HUTCHINSONIANS

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things which it could not be very agreeable to them to hear," such as that schism was "as undoubtedly a sin as adultery and drunkenness "; that, "generally speaking," there was no salvation outside the Church; and that schismatics, infidels, and apostates were all equally under "the curse of God." They respected the Methodists on account of their spiritual fervour and their desire still to be reckoned as Churchmen; and they were as much displeased as the Evangelicals with "some of our most celebrated divines" who had extolled "who had extolled "the dignity of human nature and the wisdom of human reason." In politics they were Tories, even to the extent of passive obedience a doctrine which they revived in favour of George II.

But the most remarkable feature of this school was the combination of considerable learning with a timidity and puerility of thought which would be unaccountable, did we not remember that they were a reaction against the spirit of rational inquiry which had extinguished the Nonjuror tradition. With few exceptions, the High Churchmen of this period were Hutchinsonians disciples of John Hutchinson, who in 1737 had attempted to confute Newton's theory of gravitation on the ground that it attributed innate powers to matter and was therefore calculated to promote materialism—which, indeed, he more than suspected to be its actual design; and there is no lack of evidence to support the statement of Jones, that, when a student had assimilated this system, " a great revolution succeeds in his ideas of the natural world." Indeed one hardly sees how he could have any such ideas at all. Horne held, and Jones agreed with him, that the reason was made to learn, not to teach. It was the mental, as the eye was the physical, organ of vision; and as the eye could not see without light, so the reason could not know without supernatural instruction-a conclusion which appears to have been illogically confined to the "things of heaven." Even

as thus limited, however, it ruled out as impious as well as futile natural religion, which Hutchinson called “ the religion of Satan," moral philosophy, and metaphysics, and made inroads even on pure scholarship. It might have been supposed that any attempt to secure the verbal authenticity of Scripture would be welcomed by those who believed it to be literally inspired. Yet when Dr. Kennicott in 1753 published proposals for a revision of the Hebrew text, he was opposed by the Hutchinsonians because "it hurt and alarmed them to see a learned gentleman plead and argue as if he had a victory to obtain by proving the corruption of the Hebrew text"; because infidels had found imaginary errors and would be encouraged to find more; and because the spirit must be endangered "while the rage of editing prevails and the state of the copy is the grand object.” One cannot wonder that the term Hutchinsonian became a "damnatory title," and that those who bore it were accused not only of "insulting and trampling upon reason," but of "a great contempt for learning.' Bishop Horne died in 1792, and was followed eight years later by his biographer, Jones. Stevens, who wrote the life of Jones, survived till 1807. Fond of bestowing sobriquets on his associates, he had selected that of Nobody " for himself; and there still exists, or existed very lately, a club composed mainly of High Churchmen, which had been formed in honour of Stevens some years before his death and called itself "Nobody's Friends." His successor as lay adjutant to this corps was Joshua Watson, a wealthy wine merchant of pious and energetic

"1

1 Jones's Life of Horne, 1795, pp. 32, 36, 66, 67, 96-98, 108, 110, 184; Park's Life of Stevens, p. 79; Horne's Apology for Certain Gentlemen, etc. (published 1756), 2nd edition, 1799, pp. 15-19, 22, 37. Horne believed that the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 was foretold in Amos. But his wit was keener than his intelligence. Hume having remarked that all the devout persons he had ever met were melancholy, Horne said this was likely enough, as he probably saw very few, and "the sight of him would make a devout person melancholy at any time."

ARCHDEACON DAUBENY

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II

character whom he had playfully extolled as "the first man of the age." But Watson had escaped the Hutchinsonian contagion, and the chief representative of this cult was now Archdeacon Daubeny, his uncle by marriage. Daubeny beheld with horror the growth of Dissent or, as he called it, schism, and denounced its chapels as synagogues of Satan." He lamented the almost universal ignorance" with respect to the nature and constitution of the Church," and believed that the tide of defection would be stemmed if the clergy could but convince the people having previously convinced themselves of the supernatural virtues inherent in their commission; for "from being uninterested in our office they soon become indifferent to it." He admitted, however, that even this remedy might fail, and more than hinted that " our governors" might then be expected to redress the balance, unless, indeed, they had “drunk so deep of the intoxicating cup of modern liberality as to profess an equal indifference to all religious persuasions." The liberty claimed by the schismatics was in his opinion "rather a liberty of their own making than any portion of that liberty with which Christ has made them free.” 2

That the Church could promote but could not secure the salvation of its members was the principle asserted at the Reformation; and it has been well said of this principle as revived by Wesley that "the birthday of a Christian was shifted from his baptism to his conversion, and in that change the partition line of two great systems is crossed." The change, however, was one which the

"

1 The doctrine of schism has at least this disadvantage, that it chalks out one path more to the devil than he had before."-Jeremy Taylor.

• Daubeny's Guide to the Church, 3rd edition, i. 106; Charge, 1809, PP. 10, 14, 37. The Archdeacon had another and better way of combating schism; for, through his exertions, and largely at his expense, was built at Bath in 1798 the first church in which all seats to the number of 1360-were free.

Julia Wedgwood's John Wesley and the Evangelical Reaction, P. 157.

generation that witnessed it could not fully appreciate; for in those days the rites of the Church were regarded rather as the framework of devotion than as the vehicles of grace; and the reproach of enthusiasm which was brought against the Methodists is in itself a proof of this mundane spirit. It is significant that Bishop Horne was considered as liable to the same charge; and it was not till the reaction caused by the French Revolution had stimulated both types of religion that the antagonism between them became acute. To High Churchmen the Evangelicals were far more obnoxious than the Nonconformists, whom, whilst regretting the extreme dubiety of their salvation, they professed to respect; for the Evangelicals were addicted to an alien theology and attached no exclusive value to the government and sacraments of the Church, and could thus be represented as fighting under the banners of one party whilst accepting the pay of another.

Two great societies had been established by the Evangelicals since the beginning of the century-the Church Missionary Society and the British and Foreign Bible Society. The latter was managed by a committee, the clerical members of which were composed in equal numbers of Churchmen and Dissenters; and its object was the circulation of the Scriptures without note or comment. In November 1811, when the Bible Society had existed for seven years, Herbert Marsh, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, was startled and incensed by what he regarded as the democratic as well as the methodistical proposal that a branch should be formed amongst the Cambridge undergraduates; and, the design having been accomplished, he published early in 1812 “An Inquiry into the Consequences of the Neglect to give the Prayer Book with the Bible."

When the Evangelicals read these words on the title page of Marsh's tract, they may well have believed that their assailant had delivered himself into their

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hands. If they were liable to be called Methodists, High Churchmen were equally liable to be called Papists; and here was one of this school maintaining that, whilst Churchmen might combine with Dissenters to circulate the Bible abroad, where the object was to promote Protestantism in general, they could not at home dissociate it from the Liturgy without endangering the Church. Marsh did not conceal his repudiation of Chillingworth's adage, “The Bible, and the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants," and warned his brethren that, if they were content with the "generalised Protestantism" which satisfied Chillingworth, they might live as he very nearly did-to see the Liturgy abolished by Act of Parliament.1 The Professor was inevitably reminded that, when he enlarged on the danger of a perversion of Scripture, he was employing the very argument used by Papists in defence of their denial of the Bible to the laity; and this rejoinder was enforced by a Romanist pamphleteer, who congratulated him on having given up the "vital principle of Protestantism." Many High Churchmen hastened to his support; but some of them wrote in defence of the Bible Society; and Robert Southey, whilst expressing his concurrence in Marsh's argument, said it was almost certain to be misrepresented and was not worth the risk, as nine-tenths of the Bible Society's business was in foreign countries. "I wish Herbert Marsh had let the Bible Society alone." The controversy was violent and prolonged, but not too much so for Marsh, who defied all his opponents, from the Edinburgh Review to "the Evangelical Magazine and the other broods of Methodism which are hatched at the expiration of every month and peck by instinct at the Margaret Professor." 2

Those who thought it unsafe to circulate the Bible

■ Inquiry, 2nd edition, pp. 31, 36, 75.

Most of the tracts in this controversy are summarised in Baker's History of St. John's College, Cambridge, pp. 741-857.