earlier age; nor 'Whigs,' because that sobriquet has
long been confined to politics; nor 'Broad Churchmen,' because the term
would be apt to convey a set of ideas belonging to the nineteenth more
than to the eighteenth century. It only remains to divest the word as
far as possible of its polemical associations, and to use it as denoting
what some would call breadth, others Latitudinarianism of religious and
ecclesiastical opinion.

There were many faulty elements in the Latitudinarianism of the
eighteenth century. Those who dreaded and lamented its advances found it
no difficult task to show that sometimes it was connected with Deistical
or with Socinian or Arian views, sometimes with a visionary enthusiasm,
sometimes with a weak and nerveless religion of sentiment. They could
point also to the obvious fact that thorough scepticism, or even mere
irreligion, often found a decent veil under plausible professions of a
liberal Christianity. There were some, indeed, who, in the excitement of
hostility or alarm, seemed to lose all power of ordinary discrimination.
Much in the same way as every 'freethinker' was set down as a libertine
or an atheist, so also many men of undoubted piety and earnestness who
had done distinguished services in the Christian cause, and who had
greatly contributed to raise the repute of the English Church, were
constantly ranked as Latitudinarians in one promiscuous class with men
to whose principles they were utterly opposed. But, after making all
allowance for the unfortunate confusion thus attached to the term, the
fact remains that the alarm was not unfounded. Undoubtedly a lower form
of Latitudinarianism gained ground, very deficient in some important
respects. Just in the same way as, before the middle of the century, a
sort of spiritual inertness had enfeebled the vigour of High Churchmen
on the one hand and of Nonconformists on the other, so also it was with
the Latitude men. After the first ten or fifteen years of the century
the Broad Church party in the Church of England was in no very
satisfactory state. It had lost not only in spirit and energy, but also
in earnestness and piety. Hoadly, Herring, Watson, Blackburne, all
showed the characteristic defect of their age--a want of spiritual depth
and fervour. They needed a higher elevation of motive and of purpose to
be such leaders as could be desired of what was in reality a great
religious movement.

For, whatever may have been its defi