Search

Christianity and government Conservative and radical Christians The widespread assumption that Christianity was a natural prop to government rested upon an interpretation of the faith which did not go unchallenged or undefended. On the most superficial level, there was some discussion of whether or not it was proper to introduce politics into the pulpit. Most agreed in practice that, whilst it was improper for their political opponents to do so, their own views were so quintessentially truthful they were not out of place. Burke argued that politics should be kept out of the pulpit if the preacher were a man like Richard Price; such a ‘confusion of duties’ benefited neither liberty, government nor religion. Like most establishment writers, he assumed that sermons defending the political and social status quo were acceptable, while those advocating change were not. Many radicals pointed out that political sermons from conservative clerics were traditional on Martyrdom Day and on fast days appointed by the king and ministers for political reasons; moreover, from 1793 the clergy had prayed for the success of the nation's fleets and armies against those of another political ideology. In 1793 the Vicar of Wellsbourn, J. H. Williams, complained that the clergy had become mere instruments of the secular government. The church was no more than an ‘engine of state’ valued and rewarded for its social usefulness. Conscience made a clergyman defend government in general, but ambition led him to support the policies of an administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chronological boundaries of this book are largely arbitrary ones. It is not implied that there were seams in Clio's garment either in 1760 or in 1832. The changes that took place were significant, but gradual. The social arguments of the 1830s would have shocked no one in the 1760s, although the need to reiterate them so frequently, stridently and almost exclusively would have suggested a lack of confidence in the stability of society. The religious grounds of political obligation as advanced in 1760 would have been denied in the 1830s only by the most radical, although even to conservatives pragmatic or utilitarian arguments would have seemed safer than those based on abstract principles. Yet something momentous had happened. Coleridge, in 1816, asserted that ‘the epoch-forming Revolutions of the Christian world, the revolutions of religion, and with them the civil, social and domestic habits of the nations concerned, have coincided with the rise and fall of metaphysical systems’. Somewhat less portentously, J. G. A. Pocock suggests that the history of political thought ‘might be defined as a history of change in the employment of paradigms’; and, one might add, of change in the agenda of debate. Certainly, both the agenda and the paradigms most frequently used in 1832 were significantly different from those employed in 1760. Whether they can be regarded as belonging to a different metaphysical system is another question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Revolution of 1688–9 established in England a brand of political philosophy which dominated Christian political and social theory for a century. The French Revolution brought about a change of emphasis in English clerical argument, a movement from abstract political philosophy to practical social theory. The repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts in 1828, the passing of Catholic Emancipation in 1829 and the First Reform Act of 1832 constituted the most significant group of constitutional reforms since the Revolution Settlement. To what extent were these changes in the constitution of church and state, which had been resisted by the established powers for so long, influenced by that fundamental change of emphasis in Christian political thought, and how far were they simply a response to the exigencies of practical politics? Did they presage a movement back to further consideration of the philosophical and theological foundations of the constitution, or were they a reflection of the new concentration on the need for social stability? Were religious, normative arguments used to justify the policy stances which were adopted, and if so were they employed by reformers, conservatives or both, or did the desire to maintain social order and stability lead statesmen and churchmen to justify their positions on grounds of expediency? Did arguments of principle or of utility predominate? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many ways William Paley was a highly conventional man, but it can be argued that his influence was far more radical, intellectually, than either he or his disciples were aware. The facts of his life were unremarkable enough. He was born in 1743, the son of a minor canon of Peterborough Cathedral and headmaster of Giggleswick Grammar School. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he later became a fellow and taught metaphysics and morals. After a number of minor clerical appointments, he became Archdeacon of Carlisle in 1782 in succession to his friend John Law, the son of the bishop. In 1785 he became chancellor of the Diocese as well. Later he became a prebendary of St Paul's and a sub-dean of Lincoln, but he held on to his archdeaconry until his death in 1805. It was as an author that Paley was best known. The work his contemporaries most admired was his Evidences of Christianity (1794), but arguably his most significant book was his Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy published in 1785. Judgments of the significance of Paley depend very much on the position from which he is viewed and the context in which he is considered. A person who assumes that political theory should be a wholly secular pursuit will view him differently from one who believes it should have a theological content. Equally, Paley considered as one of the Utilitarians and compared to Bentham and Mill will appear very different from Paley considered as an Anglican cleric and compared to Horne and Watson. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The link between blasphemy and sedition was real and occasioned genuine alarm. But government over-reaction should not lead us to exaggerate the extent of the connexion. As well as numerous conservative infidels, many radicals were men of religious conviction, as the career of John Cartwright illustrated. The complexity of the link between blasphemy, faith and political radicalism is perhaps best illustrated by the case of the bookseller and publisher, William Hone. The case study of Paley concerned a man who significantly changed the development of Christian thought. That of Horsley examined a typical figure of the establishment and demonstrated the unity and synthesis of the body of ideas in which a change of emphasis took place. This study of William Hone does neither of these things; instead it is offered as a cautionary tale. The analysis of the role of religion in political thought in the post-revolutionary period presented above may suggest a greater degree of polarisation than was the case. Chapter 13 examined the conflict between the Anglican and Dissenting churches to be the major agent of social control, while Chapter 14 looked at the links between blasphemy and sedition. This may appear to confirm the contemporary assumption of links between religion and repression on the one side, and of infidelity and revolution on the other. To a considerable extent those links did exist, but they should not be exaggerated. Because of his radical political views it was presumed at the time, and is still assumed by many historians, that William Hone was an infidel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secular politics and the constitution in the state For most educated Englishmen political theory was not some etiolated branch of philosophy, but a living ideology which informed their attitudes to political institutions and contemporary debates. Most of the statements of Christians, clerical and lay, were made in response to the stimulus of events, and the various arguments outlined in Chapter 1 need to be set in their contemporary political contexts. These events rarely changed those men's fundamental beliefs, but they did determine which aspects of a wide and complex ideology should be emphasised and vigorously argued. Disputes within and between denominations were also focussed and clarified as controversialists on all sides answered each other's arguments. This chapter does not attempt to provide a comprehensive review of all religious reactions to the political events of the period, but rather to set the body of theory examined in Chapters 1 to 6 in the general context of contemporary political events by examining some of the crucial points of contact between theory and practice. The major ideological debate of these years centred around the revolution in America, but there were also domestic matters which involved basic issues of principle – the role of the king in the constitution, the Wilkes affair, parliamentary reform, and slavery. The main analysis attempted here relates to the politico-religious reactions to the dispute and war with the American colonies, but first, to set this controversy in context, some brief snapshots of a few of the contributions to domestic debates are offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent were the political ideas outlined in the previous chapter influenced by the religious beliefs of the denomination, or the party within the Anglican church, to which they belonged? Denominations may be distinctive in a number of ways, including a specific set of theological dogmas, an attitude to scripture and its interpretation, a form of ecclesiastical organisation, social composition and the legal and political rights its members enjoyed. To place the arguments in their full religious context the influence of each of these must be considered. Theology Few based their political theory directly on their theology and even fewer on a brand of theology peculiar to a denomination. The Methodist Arminians claimed to find the political implications of Calvinism unacceptable as well as its soteriology. John Fletcher insisted that what he regarded as the antinomian nature of Calvinism led directly to political subversion: the transition from ecclesiastical to civil Antinomianism, is easy and obvious, for, as he that reverences the law of God, will naturally reverence the just commands of the King; so he that thinks himself free from the laws of the Lord, will hardly think himself bound by the statutes of his sovereign. But despite the Methodist alarm, most Calvinists did not deserve the antinomian tag. The best-known Calvinist in the Church of England was Augustus Toplady, the incumbent of Broadhembury in Devonshire, and on the rare occasions when he expressed political views they were of the most conventional and moderate kind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]