Socinians to the left, Enthusiasts to the right: Le Mesurier's Bampton Lectures on 18th century challenges to "the established communion"

If, as suggested in the post introducing Thomas Le Mesurier's 1807 Bampton Lectures, On the Nature and Guilt of Schism, he presented an understanding of the Church which Kenneth Kirk would later describe as a characteristically Anglican commitment to "combining the principle of authority with that of freedom", the account given in the lectures of the Church of England in the 18th century portrays the challenges posed to this by both a radical Latitudinarianism and Enthusiasm. 

Firstly, the radical Latitudinarian challenge, which Le Mesurier sees as embodied in Bishop Hoadly's stance in the Bangorian controversy:

The mode however which was adopted by the then bishop of Bangor ... must be admitted to have been somewhat extraordinary for one, who was by his office, an established ruler in the church. Not content to argue against any abuse or misconception of authority, he proceeded at once to deny that there was any authority whatever given by Christ to any person to rule or to govern his church: he asserted that what our Lord said of "his kingdom not being of this world" was to be taken most strictly, as interdicting every man from being a judge or lawgiver in religious matters; and thus he, by necessary inference, condemned or materially impeached the very establishment in which he held so distinguished a situation.

Hoadly's stance, Le Mesurier contends, encouraged a radical Latitudinarian rejection of any meaningful ecclesiastical authority, with significant doctrinal consequences in the appearance of Socinianism within some quarters of the established church:

From that time, indeed, the opinions of Arius and Socinus began to acquire a degree of credit: not only greater than they had ever possessed, but in a quarter where it might least have been expected, even in the bosom of the church. The learned and ingenious prelate, of whom we have been speaking, was by many persons supposed to be much inclined to the Socinian tenets. Another extremely eminent, and otherwise respectable divine [Samuel Clarke] put forth such an account of his ideas of the Trinity, as naturally operated to fix upon him the charge of Arianism ... And the taking away of all subscriptions was urged by another dignitary of our church [Francis Blackburne] upon such latitudinarian principles as would have set open the door to every the wildest theory.

As a result, such radical Latitudinarianism rent asunder the "combining [of] the principle of authority with that of freedom", entirely dissolving this union:

These principles so distinctly encourage and set up a private and independent judge in every man's breast, that they cannot also but allow of and sanction the utmost possible difference of opinion. Of course, where there is so little reason for individuals remaining joined together, there can be no good ground for complaining against any of their brethren who shall chuse to make a further separation upon principles of their own devising.

The other significant challenge to the Anglican union of authority and freedom came from an excessive reaction against radical Latitudinarian opinion:

another sect, pretending that there was a necessity for a new and more zealous ministry, in order to enforce and disseminate the true faith in Christ, which they declared had been shamefully neglected and abused.

This was Methodism, which in its apparent determination to promote orthodoxy against Latitudinarian influence, engaged in schism:

What is remarkable, is, that in doctrine, they profess most completely to hold with the church of England; nay, the boast of their founders was, that they were in strict conformity to her articles, while the regular clergy daily departed from them. Their leaders too had received ordination from our bishops. This makes them, or, at least, made them, in the beginning, more purely schismatical than most of the dissenters of whom we have been speaking. 

And, as with the radical Latitudinarians giving succour to Socinianism, Arianism, and Unitarianism within the church and Dissenting bodies, so there was those with the established church who likewise were aligned with Methodism:

Another circumstance worthy of notice is, that in their pecularities of doctrine for the adoption of which we conceive them to be blameable, as putting a wrong construction upon some of our articles, they also have their favourers among the regularly ordained and officiating ministers of the church, so that, in this case also, there has not been wanting precisely the same sort of encouragement and countenance as has, according to what we before observed, been enjoyed by the other separatists. Here again, therefore, we shall meet, where we might least have looked for it, with a considerable body, who are either the patrons of schism, or who will be disposed to look upon it, if not openly to treat it with indifference.

Methodists and their Enthusiasm to the right, radical Latitudinarians and Unitarians to the left: here were the challenges, Le Mesurier declares, to "our national church ... the established communion". In so defining the challenges, Le Mesurier also implies the character of the national church, possessing a doctrinal centre resented by the radical Latitudinarians, while refusing the temptations to immoderation and Enthusiasm.

Something of this refusal of immoderation and Enthusiasm is also seen in Le Mesurier's comments on an earlier schism from the national church, that of the Nonjurors and what he terms their "pretensions":

This was the scrupulousness, extreme, it may be allowed, and too nice, of certain of our divines, who, however they disapproved, and had even resisted the designs of James the second against the church, yet conceived themselves to be so bound by the oath of allegiance which they had taken to him, that they could not, during his life, transfer that allegiance to any other sovereign; and they in consequence declined acknowledging his successor. This brought on the expulsion of them from their bishoprics and other perferments; and, as they still persisted in considering themselves as the rightful pastors in the several cures to which they had been instituted, occasion was given to a contest, which though in itself purely religious, yet was made naturally enough to bear upon the politics of the day.

Such extreme scrupulousness regarding oaths to a monarch who had broken his Coronation Oath to defend the Church of England was, indeed, a form of Enthusiasm. As Le Mesurier goes on to note, it was this high-flying Enthusiasm which led to Hoadly's radical Latitudinarian intervention:

[these were the] circumstances, which, independently of the merits of the question, tended to give weight and prevalency to the sentiments thus brought forward and supported by Bishop Hoadly and his adherents. The very circumstance which had occasioned the question to be agitated, secured to him a considerable degree of favour with a very large party in the nation, and the decided patronage of the persons that were then at the head of the government. 

Nonjuring Enthusiasm provoked radical Latitudinarianism which in turn provoked Methodist Enthusiasm. Such extremes rejected "combining the principle of authority with that of freedom", the union which characterised the national church, in favour of exalting either authority over freedom or freedom over authority, and thus disordering ecclesial life and communion. Next week's post in this series will explore how Le Mesurier invoked a modest but serious commitment to the communion of the national church in response to these challenges and their consequences.