Religion: The Grounds of Assent

Abstract

Norris, like the Cambridge Platonists, was a latitudinarian. In his “Discourse concerning Heroic Piety” (1684), he writes of “those excellent degrees and eminences of religion we may fall short of without sin.” ¹ But Norris’s religious thought is not merely transitional between the Cambridge Platonists and the Enlightenment. Although he prefigures certain elements of Enlightenment Christianity which allow scope for opposition to deism, he also consolidates several characteristics of 17th century religious experience, and transmits them to the age of 18th century religious revival.