Томас Мортон: Англия шіркеушісі және жазушысы (1564-1659)

English churchman and writer (1564–1659)

Thomas Morton (20 March 156420 September 1659) was an English churchman, bishop of several dioceses. Well connected and in favour with James I, he was also a significant polemical writer against Roman Catholic views. He rose to become Bishop of Durham, but despite a record of sympathetic treatment of Puritans as a diocesan, and underlying Calvinist beliefs shown in the Gagg controversy, his royalism saw him descend into poverty under the Commonwealth.

Morton was born in York on 20 March 1564, While the palace at Chester was readied he stayed with Christopher Hatton at Clay Hall, Essex, where he was seriously ill. He had resigned Alresford, but during his episcopate he held the living of Stopford, given him by James I in commendam.

In 1618, on John Overall's translation to Norwich, Morton became Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, on the recommendation of Lancelot Andrewes. With the bishopric he held the living of Clifton Camville in commendam. In 1621, he served on the commission for granting a dispensation to George Abbot, Archbishop of Canterbury, for the casual homicide of a keeper in Bramshill Park. In February 1626, he took a leading part in the York House Conference on Richard Montagu's incriminated books. With John Preston, Morton did his best to impugn the statements contained in them on predestination and freewill.

In June 1632, Morton became Bishop of Durham, which he held by canonical right until his death in 1659, although parliament claimed to deprive him of it in 1647. Complaints were later made against him to the House of Commons by his prebendary, Peter Smart. He showed forbearance in claiming the rights of the palatinate, was liberal in almsgiving, and maintained poor scholars at the universities. On his journey to Scotland in 1633, Charles I and his suite were received by Morton in princely style; six years later, in May 1639, he again entertained Charles at the beginning of the First Bishops' War. The next year, in the month of August, the Scots crossed the River Tweed, and pushed on to the city of Durham. The cathedral clergy fled, and Morton himself retired into Yorkshire. Early in 1641 he was in London attending Parliament, and was nominated a member of the sub committee to prepare matters for the consideration of the abortive committee of the lords appointed on 1 March—the day of William Laud's committal to the Tower of London—to take cognisance of innovations in religion. In the following December a mob threatened to drag him out of his coach when on his way to the House of Lords. Morton never took his seat in the lords again. Two days later, 29 December, he joined in John Williams' protest against the legality of all acts done in the enforced absence of the spiritual lords. For this he and his 11 associates were next day impeached of high treason on William Prynne's motion; and the same night they were all committed to the Tower, with the exception of Morton and the aged Robert Wright, Bishop of Lichfield, who were allowed to remain in the house of the usher of the black rod. After four months' imprisonment Morton was released without a trial, and remained unmolested at Durham House, in The Strand, till April 1645, when he was again brought before the bar of the House of Commons on the charges of baptising the infant daughter of the Earl of Rutland according to the rites of the Church of England, and of refusing to surrender the seal of the County palatine of Durham. He was committed to the custody of the serjeant at arms for six months. On the abolition of episcopacy in 1646 an annual income was assigned to him, but without indications of by whom it was to be paid not being specified. He obtained a sum of £1,000 from the committee at Goldsmiths' Hall, which he employed in paying his debts and purchasing an annuity. In 1648 he was driven from Durham House soldiers, who took forcible possession of it. He then resided with his friends, the Earl and Countess of Rutland, at Exeter House in The Strand; and the passed his time with royalist lay friends. Returning to London on horseback, he fell in with Christopher, son and heir of Henry Yelverton. Christopher did not recognise the bishop. To his inquiry who he was, Morton replied, 'I am that old man, the Bishop of Durham, in spite of all your votes;' asked where he was going, his answer was, 'To London, to live there a little while, and then to die.' Ultimately, Yelverton invited him to his house at Easton Maudit, ten miles from Northampton. Morton became a member of the family, and tutor to Henry, his eldest son. At Easton Maudit, Morton held secret ordinations. Yelverton died in 1654. Morton died there on 22 September 1659. He was buried in the Yelverton chapel of the parish church. His chaplain, John Barwick, preached the funeral sermon. He died unmarried.

Morton was a patron of learned men. At the beginning of the First English Civil War, he offered Thomas Fuller a home and maintenance. Isaac Basire was one of the scholars whom he brought forward. Ralph Brownrig, Henry Ferne and John Barwick were among his chaplains. He was a patron of foreign Reformed theologians, whom he received into his house and treated generously. He favoured the work of John Durie for reconciling Protestants. He numbered Richard Hooker among his friends as well as Hooker's biographer Isaak Walton, who wrote of the information he derived from Morton. William Laud was one of his correspondents.

In theology he belonged to the school of James Ussher and William Bedell, and had little sympathy with Laudianism. Richard Baxter speaks of him as 'belonging to that class of episcopal divines who differ in nothing considerable from the rest of the reformed churches except in church government,' and Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon classes him with 'the less formal and more popular prelates'. He was a sincere episcopalian, regarding ordination by presbyters valid in case of necessity, no such necessity however warranting it in the Church of England. From the moderation of his ecclesiastical views he was at one time well regarded by William Prynne. Edmund Calamy recorded his liberal treatment of Puritans such as John Hieron, Richard Mather, and John Shawe of Christ's College, Cambridge. His attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church was hostile; he was one of the only three bishops who, according to a statement made to Gregorio Panzani, the papal envoy, by Richard Montagu, were 'counted violently bent against the Papists'. Morton corresponded with Sibrandus Lubbertus on matters concerning anti papal polemic, and their views were close. Lubbertus was a leading contra Remonstrant and Morton was one of his significant English supporters in the conflict over the appointment of Conrad Vorstius at the University of Leiden.

One of Morton's last acts before his death was to publish a denial that he had in a speech in the House of Lords acknowledged the fiction of the Nag's Head Consecration of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury. By his will he left money to the poor of the parish in which he died, and his chalice to All Saints, York, the parish in which he was born. He also bequeathed a silver gilt chalice and paten of large size for the use of the chapel recently added to the manor house by Henry Yelverton. A codicil to his will contained a declaration of his faith and of his adhesion to the Church of England. In the 1680s Richard Baxter, who as a schoolboy received confirmation from Morton in Durham, called him "one of the learnedest and best bishops that ever I knew". 'The Encounter against M. Parsons, by a Review of his last Sober Reckoning and his Exceptions urged in the Treatise of his Mitigation ,' London, 1610. 'A Defence of the Innocencie of the Three Ceremonies of the Church of England, viz., the Surplice, Crosse after Baptisme, and Kneeling at the Receiving of the Blessed Sacrament', London, 1618. This work arose out of Morton's diocesan dealings with Puritans,William Hinde argued that the surplice was not Biblical, and that ceremonies should be matters indifferent. Robert Nicholls of Wrenbury had written a treatise against kneeling for Morton, printed later in 1660. Kneeling had formed one of the matters over which clergy of the diocese of Lincoln had petitioned James I in 1604 for change in the Book of Common Prayer in 1604; an abridged form of the petition was circulating in 1617 as a book printed covertly in Leiden by William Jones. 'Causa Regia, sive De Authoritate et Dignitate principum Christianorum adversus R. Bellarminum,' 1620. 'The Grand Imposture of the (now) Church of Rome manifested in this one Article of the new Romane Creede, viz., "The Holy Catholike and Apostolike Romane Church, Mother and Mistresse of all other Churches, without which there is no salvation." The second edition, revised with Additions,' London, 1628. 'Of the Institution of the Sacrament of the Blessed Bodie and Blood of Christ,' &c., 2 pts., London, 1631; 2nd edit. 'enlarged with particular answers,' London, 1635
'A Discharge of Five Imputations of Mis Allegations falsely charged upon the Bishop of Duresme by an English Baron (Arundell of Wardour),' London, 1633. 'Sacris ordinibus non rite initiati tenentur ad eos ritus ineundos. Non datur purgatorium Pontificium aut Platonicum' (in verse), Cambridge, 1633. 'Antidotum adversus Ecclesiæ Romanæ de merito proprie dicto ex condigno venenum,' Cantabr. 1637. 'De Eucharistia Controversiæ Decisio,' Cantabr. 1640. 'The Opinion of T. Morton concerning the peace of the Church,' 1641; a Latin version appeared in 1688. 'The Necessity of Christian Subjection demonstrated Also a Tract intituled "Christus Dei,"' &c., 1643; posthumously printed. 'Ezekiel's Wheels: a Treatise concerning Divine Providence,' London, 1653. ‘Episkopos Apostolikos, or the Episcopacy of the Church of England justified to be Apostolical. Before which is prefixed a preface by Sir H. Yelverton,’ London, 1670. Other works of the 1590s which have been ascribed to this Thomas Morton were the works of another Thomas Morton, of Berwick and Christ's College, Cambridge.