For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other.1
Are they moderate? Do you keep them within bounds? Are you fearful of exceeding in them? 2
In his introduction to Chapter XLII of Medulla Theologiæ (1659), Clarke quoted the Pauline text from Galatians, given above. For Clarke, this 'continual combate between the unregenerate part, the flesh, with the lusts thereof, and the part regenerate, the Spirit, with all the holy qualities, graces, and motions thereof' was an essential part of God's plan whereby 'he doth not perfect our sanctification in this life; but in part regenerating, and leaving us in part unregenerated.'3 The second statement above is offered in Clarke's answer to the question of how to know whether 'affections...be true or false, real or counterfeit'.4 Taken together they are indicative of the challenging and
sometimes paradoxical quality of puritan emotional life, aware of an existential spiritual conflict raging within themselves, whilst alert to the need to examine, nurture and govern their feelings. Underpinning these sensibilities was a typology of emotion in godly culture in which the ambiguities and complexities of human 'motions', affections and passions, were categorised either as rational or as unruly. This duality is the striking characteristic of the way the godly wrote about and conceptualised their emotions.
A close examination of Clarke's handbook of orthodox Reformed Protestant doctrine, Medulla Theologiæ, reveals that much attention was paid to the question of emotional experience as a guide to godliness. In these terms, emotional experience embodied the spiritual struggle between conflicting forces. This binary conceptualisation of emotion, in which rational or godly affections were to be nurtured, whilst unruly passions were to be mortified, helps to explain the lived ebb and flow of the sometimes intense emotional states apparently experienced by godly
1 Galatians 5:17. Clarke uses this text in his introduction to Chapter XLII 'Questions,
and Cases of Conscience about the Conflict, or Combate between the Flesh, and Spirit', in Medulla Theologiæ, p. 398.
2 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 33. 3 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 398. 4 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 33.
people.5 As Alec Ryrie explains, 'Dullness and despair on one side, sweetness and
assurance on the other...are the key coordinates for an emotional map of early modern Protestantism.'6 In this inner landscape, emotion was not the opposite of reason but a manifestation of the work of divine grace. However, the believer needed to be able to identify the difference between 'real' and 'counterfeit' feelings. How could the godly individual be sure about the nature of their feelings? Could those feelings be trusted when assurance depended upon their validity? As a consequence, according to Clarke and the sources he employed, feelings needed to be interrogated and monitored.7
In Medulla Theologiæ, Clarke's ostensible aim was to enlighten his readers, to allow them to reach a better understanding of their affections and passions, and to guide them towards the ability to recognise and differentiate godly feeling, as opposed to the sometimes subtle deceits of the Devil, in themselves and others.8 Such understanding also informed a reading of Clarke's narratives. This chapter argues that the exemplary model of emotional deportment Clarke presented in his narratives was underpinned by a systematic rationale of emotion that was an integral part of godly doctrine and pious practice, and can be observed by examining how Clarke explained godly constructs of rational affections and unruly passions. It shows the extent to which Clarke's understanding could be described as typical of his period, but also how his Calvinist orthodoxy translated emotional moderation into social and moral deportments that marked the bounds of his emotional community. The chapter is organised into three sections which set out this rationale of the binary construction of emotion as it is explained in Medulla Theologiæ, and represented in Clarke's biographies. Section one explores how Clarke interpreted an intellectual construction
5 The emotionality of the experience of individuals is discussed in Part Four, with
reference to spiritual journals.
6 Ryrie, Being Protestant, p. 49.
7 In Medulla Theologiæ, Clarke cites the works of William Perkins (1558-1602),
Richard Sibbes (1577-1635), Nicholas Byfield (1579-1622), Robert Bolton (1572- 1631), John Ball (1585-1640), William Fenner (1600-40) Edward Reyner (1600- 1660), Robert Harris (1581-1658), Christopher Love (1618-51) and Francis Taylor (1589-1656). He cites Ball, Taylor, Bolton, Reyner and Harris as references to Chapter IX Questions and Cases of Conscience about Anger, Wrath, Passion, Malice, Hatred, and Revenge on p. 78, specifically referencing Ball's Power of Godliness (1657). On p. 358, Ch. XXXIV Questions and Cases of Conscience about Comforting Afflicted Consciences he cites William Perkins vol. 2, presumably referencing the second of his Two Treatises: II Of the Combat of the Flesh and Spirit (Cambridge 1593).
of godly affections which, he argued, were the most important aspect of the work of grace. Section two considers how Clarke wrote about unruly passions as deriving from the corruption of original sin, and section three examines the requirement of emotional governance, or mortification, as an exercise of the rational will that needed to be shepherded through practices of spiritual introspection.
I – Godly Emotion
Clarke borrowed from William Fenner's (1600-40) A Treatise of the Affections (1642) to explain that 'The goodnesse or vainnesse of our affections shew that we are godly, or ungodly men. Affectus virum indicat. Our affections, shew what we are.'9 It is an assessment that places the experience of emotion at the epicentre of religious practice. Godly feeling was a key indicator of assurance, and it follows inevitably that the wrong type of feeling could be the mark of damnation. It was, therefore, of critical importance to be clear how to understand and recognise feelings in these terms in order to cultivate appropriate responses.
In Chapter VI of Medulla Theologiæ, Clarke helpfully set out a position on what are usually described as the passions or affections; he establishes a rationale as a basis for appraisal, cognition, expression and appropriate management or mortification of the emotions. As is typical, Clarke's work represents and reflects a collective understanding drawn from within the godly literati of his own generation and the previous one. As well as William Fenner, his analysis on this subject was derived from Christopher Love (1618-51), John Ball (1585-1640) and Edward Reyner (1600-1660).10 Keith Condie tells us that 'Puritan divines held a range of viewpoints on the relationship between passions and affections and their location within the structure of the soul.'11 And John Sutton explains that 'there are no neat boundaries
9 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 27. He cites Ball, Fenner and Reyner for the whole
passage, but this point is found in Fenner, Affections, p. 44.
10 On the particular issue of affections and passions, on p. 35 Clarke cites Fenner, Ball
and Reyner as sources for Chapter VI Questions, and cases of Conscience about Affections, or Passions. Here he is clearly referring to Fenner's Affections. On the role of grace in the management of affections he cites Christopher Love (1618-51), Grace: The Truth and Growth and Different Degrees Thereof (1652) on p. 37.
11 Keith Condie, 'Affection and Intellect in the Thought of Richard Baxter' in Ryrie
around a historical category of "seventeenth-century British philosophy of the soul".'12 Unsurprisingly, Clarke's view represented a hybrid but orthodoxly Calvinist analysis that assessed human emotion in terms of a relationship between body and soul, drawing on Platonic, Aristotelian and Augustinian traditions, melded with a Hippocratic understanding of humoral physiology.
In his discussion Clarke insists that proper feeling is both essential to, and a measure of, godliness. The distinction between rational affections and unruly passions was stressed emphatically. However, there were sub-divisions between two types of 'affections': the 'sensual' and the 'intellectual or rational.' The 'sensual' refers to what might be designated as innate or biological functions, 'such as belong to the sensual appetite: are [sensed] in the body for the instruments of them; and are suited to the body for the objects and ends of them, and are guided by the [fancy], and are common with us to beasts'.13 These are, nonetheless, gifts from God and capable of moderation by those endowed with virtue and godliness. He explains that,
The sensitive appetite is a gift freely bestowed upon us by God, but virtue never destroys nature but addes to it the perfections which it wants. It must...then suffer the sensitive Appetite to act according to its inclination; yet moderating its motions, and restraining them under the Lawes of Reason.14
The 'rational' affections, however, are guided by 'understanding, being the eye and director of the Will', and exist within the 'highest and chiefest part of the soul'.15
Furthermore, these affections 'remain in the soul when its separated from the body: the Saints carry...them to heaven with them, as love, joy, hope'.16The higher or rational
affections, in this conceptualisation, are spiritual and their proper object is godliness, whereas the 'sensual' affections have a temporal function. Thus,
the sensitive appetite will then be of no use to them after the Resurrection of the body, which will be raised a spiritual body, to be sustained without any bodily meanes, having no need of food, cloathing, marriage...about which the appetite
12 John Sutton, 'Souls and Body in Seventeenth Century British Philosophy', in Peter
Anstey (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Seventeenth Century (Oxford, 2013), pp. 285-307, p. 285. For emotions and the body see Ulinka Rublack, 'Fluxes: The Early Modern Body and the Emotions,' History Workshop Journal 53 (2002), pp. 1-16.
13 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 21. 14 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 21. 15 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 23, p. 22. 16 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 22.
was here conversant.17
Here Clarke is describing a Platonic conception of the three faculties of the
soul as comprising the 'mind', the 'will', and the 'spirit'.18 These dimensions of the soul
exist symbiotically. For example, Clarke tells us that
Passions mightily change the quiet temper, and disposition of the minde: For the minde is at peace, when the Will ruled by Prudence, moderates and governes the Passions: but the soul is troubled when Passions oppose themselves against the Rule of Government.19
When the Will is properly governed (as determined by the grace of God), the passions are moderated and the 'mind', or conscience, is at peace: the state of the 'mind', as part of the soul, is indicative of the state of the soul. The 'Spirit' is a flexible term used to represent the work of grace, often manifested in terms of godly affections. In these terms the control of passions is understood as a spiritual conflict 'between the unregenerate part, the flesh...and the part regenerate, the Spirit, with all the holy qualities, graces, and [e]motions thereof'.20
Clarke also adheres to a bipartite theology of material and immaterial, or body and soul. According to this analysis, as Clarke explains, it is in the interaction of body and soul that emotions are experienced and, indeed, suffered when the Will allows sensual affections to become passions:
Yea, though they are originally and radically in the Will, yet the Will stirs up the sensual Affections, and they stir the humours and parts of the body,
17 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 22.
18 For the three-part soul see Charles Partee, 'The Soul in Plato, Platonism and Calvin', Scottish Journal of Theology, 22:3 (1969), pp. 278-95. Rationalising Clarke's orthodox interpretation of these issues involves interpreting the nuance with which he used various terms. The 'mind' is sometimes used to mean conscience as in 'Faith begets soundnesse of spirit, and Christian hardinesse: But a sound mind is not easily disturbed with wrongs that are offered, no more then sound flesh is when handled.' (Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 75.) In this case a 'sound' mind is equated with 'soundnesse of spirit'. Elsewhere 'mind' means character or disposition as in, for example, 'Impotency, and effeminatenesse of mind which makes men unable to bear injuries.' (Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 71). 'Minde' also relates to meditation or concentration.' In the seventeenth century, as John Sutton explains, 'The proper usage of key terms such as 'soul', 'spirit', and 'mind' was always under negotiation'. Sutton, 'Souls and Body', in Anstey, Philosophy, p. 286.
19 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 23. 20 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 398.
especially the spirits and the blood, and so make the whole man to suffer, both body and soul. Hence they are called Passions: As Feare chills the blood: Anger boiles it; Grief contracts and closeth up the Heart: Joy dilates it. 21
Here Clarke reveals an understanding typical of his time, encompassing the Aristotelian concept of unity of the soul in terms of its biological and intellectual faculties, together with an acceptance of Hippocratic humoral physiology.22 Thus, the physical experience of emotion is described in terms of the 'humours,' the 'spirits' and the 'blood' which can be both chilled and boiled by powerful emotion. Again we see that the 'heart' is central to the experience, being 'closeth up' by grief and dilated by joy.
Echoing the Augustinian view, Clarke makes the case that human emotions are not sinful in themselves. Christ's humanity was defined by his emotional nature, and God the father had bestowed emotion upon his children as a blessing to be embraced and utilised. He explains that, 'the Scriptures ascribe to God love, hatred, anger, zeal, &c. who cannot be subject to any sensitive aberrations'.23 These are perfect ideals or types of emotions and, Clarke continues, 'we are commanded to imitate him in them.'24 Christ himself provided the model:
Christ took our affections upon him, which if they were sinful he could not have done. He rejoiced...He sorrowed...He was angry...He desired...God commands us to be angry...and to mourne...to feare...to be ashamed...which if they were sinful in themselves, he could not do.25
Marshalled correctly, emotions are essential for the Christian life because they are 'a great blessing' without which 'we should be like stocks and senselesse stones'.26
When dealing with their emotions godly people would be assisted by a clear understanding of their utility as a conduit for grace because, as Clarke explained, 'Affections are good channels for grace to run in.'27 Emotions should be seen as facilitating spiritual progress: 'Hast thou love? Its a whetstone to obedience. Hast thou
21 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 27.
22 See Sutton, 'Souls and Body', in Anstey, Philosophy, p. 290. 23 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 22.
24 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 22. 25 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 27. 26 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 27. 27 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 27.
grief? Its a whetstone to repentance. Hast thou anger? Its a whetstone to zeale'.28 In
this way individual dispositions of temperament were no obstacle. However, it was still necessary to develop a concept of the right kind of emotions because they 'are also the handles of the soul: As we can take hold of nothing that is good, unlesse by our affections: so nothing can take hold of our hearts, but by our affections.'29 Positive and well adjusted feelings are evidence of godliness.
On the other hand, disordered emotions indicate the opposite, serving to subvert the emotional channel to the deity. Clarke describes the effects of 'disordered passions': 'Passions when unruly, blinde Judgement and Reason: Passions are...like green spectacles that make all things look green: so he that loves, hates, or is vehemently possessed with any other passion.'30 The idea that unruly passions cloud judgement seems to concur with Aristotle's view.31 However, in Clarke's understanding 'reason' belongs to God. Disordered passions are thus all the more serious because they prevent godliness. As Clarke explains, 'Passions rebel against Reason, and undermine the Understandings of men to their great molestation: For no sooner doth the Minde ascend Heaven-ward by Meditation, but inordinate Passions hale it back, and draw it down to the earth.'32 So, emotion that is not guided, actively serving as an instrument of godly virtue, is counterproductive and the effect is both mental and physical: 'Inordinate passions are hurtful to the body, impaire health, breed humours, nourish diseases, and shorten life'.33 However, 'if the motions of our Wills
be vertuous, being guided by Gods Word and Prudence, if then the Passions concurre with the Will, vertuous actions are performed with much more ease and delight.'34
Moving beyond the Aristotelian view that emotion needs to be brought into harmony with higher faculties, Clarke's assessment is that emotions, whilst needing to be disciplined, also require nurturing and cultivating. In so far as he believed that emotional states could be subject to rational intervention, Clarke's understanding of
28 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 27. 29 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 26. 30 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 23.
31 For account of Aristotelian view of reason and ethics see C.D.C. Reeve, Practices of Reason: Aristotle's 'Nicomachean Ethics' (Oxford, 1992).
32 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 23. NB. The word 'minde' is used here to denote
concentration through meditation.
33 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 23. 34 Clarke, Medulla Theologiæ, p. 24.
emotion was typical of cognitive theories of the period.35 For Clarke, even a 'wicked'
man may, 'By the sparks of right Reason, naturally implanted by God in the heart...so regulate his affections that he may be chaste, sober, kinde, liberal, just, patient'.36 And he explained that, for some 'carnal' men, 'God may quicken their knowledge and conscience, and tell them the horrour of their sins'.37 However, for Clarke, and the sources he represented, the godly origin of the emotions was another important clue to the answer to the vital questions of assurance. He therefore promoted an introspective self-examination to ascertain the provenance and meaning of feeling in the certain knowledge that the only legitimate emotions were those conceived through a total commitment of the heart to the love of God. Emotions had to be 'kindly,' 'judiciously,' 'regularly,' or 'universally' elicited, because 'the heart must first be wrought on, and the spirit moved before the affections can be judiciously wrought on.'38
In this account Clarke's Reformed orthodoxy is apparent. His strictures on the management of the passions do not have the nuance expressed by Richard Baxter who, according to Keith Condie, 'counselled caution in making emotions the marker of authenticity.'39 For Clarke, the question, 'May the state of our soul be discerned by our affections?' was met with a definitive answer: 'Yea: we may know our estate to be good, by our embracing of good things, by our joy and delight in them, and by our