Abstract
Until quite recently, More’s defence of the doctrine of the soul’s preexistence, along with his interest in apparitions, ghosts and witchcraft, was regarded as part of a regressive ‘spiritualism’ or mysticism, clearly at odds with his rationalism and interest in the new philosophy and Cartesianism.l However, the doctrine played a significant role in his rational theology, as a ‘most likely hypothesis’ supporting the more central orthodox doctrines of the soul’s immortality and a personal divine providence.2 More’s explicitly ‘rational’ defence of preexistence, and the derivative arguments of several younger followers,3 also formed part of a sustained polemic against the Augustinian traditions of interregnum Calvinism, and in particular its theological voluntarism. More’s aim was not to promote a revival of Origen’s theology as a doctrinal panacea to the re-established Anglican Church, but rather to counter this voluntarism, and establish a rational providentialism in Anglican theology that could emphasise the supremacy of goodness and love amongst the divine attributes over the Calvinist tendency to emphasise an absolute ‘divine dominion’.4 His open defence of such a challenging doctrine was part of a response to the deep-seated doctrinal crisis of Anglicanism at the Restoration. As Sarah Hutton has pointed out, More’s promotion of Origen’s theological contribution was only one of several voices raised in the defence of Origen in the Church of England in this period.5
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Notes
The main exception to this is S. Hutton, “Henry More and Anne Conway on Preexistence and Universal Salvation”, in M. Baldi (ed), “Mind Senior to the World”(Franco Angeli, Milan, 1996): 113–125; and my essay, “Henry More and the Preexistence of the Soul”, in my edited volume, Religion, Reason and Nature: 77–95. The first scholar to seriously address the doctrine in detail was D.P. Walker in his Decline of Hell (London: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1964): 122–155. See also Patrides: 19–21. The main source for the doctrine is Origen, On first Principles: II,vi,3 ff, and IV,iv,3. More seems to have been familiar with all versions of the doctrine. See CSPW (1662), Preface General: xx-xxv.
Walker, Decline: 122–155.
Chiefly More’s pupil, George Rust, Rust’s pupil, Henry Hallywell, More’s younger admirer, Joseph Glanvill, and also More’s friend and correspondent, Baron Christian Knorr von Rosenroth. See the discussion of the works below.
This emphasis on even God’s ‘absolute’ will being ‘bound’ by the preeminent goodness of his own nature, to always do what is best for his creatures, is sometimes termed ‘necessitarianism’ or ‘theological optimism’. See M.J. Osler, “Triangulating Divine Will: Henry More, Robert Boyle, and Descartes on God’s Relationship to the Creation”, in Baldi “Mind Senior to the World”: 75–87.
See S. Hutton, “Henry More and Anne Conway on Preexistence and Universal Salvation”, in Baldi, “Mind Senior to the World”: 113–125.
See More, “The Preexistency of the Soul” in PP, and above, Chapter 2.
See John Spurr, Restoration Church.
Cudworth’s rejection of the doctrine, TIS (1678): 43–4., is discussed in greater detail in Hutton, “Henry More and Anne Conway” in Baldi, “Mind Senior to the World”: 114.
See More’s defence of the doctrine in CSPW (1662), Preface General: xx-xxv, and his vigorous attack on the ‘foul fiend’ made of the deity by Calvinist voluntarism, Annotations upon Lux Orientalis, in Two Treatises (1682): 62.
See More, IS, AI,I,10 ff.; [Glanvill], Lux (1662): 151–5; [Rust], Letter of Resolution (1661): 37 – 8.
As is made clear in More, Preface General to his CSPW: xx-xxv
On Rust, see DNB, and Peile, Biographical Register: vol. 1. On the attribution of this book to Rust, see Walker, Decline of Hell: 124–6, and Richard Roach’s introduction to Jeremiah White, The Restoration of all Things (1712), sig.A3v. It is quite possible More himself had a more direct hand in its publication than he appears to admit to Anne Conway, however.
IS, II,xii,4 ff, and GMG (1660), I,viii.
More, Preface General, in CSPW: xx.
Ibid: xxi ff.
Two Treatises (1682): 268–9: “the virgin-Honey of these two Attick Bees”. See below.
Apology (1664): 489–90.
The letter that makes up the work is dated 1665, although the publication date is 1667. For the attribution of this work to Hallywell, see Walker, Decline of Hell: 153–4. Walker considerered Hallywell’s ‘morally dynamic‘aerial afterlife quite different from More’s. In my view, this distinction seems to be based on stylistic differences between More’s work in the 1660s and this tract, which is closer in style to the prefaces of More’s earlier poems. Hallywell’s dependence on More’s ideas, in this and his later work, is striking. For Hallywell’s relation to More, see Elys to More, June 9, 1671, and Hallywell to More, March 17, 1672, in Christ’s College Library, Ms.21, f.18 and f.21, and below, Appendix.
Bodleian Library, Oxford, B.236.Linc, especially 74.
DD (1713 ed.).
C.P.’ [‘Christianus Peganius’ = Christian Knorr von Rosenroth], A Dissertation concerning the Preexistency of Souls (1684). This rare tract was published by More’s friend and Anne Conway’s physician, F.M. van Helmont from an earlier Latin version (Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae, published by Knorr in his Kabbala Denudata (Frankfurt, 1684, vol.2), and translated by ‘DFDP’= ‘Daniel Foote Doctor of Physic’, the person to whom van Helmont dictated his manuscript autobiography now in the British Library, MS Sloane, 530. See Walker, Decline of Hell: 127, note 3.
More, IS, Il,x0,5; [Rust], Letter: 39; [Glanvill], Lux:4–34; [Knorr], Dissertation: 11–13.
IS, II,xiii,6; [More], Two Treatises: 62; and [Glanvill], Lux: 4 ff.
More, IS, Il,xii,6 and GMG (1660), I,vi; [Glanvill], Lux: 25–7. Traducianism was favoured by other Platonists, for example, Richard Burthogge, T’Agathon, or the Divine Goodness Explicated and Vindicated (1672): 60, where he refutes preexistence as a ‘platonic myth’ for the Fall. This work is in other respects typical of the anti-voluntarism, anti-dogmatism and necessitarian providentialism favoured by More and his younger followers.
IS, Il,x0,7; [Rust], Letter: 26–29; [Glanvill], Lux: 67–78; [Knorr], Dissertation: 14–18.
IS, Il,x0,8; [Rust], Letter: 37–8; [Glanvill], Lux: 128–130; [Knorr], Dissertation: 23–25.
IS, II,xvii,8; [Rust], Letter: 30–1; [Glanvill], Lux: 98; [Knorr], Dissertation: 26–32
More, IS, II,xii,l-5; [Glanvill], Lux: 59–61; [Knorr], Dissertation: 85–91.
More, Two Treatises: 28.
More, IS, III,xi,1.
More, EE, III,ix,4, and the figure of Mnemon, the pilgrim soul in More’s allegorical poem, “Psychozoia” - in Psychodia (1642) discussed above.
LS, II,xii,10–11; [Rust], Letter: 40; [Glanvill], Lux: 107–116; [Knorr], Dissertation: 34–47.
More, Two Treatises: 93–102; [Rust], Letter: 40–45; [Glanvill], Lux: 112–114; [Knorr], Dissertation: 48–54.
Reported by More to Ann Conway, October 26, 1661, in Nicolson (1992): 194. On the attack on More and Cudworth as ‘heretics’ see above, and Nicolson, “Christ’s College and the Latitude-Men”, MP, 27 (1929–30): 35–53.
More, Apology (1664): 489–490.
See D. Dockrill and J.M. Lee, “Reflections on an Episode in Cambridge Latitudinarianism”, Dockrill and Tanner (eds) Tradition and Traditions: (Prudentia, Supplement Auckland, 1994 ): 207 – 223.
John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the Age of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1989), c.1.
Cited in C. Raven, John Ray (Cambridge, 1950). See also my Introduction to Ward: xii-xxvii.
See especially More, Preface General in CSPW (1662); Apology (1664); DD (1668), ‘Preface’; and Praefatio in 00 (2, 1679); and see also the essay by Glanvill, ‘Bensalem’, cited in J.I. Cope, HLQ 17 (1953–4) pp.269–86.
This stance is echoed in ‘S.P’, A Brief Account of the New Sect of Latitude-Men (1662), Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing (1661), and Logoi Threskeia (1670), Hallywell, Deus Justificatus (1668) and Discourse of the Excellency of Christianity (1670); and [Edward Fowler], Principles and Practices of Certain Moderate Divines (1670).
On Parker, see Wood, Athenae Oxoniensis (5 vols, ed. P. Bliss, London, 1813–20), vol.4, cols.225–235, and DNB.
The two tracts were reprinted together in the following year. On the ‘enthusiasm’ of the Platonists, see Parker, Impartial Censure: 45, 55ff., and 72–3; cf. Meric Casaubon’s earlier, similar attack on the ‘enthusiasm’ of Platonism, Treatise of Enthusiasm (1655): 59. J.R. Jacob, Robert Boyle and the English Revolution (London, 1977): 159–64, argues implausibly that Parker’s target was the Rosicrucian circle of Sir John Heydon, and that Boyle’s Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notion of Nature (written c.1665) was part of the same polemic. In my view the evidence for this is slight.
Webster, Instauration (1975): 156–9 on Parker’s relations with Ralph Bathurst, John Wallis, Seth Ward and the ‘Oxford Experimental Club’. See also Oldenburg’s comments to Robert Boyle, June 8, 1666, Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (ed. A.R. Hall and M.B. Hall, 11 vols, Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1965–77), vol.3: 155, praising Parker’s tracts.
Parker, Impartial Censure: 45 and 53 ff., and 72–3 for the charge of ‘enthusiasm’.
Ibid: 72ff.
Ibid: 53.
Ibid: 59.
Ibid: 88.
Parker, Divine Dominion: 94–5. Compare the similar argument in ‘W.E.’ [Edward Warren], No Praeexistence. Or a Brief Dissertation against the Hypothesis of Humane Souls, Living in a State Antecedent to this…(1666): 84–5.
Divine Dominion: 63–4.
Ibid: 64–5.
Ibid: 69.
Ibid: 49; and see [Warren], No Praeexistence: 102–5.
Parker, Divine Dominion: 47–9.
Ibid: 53.
Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg, vol.3: 155
Petty’s exchange with More is discussed and reproduced in C. Webster, “Henry More and Descartes: some new sources.” BJHS, 4 (1969): 359–77; and More’s exchange with Robert Boyle is discussed in John Henry, “Henry More and Robert Boyle: the spirit of nature and the nature of providence’S, in Hutton: 55–76. See above.
See More in Nicolson: 293–4, and Appendix, below.
See above, and D.W. Dockrill, J.M. Lee, “Reflections of an Episode” in Tradition and Traditions: 207223.
This is an underrated work, and was even attributed to Cudworth by some contemporaries. See Biographia Brittanica (ed. Kippis, 6 vols, London, 1747–66) under Cudworth. Hallywell’s answer is in the appendix, entitled Some Reflections on a late discourse of Mr Parker’s, concerning the Divine Dominion and Goodness.
DeusJustificatus (1668): 253–4.
Ibid: 254–5.
Ibid: 255–257. See also More, EE (1667), I,xii,7; 11,11,7; and II,vi,10; and Rust, A Discourse of the Use of Reason (ed. Hallywell, 1683): 40–1.
Deus Justificatus: 255. See also More, MI (1664), part I, II,ii,9.
Deus Justificatus: 269. See also More, DD, dialogues II,xxii, and IV,vii.
Parker, Divine Dominion: 103, [Warren], No Praeexistence: 96. See also the treatment of this topic in [Knorr], Dissertation (1684): 100, and More, DD: 89.ff. Parker was the official licenser who refused More permission to publish this book unless certain changes were made. See More to Ann Conway,,in Nicolson.
Parker, Divine Dominion: 103; and G. Scholem, Kabbalah (Meridian, New York, 1974): 344–360; see also below.
In C.F. Mullett, “A Letter by Joseph Glanvill on the Future State”, H.L.Q., 1 (1937–8): 447–456.
Mullett, “A Letter by Joseph Glanvill”: 454. As both F.M van Helmont and Ann Conway also concluded; see Conway, Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1692): 48–70, and below.
Mullett, “A Letter by Joseph Glanvill”: 454; and see also More, DD: 89.
Two Treatises (1682): 126–30.
Two Treatises: 126, referring to Glanvill, Lux (1662): 159–60.
DD: 270–1, and More to Ann Conway [early 1652?], in Ward: 301 ff, and Appendix below. 7475, III,xvii,15–16; [Glanvill], Lux (1662): 154; [Hallywell], Letter (1667): 34–36.
See below, Chapter
IS, III,xvii,15–16.
IS, III,xi and xvii, Two Treatises: 132. See also Hallywell, Melampronoea (1681): 62–3 and 88–90 for a similar treatment.
In Two Treatises: 73.
Two Treatises: 75. Compare John Tillotson, A Sermon Preached before the Queen at Whitehall (1690) for a similar argument.
Roach, in Jeremiah White, Restoration of All Things (1712), sig.A.2., and More, DD: 247–54. On this see Walker, Decline of Hell (1964): 128. On Anne Conway’s and van Helmont’s belief in universal salvation, see below.
Roach, in White, Restoration, sig.A.2., and DD: 253–4.
IS, III,xviii,11–12, and Two Treatises: 146–7.
See More’s letter to Ann Conway, (early 1652?) in Ward: 302, where he warns her against the doctrine of universal salvation, despite its apparent harmony with his own emphasis on the power of Christ’s sacrifice to save all men.
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Crocker, R. (2003). The Preexistence of the Soul. In: Henry More, 1614–1687. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 185. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_8
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