Search Results

In his History of the variations of the Protestant Churches, his major work of confessional controversy, Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704) made a genuine effort to use various primary sources. In the case of England, however, he chose to rely on a single authority, Gilbert Burnet’s (1643-1715) History of the Reformation of the Church of England, which was available to him in a recent French translation. This reflected Bossuet’s tactical determination to employ only authors whom his Protestant adversaries could not object to, but also his paradoxical affinities with Burnet, whose very political reading of the English Reformation fitted well with his own interpretation. Burnet, however, had included in his History a rich collection of records, which Bossuet studied and occasionally used to challenge Burnet’s main text. Although Bossuet’s interests remained those of a polemical divine, he spoke the language of historical erudition to assert his trustworthiness.

This chapter analyzes English High Churchmanship in the 18th century. Topics discussed include Latitudinarianism and its loss of cohesion and distinctiveness, Tory High Church influences, and Hutchinsonianism and religious revival. Historians have sometimes conveyed the impression that the Hutchinsonians were the only genuine High Churchmen left in the Church of England in the second half of the 18th century. This is mistaken. The country at large exhibited many different manifestations of a Church-conscious and Sacrament-conscious divinity that still needed to be brought together. Some were inheritances from the past, mature and declining. Others, like Hutchinsonianism, bore the stamp of revival. Provincial centres had their distinctive traditions.

This chapter sets Baxter’s involvement with mechanical philosophy against the backdrop of the growth of mechanical philosophy, with particular attention to the growing interest in Epicurean ideas and the work of Pierre Gassendi. Baxter’s engagement with mechanical philosophy is traced in chronological sequence from the 1650s until his death in 1691. In the course of this narrative, Baxter’s personal relationships to Joseph Glanvill, Robert Boyle, Matthew Hale, and Henry More are surveyed. The context of Baxter’s manuscript and published works relating to mechanical philosophy are also discussed. Matthew Hale appears as a significant figure in the development of Baxter’s philosophical thought, as well as the production of his published works and the suppression from publication of an important manuscript on the nature and immortality of the soul.

This chapter traces what changed and what remained the same as a Calvinist theology of fellow feeling gave way to Cambridge Platonist thought and Latitudinarian preaching. Explicating the dual dynamic of sympathy—its function as both a godly duty and a discovery of grace—the conclusion shows how both components persisted even as emphases shifted. In particular, it argues that after the Salem witch trials, fellow feeling moved from a concern about with whom one sympathized to a measure of how much one fellow-felt with anyone, anywhere, in any pain, suffering, or distress. Even so, sympathy continued to mark identity: what it identified, however, was no longer godliness, but goodness—no longer the grace of salvation but the refinement of civilization. Thus, while the eighteenth-century tender-hearted cult of sensibility may not have recognized it, its presence included a past of sympathetic Puritans.

Chapter 7 explores anti-dogmatist attacks on Methodism. To Latitudinarians and heterodox ‘Rational Dissenters’, Methodists stifled the progress of the Reformation by defending ‘human’ dogmas, such as the Augustinian doctrine of original sin, infant baptism, and Trinitarianism. Ironically, these orthodox doctrines were also defended vociferously by anti-Methodist High Churchmen, who associated the controversial practices of evangelical leaders with the ‘enthusiastic’ excesses of the Reformation. To some, the Reformation had ended long ago, meaning that the Methodists’ endeavours were, at best, redundant, and, at worst, damaging. To others, the Reformation was a work in progress, which was being stifled by the Methodists’ dogmatic zeal for ‘orthodoxy’. The term ‘Methodism’, therefore, conjured up different images for different people. These images were, however, always rooted firmly in the past.

Chapter 6 explains the role that Wesley played in the events in Church and State between 1709 and 1714, the high point of Tory High Church ambition in Church and State. It suggests that Wesley probably did contribute to the defence of Henry Sacheverell, who was on trial in the House of Lords on the political charge of preaching a seditious sermon. Sacheverell and Wesley have so much in common that Wesley’s claim that he contributed to the defence seems entirely plausible. As a member of Convocation, between 1710 and 1713, Wesley emerged as an important figure in the period. In addition to much committee work and supporting the High Church Tory agenda, he also drafted a key report in 1713 which advanced the High Church clergy’s case against the Bishops and argued that the failure to pursue Church reform was the responsibility of the Latitudinarian Bishops. Also considered is Wesley’s response to the Peace of Utrecht, a major Tory victory against continuing a Whig war.