English Church in the Eighteenth Century

John Abbey Charles

Description

Although this edition has been shortened to about half the length of the original one, it is essentially the same work. The reduction has been effected, partly by the omission of some whole chapters, partly by excisions. The chapters omitted are those upon the Jacobites, the Essayists, Church Cries, and Sacred Poetry - subjects which have only a more or less incidental bearing on the Church history of the period. The passages excised are, for the most part, quotations, discursive reflections, explanatory notes, occasional repetitions, and, speaking generally, whatever could be removed without injury to the general purpose of the narrative. There has been no attempt at abridgment in any other form.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Reino Unido
• United Kingdom
• Great Britain
• Royaume-Uni

Informations

• Publié par: Pub One Info
• Date de parution: 23 octobre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9782819901457
• Langue: English

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PREFACE
T O
THE SECOND EDITION
Although this edition has been shortened to abouthalf the length of the original one, it is essentially the samework. The reduction has been effected, partly by the omission ofsome whole chapters, partly by excisions. The chapters omitted arethose upon the Jacobites, the Essayists, Church Cries, and SacredPoetry – subjects which have only a more or less incidental bearingon the Church history of the period. The passages excised are, forthe most part, quotations, discursive reflections, explanatorynotes, occasional repetitions, and, speaking generally, whatevercould be removed without injury to the general purpose of thenarrative. There has been no attempt at abridgment in any otherform.
The authors are indebted to their reviewers for manykind remarks and much careful criticism. They have endeavoured tocorrect all errors which have been thus pointed out to them.
As the nature of this work has sometimes been alittle misapprehended, it should be added that its authors at notime intended it to be a regular history. When they first mappedout their respective shares in the joint undertaking, their designhad been to write a number of short essays relating to manydifferent features in the religion and Church history of England inthe Eighteenth Century. This general purpose was adhered to; and itwas only after much deliberation that the word 'Chapters' wassubstituted for 'Essays.' There was, however, one importantmodification. Fewer subjects were, in the issue, specificallydiscussed, but these more in detail; while some questions – such,for instance, as that of the Church in the Colonies – were scarcelytouched upon. Hence a certain disproportion of treatment, which ageneral introductory chapter could but partially remedy.
PREFACE
T O
THE FIRST EDITION
Some years have elapsed since the authors of thiswork first entertained the idea of writing upon certain aspects ofreligious life and thought in the Eighteenth Century. If the groundis no longer so unoccupied as it was then, it appears to them thatthere is still abundant room for the book which they now lay beforethe public. Their main subject is expressly the English Church, andthey write as English Churchmen, taking, however, no narrower basisthan that of the National Church itself.
They desire to be responsible each for his ownopinions only, and therefore the initials of the writer areattached to each chapter he has written.
CHAPTER I.
I NTRODUCTORY.
The claim which the intellectual and religious lifeof England in the eighteenth century has upon our interest has beenmuch more generally acknowledged of late years than was the caseheretofore. There had been, for the most part, a disposition topass it over somewhat slightly, as though the whole period were aprosaic and uninteresting one. Every generation is apt todepreciate the age which has so long preceded it as to have nodirect bearing on present modes of life, but is yet notsufficiently distant as to have emerged into the full dignity ofhistory. Besides, it cannot be denied that the records of theeighteenth century are, with two or three striking exceptions, notof a kind to stir the imagination. It was not a pictorial age;neither was it one of ardent feeling or energetic movement. Itsspecial merits were not very obvious, and its prevailing faults hadnothing dazzling in them, nothing that could be in any way calledsplendid; on the contrary, in its weaker points there was adistinctly ignoble element. The mainsprings of the religious, aswell as of the political, life of the country were relaxed. In bothone and the other the high feeling of faith was enervated; and thisdeficiency was sensibly felt in a lowering of general tone, both inthe domain of intellect and in that of practice. The spirit offeudalism and of the old chivalry had all but departed, but hadleft a vacuum which was not yet supplied. As for loyalty, thehalf-hearted feeling of necessity or expedience, which for morethan half the century was the main support of the German dynasty,was something different not in degree only, but in kind, from thatwhich had upheld the throne in time past. Jacobitism, on the otherhand, was not strong enough to be more than a faction; and theRepublican party, who had once been equal to the Royalists infervour of enthusiasm, and superior to them in intensity ofpurpose, were now wholly extinct. The country increased rapidly instrength and in material prosperity; its growth was uninterrupted;its resources continued to develop; its political constitutiongained in power and consolidation. But there was a deficiency ofdisinterested principle. There was an open field for the operationof such sordid motives and debasing tactics as those whichdisgraced Walpole's lengthened administration.
In the following chapters there will be only toofrequent occasion to refer to a somewhat corresponding state ofthings in the religious life of the country. For two full centuriesthe land had laboured under the throes of the Reformation. Evenwhen William III. died, it could scarcely be said that England haddecisively settled the form which her National Church should take.The 'Church in danger' cries of Queen Anne's reign, and the bitterwar of pamphlets, were outward indications that suspense was notyet completely over, and that both friends and enemies felt theyhad still occasion to calculate the chances alike ofPresbyterianism and of the Papacy. But when George I. ascended thethrone in peace, it was at last generally realised that the'Settlement' of which so much had been spoken was now effectuallyattained. Church and State were so far secured from change, thattheir defenders might rest from anxiety. It was not a wholesomerest that followed. Long-standing disputes and the old familiarcontroversies were almost lulled to silence, but in their place asluggish calm rapidly spread over the Church, not only over theestablished National Church, but over it and also over everycommunity of Nonconformists. It is remarkable how closely thebeginning of the season of spiritual lassitude corresponds with theaccession of the first George. The country had never altogetherrecovered from the reaction of lax indifference into which it hadfallen after the Restoration. Nevertheless, a good deal hadoccurred since that time to keep the minds of Churchmen, as well asof politicians, awake and active: and a good deal had been done tostem the tide of immorality which had then broken over the kingdom.The Church of England was certainly not asleep either in the timeof the Seven Bishops, when James
II. was King, or under its Whig rulers at theend of the century. And in
Q ueen Anne'stime, amid all the virulence of hostile Church parties, there was ahealthy stream of life which made itself very visible in thenumerous religious associations which sprang up everywhere in thegreat towns. It might seem as if there were a certain heaviness inthe English mind, which requires some outward stimulus to keepalive its zeal. For so soon as the press of danger ceased, andparty strifes abated, with the accession of the House of Brunswick,Christianity began forthwith to slumber. The trumpet of Wesley andWhitefield was needed before that unseemly slumber could again bebroken.
It will not, however, be forgotten that twice insuccessive generations the Church of England had been deprived,through misfortune or through folly, of some of her best men. Shehad suffered on either hand. By the ejection of 1602, through a toostringent enforcement of the new Act of Uniformity, she had lostthe services of some of the most devoted of her Puritan sons, menwhose views were in many cases no way distinguishable from thosewhich had been held without rebuke by some of the most honouredbishops of Elizabeth's time. By the ejection of 1689, through whatwas surely a needless strain upon their allegiance, manyhigh-minded men of a different order of thought were driven, if notfrom her communion, at all events from her ministrations. It was ajuncture when the Church could ill afford to be weakened by thedefection of some of the most earnest and disinterested upholdersof the Primitive and Catholic, as contrasted with the more directlyProtestant elements of her Constitution. This twofold drain uponher strength could scarcely have failed to impair the robustvitality which was soon to be so greatly needed to combat the earlybeginnings of the dead resistance of spiritual lethargy.
But this listlessness in most branches of practicalreligion must partly be attributed to a cause which gives thehistory of religious thought in the eighteenth century itsprincipal importance. In proportion as the Church Constitutionapproached its final settlement, and as the controversies, whichfrom the beginning of the Reformation had been unceasingly underdispute, gradually wore themselves out, new questions came forward,far more profound and fundamental, and far more important in theirspeculative and practical bearings, than those which had attractedso much notice and stirred so much excitement during the twopreceding centuries. The existence of God was scarcely called intoquestion by the boldest doubters; or such doubts, if they foundplace at all, were expressed only under the most covertimplications. But, short of this, all the mysteries of religionwere scrutinized; all the deep and hidden things of faith werebrought in question, and submitted to the test of reason. Is theresuch a thing as a revelation from God to men of Himself and of Hiswill? If so, what is its nature, its purposes, its limits? What arethe attributes of God? What is the meaning of life? What is man'shereafter? Does a divine spirit work in man? and if it does, whatare its operations, and how are they distinguishable? What isspirit? and what is matter? What does faith rest upon? What is tobe said of inspiration, and authority, and the essential attributesof a church? These, and other questions of the most essentialreligious