Latitude in belief, rather than a named opponent
The modern latitudinarians
The word carries a history of allowing latitude in religious belief and discipline. A near-contemporary reference witness, the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, distinguishes an older use, associated with early eighteenth-century Low Churchmen, from the nineteenth-century Broad Church emphasis on ethical teaching and reduced insistence on orthodoxy. Its account also warns against treating these changing party names as interchangeable. See ‘Low Churchman,’ final historical discussion.
Chesterton's adjective ‘modern’ makes the broader, contemporary application especially relevant: he is attacking people who dismiss the rationale for binding religious authority. The paragraph supplies no names or documents that would identify all his targets with one Anglican party. The term supplies a polemical orientation, not a reliable membership list. Nor does religious latitude itself logically entail the radical doubt about thinking that the next paragraph introduces; that connection belongs to Chesterton's argument.
Sources
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