Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 56.djvu/297

 protestant churches abroad in his plan of reunion, his aim being chiefly to define the ground on which, as he held, the church of England could alone make good her position against ultramontanism abroad and separatism at home. To the visible catholic church as thus defined and restored he professed an allegiance to which his duty to the church of England itself was subordinate. As an endeavour to promote the cause of unity, however, the 'Epilogue' must be pronounced a failure, and even churchmen like Clarendon and Barrow criticised certain portions of it with severity.

With the Restoration, Thorndike was reinstated in his fellowship at Trinity and in his living of Barley. An entry in his hand on 20 Oct. 1661 records 'collected at Barley for ye Protestant churches in Lithuania fifteen shillings;' but on being appointed to the prebend of Westminster (5 Sept. 1661) he had resigned the living. In July 1660 he published his 'Due Way of composing Differences,' and on 25 March 1661 was appointed to assist at the Savoy conference. In the proceedings of that assembly he took but a subordinate part, although his conduct elicited a somewhat uncharitable comment from Baxter. About the same time he was appointed a member of convocation, and in that capacity took a leading share in the revision of the prayerbook, then in progress; while in his tract entitled 'Just Weights and Measures' (January 1662), designed to illustrate the practical application of the theory set forth in the 'Epilogue,' he especially advocated as measures of church reform, the prevention of pluralities and the restoration of the discipline of penance. The privations he had experienced, combined with his intense application to study, brought on, at this time, a severe illness, on recovering from which he removed towards the close of 1662 to Cambridge. Here he continued to reside until driven from the university by the plague of 1666. In June 1667 he again returned to Trinity, but his acceptance a few weeks later of the tithes of Trumpington parish (valued at 80l. per annum) involved the surrender of his fellowship, and he accordingly retired to his canonry at Westminster, where he took up his residence in the cloisters. In 1668 his brother, John Thorndike, returned from his life of exile in New England, where he had helped to found Ipswich, Massachusetts, but only to die in the November of the same year. He was accompanied by his two daughters, Alice and Martha, who now became domiciled with their uncle, and continued to reside with him until his death. The comparative leisure he now enjoyed was to Thorndike only a stimulus to renewed literary activity. The year 1670 saw the appearance of his 'Discourse of the Forbearance or Penalties which a due Reformation requires,' and also of the first part of his 'De Ratione ac Jure finiendi Controversias Ecclesiae Disputatio,' the latter an endeavour at recasting and producing in more methodical and finished form the argument of the 'Epilogue' and his other treatises on the same subject. He did not, however, live to carry his design to completion. In the spring of 1672 his labours were again interrupted by illness, and he retired to a kind of sanatorium rented by the chapter at Chiswick. He died there on 11 July 1672, at the age of seventy-four, and was interred in the east cloister of Westminster Abbey.

His will, executed only eight days prior to his decease, devised the bulk of his property to church purposes, after making some provision for his two nieces and for his grandniece, Anne Alington. It is printed in full in the sixth volume of his 'Works,' pp. 143-52.

Thorndike's position as a theologian was peculiar; and some of his views were challenged even by divines of his own school) and those too of recognised breadth of view and tolerant spirit, especially by Isaac Barrow in his posthumous tract on 'The Unity of the Church,' and by Henry More, the platonist, in his 'Antidote to Idolatry.' Although, as tested by his great criterion–the voice of scripture interpreted by the early church–the majority of the distinctive Roman tenets stood condemned, he appears distinctly to have countenanced the practice of prayers for the dead; and by Cardinal Newman he was regarded as the only writer of any authority in the English church who held the true catholic theory of the eucharist.

The following is a list of his writings published during his lifetime: 1. ‘Epitome Lexici Hebraici, Syriaci, Rabinici, et Arabici. . . cum Observationibus circa Linguam Hebream et Grecam,’ &c., London, 1635, fol. 2. ‘Of the Government of Churches,’ Cambridge, 1641, 8vo. 3. ‘Of Religious Assemblies and the Publick Service of God,’ London, 1642, 8vo (printed by the university printer, Daniel, at Cambridge). 4. ‘A Discourse of the Right of the Church in a Christian State,’ London, 1649, 8vo, and by a different printer, London, 1670; also re-edited, with preface, by J. S. Brewer. London, 1841, 12mo. 5. ‘A Letter concerning the Present State