Henry More

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

an English Arminian divine and moralist, noted as a leader of that class of English philosophers who arose in the 17th century to exorcise the spirit of Calvinism from the English high schools, was born at Grantham, Lincolnshire, October 12, 1614. He was educated at Eton, where, aside from his regular studies, he bestowed much time on the reading of the philosophical works of Aristotle, Julius Scaliger, etc., poring, immature as he was, over the doctrine of predestination. His parents were Calvinists, and they had reared him with like notions, but he early became distrustful as to the real ground of Calvinism, and finally turned sceptic. In 1631 he went to Christ College, Cambridge, and graduated in 1635. More all his years at college was most diligently employed in metaphysical studies. He says himself, "I immersed myself over head and ears in the study of philosophy, promising a most wonderful happiness to myself in it." Dissatisfied with all other systems, he found rest for his mind only when he came to the writings of the Platonic school; whence, as he tells us, he learned that something better and higher than the knowledge of human things constitutes the supreme happiness of man, and that this is attainable only through that purity of mind and divine illumination which raise man to a union with God. But yet, he adds himself, that though the Platonic writings attracted and benefited him, there was "among all the writings of this kind none which so pierced and affected" him "as that golden little book with which Luther is also said to have been wonderfully taken, viz. Theologia Gernmanica.

This book More prized next to the Bible, and studied it until he could say that he was free from all scepticism, and once more truly devoted to Christian interests. He had taken his M.A. in 1639, and had been made also a fellow of his college. With these honors he contentedly rested, and, insisting upon refusal of all Church preferments, he withdrew to retirement for a course of "spiritual discipline." He in short gave himself up to a life of most devout spiritual exercise, and would suffer nothing to stand in his way to eternal happiness as it had been taught him by the mystical work he so fondly read. "From this time," says More's biographer, "he had a wonderful sense of God, sacred and ineffable, and of his unconceivable attributes, and he soon found all things to his satisfaction, and himself not unsuitable to them. And that there may be a 'turning after righteousness' (as he speaks) as well as a 'running after knowledge,' More now actually came forward to demonstrate with great care the principles both of revealed and natural religion, and to recommend to all at the same time, with the greatest seriousness possible, the practice of morality and virtue; or, rather, what is justly called the Christian or divine life." 'It would seem, therefore," adds his biographer, "that Henry More was raised by a special Providence in those days of freedom, as a light to those that may be fitted or inclined to high speculations, and a general guide to all that want it, how they are to mix the Christian and philosophic genius together, and make them rightly to accord in one common end, viz. the glory of God with the highest felicity and perfection of man."

The depth and originality of his metaphysical theories, and the remarkable combination of great argumentative abilities, extensive learning, and ardent piety with which he set them forth, occasioned his being looked up to as a person of an extraordinary character by the greatest and best of his contemporaries. Indeed, he himself admitted, with frankness and simplicity natural to his temper, that the talents and dispositions lavished upon him were such as brought him into singular responsibilities; that, to adopt his own expression, he had "as a fiery arrow been shot into the world, and he hoped that it had hit the mark." After his election to a fellowship by his college he took charge of several pupils, some of them persons of rank, whose studies he directed with great fidelity and application-his management of them being distinguished from that of ordinary tutors chiefly by unusual gentleness, and by the deep tone of piety which pervaded his instructions. He has recorded his opinion that "the exercise of love and goodness, of humanity and brotherly kindness, of prudence and discretion, of unfeigned religion and devotion, in the plain and undoubted duties thereof is, to the truly regenerate soul, a far greater pleasure than all the fine speculations imaginable." It was life, not notions, which he chiefly valued; and he preferred "a single-heartedness of temper beyond any theories." He had no ambition to play the part of a leader in society, and steadily declined every attempt to draw him into a public position.

He was content in the youthful circle which he gathered about himself as private tutor, and preferred to address the masses by his pen. The deanery of Christ Church in Dublin, with the provostship of Trinity College, and also the deanery of St. Patrick's, were proposed for his acceptance, as a step to either of the two bishoprics when a vacancy should occur; but he could not be persuaded to accept these preferments. It is said that after the failure of these attempts, a very good English bishopric was procured for him, and that his friends had actually brought him, on some pretence or other, as far as Whitehall, designing to introduce him to the king to kiss the hands of his royal master for the appointment; but when More understood on what business he had been brought thither, nothing could induce him to enter the royal grounds. Once, late in life (in 1675), he accepted a prebend in the cathedral of Gloucester; this, however, as the event proved, only with the view of serving his friend, Dr. Fowler, afterwards bishop of that diocese, into whose hands, with the chancellor's permission, he resigned it, refusing at the same time repayment of the expenses he had incurred. In the same manner, he for a short time kept possession of the rectory of Ingoldsbury, in Lincolnshire, which his father had purchased for him, and then presented it to several friends in succession. He had the satisfaction of providing in this way for his friend, Dr. Worthington, when that accomplished divine, in common with many other clergymen, lost his church in the fire of London.

When the mastership of his college fell vacant, it was proposed to him, in preference to Cudworth, as a piece of preferment likely, if any could do so, to suit his wishes; he declined it as he had done everything else, "passing otherwise his time within those private walls, it may be as great a contemplator, philosopher, and divine as ever did or will hereafter visit them." In fact, he believed that by a life of contemplation, and by laying the results of it before the world in his writings, he followed the course appointed him by Providence as best suited to his disposition and abilities, and likely to be serviceable to that and succeeding generations. Yet so humble were his notions of what he had accomplished by the employment of many years in earnest pursuit of those august theories which filled his mind, that he would say he "had lived a harmless and childish life in the world." His works, he remarked to a person who was speaking in commendation of them, "were such as might please some solitary men that loved their Creator." In his later years Dr. More was sorely tried by the separation of his friend and former pupil, lady Conway, from the communion of the Church which was his ideal in the form "as it existed before the times of disturbance — the Church of the Reformation and of Hooker." To popery in every form he was violently opposed, as is evinced by a work of his on The true Idea of Antichristianism (see below), and also to the sects he was opposed: "Both his reason and his love of quietness and order were opposed to what he considered the excesses of Puritanism — the dismal spectacle of an infinity of sects and schisms." Yet it should not be thought that More loved the ecclesiastical organization of England rather than the cause of Christ. "His main concern," says his biographer, "is that neither one order of the Church government nor another usurp the place which only religion itself should hold. He is for the 'naked truth of Christianity,' and nothing more; willing even to be called a Puritan, 'if this be to be a Puritan.'"

Such was his liberality, and yet he sought earnestly to recall lady Conway to the Church communion. She had been a favorite of his in her girlish days, and much of his time he had passed at Ragley, in Warwickshire, her country-seat after marriage to lord Conway. She was a person of enthusiastic piety and great accomplishments, and by her More and his opinions were known to be held in high veneration. Indeed, her husband is said to have been hardly less enthusiastic, and to have treasured everything of More's "with as much reverence as if it were Socrates's." Among such friends it was but natural that More should frequently pass his time, and it was among the shades of Ragley that he composed some of his writings, among them his Conjectura Cabalistica, his Philosophicce Teutonicce Censura, and his Divine Dialogues (see below).

He often counselled with lady Conway, and is believed to have been urged into authorship by her. She was particularly attracted by his mystical studies. Her consultations with him ultimately led her to turn aside and make her life one of most intense mystical devotion. She thus came to admire the patient quietude of the Quakers, as well as the opinions of that sect, at that time flushed with all the fervor attendant on novelty, persecution, and success, and finally she was induced to join them. Perhaps the doctor was conscious that his own religious views, characterized as they are by a degree of subjectiveness which unfits them for general reception (when eagerly adopted by a person of her peculiar temperament, not fortified by the counteraction of those healthier and more robust attainments which prevented any very evil consequences in his own case), might have prepared the way to this unfortunate result. At all events, he received the account of it with unfeigned affliction, and labored many years with all the earnestness of a faithful friend to reclaim the fair proselyte for the Church establishment of which he was a most devout adherent. He was thus led into a controversy with William Penn, both by writing and conversation. An admirable letter on Baptism and the Lord's Supper, addressed on this occasion to Penn, is printed in the appendix to his life. He encountered also George Fox, and has left a description of the interview on his own feelings little flattering to that ill-used religious enthusiast. More failed to reconvert his pupil, but he retained her friendship. He continued to spend much of his time, as before, at Ragley "and its woods," and there composed several of his books at lady Conway's "own desire and instigation." After her death he drew her portrait under another name, and with so much address that" the most rigid Quaker would see everything they could wish in it, and yet the soberest Christian be entirely satisfied with it." At Ragley, More formed several valuable acquaintances; of these we shall come to speak hereafter. But it is only there that he was surrounded by any associates. In his own "paradise," as he called his home at Christ College, he lived very much alone. Yet if he thus kept himself retired from the world, this life of solitude greatly stimulated his productivity as an author.

More began authorship in 1640 by the publication of his Psychozoia, or the First Part of the Song of the Soul, containing a Christiano-Platonical Display of Life (reprinted in 1647, and, together with some additional pieces, published under the title of Philosophical Poems). It was a most singular effort in the literary line, for it seeks to turn metaphysics into poetry. It is an early attempt on his part to express in verse the Platonic principles which he afterwards so clearly and forcibly expressed in prose. These poems are now hardly known. His first prose work was published in 1652 — Antidote against Atheism (new ed. 1655; also in coll. of philos. writings, 1662).

In the following year he sent forth Conjectura Cabalistica, or Attempt to Interpret the first three Chapters of Genesis in a threefold Manner — literal, philosophical, and mystical, or divinely moral. His next work of importance appeared in 1659, being an essay on the Immortality of the Soul (also 1662), accompanied by a valuable preface on the general subject of his philosophy. The leading principle of More's ethical system is that "moral goodness is simple and absolute, and that right reason is the judge of its nature, essence, and truth; but its attractiveness and beauty are felt by a special capacity, in boniformi anince facultate, not unlike the moral sense of later writers. Therefore all moral goodness is properly termed intellectual and divine. To affect this as supreme gives supreme felicity. By the aid of reason we state the axioms or principles of ethics in definite propositions, and derive from them special maxims or rules." In his philosophical views More espouses Descartes in the main, stating at great length and with much minuteness the doctrine of innate ideas, and defending it against misconceptions and objections. He qualifies Descartes's opinion that the soul has its seat in the pineal gland, and contends for the extension or diffusion of the soul, at the same time arguing that this does not involve its discerptibility. He contends at times for the reality of space as an entity independent of God, and again makes space to be dependent on God (anticipating the argument of Samuel Clarke).

He argues the existence of God from the moral nature of man. He also ably defends the doctrine of free-will "as the basis of morality." "Against the theological Necessitarians, who deny contingency, More argues clearly that God himself can alone know what events are necessary and what contingent. Prescience of such events either implies a contradiction or not. But to suppose a contradiction is virtually to say that the prescience is not divine. Contradictory objects cannot come within the sphere of the divine omniscience. And if there is no contradiction, we may recognise in this very fact that there is no inconsistency betwixt the divine prescience and free-will. Either way no solid argument can be drawn against moral liberty from the idea of divine prescience. Again, the whole force of the objections as to the will always following what appears for the moment best, More supposes to be met by the simple experience that the good we know we frequently do not do. Our works are not determined by our knowledge of what is best.

We may have fine ideas of virtue, and yet never put them in practice. Our freedom in this sense is only too real; and it is the very object of morality to bring the idea and the will into unison, and so enlighten the one and discipline the other that they may attain to the highest good." Hobbes is said to have entertained a very high opinion of More's philosophical views, and to have declared that if his "own philosophy was not true, he knew none that he should sooner like than Henry More's, of Cambridge." In 1660, finally, More came out again, and this time with one of the ablest productions we have from his pen, being an extended treatise on the Mystery of Godliness, "written after an illness in which he had vowed, if spared, to write a book demonstrative of the truth of the Christian religion — so far as concerns the person and offices of Christ, he would attempt to construct the Christian theology after those subjective ethical relations and beliefs which were taught by Plato and Plotinus, and at the same time to recognise the reality of the supernatural in the Christian history — to the confusion of fanatics and infidels alike." He here reverently discusses the incarnation of Christ in all its bearings, and illustrates it with many curious and interesting thoughts derived from philosophy and history. Notwithstanding the Platonic dress in which he loves to array everything, More holds firmly and expounds reverently and lovingly all the great doctrines of Christianity. He protests most energetically against the tendency to spiritualize away the reality of the Gospel history. "That the human person of Christ," he says, "is not to be laid aside is evident from the whole tenor of the epistle to the Hebrews. For he that there is said to be a high-priest forever is that very man who was crucified on the cross at Jerusalem."

Again he says, "I have with all earnestness and endeavor, and with undeniable clearness of testimony from reason and Scripture, demonstrated the truth and necessity of both Christ within and Christ without." It would appear that he did not altogether relish the phrase "imputative righteousness," yet his views on justification did not really differ from those of, other divines of the period; but he was perhaps fonder of laying stress upon this, that "the end of the Gospel was to renovate the spirits of men in true and real inherent righteousness and holiness," and he spoke of the phrase in question a aa" great scandal and effectual counterplot against the power of the Gospel, the nullifying and despising of moral honesty by those that are great zealots and high pretenders of religion." "For what an easy thing it is," he exclaims, "for a man to fancy himself an Israelite, and then to circumvent his honest neighbors under the notion of Egyptians." As for the Roman Catholic Church, he says that the economy of that Church "naturally tends to the betraying of souls to eternal destruction;" but adds, nevertheless, "not that it is possible for me (who cannot infallibly demonstrate to myself that all who lived under paganism are damned) to imagine that all who have gone under the name of papists have tumbled down into hell." The Mystery of Godliness enjoyed great popularity, and so did his Inquiry into the mystery of Iniquity, a work directed chiefly against popery. But of all his writings, the only one which can be said to have retained any lasting popularity, or to be commendable to the modern reader, is his Divine Dialogues, which he brought out in 1668, containing "Disquisitions concerning the Attributes and Providence of God."

This is pronounced by Tulloch the period which "may be said to mark the apex of More's intellectual activity." Of the book itself, Dr. Blair speaks in his lectures on rhetoric (lect. 36) as "one of the most remarkable in the English language." "Though the style," he adds, "be now in some measure obsolete, and the speakers be marked with the academic stiffness of those times, yet the dialogue is animated by a variety of character and a sprightliness of conversation beyond what are commonly met with in writings of this kind." What is recounted in the Dialogues under the name of Bathynous is believed to be his own peculiar experience, and gives an admirable picture of his clear, confiding, and enthusiastic spirit. The third dialogue is regarded as the best, for it is strikingly illustrative of the dreamy ideal enthusiasm with which the young Platonist (More) pursued his studies and inquiries. The Divine Dialogues are certainly, upon the whole, the most interesting and readable of all of More's works. They possess, moreover, the advantage of condensing his general views on philosophy and religion. More's authorship continued far beyond this time (to 1687, making a period of thirty-five years in all), and he composed after this his Manual of Metaphysics (1671, 4to), and attacked both Jacob Bohme (in Philosophice Teutonicce Censura [1670]), and Spinoza (Duarum praecipuarum, Atheismi Spinoziani columnarum subversio [1672]) in elaborate treatises. But the elasticity and temper of his philosophical genius are less buoyant in these efforts. "His Metaphysics," says Tulloch, "elaborate though they be, are in the main only a systematic and somewhat desultory expansion of views regarding the nature and proof of incorporeal substances, which he had already more than once expressed; while his cabalistical and prophetical studies have acquired a stronger hold of his mind." Within the next ten years he issued no fewer than five publications taken up with mystical subjects — some of them of the most curious technical character — including a Cabalistic Catechism.

Two of these writings are addressed to his friend Knorr (q.v.), the learned German Orientalist, whose speculations on the cabalistic art at this time considerably influenced More. After this we find him deeply engaged in prophetical studies. The theosophic elements, already so apparent in his philosophical poems, had been for some time held in check by his higher life of reason and healthy appreciation of natural and moral facts. But gradually they acquired a more marked ascendency, as his mental habits became fixed and the elasticity of natural feeling and thought began to decay. The balance, which had long been trembling began at length to decline on the unhealthy side. Ezekiel's Dream and the Synchronous Method of the Apocalyptic Visions received elaborate transcendental explanation. He was himself apparently conscious of an undue confidence in this sort of study. Yet he was unable to resist its fascinations. In allusion it is supposed to himself, he makes one of the speakers in his fifth dialogue say: "The greatest fanaticism I know in him is this, that he professeth he understands clearly the truth of several prophecies of the mainest concernment, which yet many others pretend to be very obscure." His latest work, which he left incomplete, is a practical treatise entitled Medela Mundi, or the Cure of the World. There is no trace of this work except allusions to it in his correspondence, and it is probably the work which he mentions in one of his letters under the name of The Safe Guide. It was, to judge from what can be gleaned from his correspondence, intended to vigorously advocate the rights of reason, and one of its chief objects was to show how the "Christian and philosophic genius" should "mix together." "The Christian religion, rightly understood," appeared to him to be "the deepest and choicest piece of philosophy that is." It was "the main, if not the only scope" of his long and anxious studies to demonstrate the rationality of the Christian religion throughout. "For to heap up a deal of reading and notions and experiments, without some such noble and important design, had but been to make his mind or memory a shop of small wares." He adopted, therefore, without hesitation the generous resolution of Marcus Cicero — "Rationem quo ea me cunque ducet, sequor." He was proud to adorn himself as a writer with "the sacerdotal breastplate of the Λόγιον , or Rationale." "Every priest," he adds, quoting Philo, "should endeavor, according to his opportunity and capacity, to be as much as he can a Rational man, Or Philosopher." Again, "to take away Reason, under what fanatic pretence soever, is to dissolve the priest, and despoil him of this breastplate, and, which is worst of all, to rob Christianity of that special prerogative it has above all other religions in the world — viz. that it dares appeal unto reason, which as many as understand the true interest of our religion will not fail to stick closely to; the contrary betraying it to the unjust suspicion of falsehood, and equalizing it to every vain imposture. For, take away reason, and all religions are alike true; as, the light being removed, all things are of one color" (Pref. to Antidote, page 6).

Though More's strength was displayed rather in what he could elaborate by thought than in the immediate use of his reading, he was nevertheless a laborious student. He devoted himself to the study of the best authors only. "He was wont to say that he was no wholesale man." It was with the weightiest matters that his mind was mostly engaged; though there was no part of learning, laudable and worthy, for which he had not a due esteem. For about a year before his death he was visibly sinking. His mind, sympathizing with his body, was, says his biographer, "'in sort out of tune.' I speak as to that deep and plastic sense (to use his own terms) he had been under usually in divine matters." His progress towards the close of life was nevertheless marked by humble piety and cheerful resignation. "Never," he said, "any person thirsted more for his meat and drink than he, if it pleased God, after a release from the body." "Yet," says Tulloch, " it is pleasant to reflect that his active mind remained full of thoughts for others to the last, and that those great questions in which he had spent all his time — What is good? and What is true? — were apparently as fresh and important with him at the end as, at the beginning."

He frequently in his last days expressed the hope that when he was called out of the present life his writings would be of use to the Church of God and to the world. Shortly before his death he expressed his view of what awaited him by repeating the first words of Cicero's famous exclamation, "praeclarum illum diem," etc.; intimating, as he had also done before, his conviction that at his release from this painful world he would be admitted to converse with blessed and congenial spirits. He expired calmly, and almost imperceptibly, September 1, 1687, and lies buried in the chapel of the college of which he had been for so many years an admired ornament. In person Henry More was tall and thin, but of a "serene" and vivacious countenance — rather pale than florid in his later years — yet was it clear and spirituous, and his eye hazel, and vivid as an eagle's. There is, indeed, as all who have seen his portrait by Loggan will admit, a singularly vivid elevation in his countenance, with some lines strongly drawn around the mouth, but with ineffable sweetness, light, and dignity in the general expression. As he is the most poetic and transcendental, so he is, upon the whole, the most spiritual looking of all the Cambridge divines.

He was from youth to age evidently gifted with the most happy and buoyant religious temper. "He was profoundly pious, and yet without all sourness, superstition, or melancholy." His habitual cast of mind was a serene thoughtfulness, while his "outward conversation" — with his friends was for the most part "free and facetious." Religion was in practice with him clearly what he conceived it to be in theory — the consecration and perfection of the natural life — the brightest and best form which it could attain, under the inspiration and guidance of the Divine Spirit. Although he chose for himself a secluded life, and so far suffered in consequence from a lack of that comprehensive experience which is more than all other education to the wise and open mind, he yet was not actuated in doing so by any indifference to the lighter and more active interests of humanity. It was remarked that his very air had in it something angelic. He seemed to be full of introversions of light, joy, benignity, and devotion at once, as if his face had been overcast with a golden shower of love and purity. Strangers even noticed this "marvellous lustre and irradiation" in his eves and countenance. "A divine gale," as he himself said. breathed throughout all his life as well as his works; but, however far it lifted him, it never inflated him. Ward, in his life of this remarkable man, repeats some extraordinary encomiums passed upon him while living by eminent persons who knew him well. One of them averred that he looked upon Dr. More as "the holiest man on the face of the earth;" another that "he was more of an angel than a man." More substantial proofs, however, than words of the respect felt for him by his contemporaries were offered in the attentions paid to him by the learned world. Yet it would be difficult indeed to name a Christian grace in which he did not excel. His charity and humility were not less conspicuous than his piety. "His very chamber door was a hospital to the needy." Self-denial he regarded as the practical ground of moral virtue; and in his own heart and behavior he evinced his observation that humility is the most precious part of piety.

The fervor of his direct approaches to and intercourse with God in prayer could not be surpassed. When the winds were ruffling about him, he made the utmost endeavor to keep low and humble, that he might not be driven from that anchor. So intense were his acts of worship, and accompanied with such a joyful sense of the divine presence, that his friends, when sometimes coming upon him unexpectedly while engaged in prayer, were surprised by indications of peace and joy in his countenance truly angelic. His temper was serene and cheerful, his discourse serious, yet lighted up with playful coruscations of wit and humor. "Few were of a cheer fuller spirit than he; none of a more deep felicity and enjoyment. In short, he possessed in as great purity perhaps as it has existed in any man of modern times the light, sanctity, and blessedness of the divine life." It is truly said by Tulloch that, "while More was no hero, either in thought or in deed — his speculations were too transcendental and his life too retired for this — he yet comes before us a singularly beautiful, benign, and noble character — one of those higher spirits who help us to feel the divine presence on earth, and to believe in its reality." His works were published in 1679, in 3 volumes folio; his philosophical writings in 1662, folio (4th ed. 1712); his theological works in 1675, folio. An analytical catalogue of all his works may be found in Cattermole's Literature of the Church of England, and' also in Tulloch's Rat. Theology, from which we extract this view of More as a writer: "More, still more than Cudworth, repeats himself, adding prefaces and appendices to what he has already written, and returning again and again upon the same track of thought. The germ, in fact, of most of his speculations may be traced in his early Philosophical Poems.

His genius in one sense was singularly fecund. Work after work sprang with easy luxuriance from his pen. But his writings do not exhibit any clear growth or system of ideas, unfolding themselves gradually, and maturing to a more comprehensive rationality. This lack of method is more or less characteristic of the school. Not only so, in his later productions there is rather a decay than an increase and enrichment of the rational element. To enter into any exposition of his cabalistical studies, of his discovery of Cartesianism in the first chapters of Genesis, and his favorite notion of all true philosophers descending from Moses through Pythagoras and Plato; and, still more, to touch his prophetical theories — the divine science which he finds in the dream of Ezekiel or the visions of the Apocalypse would be labor thrown away, unless to illustrate the weakness of human genius, or the singular absurdities which beset the progress of knowledge, even in its most favorable stages. The supposition that all higher wisdom and speculation were derived originally from Moses and the Hebrew Scriptures; and that it was confirmatory both of the truth of Scripture and the results of philosophy to make out this traditionary connection, was widely prevalent in the 17th century. It was warmly supported and elaborately argued by some of the most acute and learned intellects. Both Cudworth and More profoundly believed in this connection. But this was only one of many instances of their lack of critical and historical judgment. Historical criticism, in the modern sense, was not even then dreamed of; and it is needless to consider forgotten delusions which have perished, rather with the common growth of reason than by the force of any special genius or discovery" (2:351-353). See his Praefatio Generalissima prefixed to his Opera Omnilia (1679); Ward, Life of Henry More (Lond. 1710, 8vo); Burnet, Hist. of his own Times; Tulloch, Rational Theol. and Christian Philos. in England in the 17th Century (Lond. 1872, 2 volumes, 8vo), 2:303-409; Mullinger, Cambridge Characteristics in the 17th Century (Lond. 1867, 8vo), chapter 4; Tennemann, Hist. Phil. pages 302, 321; Morell, Hist. Mod. Philos. pages 208, 211 sq.; Stoughton, Eccles. Hist. 2:385, 454, 482-485; Hallam, Introd. to Lit. (see Index in volume 2, Harper's edition); Enfield, Hist. Phil. book 8, chapter 3, sec. 3; Theodore Parker, in Christian Examiner, volume 26, art. 127:48 sq.; Retrospective Rev. volume 5 (1822).

The Nuttall Encyclopedia

A Platonist, born at Grantham, a Fellow of Christ College, Cambridge, and author of a poem "Song of the Soul"; he was a mystic who exercised a great influence among the young men of Cambridge (1614-1687).