Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 10.djvu/264

Chillingworth members were threatened with a heavy fine.

All other subjects were now thrown into the background by the outbreak of the struggle between king and parliament. It is not surprising that men like Chillingworth and Falkland, who saw the hope of the future lie in the prevalence of right reason, should have shrunk before the immoderate pretensions of parliament and joined the king's side, in the interests of order and peace. He used his pen in the king's behalf, chiefly to criticise the Scottish declaration, a task which was doubtless congenial to the bent of his penetrating mind. This naturally brought upon him retaliatory attacks, and Chillingworth wrote to excuse himself for writing against rebels (, Life of Chillingworth, p. 300).

Moreover, Chillingworth joined the royal army, whether as a chaplain through choice or as a soldier through necessity cannot be said. In August 1643 he was with the king's forces before Gloucester, where his classical learning suggested an engine for assault after the fashion of the Roman testudo (, Historical Collections, iv. 236). Before his device could be used effectively the siege of Gloucester was raised in consequence of the advance of the Earl of Essex. Chillingworth accompanied the royalist troops to Arundel Castle, where he was taken ill. Being left at Arundel, he was one of the prisoners who fell into the hands of Waller when the castle surrendered on 9 Dec. Chillingworth's illness was so severe that he was not sent to London with the other prisoners, but obtained leave to retire to Chichester, where he was lodged in the bishop's palace. The privations of the siege and the anxiety of his captivity told upon a delicate constitution. He was pestered, moreover, by the exhortations of the puritan officers, and especially of a puritan clergyman, Francis Cheynell [q. v.], which were suppposed by his friends to have shortened his days. He died on 30 Jan. 1643-4, and was buried in Chichester Cathedral. Certainly Cheynell's conduct at his funeral was calculated to produce the impression that he had harassed Chillingworth's last hours. Though, as a great favour, Chillingworth was allowed to be buried according to the Anglican ritual, Cheynell appeared, and, after a long speech denouncing his heresies, flung a copy of his 'Religion of Protestants' into the grave that it might 'rot with its author and see corruption.' Moreover, Cheynell carried his zeal so far as to publish a work called 'Chillingworthi Novissima; or the Sickness, Heresy, Death, and Burial of William Chillingworth, (in his own phrase) clerk of Oxford, and in the conceit of his fellow-soldiers, the queen's arch-engineer and grand intelligencer; set forth in a letter to his eminent and learned friends: a relation of his apprehension at Arundel, a discovery of his errors in a brief catechism, and a short oration at the burial of his heretical book' (1644). The title of the work is enough to show the spirit in which it was written. By the extreme parties, of Romanists and puritans alike, Chillingworth was regarded with suspicion and hatred; and both did their utmost to blacken his reputation even after his death.

The spread of Chillingworth's ideas may be curiously illustrated by the dates of the editions of his work. The year of its publication, 1638, saw two editions (Oxford and London); but while the great conflict was raging no one had time to listen to the voice of reason and moderation. The third edition appeared in 1664, the fourth in 1674, the fifth in 1684. The apprehensions of a Romanist revival led to a popular and condensed edition in 1687, by John Patrick, 'made more generally useful by omitting personal contests, but inserting whatsoever concerns the common cause of protestantism, or defends the church of England.' At the same time were published other controversial writings of Chillingworth under the name of 'Additional Discourses.' These were incorporated in subsequent editions, which quickly followed in 1704, 1719, 1722, 1727, and 1742 with a life by Rev. Thomas Birch. In short, the ideas of Chillingworth revived gradually after the Restoration, and were dominant after the revolution, when they found full expression in such men as Burnet and Tillotson.

On the purely literary side the merits of Chillingworth are very great. His argumentative clearness was regarded by Locke as a model, and although his book is the criticism of another treatise, he has contrived to give it unity by the impress of the order of his own mind. Sustained and dignified his argument moves steadily on; he is never captious nor sophistical; he never strains a point against his adversary, but overwhelms him by the massiveness of his learning and the loftiness of his intellectual attitude. Yet Chillingworth's learning never overmasters him, and there is no display of erudition; in fact he does not rest on precedents, but on the reasonableness of his conclusions in themselves.

The nature of Chillingworth's argument was more important than the way in which it was stated, and marked an epoch in English theology. His own experience led him to find certainty not in any dogmatic system, but in the use of his own reasoning powers,