindal acknowledged, clerical hostility was because ‘it puts too
much power in the hands of the laity in religious matters’. The Reformation,
according to Tindal, had been a blow struck against priestcraft: fundamen-
tal to this position was the claim that ‘amongst Christians there are in a
proper sense no Priests, except only our eternal high priest’. Either only
Christ, or all Christians, had priesthood. Since Christ had abolished the
Levitical priesthood individuals were subject ‘only to God in matters of reli-
gion’. Tindal’s arguments went far further than simply subjecting church-
men to the supervision of the civil authority and laity: ‘Amongst Christians
there’s no Sanctum Sanctorum, which is only open to the one or the few’.
Hostile to arguments which elevated churchmen (through ordination) to a
distinctive ordo as ambassadors sent by God, Tindal argued against any spe-
cial sacramental function. Indeed, at their best, they were ‘only commenta-
tors, notemakers, or sermon-makers’: the apostles may have had credentials
from God, but subsequently no human did. No churchmen (Roman
Catholic or Protestant) had either legal or divine claims to ‘any power’, as
the clear declaration of Christ established in John 18:36 ‘My Kingdom is not
of this World’.46
In the various defences of the Rights, Tindal suborned a number of other
thinkers to his anticlerical and Erastian ambition by adding their works to
his own publications. The first was a translation of two tracts composed by

44 See J.R. Wigelsworth, Deism in Enlightenment England Theology, Politics and Newtonian
public science (Manchester, 2009).
45 On the reception of Tindal’s work see, J.A.I. Champion, ‘The men of matter: spirits,
matter and the politics of priestcraft, 1701-1709’, Clandestine Literature and Materialism in the
Enlightenment, ed. by G. Paganini, M. Benitez and A. McKenna (Paris, 2002), pp. 115-150. See
also Wigelsworth, Deism in England.
46 For the significance of this scriptural source see, J.A.I. Champion, ‘“My kingdom is not
of this world”: the politics of religion after the restoration’, in The English Revolution c. 1590-
1720. Politics, religion and communities, ed. by N. Tyacke (Manchester, 2007) pp. 185-202.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 133

Hugo Grotius (on the sacrament of the ‘Lord’s supper’) which was included,
‘that the world may see, that the Author of this book is not so singular in his
opinions as some have represented him’. The short work of Grotius argued
(interestingly, using Tertullian) ‘that there is nothing in the sacerdotal func-
tion, of so sublime a nature, which may not be done by a layman, where
priests cannot be had’. It was the claim of the second work, that since ‘Christ
instituted no new rites’, then the Eucharist was purely a mark of Christian
fellowship rather than a sacrament.47 The second set of tracts associated
with the defence were by the ‘ever memorable’ John Hales (1584-1656) deal-
ing with the sacraments, the power of the keys and schism. As the last age
‘did not produce two greater men, either in solid learning, depth of judge-
ment, or largeness of soul’, serious perusal of their works would confirm the
integrity of the Rights. Hales, a clergyman who preferred to be addressed as
‘Mr’ (rather than his ecclesiastical title), provides us with ample evidence of
how the Grotian account of religious truth might be made pertinent to a
radical criticism of clerical society.
Hales, sometime of Merton College Oxford, and after 1619 fellow of Eton
College, was regarded as a learned man, but also one who opposed claims
to ecclesiastical infallibility from Catholic and Protestant alike.48 As
Clarendon noted, Hales (like Grotius and of course Hobbes) was profoundly
concerned about the contention and ‘brawls’ caused by contested claims to
true religion.49 John Aubrey claimed Hales was the first Socinian in the
land. Associated with the Tew circle, and drawing from Grotius De veritate,
Hales argued that the fundamentals of Christianity were few and plain, the
exercise of reason ought to be capable without the aid of clergy to identify
those necessary beliefs. Hales was profoundly sceptical of the worldly

47 See M. Tindal, A defence of the rights of the Christian Church. In two parts. Part I. Against
Mr. Wotton’s visitation sermon, preach’d at Newport-Pagnel. Part II. Occasion’d by two late
indictments against a bookseller and his servant, for selling one of the said Books. With some
tracts of Hugo Grotius, and Mr. John Hales of Eaton. The second edition corrected (London,
1709). See Hugo Grotius, Dissertatio de coenae administratione ubi pastores non sunt, Item An
semper communicandum per symbola (Amsterdam, 1638). The edition also included a trans-
lation of Jean Leclerc’s favourable ‘Extract and judgment’, a review of the Rights in the
Bibliotheque Choisie.
48 Intellectual studies of Hales have been elusive, but see J. Tulloch, Rational Theology
and Christian Philosophy in England in the seventeenth century, 2 vols (London, 1874)
I, Chapter IV, pp. 170-252; See N.E. Scott, ‘The ever memorable Mr John Hales’, The Harvard
Theological Review 10 (1917), 245-271; J. H. Elson, John Hales of Eton (London, 1948). See also
the discussion in H. J. McLachlan, Socinianism in seventeenth-century England (London,
1951) and H. Trevor-Roper, Catholics, Anglicans and puritans: seventeenth-century essays
(London, 1987).
49 Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy, p. 214.
134 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

motives of clerical institutions. The works chosen and appended to Tindal’s

defence resonated with the broader themes of his main work: Church error
and the incautious ‘taking up’ of custom (especially as recorded in the
Fathers) was the root cause of contention and corruption. Given that there
was no revelation in doctrine and institution he concluded that ‘Churches
may err in fundamentals’. Episcopal ambition had historically produced
intolerance and corruption. Central doctrines such as those related to the
Eucharist were little more than conjecture. All clerical claims to secret and
supernatural counsel from God were dubious. The power of the keys and
auricular confession were merely metaphorical. Schism was not an accept-
able defence of the truth, but an offence against charity. In a gathering of
miscellany that concluded the tracts, Hales pondered a series of ecclesio-
logical issues under the headings ‘How to know the church’ and ‘How Christ
is head of the Church’. Again the tone of Hales’ definitions was sceptical:
there were no ‘marks’ to identify the church apart from true profession, and
submission to the gospel. There was no set form of worship or institution
either: ‘The Church, as it imports a visible company in Earth, is nothing else
but the company of Professors of Christianity, wheresoever disperst in the
Earth’. The novelty of history was to ‘change the spiritual kingdom of Christ
to secular pride and tyranny’. The Church had no ‘outward government’
because Christ had ‘left no successor, no doctrine, no use’. There was no
visible government: indeed ‘All these questions concerning the notes, the
visibility, the government of the Church, if we look upon the substance and
nature of the Church, they are meerly idle and impertinent: if upon the
end, why learned men do handle them, it is nothing else but faction’.50
A full account of the reception of Hales’ work has yet to be written.
Editions of his tracts were periodically reprinted in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries: a complete works (including sermons) was published
in 3 volumes in 1765.51 Such was his status amongst the Whig milieu of

50 Tindal, A second defence, appendix pp. 148-149.

51 See the major editions are Golden remains of the ever memorable Mr Iohn Hales of Eton
College (1659 and 1673); Several tracts, by the ever memorable Mr. John Hales of Eaton Coll. &c.
Viz. I. Of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. II. Paraphrase on St. Matthew’s Gospel. III. Of the
power of the keys. IV. Of schism and schismaticks, (never before printed by the original copy.)
V. Miscellanies (1677); Several tracts by the ever-memorable Mr. John Hales of Eaton-College,
&c. Viz. I. Concerning the Sin against the Holy Ghost. II. Of the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
III. Paraphrase on S. Matthew’s Gospel. IV. Of the Power of the Keys. V. Of Schism and
Schismaticks. VI. Miscellanies. To which is added, his letter to Archbishop Laud, occasion’d by
his tract of schism; never before published among his Works (1716, 1721); J. Hales, The works of
the ever memorable Mr. John Hales of Eaton. Now first collected together. In three volumes,
3 vols (London, 1765).
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 135

Tindal and friends, that Pierre Desmaizeaux undertook to produce an

‘Historical and Critical’ account of Hales’ life and writings as a specimen for
a proposed biographical dictionary in the style of Pierre Bayle’s great work
in 1719.52 Tindal clearly found the timbre of Hales’ account of the Church
congenial: the resonances are very clear when comparing his sermon on
John 18:36 ‘My kingdom is not of this world’ – one of the core scriptural
texts, used by Hobbes, Tindal and Hoadly to deny any form of external or
internal authority to churchmen. Hales acknowledged that in one respect
every person was subject to a ‘double kingdom’, but the biggest problem
was an understanding that ‘men do take the church to be like unto the
world’. Christ governed invisibly from an ‘imperial throne in our under-
standings and wills’. A visible church was ‘not a thing that can be pointed
out’. Indeed he insisted that calling a company of Christians a ‘Church’ was
simply a ‘word of courtesy’. Hales’ reputation as a learned clergyman who
preferred not to wear clerical garb and whom, in elevating the claims of
reason, promoted tolerance rather than persecution, made him a conve-
nient authority for Tindal to invoke against his highchurch antagonists. The
fact that much of Hales’ writing was directed against the ‘popery’ of the
Roman Catholic church (as well as the persecuting spirit of the Calvinists)
made him a good resource for Tindal to deploy. The disgrace of church his-
tory for Hales (that it was a narrative of ’the factionating and tulmultating
of great and potent bishops’) was also the central spar of Tindal’s Rights.53
The intellectual resonances between the 1711 edition of De veritate and
the republication of Grotius’s and Hales’s works by Tindal suggest how the
originally irenic works might become more subversive in a different politi-
cal and religious context. The synergy between Grotius and Hales is a useful
case in point. The historical account of Hales has suggested that his combi-
nation of a defence of private judgement, the necessity of charity and the
pursuit of civil peace marked a mid-way transition point between Christian
humanism and eighteenth century enlightened rationalism.54 Like Grotius,
Hales claimed that the pursuit of truth was his only care ever since he had
understood the meaning of the word.55 Like Grotius, Hales insisted that

52 P. Desmaizeaux, An historical and critical account of the life and writings of the ever-
memorable Mr. John Hales, Fellow of Eton College, and Canon of Windsor. Being a specimen of
an historical and critical English dictionary (London, 1719).
53 B. Wormald, Clarendon (Cambridge, 1951) p. 257.
54 See J.H. Elson, John Hales of Eton (New York, 1948) 2; Tulloch, Rational Theology and
Christian Philosophy, I, pp. 170-254. See also, J. Butt, ‘Izaak Walton’s collections for Fulman’s
life of John Hales’, The Modern Language Review 29 (1934), 267-273.
55 Elson, John Hales 25-26; Hales Works, I, pp. 137f.
136 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

dogmatic differences were not really religious in origins but the result of
human conceit. Defending the liberty of judgement against false clerical
ambition led Hales to claim that to ‘save a soul every man is a priest’. Indeed
Hales’ account of the liberty of private judgement matched the aspirations
of men like Toland, Tindal and Locke. Individuals had a duty to ensure that
they were not deceived by another’s understanding: ‘wherefore hath God
given me the light of reason and conscience, if I must suffer myself to be led
and govern’d by the reason and conscience of another man?’.56 Hales
objected to claims of infallible authority from tradition, universality and
the churches. To replace Roman Catholic authority with a Protestant ver-
sion was to do ‘nothing else than to pull down Baal and set up an Ephod’.57
Scripture had been abused by error, conceit and wit, while in fact the ‘plain’
places were evident and sufficient to establish the fundamentals. In an
argument which was very useful to men like Tindal engaged in a war of
ideas against a Protestant church, Hales refuted the authority claims of all
ecclesiastical institutions (Catholic, Anglican or Puritan) since they were
built out of human authority and therefore could claim no infallibility. The
very language Hales sometimes used to convey these ideas was capable of a
radical materialist reading: ‘He that tells you of another spirit in the church
to direct you in your way, may as well tell you a tale of a puck, or walking
spirit in the church-yard’.58
The principle of self-determination of belief through rational engage-
ment with scripture was also explored by the Anglican Jeremy Taylor: intel-
ligent enquiry led to persuasion, but such assent did not legitimate
prescription to others.59 Like Grotius and Hobbes, A discourse of the liberty
of prophesying (London, 1647) was a response to the disorders of the pres-
ent time: it provided a Grotian mode of argument which was vulnerable to
appropriation for heterodox purposes in the post-1689 circumstances of
toleration and erastianism.60 From the sceptical premise that the variety of
human understanding led to a diversity of opinion, Taylor insisted that per-
sonal and private conviction could not be subject to external coercive

56 Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy, pp. 242, 245-46.

57 Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy, p. 254.
58 Elson, John Hales, p. 90 [Works I. 68].
59 Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy, pp. 396, 405, 409.
60 See N. McDowell, ‘The ghost in the marble: Jeremy Taylor’s Liberty of Prophesying
(1647) and its readers’, in Scripture and scholarship in early modern England, ed. by N. Keene
and A. Hessayon, (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 176-191; J. D. Schaeffer, ‘Tropical latitude: prophecy,
orality and the rhetoric of tolerance in Jeremy Taylor’s “The Liberty of Prophesying”’, Studies
in Philology 101 (2004), 454-470.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 137

power. The liberty of judging did not imply a ‘licence of dogmatizing’.61

Wise and honest men might be of different minds without needing the
imposition of doctrine by coercion. For Taylor, scripture made clear the
simple fundamental article of faith – that Jesus Christ was crucified.
Christian belief was significant not as a principle but as a cause for faith:
‘Christ is our medium to God, obedience is the medium to Christ, and Faith
the medium to obedience’.62 Faith was not simply subscription to a doc-
trine but an act of virtue or ‘moral industry’.63 In a similar way to Grotius
and Toland, Taylor insisted that all the necessary articles of faith ‘are clearly
and plainly set down in Scripture’. Nothing necessary was hidden: those
‘great mysteries’ were purposeful as ‘tryalls of our industry’. The dominant
injunction was to ensure that the individual believed God rather than men:
it was not certain that ‘if we believe any company of men whom we call the
Church, that we therefore obey God and believe what he hath said’.64
Once again much of Taylor’s anxiety about the complexity of clerical
commentary on ‘secreta theologiae’ was driven by the ‘incompetency’ of
churchmen. The individual could always be ‘trusted to judge for himself’:
technical or scholarly ability was less important than honesty. God would
have no man’s salvation depend upon the integrity and opinions of another,
each was to employ their reason in weighing the evidence.65 Taylor’s advice
that men ought not to hide their talents in the napkin of faith was one
rehearsed by Hobbes later to justify his treatment of creedal minimalism.66
While God might command our understandings, no human authority was
competent: our neighbours and churchmen alike could only aim to per-
suade rather than coerce.67 Built upon the same grounds as Grotius’s
De veritate, Taylor’s defence of a reasonable religion was explicitly hostile to
the claims of clerical tyranny. While he did not argue that toleration should
be extended to doctrines which were inconsistent with piety and virtue, it
was clear that the interest of civil peace or ‘the interests of the republique,
and the well being of bodies politick is not to depend on the nicety of our
imaginations, or the fancies of any peevish or mistaken priests’. Taylor’s
description of the religion of Christ came close to describing the civil

61 J.Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying (London, 1647), pp. 13-14.

62 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, pp. 6-8.
63 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, pp. 23, 42.
64 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, pp. 59-61.
65 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, p. 167, 169.
66 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, p. 168. See Hobbes, Leviathan, ed. by
R.Tuck (Cambridge, 1991), Chapter 32, pp. 255-256.
67 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, p. 202.
138 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

religion approved by Hobbes and Rousseau: it was ‘the best establisher of

the felicity of private persons, and of publick communities; it is a Religion
that is prudent and innocent, humane, and reasonable, and brought infi-
nite advantages to mankind, but no inconvenience, nothing that is unnatu-
rall, or unsociable, or unjust’.68 Taylor posed a powerful question, and one
that later men like Toland readily picked up on: if God was not angry with
human error, why should men (especially men of the church) be so
offended?69 The later polemicists turned this insight into a programme for
reforming public religion.
The original Grotian project (and one approved by Leclerc), while radical
in its challenge to the established doctrinal underpinnings of the routines
and institutions of clerical religion, was ‘Christian’ in its ambitions and
foundations.70 The evidential status of Revelation was elemental to
Grotius’s case (as outlined in Book 2 of De veritate) that the Christian reli-
gion was true. The credible testimony of matter of fact contained in the
gospels, and the historical evidence of their propagation and Christ’s mira-
cles, established the ‘truth’ of the Christian religion. Book 3, in particular,
claims that the ‘authority’ of the books of the New Testament establishes,
through ‘right reason’, the credibility of the fundamentals of Christianity –
the existence of one God, his providence, the reward of an afterlife, the
value of loving one’s neighbour.71 Grotius (and indeed revised and supple-
mented by Leclerc) a man of erudition in biblical criticism, was aware of
the challenges to the textual integrity of Revelation, but dismissed argu-
ments about minor variations, errors and the carelessness of scribal trans-
mission. In support of Grotius, Leclerc intruded into the footnotes the most
cutting edge New Testament scholarship of John Mill: ‘Tho there is a great
variety, yet no new doctrine can be raised from thence, nor no received one
confuted’.72 In the later reception of Grotius’s ideas this emphasis upon the
credibility of scripture became a weak link, undermined by the corrosive
use of biblical scholarship. Given the limitations of space the example of
John Toland’s contributions will suffice.
In Christianity not mysterious (1696) Toland had extended the Grotian
model of the individual employing reasoning with scripture into a fully

68 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, p. 247.

69 Taylor, A discourse of the liberty of prophesying, p. 266.
70 For a robust engagement with the Christian objectives of Grotius see M. Somos,
Secularisation and the Leiden Circle (Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011).
71 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, p. 154.
72 Grotius, The truth of the Christian religion, p. 160 fn.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 139

blown defence of human reason against clerical counter-claims for the

mysteries of religion. 73 Under the flag of the claim that ‘Faith is Knowledge’,
Toland reduced the status of revelation to being a mere ‘means of informa-
tion’ without any super-rational credibility. Toland encouraged ‘Examina­
tion and Enquiry’: from an early age he had been taught ‘not to captivate
my understanding, no more than my senses to any man or society whatso-
ever’. The intention was to defend a liberty of rational enquiry especially in
matters of religion ‘calculated for reasonable creatures [so] 'tis conviction
and not authority that should bear the weight with them’. Like Grotius,
Toland wrote against claims to infallibility whether popish or Protestant:
Christianity not mysterious aimed to impeach ‘all corrupt clergymen … who
make a meer trade of religion, and build an unjust Authority upon the
abus'd consciences of the Laity’. Importantly (and dangerously) Toland
declared his text was designed for the ‘vulgar’ and ‘poor’ rather than the
‘philosopher’. The ‘vulgar’ could ‘likewise be judges of the true sense of
things, tho they understand nothing of the Tongues from whence they are
translated for their use’.74 Although the technical parts of the treatise eluci-
dated the epistemological relationships between reason and faith, and
between belief and revelation, it was persistently given a practical slant,
relating such philosophical discussions to the circumstances and practices
of individuals reading scripture and thinking about their convictions.
Toland also developed (from the late 1690s) another tack, challenging the
credibility and canonical status of received scripture, which fundamentally
undermined the Grotian defence of religious truth.75 Drawing from the
arguments of Hobbes, Spinoza and Richard Simon combined with erudi-
tion harvested from patristic and biblical scholarship, Toland cast consider-
able doubt upon the authenticity of the received canon of scripture
(both Old and New Testaments). Initially in his ‘Catalogue of Books’
ascribed to Jesus Christ, Toland presented his public with a range of lost,
fake, Gnostic and suppositious ‘revelation’ with the implication that the

73 The following paragraph draws from Champion ‘Making authority: belief, conviction
and reason’, pp. 143-190.
74 Champion, ‘Making authority: belief, conviction and reason’, pp. 180-181.
75 See John Toland's Nazarenus 1718, ed. by J.A.I. Champion (Oxford, 1999) ‘Introduction’;
idem ‘Apocrypha, Canon and Criticism from Samuel Fisher to John Toland 1660-1718’, in
Judaeo-Christian Intellectual Culture in the Seventeenth century, ed. by A. Coudert, S. Hutton,
R.H. Popkin and G.M. Weiner (Dordrecht, 1999), pp. 91-117; idem ‘Cultura sovversiva:
erudizione e polemica nel l’amyntor canonicus di Toland, c. 1698-1726’. in Filosofia e cultura
nel settecento britannico, 1: Fonti e connessioni continentali. John Toland e il deismo, ed. by
Antonio Santucci (Bologna, 2000), pp. 343-370.
140 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

received testaments might need revisiting. From the Grotian perspective,

any doubt cast upon the credibility and authenticity of scripture would
undermine the certainty it provided as a platform for the discovery of truth
to individual reason. Toland’s masterpiece, Nazarenus (1718), perpetrated
an even more destructive move in recommending (with the full apparatus
of ‘credible’ contemporary scholarship) ‘new’ scripture in the form of the
Gospel of Barnabas. The fact that the new gospel contradicted traditional
Trinitarian accounts of Christ’s life and death was merely the most obvious
reason for the howls of protest the work attracted. Toland’s ultimate point
was that human reason was the more reliable source for sensible doctrine
and knowledge than even the received texts of scripture: au fond the ratio-
nal freedom of individuals was more important to preserve than the status
of revelation. Like the earlier rationalists, but with more probable cause,
Toland was subjected to considerable critical abuse and legal persecution
for advancing his ‘reasonable’ approach to the recovery of plain Christian
doctrine. The hostile rebuttal was prompted, not simply, by the elevation of
the authority of corrupt sinful human reason (to the exclusion of clerical
‘gifts’ and expertise), but because there was also a primary doctrinal casu-
alty to this process. While belief in Christ remained core, the traditional
account of the Trinity was marginalised and ignored, if not directly refuted.
For mainstream contemporary churchmen this exposed the necessary het-
erodoxy of reasonable religion.
The ‘Erasmian’ project of Socinus, Grotius and later men like William
Chillingworth, Lord Falkland, Jeremy Taylor and John Hales aimed to
ground the achievement of Christian truth on the capabilities and exercise
of individual reason rather than the institutional authority of clerical insti-
tutions. This ambition was possible because of a shared conviction both in
the capacities of human reason, and the potential veracity of scripture, to
produce a consensual ‘faith’. The next stage, and one which was taken by
thinkers like Hobbes and Toland, was to recognise that human reason and
culture was the primary source for all conceptions of private and public
religion. In the hands of Grotius’s arguments in defence of reasonable reli-
gious truth were aimed to promote civil peace; men like Leclerc saw oppor-
tunity to adapt De veritate to the moderate demands of the eighteenth
century, but in the hands of men like Toland, they became powerful weap-
ons wielded against traditional clerical institutions.
This transformation of purpose in the afterlife of Grotian thought is sig-
nificant for the discussion the religious origins of enlightenment touched
on at the start of this contribution. One of the most contested dimensions
of intellectual debate in the period concerned the nature, competence and
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 141

veracity of human reason and its primary relationship with revelation. The
later ‘freethinking’ appropriation of Grotius’s De veritate embraced the
rationalism inherent in his arguments and turned it against the dominant
forms of traditional institutional Christianity. For men like Toland, Grotius
exposed not just the intimate connection and inter-action between reason
and revelation, but also the pathological contribution of ecclesiastical
institutions to the identification of truth. Those earlier theologians of
‘reasonableness’ – Chillingworth, Hales and Taylor most notably – had
developed many of Grotius’s accounts into a powerful criticism of the
forces of intolerance they confronted in their day. Men like Toland and
Tindal saw ample opportunity in reconfiguring their textual legacy for the
more corrosive purpose of challenging the priestcraft of the modern church
in the eighteenth century. In effect the primary Grotian emphasis upon the
dominant pursuit of truth, was displaced in the later period by a shifting
stress upon the ‘liberty’ of each individual’s pursuit. Thinkers like Jean
Leclerc and Toland aimed to operationalize the religious freedom defended
in Grotius’s work: the most profound way of achieving this was to contest
the legitimacy of the very real and violent power churchmen exercised over
the laity.76
Hugh Trevor-Roper pointed to some helpful and pertinent contexts in
tracing the lineages of post-Erasmian arguments through Grotius and into
the eighteenth century. The transformation of disaffection with popish
clergy into an hostility towards all claims to religious authority is one of the
key processes: especially in the British Isles, contesting the identity of legiti-
mate authority for the control and direction of the disciplinary institutions
of public religion was intensified across the later seventeenth and early
eighteenth centuries. After 1689, the development of arguments defending
a public state church combined with a lay Christianity which ultimately
shaped the dominant form of ‘enlightenment’ church polity in the British
Isles.77
The challenge Grotian ‘reasonableness’ potentially posed to the estab-
lished ecclesiological constitution is evident if a sociological perspective
upon the changes across the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the
nature and authority of what Michael Foucault called ‘pastoral power’ is

76 For a discussion of earlier manifestations of this lay culture see M.L. Schwarz, ‘Lay
Anglicanism and the crisis of the English Church in the early seventeenth century’, Albion
14 (1982), 1-19.
77 For some instructive comments on the ‘permanent revolution’ against the clergy, see
J.F. Maclear, ‘The making of the lay tradition’, The Journal of Religion 33 (1953), 113-136.
142 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143

taken. The government of souls – regimen animarum – was rooted in the

claims of the church (whether Roman Catholic or Protestant) to exercise
terrestrial and territorial power over the laity, even though the authority
and teleology of its exercise was derived from the divine world beyond.78
Such a conception of ‘pastoral power’ suggests three major jurisdictional
dimensions: the clerical administration of salvation (exercised over indi-
viduals and communities); the jurisdiction of law (ensuring obligations to
God’s commands) and the regulation of theological ‘truth’ (through doctri-
nal, liturgical and confessional discipline). In this view the ecclesiological
struggles which endured between reformation and enlightenment were
primarily ‘over who would actually have the right to govern men’.79 At the
core of this understanding of ‘pastoral power’ was the notion of ‘pure obe-
dience’: submission to authority was neither rational nor principled, but
the ‘submission of one individual to another’.80 The political and cultural
charisma of churchmen and magistrates derived from a world picture that
reinforced natural and divine hierarchy. An application of Foucault’s analy-
sis onto the history of Grotius’s text and its reception offers some valuable
insights: advancing the claims of reason and a diligent understanding of
scripture against the conceits of priestly dogma was a profound challenge
to the traditional assumptions of pastoral power. That the ‘reasonableness’
of Grotius’s position was intimately connected with a perceived threat to
Trinitarian accounts of the Godhead was also significant. Taken up by men
like Toland – the ‘mystery’ of the Trinity became a shibboleth of priestly
imposture – challenging the integrity of the doctrine not only elevated the
claims of human reason, but dismantled the grounds for priestly authority.
Recently Giorgio Agamben has made a similar case connecting doctrinal
theology with the specific form of the exercise of religious institutions,
arguing that the traditional management of the relationship between his-
tory and revelation involved a ‘Trinitarian economy’. The early Christian
conception of a deity articulated into a Trinity, allowed an economy of
divine activity in the world which kept distinct the nature of God from the
manifestation of his activity in history.81 The Church administered this
nexus. Grotian arguments, especially as embroidered by the later freethink-
ers, were correctly perceived as compromising Trinitarian theology as

78 M. Foucault, Security, Territory, Population , transl. by Graham Burchell (Basingstoke,

2011), pp. 151-154.
79 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, p. 149-150.
80 Foucault, Security, Territory, Population, pp. 174-75.
81 G. Agamben, The Kingdom and the Glory, transl. by Lorenzo Chiesa (London, 2011),
pp. 46-48, 57, 110, 152, 158.
 J. Champion / Grotiana 33 (2012) 119–143 143

irrational mystery. The consequence of this was not simply an intellectual

or theological challenge to the status quo but fundamentally unpicked the
connection between ideas and institutions – mysterium and ministerium
were rendered asunder. The texts of Grotius’s De veritate, and their recep-
tion and afterlife, provided a powerful resource which both challenged, and
ultimately transformed, traditional Christian authority.