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‘White’s Disciple’: John Sergeant and Blackloism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Beverley Southgate
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Extract

‘Charges that he [John Sergeant] was a disciple of Blacklow [Thomas White] … rest on … unsatisfactory evidence.’ Godfrey Anstruther’s conclusion has not, so far as I know, been directly challenged; so this note aims belatedly to offer some evidence in support of Sergeant’s close Blackloist connections.

John Sergeant (1623–1707) is now usually remembered as the leading Catholic protagonist in the ‘Rule of Faith’ debates, though he has also been presented as an informer at the time of the so-called Popish Plot, and as a far from negligible philosopher. It will be argued here that, in both theology and philosophy, he was essentially a follower of Thomas White (1593–1676), leader of the influential faction of English Catholics who derived from his best-known alias their title of ‘Blackloists’; for Sergeant himself, in the words of Bishop Richard Russell quoted in the title, ‘everywhere proclaimed himself White’s disciple’.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , October 1999 , pp. 431 - 436
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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References

Notes

1 Anstruther, G., The Seminary Priests, vol. 2 (Ushaw, 1975), p. 281.Google Scholar

2 On Sergeant’s theology, see Tavard, G. H., The Seventeenth Century Tradition: A Study in Recusant Thought (Leiden, 1978)Google Scholar; on his negative perception as informer, see Hay, M. V., The Jesuits and the Popish Plot (London, 1934)Google Scholar; for a defence against Hay’s interpretation and for Sergeant as a late Aristotelian philosopher, see Dorothea Krook, John Sergeant and His Circle, ed. Beverley C. Southgate (Leiden, 1993); and for Sergeant as philosopher, See N. C. Bradish, ‘John Sergeant–s, a forgotten critic of Descartes and Locke’, Monist 39, 1929, 571–628; Cooney, Brian, ‘John Sergeant’s criticism of Locke’s theory of ideas’, Modern Schoolman 50, 1973, 435–58 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beverley Southgate, ‘“Beating Down Scepticism”: the solid philosophy of John Sergeant, 1623–1707’, in M. A. Stewart (ed.), English Philosophy in the Age of John Locke (Oxford), forthcoming.

3 Bishop Richard Russell, Lisbon College Register, 1628–1813, ed. Michael Sbarrati, CRS 72, 1991, p. 175.

4 On White, see Southgate, Beverley C., “Covetous of Truth”: the Life and Work of Thomas White, 1593–1676 (Dordrecht, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which includes bibliography.

5 ‘Literary Life’, f. 53. The MS, dated 1700, to which references are given here, is in St. John’s College, Cambridge. The work was belatedly published in a series of instalments in Catholicon, vols. 2 and 3, 1816.

6 Douai College Documents, 1639–1794, ed. P. Harris, CRS 63 (London, 1972), p. 17.

7 Letter to Matthias Wilkinson, 10 October 1674 (Russell Papers, Lisbon Collection), quoted by Sharratt, Michael, ‘Bishop Russell and John Sergeant’, Ushaw Magazine 90, 1979, p. 31.Google Scholar

8 Leyburn, George, Encyclical Answer (Douai, 1661), p. 87 Google Scholar; Russell, , Lisbon College Register, pp. 175–6.Google Scholar

9 Leyburn, , Encyclical Answer, pp. 16, 36 Google Scholar. Leyburn was not alone in expressing concern about Blackloist domination of the Chapter. In his ‘Letter from a Gentleman’ (1660), ‘T.R.’ refers to ‘worthy members in this present Chapter’ being ‘overborn by the more ignorant and violent party of Blackloe’s Faction’. Tracts relating to Thomas White (?Douai, 1657, 1660).

10 Leyburn’s assessment of Chapter members was inserted into the fifth Douai Diary: Douai College Diaries, ed. E. H. Burton and T. L. Williams, CRS 10, 11 (2 vols., London, 1911), 2.550.

11 See e.g. ‘“Cauterising the Tumour of Pyrrhonism”: Blackloism versus Scepticism’, Journal of the History of Ideas 53, 1992, 631–645.

12 Poole, Matthew, Nullity of the Romish Faith (Oxford, 1666), p. 39.Google Scholar

13 Hammond, Henry, The Dispatcher dispatch’d (London, 1659), pp. 121, 55, 202.Google Scholar

14 Tillotson, John, The Rule of Faith, or an Answer to the treatise of Mr J. S. entituled Sure Footing (London, 1666), pp. 316, 18, 201, 250, 305 Google Scholar; Works, ed. T. Birch (London, 1820), l.ccciii.

15 Stillingfleet, Edward, A Reply to Mr. J. S. (London, 1666), pp. 2, 52.Google Scholar

16 Casaubon, Méric, To J. S. the Author of Sure-Footing (London, 1665), pp. 12, 13.Google Scholar

17 Taylor, Jeremy, Dissuasive from Popery, part 2 (London, 1668), p. 64.Google Scholar

18 Russell, , Lisbon College Register, p. 175.Google Scholar

19 John Warner, The History of the English Persecution of Catholics, ed. T. A. Birrell, CRS 47, 48 (London, 1953), p. 230.

20 Sylvester Jenks, ‘Remarks of S. J. upon the Vindication, Appeal and Remonstrance of John Sergeant’, fol. 35. The ‘Scholar’/‘Master’ relationship is asserted also in ‘T.W.’, Dialogue between Mr Merryman and Dr Chymist (London, 1698), p. 19. On Jenks, see Anstruther, G., The Seminary Priests, vol. 3 (Great Wakering, 1976)Google Scholar.

21 Father Philip Howard to William Leslie, 3 July 1668; CRS 25 (London, 1958), p. 48.

22 Robert Pugh, Blacklo’s Cabal discovered in SeveralI of their Letters (1680; facsimile reprint ed. T. A. Birrell, Farnborough, 1970 Epistle to the Catholick Reader.

23 Plowden, Charles, Remarks on a Book entitled Memoirs of Gregorio Pantani (Liège, 1794), p. 285.Google Scholar

24 Barrett/Belson papers Q26/2, Berkshire Record Office.

25 John Sergeant, ‘To Sir Kenelme Digby, upon his two incomparable Treatises of Philosophy (London, 1653; BL E723, 11). Sergeant’s verses were appended to the 1665 edition of Digby’s Two Treatises.

26 White’s works were officially condemned in 1655, 1657, 1661 and 1663.

27 Francis Gage, letter from Rome dated 20 February 1661; Old Brotherhood Archives (Westminster Diocesan Archives) 11.67.

28 Sergeant insists that it is from Le Grand’s Censura that ‘the whole Libel [of ‘T.W.’] is Extracted’. Raillery defeated by calm reason (London, 1699), p. 199.

29 Sergeant, Raillery defeated, pp. 200–202.

30 Butler, Charles, Historical Memoirs (4 vols.; London, 1819–21), II.432.Google Scholar

31 BL Add. MS 29612, f. 60. This is but one piece of evidence that challenges Anstruther’s conclusion that White’s ‘influence seems to have died with him [in 1676], if not before him’. (Seminary Priests, vol. 2, p 353.)