CHURCH AND DISSENT

dissent.

5

dissenting congregations schismatical; but such questions belonged to a class of ideas which had no great interest at the moment. The reaction against this state of feeling, when it came, was, like all reactions, a positive movement. A protest against darkness is a cry for light; the strong man armed is driven out, not by his own carelessness, but by a stronger than he. In this conflict of opinion, which was to occupy the greater part of the nineteenth century, the aggres- Churchmansive force proceeded from a sense of churchmanship, ship and brought into strong relief by the Methodist secession. The Whig latitudinarianism of the Low Church body had lost vitality. The sleepy orthodoxy of the so-called High Church party, allied with political Toryism and hostile to all religious excitement, had yet retained some of the feeling which had been brought out by the death of Charles I. and the fall of James II., and the light of high Anglican doctrine had never been wholly extinguished. The Wesleyan secession revived it. But the secession also drew attention to the fact that the Church of England, under the conduct of the High Church party, had lost her hold upon the conscience of the poor whereas at the beginning of the eighteenth century it was reckoned that one man in twenty-five was a Dissenter, the proportion in 1800 was estimated at one in four.

The Church, beyond other established institutions, was looked upon as the great bulwark of stability. Here centred

the conservative forces, stimulated by the war The clergy. with France. The clergy were almost unanimous

in supporting the war and the Ministry, both from conviction. and from fear of change. There was little to distinguish them from the laity. They were not a separate order, but shared the opinions and sentiments of the ruling class. They visited the sick and ministered to the poor; but many of them did little spiritual work, neglected Church observances, were careless about education, lived throughout the week much as the squires and lesser gentry to whom they preached on Sunday mornings, and administered the Sacrament once or at most three or four times a year. Pluralism, non-residence, and the abuses of translation and patronage were at their height. The official theology of charges and pastoral letters was chiefly directed against Dissenters and Evangelicals.

Controversy took the same line, a line stopping short at the Reformation; the defenders, such as Archdeacon Daubeny, and the opposers, such as Sir Richard Hill, taking their stand upon the Anglican settlement, and reading into its formularies Calvinist or anti-Calvinist doctrines. The attitude of the Church was high and dry.' The beneficed clergy upheld the use and wont of the Establishment, the malcontents wished for more vital religion and love of souls; neither party desired much social or political change.

The ecclesiastical abuses which were attacked in 1831 were not confined to one or the other of the two parties in the Church which bore the names of High Church and Low Church. Both alike were opposed to reform, both condemned enthusiasm and methodism. The two parties have greatly changed their character since the evangelical revival of the eighteenth century, when the High Church party did not hold high sacramental doctrine, nor the Low Church strong and clear views of regeneration and conversion. The High Church party was Tory, the Low Church Whig, and respect for the memory of Charles I. on the one hand, and William III. on the other, Iwould be a fair test of distinction. The origin of the term 'evangelical' is obscure; it is not certain whether it was first applied as a nickname or adopted as a watchword. John Wesley's breach with the Church accentuated the difference between those of the revival who seceded and those who remained in communion with the Church of England. latter assumed or accepted the title 'evangelical'; and after the extinction of the old political latitudinarian Low Church party, or its absorption into Liberalism, the name Low Church was applied, as it still is, to the evangelical portion of the Church of England.

The

It may seem surprising, when we look back at the distance of a century, that the Churchmen of 180o did not see the signs of coming change. Even thirty years later the call to 'set her house in order' came upon the Church as a surprise, and the ecclesiastical legislation which followed was carried out in the hurry and confusion of panic. But this blindness was natural enough. The parishioners went to church; tithes and church rates were paid; outward respect was shown to the clergy; their windows were not broken nor their ricks

HIGH CHURCH AND LOW CHURCH

7

burnt; they had no reason to feel themselves unpopular. From the days of Noah to those of the latest revolution it has been so; the threatened class or institution has never felt the need of reform till the storm came; disaffection may exist and increase, and yet find no voice to express itself, till a common grievance leads to combination, and finds expression in some emphatic act. At this time, moreover, the attention of the nation was directed to the war with France, the condition of Ireland, the volunteer movement, and the widely spread distress and discontent among the working classes, and ecclesiastical affairs were in the background. Pitt's influence ruled public opinion, and the bulk of the clergy were hearty supporters of Pitt.

The present writer must ask for some indulgence if he, goes over ground which has already been traversed, to some extent, by that volume of this series which treats of the eighteenth century. The important figures of the early nineteenth century cannot be dissociated from the events of the eighteenth, and a certain amount of repetition is unavoidable.

High Church

and

Low Church.

The early history of the Church Missionary Society, of the Bible Society and other religious and philanthropic associations, and of the agitation against the slave trade, throws a light upon the condition of parties in the Church of England at the beginning of the nineteenth century. It is sometimes assumed that the evangelical revival which divided the Church into High and Low had put the evangelical party in a dominant position. Nothing can be farther from the truth. The preaching of Wesley and Whitefield produced a deep and wide impression upon the lower and middle classes, reinforced the 'Three Denominations' of Baptists, Presbyterians, and Independents, by a large increase of members, and founded a new denomination. But it hardly touched the clergy, the universities, or the upper classes. 'Enthusiasm' was a byword among all; the spirit of the non-jurors was almost dead, though there was still a remnant who maintained Arminian or high Anglican doctrine; all but a few held easy Church-and-State opinions, and were content to leave things as they were, in 'dignified tameness.' The Low Church or latitudinarian party traced their descent to

the Whigs of the Revolution, and were rather political than religious. The principal cause for distinction disappeared with the Jacobite danger, though before that High Churchmen had become Georgian, and Low Churchmen had become orthodox. Of 'vital religion' there was not much on either side. It must be acknowledged, and Mr. Stock, the historian of the Church Missionary Society, does not scruple to avow it, that the Clapham sect was not dominant in the Church of England. 'It represented a small minority; it was either hated or despised by most Churchmen,' One of the Venn family was excluded, merely on account of his name, from Trinity College, Cambridge; Henry Martyn was kept out of orthodox pulpits; when Hannah More was taken to Clapham in the carriage of Bishop Porteus, with whom she was staying, to call upon John Venn, the coachman was ordered to set her down at the Bull's Head, not at the Rector's door. 'Evangelical' clergy, as they called themselves, few in number but noisy and inconvenient, were looked upon as dangerous innovators and bad subjects. No high promotion for such men was dreamed of, either by themselves or by their supporters. It was with difficulty that they could be provided with humble livings, curacies or preacherships; the universities rejected 'serious' candidates, Unpopularity of serious and bishops scrupled at ordaining them and attacked Churchmen. Church-Methodism' in their charges. Even as late as 1810 the lists of subscribers to the Church Missionary Society contain no names of peers or bishops, no support from the cathedrals, nor from the universities, except so far as Simeon's friends may be reckoned. The clergy refused to let its missionaries preach in their churches, the older religious societies frowned upon them, the magistrates were slow to enforce the law in their favour.

But the shouting of preachers, the noise of hymn-singing in the fields, the secession to Methodism of many among the poor and the middle classes, the general shock to established institutions which was sent through the world by the French Revolution, could not but startle the slumbering Philanthropic Church. The instinct of defence was roused the disturbers of quiet became more unpopular than ever, but more attention was drawn to their doctrines. The

movement.

I

THE EVANGELICAL SUCCESSION

9

evangelical school became identified with the philanthropic movements which mark the latter part of the century, unquestionably the result of Rousseau's influence.

Eminent

A tradition of holy friendship gives fragrance to the 'Evangelical Succession' of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Newton and Cowper, the Wesleys and Whitefield, the Hills, Venns, Bickersteths, Evangelicals. Thorntons, and Milners, Scott, Cecil, Hannah More, and in the later generation Wilberforce and the Clapham circle, Simeon and the Cambridge circle, were friends and friends' friends, walking in the House of God. They held the same doctrines of moderate Calvinism, read the same books, used the same devotions and religious observances, maintained and suffered for the same causes, made the same protest against worldliness both by precept and example; in all they were supported by the strength of brotherhood. There was wisdom as well as piety in their course of life, for consistency always wins respect. They rescued the old tradition of Puritan seriousness and strictness of life from the Pharisaism of respectability into which it had sunk, warmed it into life by what their opponents called 'enthusiasm,' and set an example of unobtrusive godliness which, however open to ridicule and censure, raised the level of family life in England, and did noble service in the cause of philanthropy. It was this, more than their influence as religious teachers, that put easy-going religion to shame. Judged by their fruits, they could claim to have revived personal religion in the nation, and stimulated associated and corporate action. a sensitive judgment they might seem even to incur the imputation of dependence upon works, so freely cast upon the Roman Church at the time of the Reformation. Reliance upon works was indeed one of the errors against which they chiefly preached; the doctrine of the hymn 'Rock of Ages' was their doctrine, and the vanity of secular learning and charitable works their theme, nor were they ever untrue to their principles; yet they owed their prominence in the early years of the century principally to their activity in philanthropic movements, headed by leaders who showed that strictness in religion could be combined with efficiency in business.

Το

In doctrine, these 'enthusiasts' were more fervent than