CHILLINGWORTH, WILLIAM. - English Protestant theologian and principal advocate of latitudinarianism, b. at Oxford on 6 Oct. 1602, d. at Chichester (Sussex) on 30 Jan. 1644. As soon as he had completed his studies in his native city, he converted to the Catholic religion, which he later abandoned (1634) in order to return to Protestantism. He was proficient in mathematics, poetry, and especially theology.
He is known above all for the work The religion of protestants a safe way of salvation (Oxford 1638). In it C. addresses himself against the Jesuit Mattia Wilson (d. 1656) and sets forth his latitudinarianism. Starting from the distinction between what is essential and what is not, the author reduces Christianity to the profession of a few fundamental truths, predominantly practical in nature, while tolerating disagreement on everything else. The latitudinarians, so called by their opponents, who regarded them as supporters of the broad way, not only failed to achieve the aim of their movement, namely that of eliminating the endless controversies and serious divergences existing among the various Protestant sects, but fell into religious indifferentism, because they had been unable to realize agreement even with regard to those same fundamental truths. Latitudinarianism thus prepared the Broad Church Party, into which it later merged.