The Church in Britain in the 19th Century

Snice medieval times the Church had the right to levy a 10% tithe on all agricultural produce. Source of local income to the incumbent: varied from parish to parish. Wealthy livings meant incumbents could appoint a team of curates to do the work for them.

Expansion of the cities: led to need for new parishes and new church buildings. For example the whole of South Manchester held just 3 parishers.

Waterloo churches: parliament-funded church building in 1818 and 1824. For example, St George’s Brandon Hill, now a concert hall.

Church-building continued apace throughout the century.

Beginning dated to John Keble preaching his assize sermon at Oxford University in 1833 called, A National Apostasy.

From the start, Anglo-Catholicism has been about the spiritual authority and vocation of the Church of God, especially as applied to the Anglican Church. For example, took exception at Whig government’s abolution through Parliament of 10 bishoprics (in Ireland where population had left as they were Catholic).

Keble’s contention was that the church was acting as no more than a minor part of the bureacracy entirely forgetting their calling.

Early Tractarians/Oxford Movement included: - John Henry Newman - Edward Bouvarie Pusey - Frederick William Faber Emphasising the continuity of the catholic identity of the Church of England: The CofE had never eschewed it in the Reformation, particularly evidenced by continued three-fold order of bishops, priests and deacons.

This ‘reforming’ ecclesiology was contained in a series of 90 ‘Tracts for the Times’, published in Oxford and widely-read. The Oxford Movement leaders became known as ‘Tractarians’.

For the leaders of the Oxford Movement, a new stress on Catholicity was the only antidote to Erastianism, spiritual bankrupcy and the erosive effects of post-enlightenment liberalism.

Things came to a head when John Henry Newman published ‘Tract 90’ in 1840, which argued that the doctrine of the Church of England, enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer and the 39 Articles, was essentially the same as that of the Roman Catholic Church therefore no need, with religious liberalisation, for 'the Italian Mission' to seek to restore the Roman church in England.

The Bishop of Oxford forbade any further tracts and Newman felt it necessary to resign from the university and lived as a parish priest before being welcomed into the Rman Catholic church in 1845.

Gorham was a hard Calvinist who the Bishop of Exeter refused to institute over the question of whether baptised infants were regenerate.

In the wake of the Gorham Controversy (1850), where a state court (the Privy Council) had overturned a judgement by the bishops and the ecclesiastical courts over the nature of the Church of England’s doctrine.

Those who left included Henry Manning (who became the first Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster) and F.W. Faber.

At this stage little difference between Tractarians, Evangelicals and Low churchmen, except perhaps a slightly greater celebration of saints days. All followed the BCP.

The second phase of the movement, a new generation of younger clergy came through who sought to see holiness worked out through more ornate and beautiful worship, including a heightened sense of ceremonial. Many had half an eye on the practices of the Roman Catholic Church, wanting to emulate the ceremonial, whilst using the text of the BCP. They introduced things like:

As a result viewed with suspicion and tended to end up in poorly-endowed livings

This was reported in the press, and a number of riots and disruptions occurred, engineered by anti-Catholic agitators such as the Kenset brothers.

More than a grain of truth in the suspicion that Anglo-catholics were trying to undo the Reformation.

No one entitled to deviate from the BCP, so Evangelicals began to organise prosecutions of ritualist priests through the courts. The priests did not believe the secular courts possessed any spiritual authority in such matters, so as they were often successfully prosecuted, they regarded this as martyrdom.

So extremism on both sides fed off one another.

Godliness and self-sacrifice of the ‘slum-priests’: between 1876-1880, three urban priests were prosecuted and imprisoned for ritualistic practices.

Example of Father McConnecky in east London who earned respect of the locals for his care during a cholera epidemic.

As the 19^th century moved into the 20^th, there was a growing distaste by the wider church for persecuting people who ritually departed from the BCP (although many Evangelicals continued to persecute with zeal). Anglo-Catholicism was an increasingly powerful spiritual influence, whereas Evangelicalism was steadily declining.

As a result, the Church of England in the 20^th century generally has felt disinclined to use Canon Law (or the law of the land) to hound those who liturgically deviate from the ‘legal’ line of the Church of England on liturgy - especially when such liturgical creativity is coupled with spiritual growth and dynamism.

So, the Anglo-Catholic ritualists were the pioneers of liturgical freedom (and anarchy) in the Church of England! To the benefit of the charismatics in the late 20th and 21st century.

Other parallel movements for high church practice in different parts of the world.