‘True churchmen’? Anglican Evangelicals and history, c.1770–1850

Abstract

In the first half of the nineteenth century the relationship between the Church of England and the state shifted dramatically. This influenced, and was in turn influenced by, heated debates about Anglican history in general and about the Reformation in particular. Some of the bitterest debates revolved around differing understandings of the Church’s foundational literature – the Articles, Homilies and Prayer Book – and what they stood for. These debates drove scholarly understanding of the Reformation, but they also sharpened developing party boundaries. This article examines how these supposedly unchanging texts were reinterpreted as first Evangelicals and ‘Orthodox’ churchmen then Tractarians too sought to demonstrate that they, and not their adversaries, were the ‘true churchmen’.

Anglican Evangelical Theology, c. 1820–1850: The Case of Edward Bickersteth

“…Clerical opinion-formers like Henry Venn (1725-1797), Charles Simeon (1759-1836), and Thomas Scott (1747-1821) revered the Anglican Reformers; they loved the Prayer Book; they paid greater respect to the Articles than many of their clerical brethren; and they broadcast their adherence to the doctrine set forth in the neglected Books of Homilies. 8 Thus Evangelicals reassured themselves that their cherished beliefs had an Anglican pedigree. Yet as the new century unfolded, attachment to the establishment ideal did not always sit easily with its realities.…”