Matthew Poole: His Life, His Times, His Contributions Along with His Argument Against the Infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church

By Thomas Harley

Matthew Poole (162479), author of the famous Synopsis Criticorum Biblicum, was a seventeenth century ecclesiastical leader, nonconformist, apologist, and minister in England. Poole is best remembered for his Synopsis in the scholarly Latin tongue, and the English language Annotations upon the Holy Bible (the modern day A Commentary on the Holy Bible) written for the layperson. These works were highly valued by such divines as Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards.

Poole began his literary life by submitting to publication a significant treatise against John Biddles writings on the Holy Spirit. He also gave his name to the endorsement of two published tracts: one against the Quakers and the other an evangelistic appeal upon the occasion of a notorious murderer in London.

Learn more about Pooles fascinating life and the numerous controversies in which he was engaged. The controversy that consumed most of his energy and time was his argument against the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church, saying that Catholics have no grounding for their faith and that Protestants have a very firm grounding for faith in the Scriptures.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 23, 2009
• ISBN: 9780595625550

Thomas Harley

Thomas Harley is a writer and poet – and is passionate about sharing the love of Christ with others. A graduate of Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, his work for an international ministry has taken him to more than fifty nations. He is the author of Some Birds Sing in Winter.

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Copyright © 2009 by Thomas Harley.

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Front Cover Photo: Thomas Harley

The photo on the cover is of the English Reformed Church in Amsterdam, where Poole was laid to rest.

ISBN: 978-0-5955-2502-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-1607-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-0-5956-2555-0 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 09/19/2012

Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Part One: Matthew Poole, His Life, His Times, His Contributions

Chapter One: His Ancestry, Education, And Pastorate

Chapter Two:early Literary Involvement And Activities (1654–59)

Chapter Three:correspondence And Projects With Richard Baxter (1656–59)

Illustration:poole’s Letters To Richard Baxter

Chapter Four:activities Surrounding The Restoration And Later (1658–73)

Chapter Five:primary Literary Involvement And Activities (1666–79)

Chapter Six:the Popish Plot And Poole’s Final Days (1678–79)

Part Two: Poole’s Argument Against The Infallibility Of The Roman Catholic Church

Chapter Seven:his Argument And His Adversaries

Chapter Eight: First, The Authority And Infallibility Of The Pope Offers No Foundation For The Catholic Faith

Chapter Nine: Second, The Scriptures (According To Their Principles) Offer No Foundation For The Catholic Faith

Chapter Ten:third, The Authority Of The Church Fathers Offers No Foundation For The Catholic Faith

Chapter Eleven: Fourth, The Infallibility Of The Church And Councils Offers No Foundation For The Catholic Faith

Chapter Twelve: Fifth, The Unwritten Traditions And The Present Church’s Testimony Offer No Foundation For The Catholic Faith

Chapter Thirteen: Sixth, The Motive Of Credibility Offers No Foundation For The Catholic Faith

Chapter Fourteen: The Protestant’s Foundation For Faith Offers Solid Ground

Chapter Fifteen: Poole’s Conclusion

Appendix:the Late Sayings Of Matthew Poole

Bibliography

Endnotes

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Wayne and Elva Harley, my parents, have been firm supporters of my dreams and my activities throughout life, including this current work. I remain indebted to them for the sacrifices they have made and continue to make on my behalf.

My family and friends have supported me in so many ways that I dare not belabor the reader to recount (it could fill another volume). I name only my grandparents, Hilda and the late James Harley, and Richard and Deloris Housholder, and plead the forgiveness of the rest for not also having included their names here.

I worked in dozens of libraries and received countless hours of attention by able and skilled staff. I thank them for their patience and kind assistance in my research.

I also wish to thank the numerous scholars, pastors, and students I encountered throughout my researching and writing stages. I received encouragement from each of them for what they considered a needed work on an understudied subject. I dare not list them here, for the likelihood to forget one or more, but trust they will warmly receive my heartfelt thankfulness nonetheless.

Finally, and foremost, to the Lord my Salvation, who is my shield, my glory, and the one who lifts my head (Ps. 3:3).

PREFACE

My first encounter with Matthew Poole was as a seminary student at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In the course of these studies, I read a variety of commentaries.

Poole’s commentary quickly stood out to me as the greatest of them all, both in terms of fresh insight into the Scriptures and clear, persuasive argument. I found it quite remarkable, and I quickly understood why his was a favorite of such divines as Charles Spurgeon and Jonathan Edwards.

During these seminary years, I obtained my own copy of a Banner of Truth edition of his commentary, and it became a central point of my growing library. It was never quick to gather dust, and it still remains in active use.

Yet I always wondered about the author. I tried to find a biographical account of him at the seminary library, but I wasn’t able to find much of substance. I conducted limited further research about him online and in other libraries, but I found too little to appease my interest. I remained most eager for more.

After graduating from Knox, I engaged in further graduate studies at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Taylors, South Carolina. It was during this time and as a result of these studies that I wrote this current treatise. It satisfied my own curiosity and gave me a strong desire to share my findings with others who might have similar interest.

I researched extensively, gathering a variety of resources from libraries and other sources in Cambridge, Oxford, London, Amsterdam, Chicago, Pittsburgh, south Florida, and elsewhere. It was all in an effort to collect the necessary information for such a large undertaking. I trust the reader will find these efforts of great value, and will discover that they are no longer wanting of information about the famed commentator.

Poole once wrote, Ministers are living Books, and Books are dead Ministers; and yet dead, they speak. When you cannot hear the one, you may read the other.¹ It is my great hope that the reader may hear Poole, and even be prompted to read Poole’s further works, so that, though dead, Poole may speak once more in our own day.

Illustration%201.TIF

© National Portrait Gallery, London

PART ONE:

Matthew Poole, His Life, His Times, His Contributions

CHAPTER ONE:

His Ancestry, Education, and Pastorate

Ancestry

Matthew Poole (1624–79) was a descendent of the ancient Pooles of Spinkhill in Derbyshire.² Richard, his paternal grandfather, was one of the first to embrace the reformation; and was in consequence driven away from Spinkhill, by another branch of the family who was as zealous for popery.³ Richard was to live his remaining days at Sike-house, and later at Drax-Abbey in Yorkshire. He had two sons, Francis and, the younger, William. Francis married Mary Topham, daughter of Alderman Matthew Topham of York.⁴ Francis, Esquire of York, is noted in historical texts as an eminent lawyer.⁵ He and Mary were parents of four children, of whom Matthew, the subject of our study, was the only son.⁶ William had two sons that were in the parliament’s army, Captain Samuel Poole of Leeds and Captain Joseph Poole of Wakefield.⁷

As for Matthew, he was born in 1624 in a house in Oldwork in the city of York.⁸ He was subsequently baptized on December 6, 1626 at St. Cuthbert’s Church.⁹ It was in Yorkshire that Matthew’s father left him £100 per year.¹⁰ Little else is known of Matthew Poole’s family, save that he was married and had two sons, Matthew and Francis.¹¹

Education and Pastorate

Poole was admitted as a pensioner to Emmanuel College in Cambridge on April 19, 1645.¹² He matriculated into the University of Cambridge later that year, on July 2.¹³ Here he came under the tutelage of John Worthington, the Cambridge Platonist.¹⁴ Worthington notes that Poole was a nimble youth then.¹⁵ In the beginning of 1649, he completed his Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree at Emmanuel. It was during this time that Poole became known to Anthony Tuckney, the presiding Master of the College, who was also a leading member of the Westminster Assembly and minister of St. Michael le Querne in London.¹⁶ Likely it was this interaction that influenced Poole’s succession of Tuckey at St. Michael le Querne in 1649, upon Tuckney’s resignation.¹⁷ As the incumbent at St. Michael le Querne, Poole arrived at what would be his only pastoral post.¹⁸ Poole proceeded to apply for ordination with the fourth classis on the November 19, 1649, in accordance with the Presbyterian system.¹⁹

He undertook this new responsibility with great skill, as his attainments and judgment alike were excellent; and he was of a social, genial disposition which won him favor even among opponents.²⁰ Edmund Calamy the historian noted that he was a very diligent Preacher, and a hard Student.²¹ Poole took his responsibility as a pastor seriously, which is noticed in a note to his congregation,

It hath been my desire, since I have been among you, to approve my self to God and to your consciences, in that work that the Lord hath intrusted me with, and I can say in sincerity, I have endeavoured that you (as well as I) might be able to give up your accounts with joy in that great Day. And as I have often considered, and sometimes told you; that the work of a Minister doth consist in two things in building up his people; 1 In Knowledge, 2 In Grace: and that these two are like Hippocrates his Twins, that laugh and weep, live and die together; so have I really and sincerely, though in much weakness, endeavored, both that your hearts might be cleansed from hypocrisie, and your heads from heresie, that you might neither make shipwrack of faith, nor of a good conscience, that you might be antidoted both against the gangrene of erroneous doctrine, and the leprosie of a vain and sinful conversation

God hath made us that are Ministers, Shepherds, we are therefore to preserve you (as far as we can) from those grevious Wolves that come in and devoure the flock: Watchmen, we are therefore to give you timely notice of approaching enemies: Salt, we are therefore to season you against corrupt principles and practices: Light, we are to acquaint you with the ways and works of darkness, that you may avoid them: Husbandmen, we must pluck up the weeds that hinder your growth: Leaders and Commanders, we must go in and out before you, and fight your battels: Witnesses of Christ, we must continually bear witness to the cause and truth of Christ, however despised and reproached.²²

The following year, 1650, he was elected Fellow of Emmanuel. He acquired his Master of Arts (MA) from Emmanuel just two years later, in 1652.²³ Not concluding there, Poole obtained another MA degree, this time from Oxford University, on July 14, 1657. In doing so, Poole became one of eleven Cambridge graduates [who] incorporated MA at Oxford on the occasion of the visit of the university chancellor, Richard Cromwell.²⁴

CHAPTER TWO:

Early Literary Involvement and Activities (1654–59)

Overview

Poole began his literary life by submitting to publication a significant treatise against John Biddle’s writings on the Holy Spirit. He also gave his name to the endorsement of two published tracts, one against the Quakers and the other an evangelistic appeal upon the occasion of a notorious murderer in London. His level of literary involvement in these tracts is not known, but his involvement in the controversies themselves is clear by his endorsement of the positions expressed. Further, Poole was commissioned by the Provincial Assembly of London to write a defense of the Presbyterian form of church governance. Finally, Poole contributed two epitaphs and a poem on the death of Jeremiah Whitaker, at least one poem on the death of Richard Vines, an endorsement with other ministers for a posthumous publication of Christopher Love’s sermons, a posthumous collection of William Fenner’s writings, and one eulogy for Jacob Stock.²⁵ He was also a lecturer at St. Mary Magdalen on Milk Street on November 10, 1658.²⁶

John Biddle and the Unitarian Movement (1654)

Poole made his first literary contribution when he participated in the growing and significant controversy over the doctrine of the Trinity. It was not a new controversy—for it had been brewing for well over a thousand years before Poole was even born.²⁷ Yet, it was revived through the writings of John Biddle. ²⁸ Admittedly, though, Poole had preferred to remain an anonymous contributor.²⁹

John Biddle became headmaster at Crypt Grammar School in 1641 at the age of 26, and he distinguished himself as a talented Biblical scholar and translator. He soon thereafter became convinced that the historical teaching of the Holy Spirit as a deity was in error.³⁰ Not one to be discreet about his research or personal opinions, Biddle quickly stirred controversy. As soon as 1644, he was questioned by local authorities in Gloucester. In response to this questioning, he drafted his twelve arguments against the historical position of the Trinity. The manuscript was discovered, traced back to Biddle, and he was sent to

prison.³¹ Biddle then published this manuscript in 1647 under the title Twelve Arguments.³² It was to this piece that Poole replied in kind with The Blasphemer Slain in 1654.³³ His was certainly not the first response, as Nicolas Estwick already responded to Biddle as early as 1648.³⁴ Yet Poole wrote his own response because there are many that are unwilling to bestow either much pains or cost about books of that nature, and so that errour doth spread, and some (as I am informed) are lately infected with it.³⁵ In Poole’s estimation, no heresies are more dangerous or more infectious that those that raise questions of the Trinity, because they rase the whole foundation of Christian Religion.³⁶ Thus, this was Poole’s attempt to offer a definitive response to Biddle, yet in a language that could be understood by the common man. Biddle never replied to either Estwick or Poole.³⁷

The Blasphemer Slain first proves what Poole considers to be seven primary arguments.³⁸ In this, he doesn’t follow Biddle’s lead, as he states:

I shall not follow his way, in contending more by number and multitude, then strength and force of Arguments, in multiplying words without weight; I shall forbear to bring many Arguments, that might be alleadged, and that upon good grounds and shall only cull out some chief ones, and vindicate those which [Biddle] hath cavill’d against.³⁹

This seems to be part of his purpose behind the work: not to belabor the reader with endless argument, but to get directly to the strongest points of the argument. He then responds to the twelve arguments as presented by Biddle. And thus, he concludes, I have detected all the fallacies wherewith the Adversary laboured to oppose the Deity of the Holy Ghost: and so notwithstanding all that he hath said, and will do so to eternity, that the Holy Ghost is God.⁴⁰

The Quakers (1655-56)

The following year, 1655, Poole and seven other ministers endorsed John Toldervy’s The Foot out of the Snare.⁴¹ Toldervy was part of the Quaker fellowship, and had separated from the group, recounting that experience in his work. The endorsement of eight ministers from the established church quickly classified it as a piece of literature hostile to the cause of the Quakers.⁴² The perception among the Quakers was generally that the tract was from the ministers, and that they had misled Toldervy. This led James Naylor to write his response to Toldervy and all the ministers. Later, Toldervy retracted much of his argument through clarification. He was accepted back into the Quakers, though to what extent we do not know.

Toldervy begins the treatise The Foot out of the Snare with a detailed account of his life before he joined the Quakers. He had been persuaded that a true worship of the living God required obedience to the outward law, yet, in so much as he could not fulfill this law and as he required the atonement of Christ, he lived under the Covenant of Grace. Yet, he could not enjoy a true peace.⁴³ At times, he suspected that he was reprobate. In those other moments, he was simply apathetic. He continues by providing an account of how he came to enter the Quaker community:

Now, when being fully perswaded, by what I learned from these People, (before named) that the Truth indeed was to be found in us, which Truth was made known by the Light in us; which Light, as it was spiritual, (if following it) it would guide out of all the works of the flesh, to the worshipping of God in Spirit and in Truth; I was then to begin a new Religion, and to lose all that ever I learned before, and that Wisdom, that Knowledge, Faith, Hope, Love, Zeal, &c which before I hoped in, and so to wait out of my own Thoughts and Imagination . . . the Enemy . . . formed it self in the shape of a true Light: and so deceit having gotten the power to bear rule in Israel, my mind was led forth out of the true Obedience . . . by which the simple became exceedingly deceived.⁴⁴

This Light in Toldervy convinced him there was a greater Revelation to be manifest in me, than there was in Christ, or the Apostles.⁴⁵ He claims to have seen spirits, presumably angels, who revealed to him,

That within twenty five dayes, perfection should be stablished in me, and so I should be made perfect, entire, wanting nothing, the whole work of God having been made manifest; then should I suffer the likeness of that Death and Resurrection, which was real by him that died at Jerusalem; after which, I should be sent forth to preach the Gospel; and then Michael the Archangel should be living in me, by whom I should be carried to and fro, throughout the World, and enabled to preach the Gospel.⁴⁶

He was persuaded that many of the activities recorded in the Scriptures were actually figures of him, or were to be completed in him. Toldervy wrote,

Having this perswasion in my self, that all knowledge contained in the Scriptures was revealed unto me, I was really possessed with a confident belief, that Christ Jesus that died at Jerusalem was a figure of me, and that I was the true Christ, that Angel spoken of in the Revelation.⁴⁷

Toldervy attempted to perform a miracle by lighting a fire with dead Coals and Sticks.⁴⁸ He didn’t succeed and was greatly distressed. He writes, I was extremely troubled, that I the Christ of God should fail in the performance of the first miracle, since so many miracles were wrought by him that was a figure of me.⁴⁹ These spirits revealed unto him that he was not a perfect specimen.

I was not yet perfect: but, however, it was the purpose of God, that I should be serviceable in the healing of the lame, the sick, the blinde, &c. souls, as Christ did heal the imperfect parts of the visible body; and that all the visible miracules wrought by him, did signifie what was to be effected miraculous in the invisible part of every man that should be saved by my Doctrine.⁵⁰

He continued his account with details of various strange occurrences, including one in which he took a needle through his two thumbs, which he took as a sign that Christ, meaning himself, had risen from the dead. Toldervy claimed to have then left the Quakers and these Desperate Delusions which were impressed upon him through a Seducing Spirit.⁵¹ He alleged to know of many others who, having also left the Quakers, were being targeted with numerous scandalous untrue reports.⁵² He alleged that some were attempting to discount the account that he had presented, stating, There hath been dispersed abroad concerning me divers scandalous and false abusive reports.⁵³ False reports and good reports must pass, he writes, but my witness lives forever.⁵⁴

Poole and the other ministers endorsed the tract as a seasonable Warning-piece unto all others, that they be not taken in the like Snare: And, if taken, that they may recover themselves out.⁵⁵ Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, and a contemporary, wrote:

Ever and anon this inward voice, and sometimes outward, utters very audibly to them some place or other of Scripture to a ridiculous abuse and prophanation of it; and not that only, but enforces the poor captivated vassal in scorn and contempt of the person of Christ to act some remarkable passages in his story, such as his Death, and Triumph at Jerusalem; the former by James Milner and John Toldervy, the latter by James Naylor . . . Such wild tricks as these are these deluded Souls made to play, to make sport for those aerial Goblins that drive them and actuate them.⁵⁶

James Naylor, the accomplished Quaker evangelist and apologist, responded at length in defense of the Quakers in Foot Yet in the Snare.⁵⁷ His response was addressed to Toldervy and all eight ministers. Instead of the supposed liberty that he claimed, Naylor argued that Toldervy had fallen into the trap of the priests; themselves being in the same condition.⁵⁸ He argued that the book was based on a testimony of lies, writing,

And to you John Toldervy, Tho. Brooks, Tho. Jacomb, George Cockaine, Will. Adderley, John Goodwin, John Tombs, Will. Jenkin, and Matt. Poole, who are joyned together, that with the light of Christ you might take notice against whom you are joyned, and what work it is you are joyned in, which is, to bear witness unto lyes, and confusions, and lying wonders, which you never saw nor heard, as by your own confession, who say, some of you have but perused a part of the thing to which you are witnesses, and have but the things by hear-say, and that from one possest with a deluded Spirit, wherein you shew your envie and rashness, and want of discretion . . . Your work is begun with a lie, and so carried on, who in your title-page tell of the manner of his separation from the Quakers, which is false, for those you call Quakers did separate from him, both in word and writing, because of his following a bewitched Spirit, and would not be reclaimed by them, who oft reproved him, and judged him for it with one consent, as you afterward confess in your book, page 38, and in other places of your book also.⁵⁹

He continued his argument that The Foot out of the Snare is filled with inaccuracies and lies