LATITUDINARIANS

Certain divines so called from the latitude of their principles. The term is chiefly applied to some divines of the seventeenth century, who were attached to the English establishment, as such, but regarded episcopacy, and forms of public worship, as among the things indifferent. They would not exclude from their communion those who differed from them in those particulars. Many of the latitudinarian divines commenced as Calvinists, and ended as Socinians.