CHAPTER XVI THE CLOSING YEARS OF THE CENTURY First, it Bishop Beilby Porteus. We now pass to those churchmen who more adequately carried out the Church's system than did the Evangelicals, and who were theologians, which the Evangelicals were not. And on every account the name of Beilby Porteus demands the first place in this connexion. prevents the transition from the notice of the Evangelicals from being too abrupt, for, as has been already seen, Bishop Porteus was the first prelate who showed any sympathy with the Evangelical party. Indeed, he was so sympathetic that he has sometimes been spoken of as their leader. This seems to be going too far, but he had undoubtedly many points of contact with them. Further, he was distinctly the most prominent bishop of the day, and entered more into public life, was more generally known, and perhaps was more influential than any other. He has already been kept too long waiting, for he came into note at an earlier period, but it was not till the latter part of the century that his fame and influence reached their zenith. Beilby Porteus (17311808) was born at York and lived all his life in England. But both his parents were natives of Virginia, and it may be that his hereditary connexion with another land gave him a wider outlook than was usual in the Church of the eighteenth century. He was educated first at York and then at Ripon, whence he proceeded to Christ's College, Cambridge, where, after a brilliant academical career, he was elected Fellow in 1752. He remained at Cambridge till 1762, when he removed to Lambeth as domestic chaplain to Archbishop Secker. In 1765 the archbishop gave him the two small livings of Rucking and Wittersham, which he soon resigned for the rectory of Hunton, all in the county of Kent. In 1767 he became Rector of Lambeth; in 1769 a Royal chaplain, and Master of the Hospital of St. Cross, Winchester; in 1776 Bishop of Chester; and in 1787 Bishop of London. In all his spheres he was an exceedingly active worker and left his mark behind him. He was a great admirer of Archbishop Secker, and in 1770 published A Review of his Grace's Life and Character, in which he indignantly and justly vindicates the archbishop's memory from some most unwarranted aspersions. The two men were not unlike either in opinions or character, though, possibly from the reason suggested above, Porteus took a broader view, did not think the English Church as it was to be so perfect a piece of machinery as Secker— agreeing in this with Warburton, Hurd, and other typical eighteenth-century bishops-appeared to think it. In fact, as a parish priest and still more as a bishop Porteus was essentially a reformer. His Act sermon for his D.D. degree in 1767 was a plea for reform in the religious instruction of youth, and so worked upon John Norris, into whose hands it fell, that he was thereby moved to found the Norrisian professorship of divinity. Though he could not join in the Feathers' Tavern Petition of 1772, no doubt not wishing to identify himself with the opinions of Blackburne, he joined in the abortive petition to the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1778, for some reform of the Liturgy and Articles. As Rector of Lambeth he strove, not ineffectually, to bring about a reform as regards observance of Good Friday and other Fasts and Festivals of the Church; Chester. and the eleven years of his incumbency of the Bishop of see of Chester were marked by numerous energetic attempts, some successful, some not, to promote reform in various directions. He favoured the activity of the Evangelical school, then in its infancy, as no other bishop did. He felt for the poverty of many of the clergy in his diocese, and instituted a fund for their relief. He warmly encouraged the establishment of Church Sunday Schools. He carried successfully through the House of Lords in 1777 XVI BISHOP BEILBY PORTEUS 253 the Bill of Bishop Lowth, who was incapacitated through illhealth, against the frequent abuse of incumbents giving bonds of resignation. He took great interest in the welfare of negro slaves, and strove to enlist the Society for Propagating the Gospel in their favour. Bishop of When, therefore, he became Bishop of London in 1787, he threw himself into, and indeed took the lead in, that revived spirit of activity which marked the time of his episcopate; and as he survived till 1808, he lived long enough to see and rejoice in some of the fruits of that spirit. It would be wearisome to recount all the schemes for good to which he not only lent the weight of his name but gave active personal aid. One of his first acts was to give an impetus to the newly-formed Society for enforcing the King's proclamation against immorality and profaneness. He was by far the most energetic of all the dignitaries who helped Wilberforce in and out of Parliament in the Anti-Slave trade crusade. He backed up Hannah More both in her practical and literary work, praising the latter, it must be owned, in wildly extravagant terms. Under his auspices was formed a Society for the Conversion and Religious Instruction of Negroes in the West Indies, and he succeeded in transferring to this Society the bequest of Robert Boyle for missionary work in America when, after the Declaration of Independence, it could no longer be applied to its original use. He revived the long-neglected observance of the season of Lent, preaching for four successive years a course of Lenten lectures at St. James's, Piccadilly, which created an extraordinary sensation. He insisted strongly upon the religious observance of the Lord's Day, carrying his war against its desecration even into the very highest quarters, where, curiously enough, he was more successful with the irreligious Prince of Wales than with the religious King; for the Prince at once transferred his Sunday Club to a working day when the bishop represented to him how evil the example was; whereas he only succeeded in making George III. exceedingly angry when he remonstrated with him on the subject of the band playing on the terrace of Windsor Castle on Sunday afternoons. He set his face strongly against the importation of French principles, provid ing to the best of his ability, and encouraging his friend Hannah More to provide, antidotes against them. As at Chester, so when he went to Fulham he was a warm and active supporter of the new and rapidly spreading scheme of Sunday Schools, and did not in the least care about being dubbed a "Methodist" for his pains; for he was a man of independent spirit, with strong convictions and the courage of them. In fact, it may be doubted whether there was a more practically useful life during the whole of the century. It is one illustration of the lax views which prevailed in the eighteenth century about pluralities, that even this conscientious and reforming prelate thought it no harm to hold the rich living of Hunton in Kent in conjunction with the bishopric of Chester. Bishop He was Next to Bishop Porteus, Shute Barrington (1734-1826) was the prelate in the eighteenth century who approached nearest to Evangelicalism, though, like Porteus, he Shute did not wholly identify himself with it. Barrington. rather one of those men who like to recognise good work wherever it can be found, and as it was nowhere found in such abundance as among the Evangelicals, he so far, but only so far, was one with them. He was a friend of William Wilberforce and of Hannah More, but, as has already been intimated, both those good people had many attached friends with whom they could co-operate easily, outside the Evangelical circle. Bishop Barrington was also intimate with Charles Daubeny, one of the chiefs of the High Church party, and the patron of William Paley, the liberal churchman to whom he gave one of the most valuable livings in his diocese. He was a favourable specimen of the aristocratic type of prelate common in the latter half of the century, and he showed his high-breeding not by pride and exclusiveness, but by a delicate, dignified courtesy, and by a most generous and judicious use of the ample resources at his command as Bishop of Durham. Neither Porteus nor Barrington, however, approached the intellectual standard of another prelate who adorned the Bench in the later years of the century. Samuel Horsley (1733-1806) was the strongest writer in defence of the Catholic faith since the days of Butler, Waterland, and Law. It is to be noted that he does not appear XVI BISHOP HORSLEY Samuel 255 to have distinguished himself at either of the universities, though he was connected with both, and his earlier writings seem to indicate that his special strength lay in science rather than in theology. It is probably to Bishop Lowth that we owe this champion of the faith, for though Horsley took holy orders, and held, first, the living of Newington in Surrey and then of Albury, his mind was chiefly given to scientific pursuits until Lowth, on his appointment to the see of London in 1777, made him his domestic chaplain and prebendary of St. Paul's, and gave him various preferments-Vicar of Thorley in 1780, Archdeacon of St. Albans in 1782, and when he resigned Thorley, Vicar of South Weald, Essex. It was as Archdeacon of St. Albans that Horsley first showed how great a divine he was. His charges in that capacity are masterpieces in defence of the Holy Trinity. His first charge, delivered in 1783, contains a crushing criticism of Priestley's History of the Corruptions of Christianity, which had been published the year before. The controversy between them went on until 1790, when Priestley left the country. The titles of Horsley's writings on the Trinity give a very inadequate idea of their importance. "Tracts," Remarks," "Letters" lead us to expect slight productions, whereas in point of fact Horsley not only demolished his adversary but carried on the work which Waterland had begun sixty years earlier. He showed to demonstration the impossibility of taking any middle ground between Trinitarianism-in other words, the Catholic faithand Unitarianism pure and simple. His works are models of English composition, pure and stately in style, irrefragable in argument, sarcastic, but never scurrilous. His sermons and his speeches in the House of Lords after he became a bishop, which have been published separately, are equally conspicuous for their powerful reasoning and admirable English. They a little remind us of Bishop Horne's, showing the same dignity and restrained force; but though Horne is very good, Horsley is better. And yet Horsley is forgotten. As Bishop successively of St. David's 1788, Rochester 1793, and St. Asaph 1802, Horsley showed himself an active and conscientious worker, especially in his two Welsh sees, where bishops were not wont to work diligently. Altogether |