ABSTRACT
A distillation of the theology may suggest that the Laudians saw it as a guiding principle, corresponding to the rationality which God is eternally in Himself, and applied to the understanding of creation and of humanity in the light of God's Self-revelation in Jesus Christ. The Laudians — even William Laud himself in his zeal for uniformity, never attempted to reduce the concept of order to any programme of regulations, statutes or canons. Theology, properly, the Laudians seem agreed, sees order in terms of God's Self-revelation. 'Order' is there — the order which God is and according to which He acts, and the order which He has decreed that creation should be if it is His creation. The principle propounded by Jeremy Bentham in the eighteenth century of 'the happiness of society' as the governing law of humanity's collective endeavour has become the touchstone on which all things are valued.
