Against radical High Church populism: the 'Lay Baptism' controversy

There is a great deal of flaming Heat about Matters, in which more Gentleness and a milder Temper would both look better, and more effectually compass that which is designed by it; I mean the bringing the Dissenters into our Communion. Bitter Railings, and a rough Behaviour, cannot make many Converts. 

Gilbert Burnett's words from the Preface to the 1712 edition of his Discourse of Pastoral Care came to mind when reading William Gibson's excellent Samuel Wesley & the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685-1720 (2021). Gibson addresses how the High Church and Tory Wesley differed from his Whig and Latitudinarian diocesan, William Wake, during the 'Lay Baptism' controversy of 1708-1712. The controversy commenced when an Anglican convert from Dissent, Roger Laurence (who had been re-baptised according to Anglican rites in 1708), wrote an inflammatory tract entitled Lay Baptism Invalid, or an Essay to prove that such Baptism is Null and Void when administer'd in opposition to the Divine Right of the Apostolical Succession. 

Gibson describes how the bitter debate divided along party lines:

On the one side Dissenters, Whigs, and Latitudinarians - keen to bring Dissenters back to the Church - took the view that Dissenting baptism was valid, and had historically been regarded as such by the Church of England. On the other side, the Tories and High Churchmen argued for the need for baptism by a priest who had been episcopally ordained and saw the invalidation of lay baptism as an opportunity to oblige Dissenters to be re-baptised in the Church. 

The debate demonstrated how a radical High Church populism, with - in the words of Burnett - its "flaming heat", was destructive of the peace and concord of the Church. In this case, denying the validity of Baptism by Dissenting clergy, High Church populism was "secretly striking at some established Doctrine, or laudable Practice of the Church of England, or indeed of the whole Catholick Church of Christ". In denying the validity of Dissenting Baptism, High Churchmen were refusing to be "sober, peaceable, and truly conscientious Sons of the Church of England".

Laurence himself embodied this.  Despite being re-baptised in the Church of England in 1708 - and thus after the Non-Juror schism - he choose to receive orders from a Non-Juror bishop in 1714, rejecting the communion of the Church of England. He went on to be consecrated to the episcopate, but only by one Non-Juror bishop, with the result that the original body of Non-Jurors refused to accept the validity of his consecration. He then led a breakaway Non-Juror group. Such was the standard-bearer of radical High Church populism in the 'Lay Baptism' controversy.

A key aspect of the radical High Church populist stance on Dissenting Baptism was its rejection of Hooker's defence of Baptism by women, comparing the Puritan rejection of it to the Novatians and Donatists:

Novatianus his conceipt was that none an administer true baptisme but the true Church of Jesus Christ, that he and his followers alone were the Church ... Donatistes, whome envie and rancor covered with showe of godlines made obstinate to cancell whatsoever the Church did in the sacrament of Baptisme (LEP V.62.5 & 11).

Hooker's judgement, therefore, applies to the radical High Church populism of the 'Lay Baptism' controversy:

And because seconde baptisme was ever abhord in the Church of God as a kind of incestuous birth, they that iterate baptisme are driven under some pretense or other to make the former baptisme voyde (V.62.5).

It was the bishops who stood against the radical High Church populist claims, reaffirming and defending Hooker's judgement. The Life of John Sharp - Archbishop of York 1691-1714 - narrates a meeting of thirteen bishops in Lambeth on 22nd April 1712:

We had a long discourse about lay baptism, which of late hath made such a noise about the town. We all agreed, that baptism by any other person, except lawful ministers, ought as much as may be to be discouraged; nevertheless, whoever was baptized by any other person, and in that baptism the essentials of baptism were preserved, that is, being dipped or sprinkled in the name of the Father, &c. such baptism was valid, and ought not to be repeated.

This indeed is the sense of the Church of England, as will appear to any person who considers the rubrics in the office for private baptism, and compares them with one another, and with the previous questions in the office itself. From all which, laid together, it may be plainly collected, that where the essentials, matter and form, have been preserved, though administered by another hand than that of a lawful minister, the baptism shall not be so much as hypothetically repeated.

Sharp, we should note, was a High Churchman, a Tory, and a favourite of Queen Anne. This, then, was not a case of only Whig and Latitudinarian bishops opposing Tory clergy. As a result of the episcopal conversations, Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, proposed a declaration to be issued:

Forasmuch as sundry persons have of late by their preaching, writing, and discourses, possessed the minds of many people with doubts and scruples about the validity of their baptism, to their great trouble and disquiet, we, the archbishops and bishops whose names are under written, have thought it incumbent on us to declare our several opinions, in conformity with the judgments and practice of the Catholic Church, and of the Church of England in particular, that such persons as have already been baptized in or with water, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, ought not to be baptized again. And to prevent any such practice in our respective dioceses, we do require our several clergy, that they presume not to baptize any adult person whatsoever, without giving us timely notice of the same, as the rubric requires.

This declaration defended catholic, sacramental order against a radical High Church populism engaged in what we me might appropriately describe as a culture war: a culture war in which political victories were deemed to be of greater significance than the church's peace and good order; a culture war in which the balm of Hookerian wisdom was abandoned for partisan "flaming heat". 

The controversy reminds us that the Old High tradition of the later 18th century had more in common with Tillotson, Tenison, and Burnett than it did with the firebrands of the early decades of the century. Indeed, in 1758 Thomas Secker - a former Dissenter who had conformed and received orders in the Church of England - became Archbishop of Canterbury: Secker had not been re-baptised and was, in the words of Robert Ingram's study, a "latter-day Laud". 

The result of "the crisis of Tory piety", therefore, was a saner, chastened, more modest and sober - a more Hookerian - Old High tradition: having little in common with Roger Laurence, and much more like the Latitudinarian Tillotson. Rather than Laurence's fiery provocations, it was the sober moderation of Tillotson which would be found in the Old High tradition:

I am still of the old opinion, that moderation is a virtue, and one of the peculiar ornaments and advantages of the excellent constitutions of our church, and must at last be the temper of her members, especially the clergy.