High and Dry in 1820: what an episcopal Charge can tell us about the late Georgian Church

It would be easy to read extracts of George Henry Law's 1820 Charge to the clergy of the diocese of Chester as evidence of a somnolent, worldly, ineffective Church of England - the conventional caricature of Georgian Anglicanism.  When the Bishop begins his Charge by reminding the clergy of the importance of punctuality for the beginning of services, it suggests a rather limited sense of episcopal priorities:

Complaints have in some cases been made to me, concerning a want of punctuality in the time of
beginning the divine service of our church. Now, the hour should be such, as best suits the habits
and the convenience of the great body of the parishioners. But, when once it is fixed, you should be most scrupulously exact in your observance of the same. Many of the clergy do not appear sufficiently aware of the great offence occasioned, by negligence in this respect. 

The Bishop's strictures against "the pernicious tendency of many of those hymns, which have of late been so irregularly introduced into our churches" point to a hostility to lively and vibrant religion:

The irreverent familiarity, and, I may almost add, the indecency of the terms in which our Lord and Saviour has been described, are shocking to the ears of every one who has a due sense of the divine majesty and power. Indeed, many appear to frequent the courts of the Almighty, not so much to confess their sins in his house and presence, not so much to deprecate the divine wrath and punishment in the sober words of our incomparable liturgy, as to gratify an idle curiosity, and to have their feelings excited by a sort of theatrical exhibition, by impassioned and fanatical hymns. 

His direction that only Psalms should be sung seems to confirm a Church of England incapable of responding to the desire for newer and more engaging forms of worship:

To stop this growing evil, and to keep the temples of our God in this respect pure and unpolluted, the only safe and wise rule is, to suffer nothing to be “said or sung” in our churches, except what is enjoined or permitted by lawful authority, and to be satisfied with the Psalms of the old or new version.

His summary of what he wants his clergy to teach can seem to be dull and uninspiring:

Thus plain, connected, and practical, are the chief credenda of our holy religion.

Before moving on to other aspects of the Charge, it is worth pausing and reflecting on these various points.  Are they really evidence of a somnolent and an uninspiring Church?  Services starting on time is not exactly a matter of indifference.  Likewise, the challenges to clergy ensuring that services did commence punctually in a society in which time-keeping devices were not universal and in which laity could often have to travel by foot over some distance - the Charge refers to laity having to "return to a distant home" - should not be minimised.

The Bishop's language regarding hymns, rather than being hopelessly antiquated and out-of-touch, continues to be echoed in contemporary debates over praise music.  As for his exhortation to use the Psalms, N.T Wright has said something very similar, warning against churches in which the reliance on praise music means "they often simply forget the Psalms. You can go to many churches where if you attend week after week after week you will never ever sing or read the Psalms".

As for the call for teaching to be "plain, connected, and practical", would we really want it to be otherwise?  Do we want esoteric, unconnected, and impractical?

In other words, there is considerable pastoral wisdom in the Bishop's Charge, wisdom that has contemporary resonance.  That said, churches do not live by practical wisdom alone.  There needs to be a robust and vibrant orthodoxy at the centre.  Which brings us to the Bishop's words regarding preaching:

All the effect in your power having been given to the sublime language of our liturgy, it becomes your next duty to explain and enforce the gospel of Christ from the pulpit. And here, my reverend brethren, you must excuse me, if from the supreme importance of the subject, I again most earnestly exhort you, to ground your discourses on the doctrines of Christianity, and from them to inculcate the duties of our holy religion: the first is the foundation, the other should be the superstructure. Every hope, therefore, should be built on faith in Christ Jesus, and him crucified. No other foundation can any man lay save that which is laid, namely, Jesus Christ our Saviour. We are brought into a salvable state solely through his redeeming love.

Preaching, the Bishop contends, cannot be moral exhortation alone, based on an understanding of virtue derived from natural theology or civil religion.  Preaching must be rooted in the doctrine of our salvation.  While the Bishop stressed the importance of works, challenging what High Churchmen had long condemned as 'solafidianism' - "Our justification is of grace alone, through faith: our final salvation will be of faith and works" - this too is reliant upon grace:

And, though Christ died for all, and thus opened to all the gates of Heaven, yet still an entrance into them cannot be secured by our own unassisted exertions: it is God that worketh in us, both to will and to do. We must therefore constantly and earnestly pray for the promised influence of the Holy Spirit, for his preventing and co-operating grace, that we may be inclined to receive the doctrines, and perform the duties, of our holy religion.

The purpose of preaching, the Bishop declared, is conversion and holy living through the proclamation of Jesus Christ:

Having laid the foundation deep and wide, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone, you are prepared to enforce every Christian virtue, and to erect the temple of God in the hearts of your hearers. And thus preaching the glad tidings of salvation, you may look to the authority and example of the blessed Jesus. His first care was to convert the unbeliever, and confirm his faith. He then delivered his sermon on the mount: and pointed out to his disciples what they were further required to believe and do for their souls' health. Be it ours humbly but earnestly to follow the footsteps of our heavenly teacher, by rendering faith productive of holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord.

George Henry Law embodied the concerns, attitudes, and characteristics of the Georgian High Church tradition.  His directions to his clergy concerning preaching are a vivid reminder that this tradition was not one which understood preaching in terms of Latitudinarian moral exhortation, but rather rooted in the doctrine of our salvation by the atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ, bearing fruit in personal holiness.  In other words, the character of Georgian High Churchmanship is not captured by the later Tractarian caricature of the 'two bottle Orthodox'.

One final point from the Charge is also worth considering.  It might be regarded as typically 'High and Dry' for the Bishop to denounce the "spirit of innovation" evident when the words of administration at the Holy Communion were spoken to a row of communicants rather than individually.  The Bishop's concern, however, was not solely rubrical:

The immediate and personal application to each communicant of the words of exhortation, at the very time when the bread and wine are given, tend powerfully to arrest the thoughts, and arouse the feelings of the most inattentive: and we find, that the formulary when thus applied to the individual, does appear to excite that glow of gratitude and love, which should arise in the mind of every one when he hears, that the body of Jesus Christ was given, and that the blood of our Lord was shed for him [emphasis in the original].

This appeal to the affections in defence of High Church liturgical practice emphasises the vitality of late Georgian sacramental piety, an important corrective to characterisations of pre-1833 sacramental belief and practice as conventionally giving rise to formalism.  The caricature of the Georgian Church - and particularly of its 'High and Dry' tradition - later promoted by an unholy alliance of Tractarians, Evangelicals, and Whig historians is not seen in the Charge.  In fact, it is refuted by the Charge, which reveals a concern for doctrine, preaching, sacraments, lively faith and holy living, an alternative to both Tractarian and Evangelical enthusiasms, an ordinary, conventional Anglican piety, a "reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee".