The latitudinarian Anglicans of the 17thcentury built on
Richard Hooker's position in
Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Hooker (1554–1600) argues that what God cares about is the moral state of the individual soul. Aspects such as church leadership are "
things indifferent". However, the latitudinarians took a position far beyond Hooker's own and extended it to doctrinal matters. As a positive position, the latitudinarian view held that human reason, when combined with the
Holy Spirit, is a sufficient guide for the determination of truth in doctrinal contests; therefore, legal and doctrinal rulings that constrain reason and the freedom of the believer were neither necessary nor beneficial. At the time, their position was referred to as an aspect of
low church (in contrast to the
high church position). Later, the latitudinarian position was called
broad church. While always officially opposed by the Anglican church, the latitudinarian philosophy was, nevertheless, dominant in 18th-century England. Because of the Hanoverian reluctance to act in church affairs, and the various groups of the religious debates being balanced against one another, the dioceses became tolerant of variation in local practice. Furthermore, after
George I of Great Britain dismissed the Convocation, there was very little internal Church power to either sanction or approve. Thus, with no
Archbishop of Canterbury officially adopting it, latitudinarianism was the operative philosophy of the English church in the 18th century. For the 18th-century English church in the United States (which would become the
Episcopal Church after the
American Revolution), some are of the opinion that latitudinarianism was the only practical course because the nation had official pluralism, diversity of opinion, and diffusion of clerical power. ==See also==