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T hough no reply to Beale’s letter exists among the letters that Jo h n Evelyn carefully copied into his letter books, some interesting clues to his attitude towards miracles can be obtained fcom two other rarely used pieces o f evidence: the m anuscript for a book which he had been working on since 1657 but which was only published in 1850 as Tbe

History of Religioriy and the three commonplace books which formed the basis for at least

part o f that manuscript.^'* These abound with inform ation on theology, morals, philosophy, and medicine. His sources, o f which there were several hundred, included scripture, pagan and early Christian authors. Renaissance neo-Platonism, travel literature, history, manuscripts that he had borrow ed from Beale, and, o f course, his own experiences, both in England, and on the Continent.*^

Evelyn’s decision to start keeping adversaria in the early 1650s came about through his interest in humanism and as part o f his preparation for life under a restored monarchy and episcopate. D uring this time Evelyn, together with a num ber o f other Royahsts, secretly attended services at which the banned Book o f C om m on Prayer was used. The material he collected, while reflecting his broad intellectual concerns, was intended to bolster the position o f the Enghsh Church by providing evidence for its antiquity and from that, its authority.

(ed.), Robert Boyle Reconsidered, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp.193-214 and John W. Yolton, A Locke Dictionary, (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), p.238

John Evelyn, The Histoy of Religion, A Rational Account of the True Religion. Printed from an unpublished manuscript, edited with notes by R.M. Evanson, 2 Volumes, (London: Henry Colburn, 1850)

Evelyn’s sources can be reconstructed both from the entries in his commonplace books and from a list which he made at the end of BL Evelyn MS 54(3). For Evelyn’s continental travels

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H e began The History of Religion with a damning description o f the religious commotion that had taken place during the Civil War and the Interregnum. As he put it,

...men o f aU religions (or fancies, rather), Jews, Socinians, Anabaptists, Antinomians, Independents, Quakers, Pagans, and (what is worse) Atheists, and a thousand new sects and denominations, were protected and encouraged under...a Godly Party, and persons above ordinances, freely preaching, printing, and prom oting their extravagant doctrine...

This was followed by an account o f earlier Tagan, Jewish and philosophical errors’ and ‘the m onstrous corm ption and decadence o f the G od’s own people, the Jewish Church’, an attack on M ohamm ed (‘that signal imposter and libidinous robber’), and, finally, a jibe at Vanini, Pomponazzi, Bruno, and Spinoza, w hom he described as proud, ostentatious and o f little or no religion. These authors — many o f w hom were favoured reading for English Deists - had proved ‘a wretched obstacle to searchers o f holy truth’, deifying the pow er o f m atter and casting doubt upon the ‘supernatural inspirations, visions, and favours’ o f biblical prophets and great men.^^

Evelyn used the history o f the ancient Church (as found in the writings o f early Church Fathers and the growing body o f contemporary scholarship), to illustrate the decline o f the Rom an Catholic Church into corruption and vain ritual. H e ridiculed the penance served by some Franciscan Friars and poured scorn on the ‘shrines, statues, altars, pageants, temples, aspersions, lamps and candles...and other innumerable fopperies copied from Pagan rites.’ In order to support the episcopate he argued that there was nothing in the history o f the ancient church that would support the claims o f presbyters. His appeal to antiquity was in keeping with a practice which was advocated by such theologians as Jo h n Tillotson, Joh n Cosin, and Jeremy Taylor (whom he knew personally), and which had been influential in the writings o f Richard Hooker.^^ In com m on with these authors, Evelyn believed that the model o f the ancient Church

Evelyn, History of R^liÿon^ Vol.1, p.xviii

Evelyn, Histoiy of Rjligion, Vol.2, p.213; ibid.^ pp.269-71; ibid.^ Vol.l, p.xxvii; cf. BL Evelyn MS 54(1), p.22 Tomponatius...did denye all miracles undertaken blasphemously to give a natural reason for all our saviour did.’

*8 BL Evelyn MS 54(1), p. 10 ‘If any of them have spoken too loude’, he noted, ‘he must lick the Crosse in the dust with his tongue. Sometymes for penance a frier is to eat in the same dish with the catt.’

On the wider influence of Hooker’s O f the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity^ (1593-7, 1648, 1662) see John Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646-1689^ (New Haven and London: Yale

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provided a means by which the episcopate could retain its spiritual power whilst, at the same time avoiding accusations o f popery and the threat o f sectarianism. In his view, ‘The True Religion is that which is m ost ancient and m ost Catholic^ decent, simple, devout, void o f novelty, singularity, and superstition.’^®

Though Evelyn was adamant that Christianity was a ‘Supernatural Religion’ in which miracles had occurred and could occur in the future he also believed that ‘the greatest miracle o f our Religion is that we subsist w ithout any.’^* Biblical miracles were for biblical times as it was ‘By these [that] multitudes were converted...to the faith...without weapons, or what the world calls wit, overthrew the politics o f statesmen, the subtlety o f philosophers, and all the wisdom o f the wise.’^ As the Bishop o f Rochester Thomas Sprat noted, Jesus had ‘stooped’ to convince men by their senses.-^

These views were mirrored by the Bishop o f W orcester Edward Stillingfleet in his

Origines Sacrae, Or a Rational Account of the Grounds of Christian Faith, A s to the Truth and

Divine Authority of the Scriptures (1662). As he observed, miracles were,

...necessary for confirming the truth o f the Gospel...because the Gospel was to be propagated over the world without any other rational evidence than was contained in the miracles for the confirmation o f it.^'^

Similarly he noted how,

a power o f miracles is not constandy and perpetually necessary in all those who manage the affairs o f Heaven here on earth, or that act in the name o f G od in the world. W hen the doctrine o f faith is once setded in sacred records, and the divine revelation o f that doctrine sufficiendy attested, by a power o f miracles in the revealers o f it. W hat imaginable necessity or pretext can there be for a contrived power o f miracles, especially among such as already own the Divine revelation o f the Scriptures?^^

While the ancient Church had had recourse to miracles present day Christians were expected to find their faith in personal piety and in the miracles detailed in scripture.-^ 20 Evelyn, Histoy of Religion, Vol. 2, p.310

21 Evelyn, Histoy of Religion, Vol. 2, p.3; BL Evelyn MS 54(1), p.7 22 Evelyn, Histoy of Religion, Vol.l, pp.350-1

23 Thomas Sprat, Histoy of the Rayai Society, edited by J.L Cope and H.W. Jones, (London: Roudedge and Kegan Paul, 1959; facsimile of 1667 edition), p.353

24 Quoted in H R. MacAdoo, The Spirit of Anglicanism. A Survy of Anglican Theological Method in the

Seventeenth Centuy, (London: A & C Black, 1965), p. 184

25 Stillingfleet, Ori^nes Sacrae, pp. 140-1

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T o do otherwise was to lay one’s ‘fancy’ or ‘imagination’ open to the risk o f a devilish or ‘popish im posture’ — contemporary miracles having been used by Counter-Reformation Catholics such as Cardinal Bellarmine to argue that their church was indeed, G od’s true church.27 In Stillingfleet’s view, the only possibility that a further miracle might occur lay in ‘an extraordinary commission from G od’ or the repeal or replacement o f a Divine law. While he did no t discount this, he felt that ‘we have all that is necessary to be believed.’^®

Such arguments as Stillingfleet’s were based on an Augustinian distinction between the state o f the early Church and later practice, a need to place distance between the practices o f Protestants and those o f Catholics, and readings from scripture. While the second o f these considerations was amenable to Protestants who had been brought up on a diet o f anti-Catholic invective and who were fearful o f England’s apparent decline into popery, the last was more problematic. As has been noted, scripture gave litde support to the argument that the age o f miracles had ended. This being as it was, com mentators such as Stillingfleet and, before him, Richard Sheldon (a convert from Catholicism), made their case by drawing parallels between the cessation o f Apostolic miracles once idolaters had been converted and the ending o f the miracles associated with the Exodus o f the Jews from Egypt. Alternatively, they pointed to First Corinthians 13:2 and Paul’s assertion that mysteries and prophetic powers were nothing w ithout faith and love.^^ Evelyn, though usually rigorous w hen it came to his sources, recorded in The History ofRiligion that ‘an apostie’, had related that ‘miracles are for them w ho do n o t believe, no t for those who do, and are already converted’.^® Likewise, in his commonplace book he quoted the assertion made by Bacon in the Advancement of

Teaming that, ‘There never was Miracle wrought by G od to confirme an Atheist because

the light o f N ature might have lead him to confesse a God. But Miracles are designed to convert Idolaters, who have acknowledged a Deity but erre in his A doration’.^^

27 On Counter-Reformation miracles see Walker, ‘Cessation of Miracles’, p. 113 28 Stillingfleet, Origines Sacrae^ p. 142 and p. 146

29 Sheldon, A Survey of the Miracles of the Church ofBjomt (1616) cited in Walker, ‘Cessation of Miracles’, p. 114. This line had also been taken by Aquinas {Summa Theologicae^ Pt.2-2ae, question 178, Art. 178)

30 Evelyn, Histoiy of Religion^ Vol. 1, p.316

3' Evelyn MS 54(1), p.2; Bacon, Works^ Vol. 4, pp.341-2. It was in this section of his work that Bacon (adapting Matthew 22:21) attempted to make a distinction between ‘mysteries of faith’ and the ‘contemplation of nature’.