kiernan - evangelicalism and the french revolution

7/28/2019 Kiernan - Evangelicalism and the French Revolution

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Evangelicalismand the French RevolutionV. Kiernan

THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL IN ENGLAND WHICH WAS PART OF THEtransformation of i8th into I9th century, was perhaps the mostsignificant that has occurred in Europe in times recent enough forthe historian to be able to approachthem familiarly. This makesit a useful basis of enquiry into the connections between religiousand other social trends. It invites attention also because it recap-itulated some featuresof the earlier,more important,revivals in theI6th century,and maythrow a retrospective ight on these.In the form of Wesleyan and Calvinist Methodism, the revivalbegan a little before I740, in the dawn of the IndustrialRevolution.Underlying it through the next hundred years were the complexsocial shifts brought about by economic change. In the middleof this period there was a sudden acceleration,a broadening of asectarian cult into something like a national faith. It may bepermissibleto say that in general, as in this case, religious impulsesbegin at the lower social levels, in response to changes to which themass of people are more sensitive, because more directly exposed,than those above them; and that the latter move from hostility toacceptance only when an external shock comes to emphasise thedangers of internal discontent. Jacobinism, which abolished theChristian calendar in France, helped to establish the VictorianSabbathin England.The followingremarksare concernedwith the moment,about I8oo,when religious enthusiasm was recognised as a possible support oforderand stability. In other words they are mainly concernedwithonly one, and a negative,aspectof the movement. On this side manyof its affinitiesare with the ' Counter-Reformationype ' of religiousrevival,thatnamelyof which the social function is to helpin preservingan essentially static social order. As a whole this revival is an heirof the Reformation, a descendant of English Puritanism, and likethem is associatedwith the emergenceof a new social patternout ofan old one.But even for an understandingof the conservatism of i8oo, therevival must be seen as something ' popular,' originating from thepeople, like every genuine religious impulse. Wesley, a staunchconservativeof High Church leanings, gave his name and imprint,and an organisation, to something he had liberated rather than

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created: it created itself, in some ways in spite of him. ' NewBirth' teachings embodied, in part and imperfectly, the early effortsof common people to adapt themselves to an altering environment.They were an inchoate mode of social thought, a groping towardsa New Birth of society. They had been derided or denounced bythose in Church and State who were satisfied with things as theywere, and unwilling to recognise that the times were changing.When occasion arose for revivalism to be enlisted by the friends oforder, these facts were positively useful. In religion as in politics,an idea which is to disarm discontents must at some time, in somesense, have seemed both to friend and foe an idea of rebellion. Weare only held securely by fctters we have helped to forge ourselves;no-one else can tell the exact fit of our wrists and ankles.

Panic inspired by the French Revolution did not and could not ofitself conjure up any religious revival. It could at best shake upper-class free-thinkers into a more active persecution of lower-class ones.Even in the good old days Warburton had thought. that atheistsshould be banished.' In the frenzy inspired by Jacobinism andthe outbreak of war in 1793, when atheism was supposed to haveproduced Revolution by parthenogenesis, the upper classes under-went a sharp revulsion from their former scepticism. " Mostfortunately for the interest of religion and morality, or of theirprudential substitutes at least, the name of Jacobin was everywhereassociated with that of Atheist or Infidel."2 Officially, Englishmen" panted for an opportunity to take the lead in restoring erring manto his allegiance to the Heavenly Sovereign."3 Patriotic drums werebeaten, reform was condemned as sedition. Loyalty, conservatism,Christianity, became identical. " Those who are hostile to theBritish constitution, are almost always equally hostile to the Christianrevelation."4But the Established Church, as a whole, was in no position to meetnew needs. It had stood still: aristocratic at the top, pauperised atthe bottom, worm-eaten with patronage and pluralism, angry andastonished at the collapse of the Catholic Church in France. AmongI8,ooo Anglican clergymen a severe censor was able by 1799 todetect some hundreds of ' zealous and lively men.'5 But theseobscure parochial stirrings were not enough. Bishop Beilby Porteusof London (with great tact or greater simplicity) observed that" a wicked and profligate clergyman is a monster in nature, of whichI will not suppose the existence"; but the " present awful situationof the country," he cried in alarm, demanded much more.6 Indeed,the very conservatives had ceased to pay much attention to the Church,or at any rate to invest in it; subscriptions to Queen Anne's Bounty(for the augmentation of small livings) came in very sluggishly.7It was not that the argument in favour of religion as indispensableto social order failed to make itself heard. It failed to convince,because it was too utilitarian and rational. In i8th century England,

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as in parts of Renaissance Europe before social tensions becameexplosive, an unchallenged upper class had ceased to feel much needof heaven, had come to rely on use and wont, and to justify itselfby common sense, for which religion was little more than anothername. Much had been heardin the age of Paleyof the ' reasonable-ness of Christianity.' But a public creed only looks ' reasonable'(this question is very little affected by the logic of its doctrines inthemselves) so long as the prevailing relations between man andman are accepted as reasonable. And when an upper class appealsto common sense, others follow its example. Reason was nowdivided againstitself. Burke,with tremendouspassion, appealedtomen's good sense; but so did Thomas Paine.In Anglican practice, as in a good deal of late medixvalCatholicism, dogma had been supplanted by ethics - ethics asunderstood by the powers that were - and formal observances;theology had ebbed awayinto ' naturalreligion.' Bishops as well asUnitarianscould be regarded as not much better than Sociniansor Pelagians. " So ethical, so heathen-like," complained anEvangelicalclergymanof the (very rare)sermons preached by mostBishops.8 While the interests of the Optimates were accepted asequivalentto those of the nation at large, sermons could be strungtogether from moral platitudes. Within a stable social frameworkgood and evil need no elaborate definition. We all know that thepoor must not steal from the rich. When social harmony wasdisturbed,as after 1789, the weaknesses of ' mere moral preaching,'or what Scotsmencalled' a bletherof cold morality,'madethemselvesfelt. Dogmatic religion, by contrast, has the merit of standingabove and beyond the realm of political wrangling.Two conceptions of religion were living in England side by side,and the French Revolution compelleda choice between them. Onewas of religionas the formularyof an establishedsociety, its statementof faith in itself; the other as a catastrophic conversion of theindividual, a miraculous shaking off of secret burdens. One wasfixed on this world, the other on the next. From a certainpoint ofview victory for the latter would mean regression, as the resurrectionof ancient dogmas by the Reformation had done. In a differentsense it would mean advance, at least to the point of recognitionthat socie-y had changed, and under its old rulers and guides couldno longer pretend fully to understand itself or its problems.For religion to promote social stability it was necessary, now as inCounter-Reformation Europe, that upper and lower classes shouldfind common ground, that they should believe the same things. Atany rate a proportion of the upper classes should join heartily inbelief, and the rest should make a better pretence of doing so. Thiscould not come about ' reasonably,' since there was no basis of socialagreement. It was time for cold logic to give way to warm emotion,morality to mystery - as in the I6th century when social upheaval

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turned humanist speculation into Protestant and neo-Catholicdogmatics.In such an adjustment, very broadly speaking, the poor tacitlyrecognise the worldly position of the rich, and the rich accept thespiritualposition of the poor,while by acceptingthe religiouscritiqueof society they help to prevent this from evolving into a politicalcritique. In the present case, orthodoxy might denounce disbeliefand point out its horrid consequences at Paris, but it was not wellequipped to say what ought to be believed; dust lay thick on theThirty-nine Articles. It could not invent items of faith on the spurof the moment; whereasin the revivalist movement astir since I740these already existed. They had seemed antiquated, not to saybarbarous, o the polishedmind of before1789. Butwhat hadseemedmodern before I789 was now antediluvian. If high and low wereto join in worship,it must be the worshipof the poor.The rich would not accept this solution with any alacrity. " Itwas of incalculablebenefit to the nation,"thought an Anglicanwriterin later years, " that such a power as Methodism existed just at thetime when otherwise the revolutionarytorrent would have sweptaway multitudes in its course."9 Methodism, indeed, was goingon its humble way in the I790S, despite some internal friction afterWesley's death in I79I. So was the new spirit it had helped tokindle in the Old Dissenting bodies, and in the small Evangelicalmovementwithinthe Church. Yet, modestthoughthese movementswere, only from them could salvation come. At the time,conservatives n Churchand Statevery decidedlyfailed to see mattersin this light. They suspected hot-gospellersfrom plough and loomof nourishing the same ambitions now as in the dreadful, never-forgotten days of the Levellers. As before during the AmericanRevolution, episcopal thunders did not spare the Old Dissenterseither: " the most fearful denunciations were published concerningthem, asignorant,factiousschismatics,guiltyof heresyand treason."1'0Many upper-classconvertsto the Revivalwould haveto be compelledto come in from the highways and byways; to be dragoonedintobelief, if less ungently than by the Inquisition once upon a time inSpain. There would thus be an element in it of the lower orderstriumphing over the higher, and enjoying at least a metaphysicalconquest.To bring the respectableround to this point required both hardexperienceand able advocacy. The distancethey had to travel maybe seen by comparisonof Burke'sReflectionsI790) with Wilberforce'sPractical View (I797)11 - both addressed to the upper classes, andboth immediately applaudedby them.Burkeundertook to defend the Churchwith all her wrinkles. Heinvoked, not a creed, but a dignified clerical corporation,temperingthe moraldisciplineof the rulingclass and strikingawe into inferiors.Fully admittingthat the mass of mankindhad no partin the splendid

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' partnership of his State except as degradedmenials,he had to callin religion to ' consecrate' it.12 Religion interested him only inrelation to the State, and he failed to see that what he was sayingreally amountedto what the 'infidels ' had been saying (with theirI8th century one-sidedness) for a long time- that religion was aninvention of those in powerto control those out of power.There is a symbolicaltouch in the story of Burke on his death-bedreading Wilberforce'snew book.13 It was time for another man totake over his mission. Wilberforce could undertake it because hesaw it in different terms. He was as much alive as any wealthyman to the perils threatening property, and he was willing to statehis political case bluntly-" to suggest inferior motives to readers,who might be less disposed to listen to considerations of a higherorder."14 But he had been a moderate reformer n politics, and wasstill a humanitarian,who consented reluctantlyto Pitt's policy of warand repression; he remainedalwaysa Tory of the Left. His religionwas perfectly genuine: he had been ' converted' before I789,though it required the Revolution to make a religious propagandistof him. England was changing before I789, and in such times ofchangethere are individuals in the upper classes who are as sensitiveto the psychologicalstresses as the lower classesare to the economic,and who likewiseturn to religionforsupport. A manlikeWilberforceneeded religionalso to give him a sense of union with the mass of hisfellow-menwhich he could not achievein anydirecterform,especiallyin the darkyearswhen even agitationagainstthe Slave Tradesavouredof sedition, and languished. What was emotionally necessary tohim, he could recommend to othersas politicallynecessary. He hadno novel ideas; his mind fused together Wesley's conviction thatman's soul was in danger, and Burke's that society was in danger.His book came out, appropriately,at the crisis of the great navalmutinies.

England'sdistemper,he wrote, " should be consideredrather as amoral than a political malady."15 The root evil is selfishness,wearing diverse shapes in the various walks of life, but at bottomeverywherethe same.16 All ranksbeing vicious in the same degree(neither Burke nor Robespierre would have admitted this), onlyChristianity can keep the social fabric from falling to pieces." Moderating the insolence of power, she renders the inequalitiesof the social state less galling to the lower orders, whom also sheinstructs, in their turn, to be diligent, humble, patient" - and soon and so forth.17 This passage, the kind of stuff that enragedHazlitt and Cobbett,occursin one of the two sectionsof the book thathe particularlyasked his friend Pitt to read.18 The other sectiondeals with the essentialsof Christiandoctrine.To suppose, as lukewarm 'nominal Christians' did, thatChristianitywas no more than religion in general, and religion nomore than morality, was " a great and desperate error."19 He


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outlinedthe ' Gospelscheme ' of salvation- grace,faith,justification- and insisted that these were the true tenets, too long neglected, ofthe Church of England.20 Fallen man, corrupt in every fibre,could be snatched from damnationby nothing except " the sufferingsand atoning death of a crucified Saviour."21 No other form ofreligion, moreover,was " at all suited to makeimpressionsupon thelower orders, by strongly interesting the passions of the humanmind."22 But - and here was a link with the political side of thecase - true or ' vital' religion could not be simulated,and a Churchsystem couldnot be kept up in this new ageby worldlingsonly bent on" retainingthe commonpeoplein subjection."23Thus Wilberforcedid not appearto set up religion for the sakeof the State: religionmadeits own infinite demands,and wholesomepolitical consequences followed merely as a by-product. WhereasBurke had put the religious horse squarelybefore the political cart,Wilberforceconcealedthe horsebehind the cart. Or, moreproperly,he transformedthe charactersof both. All the gorgeouspanoplyofBurke's State disappears; the crown is replaced by the bowler hat,Louis XIV turns into Louis Philippe. This in itself was a sort ofabdication. It was, in its own way,a radicalsolution thatWilberforceput forward,for his religionwas, in contemporary erms, the despisedcreed of the Methodists, the hedge-priests, the lower orders.24Wesley had begun his mission in the shadow of the Forty-fiveand of economic unrest. Wilberforceproposedthe same remedy tomeet a greatercrisis.To bring the ' two nations' closer together was clearly the mosturgent task, and nothing strongercould be found to link them thanthe mystical cable of theology. Evangelicalism did not concernitself with the nicer subtleties of theology (a discipline capable, likemathematics,of aesthetic qualities- but the Revival cared little forArt); in so far as it dealt with these matters, it inclined towardsCalvinism, towards the Methodism of Whitefield rather than ofWesley. Most of its spokesmen, particularly the laymen, werevery moderate Calvinists, quite unlike the furious zealots of LadyHuntingdon'sConnexion.25 Wilberforce, ikeWesley,was apracticalman, for whom decrees of Absolute Reprobationhad little charm;one of his favouritedivines was Baxter. He and his friends kept tothe broadhighwayof Reformationdoctrine,wishing to bring seriousmen of all Protestantdenominationstogether, not to divide them.26On one point they did not moderate their zeal: they believed inHell fire, and Wilberforce himself affirmed his faith in the real anddreadful existence of the Evil One.27Hell burns brightly in times when men's hatred of each other israncorous and extreme; it lends a local habitationto the images offear and cruelty lurkingin their souls. Moreover,it is no respecterof persons. ' Vitalreligion' had the greatmerit,in face of egalitarianideas, of throwinginto relief the equalityof souls without disturbing

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the inequalityof ranks. All men were not equallygood, as Rousseauhad madepeople think, but they were all equallybad. Fraternity ayin an equalshare of Adam'sguilt, not of the rightsof man. Originalsin, therefore,was a dogma of crucialimportance. Bishop Porteus,who had an acute sense of " the present awful situation of thiscountry,"dwelt on it in his chargeto the clergyof I798-99. " It willnot be sufficient o amuseyourhearerswithingeniousmoralessays ...This will be a feeble and ineffectual effort . . . You must show themto themselves . . you must convince them that they are frail,corrupt, and fallen creatures" - and so convince them also of" the extreme, the contemptible insignificance of every thing thisworld has to offer."28Men as individuals are more readilypersuadedof their depravitywhen collectively they are faced by dilemmas that seem insoluble.Convictionwas deepened by a dawningconsciousnessof many socialevils; by the despair that in some minds had succeeded to thetranscendenthopes of I789 ; by socialdisharmony, or men feel guiltywhen they hate one another; most palpably, by the long disastersof the wars. An Old Testament feeling was taking root of divinewrath visited on a chosen but erring nation; a nation chosen, thatis, to save Europe and civilisation from France. There was anoutpouring of mystical and propheticalinterpretationsof the greatevents of the day, which seemedto defy humanunderstanding.29Hence the call for a national reformation of manners. " Thegreatmass of the people aregoing headlongto the devil for theirsins;the nation,because of its transgressions,s absolutelyvergingtowardsdestruction."30 Implicit in such sweeping judgments was a denialof any peculiar blame attaching to griping landlord or brutalmill-owner. National contrition and expiation were not to bedirectedalong very realistic ines. Whilewarkept reaction n power,much reformingzeal meanderedinto pettifogging channels like theSociety for the Prevention of Vice.31 Sabbatarianismplayed aprominent part here, and acquired an irrational,because displacedenergy. Sabbath-observancesupplied an element of the mystical,akin to the miracles and rituals of the Counter-Reformation;andit was another substitute for equality.32 If the rich could not beaccused of grindingthe faces of the poor, they could be accused ofSabbath-breaking. They in turn could find it in their hearts toplead guilty of it, and their critics to accept this as true contrition.When Jane Austen, describing the deplorable Mr. Elliot of" Persuasion," chose to accuse him of travelling on Sunday, shewas obeying the Evangelical formula: the spirit of the age hadbreathed on a corner even of her crystal mirror. An article in theEvangelical Magazine of I805 impartially condemns two paralleloffences of this kind. A set of Irishmen from the back lanes ofLondon had been brought before the Lord Mayorfor attending aSunday night hop (or dance), and resistingarrest. On the same day

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the Marquis of A-- gave a splendid dinner, followed by dramaticrecitationsand an evening party at which the beautiful Lady H--sang " and obligingly exhibited all her wonted fascinations ofattitude." These vipers in high life were not, indeed, arrested.Along with theology and the Sabbath, the Bible was beingextracted from its i8th century cobwebs, an achievement largelydue to that remarkableorganisation,the British and Foreign BibleSociety.In May I803 war broke out again between England and France.In the same month Wilberforceand others were consulted about theplan of a new Bible society, and heartily approved.33 In the winterof that year Napoleon was reviewing his troops at Boulogne. OnMarch 3, I804, a public meeting at the London Tavern agreed on

the inaugurationof the British and Foreign Bible Society. In MayLord Teignmouth, whose name was suggested by Porteus, acceptedthe Presidency.34 Clearly these dates have a meaning. Englandfaced its greatestordeal since I588, and populardiscontent was stillrife. Certainly riends of order who helpedto sponsorthe Scriptureshoped that they would have a sound effect on the public mind.Copies were soon reportedto have reached the navy, where not longsince ' The Age of Reason' had been circulating.35On the other hand, the plan itself arose quite naturallyout of aneed felt by ' serious ' clergymen in Wales for a better supply ofWelsh Bibles,whichwerein widespreaddemand,and it was a Baptist,the Rev. J. Hughes, who started the idea of broadeningthe schemeto cover all Britain and the world.36 The true revivalists werecarried forward by a real and potent emotion, by the inspirationof a task which, to everyone's surprise, was able to bring togetherChurchmen, Dissenters, and even Quakers,people hitherto denizensof an almostunknown worldof their own.37Success was not very rapid until about I809, when local AuxiliaryAssociationsbegan to take shape on a permanentbasis.38 In these,all the motives that went into the Revival could co-operate; as iswell illustrated by the I814 Report of the Auxiliary Society ofSouthwark,39 n area infested in I792 by a Society of the Friends ofthe People.40 This body had twelve subsidiaries, with 650 activemembers, and was subsidised by Jews and Catholics as well asProtestants, though it felt obliged to decline subscriptions from" abandoned females." Collateral agencies were supplying bread,fuel, and clothing, and keeping up " a constant investigation of thestate of the poor " ; and a point was made of drawingthe poor them-selves into the work of circulatingBibles, and so of allowingthem tobe " partakersn the privilegesof the Rich."Defence of the plenary inspiration of Scripture gave the sectsa common task and spirit, such as the Evangelicals were anxiousto promote. Adam Clarkedealtexhaustivelywith the vexed questionof whetherthe Ark was big enough to accommodateall its passengers

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and their provisions for a year, and was able (following BishopWilkins) to allow his wolves a liberal diet of one sheep per headevery six days.41 Scriptural redoubts and entrenchments thuserected were to prove in various ways an obstacleto progress n thenext decades. Charles Darwin was to find the ubiquitous Moseslying in wait for him, as he had not lain in wait for Erasmus Darwin.It struck Blanco White that the theological atmospherein Englandwas vastly less free and progressivethan in the Germanuniversities,and he was disgusted by the rantingtone of the Bible Societyset.42But doctrine wasnot enough. One weaknessof Burke'sphilosophyhad been that it stood still: it offered only self-complacencyto therich, resignationto the poor. Wilberforce offered them a measureof honest, practical co-operation, even if the immediate objects heset forth were far removed from the nation's most pressing needs.He was able to bestir himself, and make others do the same, and inthe heat and bustle of a useful life he confirmed the unity of hispolitico-moral convictions. A Christian was a pilgrim, " travellingon business through a strange country."43 None the less he hadbusiness,andthat was to be usefulin his generation;" not to meditate,but to act."44 Wilberforce enlisted those who, like himself, fearedupheavalbut felt that it could not be avertedby police methodsonly,or longed for somethingmoreidealistic than the existingorder.

Wesley, who in early days had been suspected of Romishtendencies, was often compared with Loyola. And Loyola hadpreachedthe philosophyof action againstthe Spanish quietistsof hisday. The practicalmovements Wilberforcehelped to organise arereminiscent of phases (some of the best, not the worst phases) ofCounter-Reformationhistory, and the resemblance s not accidental:in both cases a social orderincapableof radicalchange,but sufferingfrom acute tensions, was seeking moral renovation or outlets foridealism. The crusade against the Slave Trade is strikingly likethe agitationin i6th century Spain againstcolonial misrule.45 Oneleadingfeatureof the Revival,affectingall the sects, was the growthofinterest in missionary work, and the Evangelicals, like the Jesuitsfrom their first days, threw themselves with ardourinto promotingmissions. These activities, thousands of miles away from home,recapturedfor the body politic its good conscience, its moral faithin itself, in spite of seditiontrials,faminewages,and Frenchvictories.Another main task of the Counter-Reformation had been tostimulate the flow of charity, and thus soften the harshness of anunjust society. Wilberforce understood like Wesley, or Loyolalong before, that professions of Christian brotherhood must besupported by brotherly aid. He called for " a vigorous principleof enlargedand active charity,"46 et the examplehimself, and triedto induce Ministers to add public assistance to police coercion.47Before long Englandwas priding itself on a flow of charitablefundson a scale never before approached.

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About 800oo,t has been said, Evangelicalism crystallised from atendency into a party.48 Morals and politics, that is, were nowbrought into alliance by the Clapham Sect.49 Circumstanceshelped its progress. The character of the wars was changing;middle-of-the-road men could be heard again50; anti-Slave Tradeagitation recovered, and in I807 came Wilberforce's triumph, theabolition. A more respectable tone crept into public life; Pitt'slast hours were reported as edifying, and statesmenlike Harrowbyand Perceval were quite ' serious.' All Protestant bodies exceptthe Unitarians,taintedwith Jacobinism,were expanding. ' Society'began to look very different from what it was when Wilberforcefirst entered the House of Commons and found only one openlyreligiousman in it.51 By I813 things had gone so far that the Dukeof Kent found himself patron of the London Society for PromotingChristianityamongthe Jews. Moreover,the Church was now worthsubsidising. In I804 Parliamentgave it the firstof a series of grants,and from about i8o8 private benefactionsto Queen Anne's Bountybeganto rise sharply.52 The new funds strengthened he Evangelicalwing.Meanwhile the party of the unreformed and unrepentant HighChurch looked on in disgust; a fact hearteningto the godly, becauseit reassured them that they were working for God and not forMammon. In I8Io the Bible Society was severely criticised byDr. Wordsworth, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury,whohad to be answered by Teignmouth himself.53 With Hibernianexuberance the Master of the College of Kilkenny, refusing to be" stunned with the holy declamation" of " spiritual Jacobins,"depicted the Society as a " formidable confederation,"a " strangeand portentous comet" hanging over the world, ominous of" convulsionand dissolution." To invite peasantsto read Scripturethemselves, unguided, was to overthrow, in the end, all respectfor law and order.54Such indignation was not unreal. The Bible, after all, withoutcareful commentary, cannot be relied on to promote undilutedconservatism. And the strengthof the Revival'sappeallay preciselyin its omission to identify itself too obviously with sublunarydispensations. True, Wilberforcewas readyto endorse measuresofrepression in the I79os, and again between I815 and I820.Methodism likewise backed the governmentagainst radicalismafteri8i5.55 A celebrated definition of religion is called to mind byDe Quincey's curious statement that his opium-eating habits wereshared by Wilberforce, Dean Milner, Erskine, and Sidmouth'sbrother, as well as by Coleridgeand by a mass of pauperisedwork-people in Lancashire.56 Yet as a rule the Evangelicalswent on apath of their own. Simeon of Cambridge, paying his respects tothe BritishConstitution,was not being veryfulsomewhen he observedthat the condition of Britain was very different " from that of the

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RomanEmpirein the time of Nero."57 In the midst of the warstheEvangelical Magazine devoted immense space to overseas missionreports, but scarcely any to war propaganda n any direct form. Itcould even give Napoleon credit for his religious toleration,58apolicy which - as amongst Protestants it supportedat home.59Religious revival was in truth a double-edged weapon. Thedogmaof originalsin and the depravityof humannature,for instance,has had in all its periodsof influencea dual significance,fitting it tostand at the conflux of dual forces. It contains a censure on thepowers that be, includingthe absenteeprelatesand selfish aristocratsof i8oo, as well as a dissuasive from popularrebellion. Luther andCalvin, two of its foremost champions, struggled from the first ontwo fronts, against papalism and against Anabaptism.

There were as many shadesin the Revivalas social groupsaffectedby it, stretching all the way from the house where Samuel Butler'sTheobald Pontifex was growing up through Clapham Common tothe rebel artisansof Tanner's Lane. After about i8oo there was astrong admixture of pretence. But for various classes it had anurgent meaning, and for the nation as a whole it helped to expressthe mood of a people moving forward,planlesslyand painfully, intothe uncharted future of the machine-age. How extreme was themoral tension of the age is measured also by the greatnessof Englishpoetry then. Squalid and humdrum as it looked by comparison,the Industrial Revolution was a greaterinnovation in world historythan the French Revolution, and moved on a more shadowy road.Movingforwardwithit, the Englishlooked back forreassurance o theGod of their forefathers, he God of Abrahamand Isaac,of Cromwelland Bunyan. But it was the mood, however confused, of anexpanding and not a stagnating economy. Economic advance,underlying the eddies of politics and ideas, kept revivalism frombelonging fundamentally to the type of i6th century Spanishreligion.Hazlitt and Hunt, Sydney Smith and Bentham,as well as Kilkennyand Barchester, lamented the 'torrent of fanaticism' delugingthe country. But the Radicals stood alone, quarrelling amongthemselves, and in any case they wanted reform without revolution;and the uprooted masses could not borrow a programmefrom theRevolution that established capitalismin France. In England theadvance was from an earlierto a more mature stage of capitalism;politically the way forward was towards I832. Evangelicalismbrought together the developingsections of the middle classes, gavethem an independant outlook, relieved their fears of the moreelemental forms of mass unrest, showed how a respectable working-class could be led by a respectablemiddle-class. In fact it preparedthe ground for i9th century English Liberalism. The dream of anational reformationof morals was followed, after the war years, bythe Benthamite renovation of Church and State.

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NOTES1 W. Warburton, The Alliance between Church and State, 4th ed. (LondonI766), 304.2 S. T. Coleridge, Aids to Reflection (I825), Bohn Library 1913, 253.3 Rev. A. O'Callaghan, The Bible Society against the Church and State,(London 1817), 4.4 Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, A Charge delivered to the Clergy of theDiocese of London, in the years I798 and I799, (London I799),I5.5 Rev. D. Simpson, A Plea for Religion and the Sacred Writings (1797),2nd ed. 1799, reissued with notes, etc., by Rev. John Gaulter, (Liverpool I812,318 N.) Rev. J. H. Overton, The Evangelical Revival in the Eighteenth Century,(London I886) p. 85, describes the Evangelical clergy as by 800ooa verynumerous and influential body.' Rev. T. Timpson, British EcclesiasticalHistory, including the Religion of the Druids, 2nd ed. (London 1847) p. 5i8,quotes an estimate of 500 Evangelical clergymen in I795.6 Porteus, op. cit., 31. In February I799 Porteus began a Lent series oflectures on Scripture at St. John's Church (Evangel. Mag. VII. I30).7 e.g. Porteus, 4-7. 8 Simpson, I36-141. 9 Overton, 141.10Timpson, 449. Cp R. W. Dale, History of English Congregationalism,(London I907) 563-580. On the parallel state of affairs in Scotland seeH. W. Meikle, Scotland and the French Revolution, (Glasgow 1912) chap. X,11W. Wilberforce, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System ofProfessed Christians in the higher and middle classes in this country, contrastedwith real Christianity.12 Burke, Reflections on the French Revolution, Everyman Library 1910,157 and 94.13 R. Coupland, Wilberforce, (Oxford 1923) 244.14 Wilberforce, op. cit., 2nd ed. (London I797) 422.15 Ib. 4I5. 16 Ib. 399.17 Ib. 40; cp Hannah More, Christian Morals, (London 1813), Vol. I, I55.18 Coupland, 243-44. The two sections were chap. VI, and chap. IVsection vi.19Wilberforce, 248. 20 Ib. 62-3. 21 Ib. chap. II, and I25.22 Ib. 409. 23 Ib. 407-8.24 Cp Hazlitt, On the Causes of Methodism: ' Vital Christianity is no other

than at attempt to lower all religion to the level of the lowest of the capacitiesof the people.' Cp also Hazlitt's picture of Wilberforce, in the essay on him inThe Spirit of the Age (i825), as a ' Mr. Facing-both-ways.' Coupland, 422 ff.,points out Hazlitt's unfairness in some respects.25 On Lady Huntingdon's Connection see Timpson, Bk. VIII chap. xvii.The Evangelical Magazine, IV, 152 ff., has a description of it in I796. On the' Calvinistic controversy,' which had attained a most venomous intensity,see Overton, 191-99, and R. Southey, The Life of Wesley, 2nd ed. (London

1820) chap. XXV, and Notes XXIX-XXXI.26 See e.g. A. Clarke, The Doctrine of Salvation by Faith Proved, I815, 2nd ed.(London I819) ; cp Overton, chap. X, The Doctrines of theRevival, and Southey,chap. XX, Wesley's Doctrines and Opinions.27 Wilberforce, 42-4.28 A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of London, in the years I798and I799, (London I799) 3I and 22-25. Cp C. Simeon, The Danger of Neglect-ing the Great Sacrifice, (an Assize sermon), (Cambridge I797), and HoraeHomileticae, No. 922, Vileness and Impotency of the Natural Man.29 e.g. Simpson, 192 ff., 236 ff., and Editor's note, 235 ; H. More, Vol. I, 47;Porteus, 42; Evangelical Magazine, IV, I796, 98 ff., 303.30 Simpson, I47; cp 313.55


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31The Society was formed in I802, replacing an earlier one of 1787.32Evangel. Mag., XIII, I805, 237-8.33Rev. J. Owen, The History of the Origin and First Ten Years of the Britishand Foreign Bible Society, Vol. I, (London I816) I7-18.34 Ib. 67-9.35Evangel. Mag., X, XI, I813, 390-I. There was also a ' Naval and MilitaryBible Society,' a forerunner of which had existed from I780.36 Owen, 2 ff., 17.37 Ib. 37-44, describing the inaugural meeting and the author's own feelingson that occasion. Quakers had already been active against the Slave Trade.A body of' Evangelical Friends ' formed itself within their Society (Timpson,545-6).38 Owen, I72, 423-4.39 The Formation, Progress, and Effects of Bible Associations as detailed by theCommittee of the Southwark Auxiliary Bible Society, (London I814).40 H. W. C. Davis, The Age of Grey and Peel, (Oxford 1929), 78.41 Cited in Simpson, 266 ff., Note by Editor.42 See J. H. Thom, The Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White, (London I845)."No country in the world suffers more from false notions of religion thanEngland " (letter to J. S. Mill, I835 ; Vol. II, I37-8). " Even the mostbigoted Germans do not venture to support Theories which in England are stillregarded as the Basis of Christianity " (I838; Vol. III, I6).43 Wilberforce, 300.44 Ib. 344.45 See L. Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquestof America,(Univ. of Pennsylvania, I949).46 Wilberforce, 337; cp. H. More, Vol. I, I90.47 e.g. in I8oo; see Coupland, 264. Cp the charitable appeal in the Evangel.Mag., VIII, I800, 540.48 Halevy, Histoire du Peuple Anglais au XIXe siecle Vol. I (Paris I913), 4I0.49 On the Clapham Sect see Coupland, 248 ff.; Halevy, 412.50The EdinburghReview was founded in I802.51 C. Oman, Britain against Napoleon, (London I943), 32I. Pitt, who hadshocked serious men by duelling, " highly interested the religious world " bythe edifying accounts published of his last hours. (Simpson, 405-6, Note byEditor). Men like Byron, of course, in less responsible positions than Pitt's,were inclined to lag behind. See a review in the Evangel. Mag., XIII, I805,I31-2, of ' The Fashionable World displayed,' a severe satire on aristocraticmorals by the Rev. John Owen.52 This becomes clear from a study of the annual detail of benefactions givenin C. Hodgson, An Account of the Augmentation of Small Livings .....(London 1826).52 Owen, 469 if.54 Rev. A. O'Callaghan, The Bible against the Churchand State, (London I817)5-9, 44, and 59.55Davis, I43. Southey (II. 565) was hoping about this time that Methodismmight still find its true place as an " auxiliary institution " of the Church, like aconfraternity within the Roman Catholic Church.56 Confessionsof an English OpiumEater, Preface of I82I.57C. Simeon, Horae Homileticae (skeleton sermons on the Scriptures),Vol. IX, I820, No. 945, ' Duty to Civil Governors.' In No. 997,

' The BenefitArising from Attention to the Poor,' Simeon neglects to point out any politicalbenefit. He thinks sickness the only grave trial of the poor. " The poor in atime of health are happy; because their minds and habits are fitted to their state."58 Evangel. Mag., XIII, I805, 89; cp X, I802, 36-7.59Evangel. Mag., XIX, I8II, 276 ff.; XX, I812, 356-62. On the Act ofI812 see Halevy, 404-9. Note the argument against intolerance in the NewTheological Repository, Vol. I, (Liverpool 800oo)35-48.

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kiernan - evangelicalism and the french revolution

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