"The glory of God is much concerned that there should be good government in the world": why 18th century Anglican political theology matters
In the second half of his article on the political complexities of Laudianism, Francis Young considers the High Church tradition during the 'long' 18th century. As seen from the above quote regarding the majority of High Churchmen who were reconciled to the Glorious Revolution, the implication throughout is that constitutional order and dynastic right were things indifferent. Here, then, is another "germ of ecclesio-political radicalism that saw the church as independent of the state – or at least potentially independent of the state, if such independence became necessary".
The implication is that High Church political theology was about pragmatics. As long as the right ordering of the Church was secured, the constitutional regime in the polity was mere adiaphora. This fails, however, to take seriously High Church political theology in its own terms during the 'long' 18th century - and to take seriously the renewal of historical study of this subject over the past few decades. To illustrate this, I want to consider four episodes which revealed the concerns of High Church political theology, beginning and ending with two specific dates.
We begin on 18th May 1688: the Seven Bishops issue their Petition against James II's Declaration of Indulgence. According to Young, the Petition was a protest against "an Erastian assertion of royal power over the church". In other words, the Seven Bishops were protesting the Church's supremacy, another hint of how that "germ of ecclesio-political radicalism". The problem is that it is very difficult indeed to see this as implied in the Petition. The Bishops do not suggest to James that the Royal Supremacy is their gift, to be withdrawn when the Church deems it necessary. Rather, they invoke what is regarded as a principle of settled constitutional order:
because that declaration is founded upon such a dispensing power as hath often been declared illegal in parliament.
Against this dispensing power used by James, they urge a reliance on the institutions of the settled constitution:
when that matter shall be considered and settled in parliament and Convocation.
There is no hint here of an assertion, radical or otherwise, of the Church's independence or supremacy. Nor is it evidence of a pragmatic approach, unconcerned with the body politic as long as the Church's order was untouched. Instead, the Petition of the Seven Bishops embodies a concern for constitutional order, an order in which the Crown upheld the ancient liberties of Parliament and Convocation.
When the High Church Tory George Berkeley wrote his Advice to the Tories who have taken the Oath in 1715, he was addressing the possibility of High Churchmen and Tories, disgruntled with the Hanoverian succession, supporting the Pretender, despite High Church clerks and Tory laity having taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Abjuration. He does have a concern for the interests of the Church, mindful that if the Church is identified with the breaching of these Oaths, then "if the Rulers among the Whigs are, what by many of you they are represented to be, disaffected to the Church of England, they will then have the fairest Pretext, as well as Opportunity, to destroy her". This, however, is not his only concern:
Inclinations of Men? Common mutual Faith is the great Support of Society; and an Oath, as it is the highest Obligation to keep our Faith inviolate, becomes the great Instrument of Justice and Intercourse between Men. Whatever, therefore, lessens the Sacredness or Authority of an Oath must be acknowledged at the same time to be highly detrimental both to the Church and the Commonwealth.
Berkeley understands that oaths underpin what he terms "the common Welfare" (highlighting the significance of Article 39 to Anglican social teaching). It is not mere pragmatics, then, that drives his insistence that Churchmen and Tories should abide by their oaths. Similarly, he justifies the Glorious Revolution not on the basis of pragmatic concern for the Church, but on principles of constitutional order:
Perhaps you will say, that if it be never lawful for a Subject to break his Oath of Allegiance to his King, then the Revolution cannot be justified: Or, if it may sometimes be allow'd, why not now as well as then? I answer, when any Person, by Forfeiture or Abdication, loseth Dominion, He is no longer Sovereign: Now the Subject swore Allegiance to the Sovereign, and not to the Person: When therefore the Person ceaseth to be Sovereign, the Allegiance ceaseth to be due to him, and the Oath of course to bind. In the Judgment of most Men this was the Case at the Revolution.
What this also obviously suggests, of course, is that dynastic allegiance did indeed matter. The sacred and necessary nature of oaths ensured that both clergy and laity could not be "indifferent" to constitutional and dynastic concerns.
From the debates and conflict in these Islands in 1714-15 we turns across the Atlantic to another debate and conflict, in the years before and following 1776. Young concludes his essay with reference to Scottish Episcopalian bishops consecrating Samuel Seabury in 1784. The "existence of episcopacy with a republican form of government", he suggests, "finally exploded the fiction that Episcopalianism was necessarily linked to monarchism". Except that it was anything but as straightforward as this suggests.
To begin with, a war had just been fought in which the vast majority of Anglican clergy in the northern colonies had supported the Crown and the British constitutional order. In Connecticut, for example, all 20 Anglican clergy were Loyalists. Included amongst the Loyalist clergy was Samuel Seabury, who contended vociferously in print for the Loyalist cause and was a chaplain to a Loyalist regiment. To focus on events in an Episcopalian chapel in Aberdeen in 1784 and overlook a bitter civil war, in which Seabury and a significant proportion of his fellow-colonists sided with the Crown against those who rejected this allegiance and proposed an alternative polity, is to avoid the rather clear evidence that constitutional order and dynastic right mattered very much to the 18th century High Church tradition. As the Loyalist parson Jonathan Boucher declared in a 1775 sermon, "The glory of God is much concerned that there should be good government in the world".
The outcome of the Revolutionary War for Anglicanism was also much less straightforward than Young suggests. Take, for example, the High Church Bishop Henry Hobart in an 1814 sermon lamenting how "the war of the revolution stripped our Church of a large proportion of her Clergy, of many of her influential members, and of the nursing care and protection of the venerable Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts":
But little more than half a century has elapsed since our Church universally prevailed through the rich and flourishing dominion of Virginia. In every county there were churches and chapels, all of them decent and substantial, some of them even splendid in their decorations. In those temples were statedly performed all the services of our primitive Liturgy. The parishes, not much short of one hundred, were all supplied with Clergy. What is the contrast? ... Few are the parishes in Virginia which enjoy the regular ministrations of a Clergyman. In many places the Liturgy is scarcely known, but as some antiquated book which was once used by their fathers. The edifices, where their fathers worshipped, now in a state of ruin, fix the astonished gaze, and excite the mournful sigh of the passing traveller; and in those courts where the living God was once invoked, and the messages of mercy through his Son proclaimed, no sounds are heard but the screams of the bird of night, or the lowings of the beasts of the field.
Also overlooked in Young's account is the other polity which emerged from the Revolutionary War: Canada. The Loyalists who settled in Canada established a polity shaped not by Locke but, in the words of George Grant, "the older political philosophy of Richard Hooker". As Ron Dart notes, it was clerics like the Loyalist Charles Inglis who articulated and established the "Canadian High Tory way". When we look to the establishment of the 'True North', we see that it is only an exclusive focus on the United States which would lead to the suggestion that the outcome of the Revolutionary War "finally exploded the fiction" that 18th century High Church Anglicanism was committed to a particular constitutional order.
Finally, our second specific date: 14th July 1833, at the end of the 'long' 18th century. The Reverend John Keble ascends the pulpit of the University Church of St Mary, Oxford, and begins his Assize Sermon. What follows is a rather traditional exercise in High Church political theology, certainly with no hint at all of any "germ of ecclesio-political radicalism that saw the church as independent of the state". Keble in his sermon will, after all, contend against those who urge the dismantling of the Church by law established on the grounds "that other states, as flourishing or more so in regard of wealth and dominion, do well enough without it". He also romantically invoked the history of the constitutional order of the Anglican state:
The very solemnity of this day may remind them, even more than others, of the close amity which must ever subsist between equal justice and pure religion; Apostolical religion, more especially, in proportion to her superior truth and exactness. It is an amity, made still more sacred, if possible, in the case of the Church and Law of England, by historical recollections, associations, and precedents, of the most engaging and ennobling cast.
As with Hobart's 1814 sermon, however, Keble's Assize sermon has something of the quality of a lament. It was typical of a genre of High Church sermons in the face of the 'constitutional revolution' of 1828-32, the undoing of the Anglican state. Political theology, and a commitment to a particular constitutional order, had been a pillar of High Church identity throughout the 'long' 18th century. Now the pillar was collapsing and Keble's lament initiated a search for a new pillar which would lead the Tractarians down quite different paths. Those paths are a story for another day. What is important, however, is that it was the collapse of the constitutional order to which High Church political theology was committed which led to the Oxford Movement. In other words, 14th July 1833 is testimony to the fact that for the High Church tradition, the constitutional order was not a merely pragmatic, contingent matter: it was integral to a political theology central to High Church self-understanding.
To state the obvious, seeking to replicate 18th century High Church political theology in our current cultural context is ridiculous fantasy. This does mean, however, that the tradition and its insights can be easily dismissed - or that we can create an account of the High Church tradition in which the concerns of its political theology are sidelined. This political theology and its commitment to a constitutional order point to a concern for the commonwealth and our flourishing within society which should be a vital part of the Anglican witness. In the words of Ron Dart:
There is a comprehensiveness to the time-tried Anglican path that engages the larger cultural, political and public spheres, hence the magisterial-kingdom aspect of Anglicanism - if this element of Anglicanism is ignored or marginalized, a serious domesticating and thinning out of the Anglican heritage occurs.
This is something of a lame approach to the question through an overly broad appeal to a "tradition" that has more historic nuance than you allow it. I agree that Young's account of "pragmatism" is blinkered. The divines of 1688 (though I would dispute whether they can be called "High Church" in the sense in during the 1690s-1710s) certainly did not think the form of government is flexible. But all political engagements require a level of pragmatism. Despite the 1690s split between Whiggish Latitudinarians and Tory High Flyers (something of an oversimplification), the Church-Whigs of later years (typified in the slightly different ecclesiological views of Edmund Gibson and John Potter) were far more pragmatic in the specific arrangement.
ReplyDeleteVery few wanted anything "republican" in the sense of Cromwell, so the divide wasn't just over monarchy, but the practical interactions between monarchy and now politically stable and institutionalized Parliament. It was a relation that was still under development (particularly as the prime ministership was pioneered during the Robinocracy). Do you make peace with that order? I would say that's an adjustment. Perhaps drawing on Hookerian theory, but still an adjustment. It's the same reasoning behind how an Episcopal Church could adjust, with a Constitutional system that was republican, but contained a monarch and parliament (president and congress). But, as you point out, there was still discomfort, especially as across the border, Loyalists forged a different kind of imperio-in-imperium in Canada. But Hobart still wasn't a monarchist, even as he kept his distance from the state. Like Jacobitism in England, the dreamy vision of England was a stick to beat the administration of DeWitt Clinton.
I don't think treating High Church political theory/theology as a static constant is sufficient. It's not simply a mishmash of pragmatically glued together things, and most Anglicans did have an idea (as most Christians did, in one sort or another). But traditions changes through application, debate, and exposure. And the Laudian tradition of the 1630s was not the same as the High Churchmen of the 1690s, or the Church-Whigs of the 1730s, or the Episcopalians of later years.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents
I do think it is rather obvious that there is a difference between a pragmatism in manoeuvres of high politics and suggestions of a pragmatism in constitutional theory and understanding.
DeleteAs for development in High Church political theory over the long 18th century, it did - of course - occur, but what is more striking is the consistent, coherent account of constitutional order. This was able to account for the developments and changes within the workings of the constitution over the century, particularly regarding the interactions between Crown and Parliament (although, of course, the need for an administration to have the confidence of the Crown remained highly significant).
Hobart, obviously, was not a monarchist. He did, however, recognise how the consequences of the Revolution resulted in an undermining of Anglicanism in Virginia. The experience of US Episcopalianism was also noted in High Church-Tractarian debates, with High Churchmen pointing to it as a negative example of what happens in the context of disestablishment. This emphasises the importance of paying due regard to Canada as another consequence of the Revolution, and much more successful from the perspective of High Church political theology.
Traditions do, indeed, change through application, debate, and exposure. But they also evidence continuity. The High Church tradition throughout the long 18th century evidenced such continuity, including in matters of political theology: invoking a common experience, sources, and commitments. Nockles, for example, refers to the High Church tradition in the early 19th century having a 'Laudian' understanding of ceremonial. And JCD Clark notes how, post-1760, a revived High Church political theology was an "effective synthesis" of early 18th century High Church sources and commitments.
These commitments did have an origin in the 'Laudian' doctrinal commitment to monarchy, as was recognised by critics of High Church political theology continually insulting it as 'Laudian' throughout the century. And Laud - despite the sensitivities surrounding his historical memory - could be explicitly invoked by High Churchmen e.g. Boucher in his final sermon before leaving his Maryland parish.
This affirmation of the continuity in and coherence of High Church political theology throughout the long 18th century does not prevent discussion of changes and developments within the tradition. Rather, it provides a meaningful context for discussing such changes and developments as occurring within a particular tradition.
We've got to sift contemporary accounts carefully because sometimes they're not always reliable in their own sense of historic memory. Hobart's "destruction" of the Virginian church is something of a misfire. It had indeed been stronger, but had been heavily laicized and linked to Tidewater aristocratic society. As a Highchurch man, he would have found the relation intolerable, but their collapse was not because of disestablishment per se. But you're right, there was a continuity of establishment thinking in the Virginia church that left it easily vulnerable to successful organizing from Baptists and Methodists.
DeleteI don't think Clark is very good in his overall synthetic argument. I heavily contest any simple "Laudianism" that passed through the ages. Calling it Laudian is no more informative of what it was, as every accusation of Hobbism, Erastianism, or Republicanism, accurately describes other churchmen. In some cases maybe it sticks, but it's more sophisticated than that. Peter Lake has a new book on Laud and Laudians coming out soon that might be helpful.
Yeah, I understand the point about continuity. But I don't think that requires any continuous commitment to monarchy throughout. Berkeley's radical use of Passive Obedience (the key to High political theology) involves pretty substantial ambiguity about how you go about using the concept (it can even logically fit popular sovereignty, though Berkeley rejected that connection). It's not sheer pragmatism, as if the transition to a republic was laid out for Anglicans. But there's interesting openness to these questions that allow one to deploy High Church political theories in a Blue Labour fashion.
Hobart's lament for Anglican Virginia might be regarded as a "misfire" by later commentators, but it remains the case that Hobart himself - despite any misgivings he may have had regarding the power of the laity (a situation not greatly changed in PECUSA) - did lament the consequences of 'disestablishment'.
DeleteJCD Clark's role in revising our understanding of the long 18th century is well recognised. As to the use of 'Laudian' as a means of describing the ethos the High Church tradition - in terms of liturgy, constitutional understanding, and envisioning of the relationship between the ecclesia Anglicana and 'Calvinism' - the studies by Nockles and Herring show how it continued to have relevance and meaning into the the early decades of the 19th century.
The continuous commitment of the High Church tradition to a monarchical constitutional order is seen in various ways throughout the 18th century. The disputes between Juror and Non-Juror were defined by a dispute over dynastic allegiance. The later renewal of High Church political theology in the reign of George III flowed at least partially from the collapse of the Jacobite threat and a recognition of the weaknesses of Whig political theology.
It is very difficult indeed to argue that commitment to monarchy was not a defining principle of High Church political theology throughout the long 18th century. The Scottish Non-Jurors can hardly be invoked as an example of this (never mind the fact that a significant proportion of Scottish Episcopalians were Jurors, worshipping in Qualified Chapels, praying for the Hanoverian Succession). Of the two polities which emerged from the American Revolution, Canada was recognised by the High Church tradition as embodying its political theology. The Episcopalian experience in the United States was regarded by the High Church mainstream as proving the need for establishment, certainly not as suggesting an alternative way forward.
I do agree that the interaction between High Church political theology and Blue Labour is interesting and worthy of exploration. That said, of course, Blue Labour is robustly monarchist in the UK, regarding the Crown as challenging the plutocratic tendencies often evident in a republican order.
What I failed to mention from your first comment was the reference to Episcopalians transitioning to a republic, transferring a High Church understanding of Crown and Parliament to President and Congress. This is rather strikingly seen in the Prayer for Congress in BCP 1789 being simply a rewording of the 1662 Prayer for the High Court of Parliament. This offers a potentially rich avenue for reflection as to how the principles of High Church political theology can have relevance and significance in our contemporary political contexts. I would also highlight that the experience of Anglicans in the Republic of Ireland suggests a similar pattern: transferring the principles of classical Anglican political theology to a republican constitutional order.
While JCDC raised a lot of good questions, and his opus has punctured any lameduck Whiggish account of the 18th c., he's pretty much wrong about everything. When you dig into primary and secondary material, and poke at his Geertzian account of the Ancien Regime, I think it's pretty flimsy. Something had changed, and was changing, over the 17th into the 18th c., and lumping it all together is a flawed approach. There are similar revisionist historians who try to construct a long Reformation, stretching into the 18th c. Again, this approach punctures a secularist account of the 18th c., but then that doesn't mean there was a large social constellation holding in tact at glacier pace.
DeleteI would also dispute that account of Non-Jurors. The oath was the catalyst, but the ecclesiological crisis went far deeper and reflected longer term concerns about the post-1662 church.
All in all, the radical dimensions of a conflict are not determined by a static set of propositions, but how one applies them. Of course, monarchy was key to High Churchmen, but republicanism was always a minority. Even then, there are distinctions of republicanism. Early 17th c. English theologians, political theorists and actors, et al., considered England a republic. Additionally, federalist political theorists considered the US had a "monarchy" (in the Polybian sense, not royalty or a hereditary king). It's pretty wild how extreme-monarchists could deploy their paradigms. Some fringe Jacobites were themselves radical popular sovereigntists. So of course Blue Labour is monarchist as a check on banksters and marketeers, but that's a unique spin on an idea.
My original point is how to pose a tradition, and that there are more interesting possibilities in the actual texts of various High Church (or otherwise) theorists than trying to claim a long term adherence to royalty. I'll leave off here
Thanks for your comment. We clearly disagree significantly on a wide range of issues. JCS Clark's reading of the 18th century did not merely puncture an exhausted Whig narrative: it also demonstrated specifically how the Whig interpretation had substantially distorted the history of Anglicanism in that century.
DeleteAs to the allegiance to monarchy, I think the texts are rather clear. This does not prevent, as you suggest, interesting 21st century interpretations of these principles. Regarding Blue Labour, rather than its commitment to monarchy being a unique spin, it echoes a rather consistent understanding of monarchy.
Once again, thanks for your comments.