'The same moderation': the Apostles were not 'Weird'

The spiritual temper that characterised many Orthodox as well as latitudinarian churchmen has been called 'Tillotsonian' ... A better epithet ... might be that of 'Warbutonian' - Peter Nockles, The Oxford Movement in Context, p.185.

Despite the caution shown by Nockles, it does seem appropriate to describe a significant stream of late 18th and early 19th century High Church thought as 'Tillotsonian', with 'Warbutonian' standing within this tradition. Nockles identifies the 1807 Bampton Lectures of High Churchman Thomas Le Mesurier as giving expression to this ethos, with its robust critique of asceticism and enthusiasm.

This is particularly evident in Le Mesurier's description of the Apostles, challenging both Roman Catholic and Evangelical accounts of piety which emphasised 'the Weird', the former with its focus on "excess of mortification and severity of penance", the latter with its "peculiar opinions" and "turbulent and ambitious spirit". He instead presents the Apostles as exemplars of "the sober Christian":

In them may be traced the same moderation, the same evenness and steadiness both of life and conversation. They were equally free from rashness and from weakness. Their zeal was fervent and pure, and uniformly active, but never broke out into excess or violence of any sort. They lived with other men, and like other men; nay, at times in houses which they hired: sometimes they were maintained by the disciples, at other times they provided for themselves; as was best suited to circumstances and as might best promote or advance the gospel which they preached. They fasted indeed, but only as others fasted, as was common, and as has always been common, more especially in eastern countries. If they journeyed often, if they were often in perils and dangers, it was not that they desired these things, but that they necessarily met with them in the course of their mission. As to scourgings and imprisonments, they not only did not inflict then upon themselves, but they complained of them and would have avoided them when inflicted by others. In some cases they actually did escape them by their own act: in others the hand of God miraculously interposed for their deliverance. Above all, their humility was real, it was natural and without parade. There was no ostentatious self-abasement, none of that disclaimer of merit which is only calculated to invite praise. They seemed never to think of themselves: yet when called upon by the occasion they readily and naturally spoke of their labours with all the simplicity of truth, without exaggeration or diminution (Sermon VI).

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laudable Practice

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