aurice's Preface to _Law's Answer to
Mandeville_, lxx.]

[Footnote 291: Channing and Aikin's _Correspondence_, 46.]

[Footnote 292: Mackintosh's _Progress of Ethical Philosophy_, sect. i.]

[Footnote 293: S.T. Coleridge, _Aids to Reflection_, i. 37.]

[Footnote 294: Mackay, R.W., Introduction to _The Sophists_, 36.]

[Footnote 295: _Ecce Homo_, 114.]

[Footnote 296: G. Eliot, _Romola_, near the end.]

[Footnote 297: _Ecce Homo_, 115; cf. Coleridge, _The Friend_ Ess. xvi.
i. 162.]

[Footnote 298: F.W. Robertson, _Life and Letters_, i. 352.]

[Footnote 299: Cf. F.D. Maurice's Introduction to _Law on Mandeville_,
xxiii.]

[Footnote 300: S. ccxxiii., _Works_, ix. 275.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER V.

LATITUDINARIAN CHURCHMANSHIP.

(2) CHURCH COMPREHENSION AND CHURCH REFORMERS.

The Latitudinarianism which occupies so conspicuous and important a
place in English ecclesiastical history during the half century which
followed upon the Revolution of 1688 has been discussed in some of its
aspects in the preceding chapter. It denoted not so much a particular
Church policy as a tone or mode of thought, which affected the whole
attitude of the mind in relation to all that wide compass of subjects in
which religious considerations are influenced by difference of view as
to the province and authority of the individual reason.

But that which gave Latitudinarianism its chief notoriety, as well as
its name, was a direct practical question. The term took its origin in
the efforts made in William and Mary's reign to give such increased
latitude to the formularies of the English Church as might bring into
its communion a large proportion of the Nonconformists. From the first
there was a disposition to define a Latitudinarian, much as Dr. Johnson
did afterwards, in the sense of 'one who departs from orthodoxy.' But
this was not the leading idea, and sometimes not even a part of the
idea, of those who spoke with praise or blame of the eminent
'Latitudinarian' bishops of King William's time. Not many were competent
to form a tolerably intelligent opinion as to the orthodoxy of this or
that learned prelate, but all could know whether he spoke or voted in
favour of the Comprehension Bill. Although therefore in the earlier
stages of that projected measure some of the strictest and most
representative High Churchmen were in favour of it, it was from first to
last the cherished scheme of the Latit