Thomas Barlow (bishop)

Barlow was the son of Richard Barlow of Long-gill in the parish of Orton, Eden in Westmorland (now Cumbria). He was educated at Appleby grammar school. Aged 16, he entered Queen's College, Oxford, as a servitor, rising to be a tabarder (scholar). He took his BA degree in 1630 and his MA in 1633, when he was elected a fellow of his college. In 1635 he was appointed metaphysical reader to the university, being seen as a master of casuistry, logic, and philosophy. Among his pupils was John Owen.[3]

At Oxford he associated with Robert Sanderson and particularly Robert Boyle, who made Oxford his chief residence from 1654 to 1668. Barlow was a learned Calvinist who opposed Jeremy Taylor and George Bull, and with Thomas Tully was one of the guardians in Interregnum Oxford of acceptable orthodoxy. On the death of John Rouse, Barlow was elected to the librarianship of the Bodleian on 6 April 1652, a post he held until he succeeded to the Lady Margaret professorship in 1660. He favoured scholars (Anthony à Wood, Anthony Horneck whom he had appointed as chaplain in Queen's, and Thomas Fuller, and was hospitable to Christopher Davenport. He spoke of infant baptism in a letter to John Tombes, which later affected his prospect of preferment.[3]

Barlow retained his fellowship in 1648 with support from John Selden and his former pupil John Owen. He contributed anonymously a tract on the parliamentary visitation of Oxford in that year.[4] He became Provost of his college in 1657. In 1658 he brought tactful support to Sanderson on behalf of Boyle.[3]

On the Restoration, Barlow was one of the commissioners for restoring the members of the university who had been ejected in 1648, and for the expulsion of the intruders. On behalf of John Owen, molested for preaching in his own house, he mediated with Edward Hyde, the lord chancellor. Henry Wilkinson was removed as Lady Margaret professor of divinity and Barlow took his place, on 25 September 1660. A few days before, on 1 September, he had taken his degree of D.D., one of a batch of loyalists created doctors by royal mandate. In 1661, on the death of Barton Holiday, Barlow was appointed archdeacon of Oxford,[5] but there was delay caused a dispute between him and Thomas Lamplugh, ultimately decided in Barlow's favour, and he was not installed until 13 June 1664. Barlow was accused by Wood of underhand meddling in the election of Thomas Clayton to the wardenship of Merton College in 1661.[3]

Barlow wrote at the request of Robert Boyle an elaborate treatise on "Toleration in Matters of Religion" at this time, but it was not published until after his death (in Cases of Conscience, 1692). Barlow's reasoning is based more on expediency than on principle. He shows carefully that the religious toleration he advocates does not extend to atheists, papists or Quakers. Earlier, when Jews were applying to Cromwell for readmission into England, Barlow had composed "at the request of a person of quality" a tract on the "Toleration of the Jews in a Christian State", published in the same collection.[6] On the other hand Barlow was one of a group of Oxford grandees hostile to the Royal Society, along with John Fell, Obadiah Walker, and Thomas Pierce.[7] He was an enemy of the "new philosophy" (as propounded by leading Society members), and gave as his confessional reasons that it was "impious if not plainly atheistic, set on foot and carried on by the arts of Rome," so designing to ruin the Protestant faith by disabling men from defending the truth. He noted the Catholic background of Descartes, Gassendi, Mersenne and Du Hamel.[8] His Directions to a young Divine for his Study of Divinity of this period contain a catalogue of theological works classified by subjects, with remarks on their value and character.[3]

When pro-vice-chancellor of the university in 1673, he called in question William Richards, chaplain of All Souls College, for Arminian doctrine in a sermon at St Mary's.[9] He strongly censured on doctrinal lines the publication of George Bull's Harmonia Apostolica. He wrote much in this period, but published little. Mr. Cottington's Divorce Case, on which Barlow's reputation as an ecclesiastical lawyer and casuistical divine mainly rests, was written in 1671.[3]

Barlow was prominent in two abortive schemes of comprehension (inclusion into the state church) set on foot in October 1667 and February 1668. The "Comprehensive Bill" was based on the Declaration of Breda. It was drawn up by Sir Robert Atkyns and Sir Matthew Hale, and revised and endorsed by Barlow and his friend John Wilkins. Its introduction was frustrated by a Commons declaration and the whole plan was finally dropped. Barlow had some part in the release of John Bunyan from Bedford gaol in 1677.[2][3]

In 1675, Barlow became Bishop of Lincoln through the good offices of two secretaries of state, Sir Joseph Williamson and Henry Coventry, both graduates of Queen's College, the latter having been his pupil; Gilbert Sheldon was opposed. Barlow's consecration (on 27 June) did not occur in the customary Lambeth Chapel, but in the chapel attached to the palace of the Bishop of Ely (then Peter Gunning) in Holborn. George Morley of Winchester was the consecrating prelate. Barlow resided mostly at Buckden Palace, near Huntingdon and was accused of never having entered his cathedral. The Bishop's Palace at Lincoln had still not been repaired from damage done in the English Civil War, but George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax remonstrated with Barlow on the subject in 1684.

Barlow told his friend Sir Peter Pett that the real ground of hostility was not his avoidance of Lincoln, but his continuing hostility to Catholicism. In 1678, when Titus Oates forwarded his theory of a Popish Plot, Barlow had publicly declared enmity to the papists and their supposed leader, James, Duke of York. When the bill enforcing a test against popery was introduced, which excluded such peers from the House of Lords, Gunning of Ely defended the church of Rome from the charge of idolatry, but Barlow answered him vehemently. In 1680, while the Popish Plot panic was still at its height, he republished under the title of Brutum Fulmen, the papal bulls of Pius V and Paul III, pronouncing the excommunication and deposition of Queen Elizabeth and of Henry VIII, with inflammatory comments, and learned proofs that "the pope is the great Antichrist, the man of sin, and the son of perdition." In 1682 appeared Barlow's answer to "whether the Turk or pope be the greater Antichrist." He confirmed his answer in a letter of 1684 to the Earl of Anglesey, arguing again that "the pope is Antichrist."[3]

When in 1684 Henry Viscount St John was convicted of killing Sir William Estcourt in a brawl,[10] and Charles II used the royal prerogative for his pardon, Bishop Barlow published an elaborate tract (1684–1685) in support of regal power to dispense with penal laws. This was succeeded by "a case of conscience", proving that kings and supreme powers had authority to dispense with the positive precept condemning murderers to death. In the same year (1684), as the persecutions of nonconformists increased in violence and the quarter sessions of Bedford published "a sharp order" enforcing strict conformity, Barlow issued a letter to the clergy of his diocese requiring them to publish the order in their churches. A "free answer" was written to this letter by John Howe.[3]

When the Catholic James II became king, Barlow swiftly declared loyal affection to the new sovereign. When James issued his first declaration for liberty of conscience, Barlow was one of four bishops who sent an address of thanks to the sovereign and caused it to be signed by 600 of his clergy. He also issued a letter defending his conduct. James Gardiner, then sub-dean, was a strong whig and refused to sign the address, but on the appearance of the second declaration of 1688, Barlow addressed an equivocal letter to his clergy (on 29 May 1688).[3]

When William and Mary came to the throne and demanded a new oath of hostility toward Rome, Barlow voted with the bishops that James had abdicated and took the oaths to his successors. He was reportedly ready to replace non-jurors in his diocese. Barlow died at Buckden on 8 October 1691, aged 84, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church, by his own desire in the same grave as his predecessor William Barlow. A monument on the north wall commemorates both in an epitaph of his composition.[3]

Thomas Barlow's writings include:

• Exercitationes aliquot metaphysicae de Deo (1637)
• Plain reasons why a Protestant of the Church of England should not turn Roman Catholic (1688)
• Cases of Conscience (1692)

• Works by Thomas Barlow at Post-Reformation Digital Library