The Apology of Dr Henry More

Abstract

In a rather ill-timed passage in his preface to the Mystery of Godliness, that had been written in the spirit of compromise and toleration evoked by the events leading up to the Restoration, but appeared in print shortly after the event, More had dismissed all jure divino claims for episcopacy, whatever their practical benefits, as at best ‘controvertible’. He had also pointed out that such claims had the added disadvantage of suggesting to the people a ‘design of unmerciful riding’ by the bishops, which might seem reminiscent of popish tyranny.¹ It was particularly this injudicious early stand against the ‘prelatical’ promotion of episcopacy that exposed More to the displeasure of men like Beaumont, Gunning and Sparrow, who were committed to precisely such a view of the ‘divine’ basis of their authority as priests and theologians of the Anglican Church. More’s subsequent defence of episcopacy in the Mystery of Godliness as ‘rational’, and not ‘antiChristian’, was therefore regarded as scandalously inadequate by these men, and his attempts in the same book to reconcile the Presbyterians and Independents to an acceptance of episcopacy, seemed further proof that he and his Latitudinarian colleagues were willing to ‘prostitute’ their consciences, and their positions as priests in the Anglican Church to achieve a ‘comprehension’ these men had already rejected.² Joseph Beaumont even accused More of being a covert Independent, citing his satire on Laudian ceremonialism in his poem ‘Psychozoia’ as evidence for this.³