I

INTRODUCTION

The third had far more varied and wide-reaching effects. It startled and excited the whole English people, but it affected different classes in different ways, and

Revolution.

also the same people in different ways at different The French times. But one general effect resulted in all cases which differentiated the last decade of the century from those which preceded it. Whether it was right or wrong, a blessing or a curse; whether it was the harbinger of a glorious time coming, or the bird of ill omen that precedes the storm which will presently carry havoc and disaster in its mad career, the French Revolution at any rate disturbed the prevailing quiet, creating wild hopes on the one side and wild fears on the other, and by its subsequent development turning hopes into fears in a most bewildering manner. The extraordinary circulation of such books as Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, and of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man, in answer to Burke, are illustrations of the spirit on both sides. Paine's later book, The Age of Reason, and Hannah More's Village Politics by "Will Chip," show how the religious element became even more prominent than the political; while Sir James Mackintosh's Vindiciae Gallicae, so soon to be followed by his open recantation, illustrates markedly how hopes were changed into fears.

New tendencies.

But one thing was common to all parties both in Church and State-a general awakening. The reign of lethargy was over. The reign of energy was begun. One definite change, so far as religion was concerned, may be noted, a marked alienation between the Church and Protestant dissenters, and a marked decrease of the hostility of the Church towards Rome. For, on the one side, the English dissenters (not including under that term the Methodists, who were strongly Anti-revolutionary) were supposed to be tainted by the revolutionary spirit; and, on the other side, the immigrant clergy from France were received in England with a respectful sympathy which went far to sink minor differences as to this and that mode of Christianity, so long as men were clearly seen to be on the side of Christianity at all. The Priestley riots in Birmingham, and the prevalence of the "Church and King" cry, are tokens of a very general feeling. But all this will appear in

detail in the account of the last period, which, though the shortest in point of time, is perhaps the most distinctive and most momentous of all.

The concluding chapters will deal with some aspects of the time which must be treated differently from the rest. The work of the Church at home may be divided into periods, but the work of the Church abroad cannot without great inconvenience be taken otherwise than consecutively. Hence a chapter is devoted to the Missionary and Colonial work of the Church from 1714 to the end of the century. The titles of the other chapters explain themselves.

AUTHORITIES.-On the general history of the Church in the eighteenth century the student should consult Lord Mahon's History of England from the Peace of Utrecht to the Peace of Versailles, 1713-1783, 7 vols. ; W. E. H. Lecky's History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 7 vols. (cabinet edition); Abbey and Overton's The English Church in the Eighteenth Century (the two volume edition is the better); Abbey's The English Church and its Bishops, 1700-1800, 2 vols., a work of first-class importance and by no means so well known as it deserves to be; William Stebbing's Verdicts of History Reviewed; Archdeacon Perry's Student's English Church History, vol. iii.; the brief sketch at the close of volume ii. is noteworthy as being the first ever made of the period from an ecclesiastical point of view. The third volume of Perry requires to be read with caution. It is marred throughout by a one-sided view of men and movements, and in many instances its verdicts have already been reversed by closer and more impartial investigation.

FIRST PERIOD, 1714-1738

CHAPTER II

THE BANGORIAN CONTROVERSY AND THE SILENCING OF

CONVOCATION

Queen Anne and King

George I.

It may seem strange at first sight that an apparently slight change from one rather insignificant sovereign to another should produce so great and immediate an alteration in the condition of the Church as the change from Queen Anne to King George I. undoubtedly did. Neither Queen Anne nor King George can in any sense be called great monarchs, though poets might sing and preachers might speak of "great Anne," and men like Toland write of George I. that "never before did Britain possess a king endowed with so many glorious qualities," and a dissenter (and therefore, of course, a Whig and Anti-Jacobite) say of him that he was born a hero, "the choice both of God and the people, and the very darling of heaven." Neither of them had the hereditary right to the crown, and there was not much difference between their respective claims, for both were descended from one common ancestor of three generations back. It did not make much matter whether there was only one, as in the case of Anne, or many, as in the case of George, who had a prior claim, for the title of both was in reality a parliamentary title. The personality, moreover, of neither of them was of such a character as to impress itself deeply upon any community.

But when we penetrate a little below the surface, it is not

Differences of

the throne.

difficult to find reasons sufficiently strong to account for the change which so rapidly followed. For in the first "title" to place, the two sovereigns, though not of much account in themselves, represented, each of them, an idea. By some peculiar process which it is hard to explain logically, many people had undoubtedly persuaded themselves that Queen Anne had "the Divine right,” was not only a parliamentary, but an hereditary sovereign. The Jacobite regarded her as a sort of regent for her brother, who was a mere boy at her accession, and the most ardent advocates for the Stewarts deprecated the pressing of his claim during his sister's lifetime. The revival on her accession of the superstition of the royal touch, the publication of her grandfather Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, the preaching of innumerable sermons on the Divine right, the utter failure of the attempt to punish Dr. Sacheverell for advocating that doctrine in its most extreme form, all tended to show that Queen Anne was regarded as the lawful sovereign, whom churchmen of the most marked type, who held what was called "the peculiar doctrine of the Church of England," as distinguished from "papists" on the one hand and "plebists" on the other hand, might consistently obey. But this could not, by the very utmost stretch of reasoning, be said of George I. He was a parliamentary king or he was nothing. So the Church, which had, most unwisely, committed itself up to the hilt to the hereditary as opposed to the parliamentary principle, found itself placed in a strangely false position. High churchmen must either eat their own words or must stand aloof from the new dynasty. A large number of laymen and the vast majority of the inferior clergy gave only a sullen acquiescence with a doubting conscience to the Government. This was in itself

demoralising and tended to paralyse all active efforts. Then, again, Queen Anne, according to her lights, had certainly been a conscientious churchwoman from conviction, whereas the new king had not the least conception George's churchman- either of what the Church of England was, or the ship. faintest interest in it, except as a powerful institution in his new country which had to be reckoned with. In a country like England the influence of the Throne must

II

INFLUENCE OF WALPOLE

13

always be great, and it would hardly be too much to say that in the Queen's time that influence was generally exerted for, in the King's against the Church.

the Church.

But far more powerful than the influence of the Crown was that of the minister who, during nearly the whole of the years embraced by this period, was paramount Sir Robert in every department, and especially in that depart- Walpole and ment with which we here are now concerned. It would be difficult to imagine any policy which would be more disastrous to the true interests of the Church than that of Sir Robert Walpole. If he had shown no interest in the Church at all, and simply allowed it to take its own course in its own proper sphere, things would have been better. The Church was strong enough to stand by itself without being propped up by State aid and State patronage. If he had even shown his hostility to it by mulcting it of its revenues, so far as he could, and by showing all the favour in his power towards its rivals, the Church would not in the end have been seriously damaged. If he had swept away Test Acts, Corporation Acts, Uniformity Acts, in fact, all those artificial supports which were no supports at all, the Church, as a spiritual society, would have been the stronger for their loss. But he did none of these things. He looked upon the Church as a useful State engine, and he did his best, and with only too much success, to degrade it to that level. His policy simply and directly tended to stop the progress of good work. Happily for the Church, Walpole was for some time greatly under the influence of Bishop Gibson in Church matters, and that influence told in another and better direction. But the immediate results of his policy were sufficiently disastrous.

A full stop was put to the scheme of building fifty-two new churches within the Bills of Mortality, which hitherto had been going on prosperously. Only the follow- Church ing were actually built under the Act of Queen building Anne-St. Alphege, Greenwich; St. Anne, Lime- stopped. house; Christ Church, Spitalfields; St. George-in-the-East; St. Mary, Stratford-le-Bow (probably a restoration); St. James, Bermondsey; St. John, Horsley Down; St. John, Westminster; St. George, Bloomsbury; St. George, Queen's