"Neglect, or hatred, from the most learned and accomplished": The Hackney Phalanx against Gibbon

Continuing the series of sermons from those associated with the Hackney Phalanx, an extract from another episcopal consecration sermon - this time the 1824 consecration of Blomfield for Chester - John Lonsdale (ordained 1815, Principal of King's College, London 1839, consecrated Bishop of Lichfield in 1843, died 1867). As can be seen from the title page of this sermon, Lonsdale was chaplain to Charles Manners-Sutton, Archbishop of Canterbury and a strong supporter of the Hackney Phalanx.

This extract struck me as quite significant because of assumptions routinely made regarding the Phalanx and the Old High tradition. Lonsdale - in a manner that reminds me of Tom Holland's Dominion - points to the significance of the rejection of Christianity by the Roman elite. Contra Gibbon (referenced in a footnote in the sermon), Lonsdale hails this rejection as evidence of the divine origins of Christianity. 

It is also revealing in terms of how the Hackney Phalanx viewed the Church's relationship with the State. Rather than pointing to the Constantinian settlement as the sign of divine favour, Lonsdale sees this in the Roman imperium and its cultured elite rejecting Christianity. This certainly suggests that the Hackney Phalanx was much more nuanced in its understanding of establishment and the relationship with the State than later Tractarian critiques would suggest.

There is no confirmation of our Faith, which has caused more trouble or perplexity to its adversaries: there is no instance in which they have more palpably exposed the weakness of their cause, or been compelled to have recourse to more miserable shifts, than in endeavouring to evade the force of this argument; and to refer the first propagation of the Gospel to mere human means and secondary causes. But how different would have been the case, had that taken place, which man, in his blindness, would have been most disposed to desire; had, I mean, "many wise men after the flesh, many mighty, many noble'", been among the earliest agents in Christianizing the world! It has been sneeringly asked, how it was, that Christianity, so excellent in itself, and so super-humanly attested, met only with neglect, or hatred, from the most learned and accomplished men, who flourished in the seat of empire soon after its appearance appearance.. For the answer we need not look far, were we now concerned to produce it. But suppose the fact to have been otherwise; suppose, for instance, Seneca to have taken the Gospel for the basis of his morals, and the theme of his rhetoric: suppose Pliny to have employed the elegance of his style in panegyrizing Christianity; instead of bearing the unfriendly, and I will add invaluable, testimony of a persecutor to the acknowledged Divinity of its Author, the astonishing rapidity of its dissemination, and the unimpeachable innocence, and inflexible constancy of its votaries: suppose even, in later times, Antoninus to have given the Meditations of a Christian emperor, and philosophy learnt in the school of Jesus, to the world.

How triumphantly would the unbeliever have turned against us those very recommendations, with the absence of which he now professes himself dissatisfied! How much should we have heard of the influence of advocates, and the weight of authority! How confidently, in a word, would the success of Christianity have been ascribed to common causes, and all its pretensions to preternatural support disallowed!