support the government. This change was accelerated by the
silencing of convocation. A sermon by Hoadly, bishop of Bangor,
impugned the existence of a visible church, and the “Bangorian
controversy” which ensued threatened to end in the condemnation
of his opinions by convocation, or at least by the lower
house. As this would have weakened the government, convocation
was prorogued, letters of business were withheld, and from
1717 until 1852 convocation, the church’s constitutional organ
of reform, existed only in name. Walpole during his long
ministry, from 1721 to 1742, discouraged activity in the church
lest it should become troublesome to his government. Preferment
was shamelessly sought after even by pious men, and was
begged and bestowed on the ground of political services. In
this the clergy, apart from the sacredness of clerical office, were
neither better nor worse than the laity; in morality and decency
they were better even at the lowest point of their decline, about
the middle of the century. While the church was inactive in
practical work, it showed vigour in the intellectual defence of
Christianity. Controversies of earlier origin with assailants of
the faith were ably maintained by, among others, Daniel
Waterland, William Law, a nonjuror, Bishop Butler, whose
Analogy appeared in 1736, and Bishop Berkeley. A revival of
spirituality and energy at last set in. Its origin has been traced
to Law’s Serious Call, published in 1728. Law’s teaching was
actively carried out by John Wesley (q.v.), a clergyman who from
1739 devoted himself to evangelization. Though his preaching
awoke much religious feeling, specially among the lower classes,
the excitement which attended it led to a horror of religious
enthusiasm, and his methods irritated the parochial clergy.
Some of them seconded his efforts, but far more regarded them
with violent and often unworthily expressed dislike. While he
urged his followers to adhere to the church, he could not himself
work in subordination to discipline; the Methodist organization
which he founded was independent of the church’s system and
soon drifted into separation. Nevertheless, he did much to bring
about a revival of life in the church. Several clergy became
his allies, and some preached in Lady Huntingdon’s chapels
before her secession. These were among the fathers of the
Evangelical party: they differed from the Methodists in not
forming an organization, remaining in the church, working on
the parochial system, and generally holding Calvinistic doctrine,
being so far nearer to Whitfield than to Wesley, though Calvinism
gradually ceased to be a mark of the party. The Evangelicals
soon grew in number, and their influence for good was extensive.
They laid stress on the depravity of human nature, and on the
importance of conscious conversion, giving prominence to the
necessity of personal salvation rather than of incorporation with,
and abiding in, the church of the redeemed. Prominent among
their early leaders after they became distinct from the Methodists
were William Romaine, Henry Venn and John Newton.
Bishop Porteus of London sympathized with them, Lord Dartmouth
was a liberal patron, and Cowper’s poetry spread their
doctrines in quarters where sermons might have failed to attract.
Religion was also forwarded in the church by the example of
George III. During his reign the progress of toleration, though
slow and fitful, greatly advanced both as regards Roman Catholics
and Protestant dissenters. The spirit of rationalism, which
had been manifested earlier in attacks on revelation, appeared
in a movement against subscription to the Articles demanded
of the clergy and others which was defeated in parliament in
1772. The alarm consequent on the French Revolution checked
the progress of toleration and was temporarily fatal to free-thinking;
it strengthened the position of the church, which
was regarded as a bulwark of society against the spread of
revolutionary doctrines; and this caused the Evangelicals to
draw off more completely from the Methodists. The church
was active: the Sunday-school movement, begun in 1780,
flourished; the crusade against the slave-trade was vigorously
supported by Evangelicals; and the Church Missionary Society
(C.M.S.), a distinctly Evangelical organization, was founded.
Excellent as were the results of the revival generally, the
Evangelicals had defects which tended to weaken the church.
Some characteristics of their teaching were repellent to the
young; they were deficient in theological learning, and often
in learning of any kind; they took a low view of the church,
regarding it as the offspring of the Protestant reformation;
they expounded the Bible without reference to the church’s
teaching, and paid little heed to the church’s directions. Dissent
consequently grew stronger. By the Act of Union with Ireland
the Churches of England and Ireland were united from the
1st of January 1801, and the continuance of the united church
was declared an essential part of the union. No provision,
however, was made giving the Irish clergy a place in convocation,
which was evidently held unlikely to revive. The union of the
churches was dissolved in 1871 by an act of 1869 for disestablishing
the Irish Church.
Apart from the Evangelical revival, religion was advanced in the church. In 1811 the education of the poor was provided for on church principles by the National Society; the Church Building Society was founded in 1818; and the colonial episcopate was started by the establishment The Oxford Movement. of bishoprics in Calcutta in 1814, and in Jamaica and Barbados in 1824. Yet reforms were urgently needed. In 1813, out of about 10,800 benefices, 6311 are said to have been without resident incumbents (The Black Book, p. 34); the value of some great offices was enormous, while many of the parochial clergy were wretchedly poor. The repeal of the Test Act, long practically inoperative, in 1828, and Catholic emancipation in 1829, mark a change in the relations of church and state; and the Reform Bill of 1832 transferred political power from a class which generally supported the church to classes in which dissent was strong. The national zeal for reform was directed towards the church, not always in a friendly spirit. Yet wholesome changes were effected by legislation: dioceses were rearranged and two new bishoprics founded at Manchester and Ripon, the bishopric of Bristol, however, being suppressed; plurality and non-residence were abolished; tithes were commuted, and the Ecclesiastical Commission, which has effected reforms in respect of endowments, was permanently established in 1836. Some changes and proposals alarmed churchmen, specially as legislation for the church proceeded from parliament, while convocation remained silenced. Latitudinarian opinions revived, and the church was regarded merely as a human institution. Among the clergy generally ritual observance was neglected and rubrical directions disobeyed. A few churchmen, including Keble and Newman, set themselves to revive church feeling, and Oxford became the centre of a new movement. The publication of Keble’s Christian Year prepared its way, and its aims were declared in his assize sermon at Oxford on “National Apostasy” in 1833. Its promoters urged their views in Tracts for the Times, and were strengthened by the adhesion of Pusey. Hence they were nicknamed Tractarians or Puseyites. Their cardinal doctrine was that the Church of England was a part of the visible Holy Catholic Church and had unbroken connexion with the primitive church; they inculcated high views of the sacraments, and emphasized points of agreement with those branches of the Catholic Church which claim apostolic succession. Their party grew in spite of the opposition of low and broad churchmen, who, specially on the publication of Tract XC. by Newman in 1841, declared that its teaching was Romanizing. In 1845 Newman and several others seceded to Rome. Newman’s apostasy was a severe blow to the church, though permanent injury was averted by the steadfastness of Pusey. The Oxford movement was wrecked, but its effect survived both in the new high church party and in the church at large. As a body the clergy rated more highly the responsibilities and dignity of their profession, and became more zealous in the performance of its duties and more ecclesiastically minded. High churchmen carried out rubrical directions, and after a while began to introduce changes into the performance of divine service which had not been adopted by the early leaders of the party, were deprecated by many bishops, and excited opposition.
In 1833 the supreme jurisdiction of the Court of Delegates was transferred to the judicial committee of the privy council. Before this court came an appeal by a clerk named Gorham,
