Contemplation: John Norris on Reason and Devotion

The term devotion implicitly confronts questions about the mind's cerebral dedication to the love and worship of God. This investigation considers the epistemological context for exegesis of early modern devotion, taking the writings and intellectual legacy of Church of England clergyman and philosopher John Norris as a case in point.¹

Norris's reputation among his contemporaries is complex. He is principally remembered now as the recipient of sometimes quite pointed critiques from contemporaries including John Locke, Lady Damaris Masham, and (to a lesser extent) Mary Astell.² Indisputably the most assiduous English follower of French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche, Norris offers readers a rich body of religious philosophy which engages first-hand with the Enlightenment concept of devotion, that is, the nexus of intellectual agency or knowledge with the love of God.³ Tracing key changes in Norris's use of the term between 1688 and 1695 helps to clarify aspects of his own oeuvre as well as contemporary responses to it. In turn, these developments help to inform our broader understanding of how early modern ministers' reputation as authors, as well as spiritual mentors for their congregations and wider reading audiences, were shaped by their direct engagement with key cultural ideas.

The different applications of devotion employed by Norris, Masham, and Astell between 1689–1695 present a schematization of how applied intellectual energy relates to thinking about God and the love of God. Both Norris and Astell assert the directness with which the human mind conceives of God while acknowledging the importance of isolated study, meditation, and prayer (all forms of devotion) as manifold means to extend this knowledge. Masham, however, takes particular exception to the more mystical or visionary aspects of Norris's concept of the love of God.

Norris's Reason and Religion (1689) defines devotion as being "as much influenc'd by consideration as any other act of the Will," and, more explicitly, knowledge as "the best preparative for Devotion."⁴ The precise relationship between knowledge and devotion is central to Norris's discourse in Reason and Religion (from his prefatory address to the "Learned Reader" onwards) in asserting that a sufficient though indistinct sense of both is necessary to "serve the ends of Piety and Devotion."⁵ Devotion thus serves as a conduit between the epistemological realm of knowledge and the pious realm of prayer.

Norris further defines devotion specifically as "giving up ones self wholly" to God—not just in prayer but also in all ways; it is a translation of rational concepts into divine ones. Significantly, devotion is not even confined to the realm of Christian worship, since even "Heathens who deliver'd and consign'd themselves up to Death, for the safety of their Country, were called Devoti."⁶ Taken as a whole, Reason and Religion presents a coherent system of how piety and devotion serve as a conduit through which the applied faculties of the mind can better understand both the nature of God and man.

Reason and Religion, however, places less priority on solitude as a prerequisite for devotion than Norris's earlier Poems (1684), which equated isolated devotion with a higher intellectual register. His Poems suggests that the practices of Christ himself indicate solitude's importance in contemplative pursuits including devotion; though devotion necessarily presents a habitual activity, it is solitude which offers "the great opportunity for the Retirements of Devotion" since its being "empty of Cares [means it is instead] full of Prayers."⁷ Both earlier texts, then, assert the value of learned contemplation as an aid to devotion whereas first impressions of Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life (1689) implies its direct contradiction ("our Learning is misplaced, and such an importunate pursuit after Learning and Knowledge is no way agreeable to the present Station and condition of Man").⁸

This misleading opening can be refuted, however, by closer reading of Reflections as a series of discourses categorising knowledge. Norris distinguishes here between necessary and contingent truths (only the first of which are perfective since they lead towards understanding of God). Those judged as learned are often only in command...