After 'the Crisis in Tory Piety': the emergence of the "quiet flow" of the Old High tradition
The priest does not absolve in his own name. He simply promulgates the terms of pardon, granted by the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. That this may be misunderstood by none, is probably one reason, for which our form repeats the nominative case. "He," that is, Almighty God, "pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his Holy Gospel" - John Shepherd, A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796).
I assure the reader further, that I am none of your passive obedience and non-resistance men. The principles on which the glorious Revolution in 1688 was brought about, constitute the articles of my political creed; and were it necessary, I could clearly evince, that these are perfectly conformable to the doctrines of scripture - Charles Inglis, The True Interest of America Impartially Stated (1775).
These extracts may seem like conventional and uncontroversial statements of the Old High tradition on the Eucharist, on absolution, and on the British constitution. They would, however, have been - to say the least - rather surprising for leading voices in the early 18th century High Church tradition, in the decades following the Glorious Revolution.
John Johnson's The Unbloody Sacrifice and Altar Unvail'd and Supported was published in 1717, "to prove the Eucharist a proper sacrifice ... a real, and proper sacrifice", not a feast upon the sacrifice of the Cross. The necessity of absolution received from an episcopally ordained priest was maintained by Richard Laurence in his Sacerdotal Powers, published in 1710:
the authority of remitting sins which Christ gave to his Apostles is more than merely declarative.
Regarding the Revolution's constitutional settlement, High Church scepticism and opposition was often communicated by means of invoking passive obedience and non-resistance to critique 1688, as in Sacheverell's infamous declaration in his 1709 5th November sermon, describing "fundamental doctrine":
the steady Belief of the Subject's Obligation to Absolute, and Unconditional Obedience to the Supream Power, in All Things Lawful, and the utter Illegality of Resistince upon any Pretence whatsoever.
It would not only be early 18th century High Churchmen who would have been surprised by the later 18th century High Church tradition. So too would have been Low Churchmen from earlier in that century. Bishop Burnet, in the 'New Preface' to the Third Edition (1713) of his A Discourse of the Pastoral Care, defined the characteristics of "the Low Church-men". Amongst these he addressed the Eucharist, absolution, and the Revolution Settlement:
They know of no Power in a Priest to pardon Sin, other than the Declaring the Gospel Pardon, upon the Conditions on which it is offered. They know of no Sacrifice in the Eucharist, other than the Commemorating that on the Cross, with the Oblation of the Prayers, Praises, and Almsgiving, prescribed in the Office ... As to our Temporal Concerns, they think all that Obedience and Submission that is settled by our Laws, to the Persons of our Princes, ought to be paid them for Conscience sake: But if a misguided Prince shall take on him to dissolve our Constitution, and to subject the Laws to his Pleasure, they think that if God offers a Remedy, it is to be received with all Thankfulness. For these Reasons they rejoyced in the Revolution, and continue Faithful and True to the Settlement then made.
On these crucial issues, Burnet's definition of "the Low Church-men" can easily be applied to the High Church tradition of the later 18th century. To put it another way, the Old High tradition was much closer to Burnet than it was to Sacheverell. Why was this so?
Key to the answer, I think, is William Gibson's superb Samuel Wesley & the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685-1720 (2021). In the person of Samuel Wesley, Gibson examines how Tory High Church parsons understood the decades following the Revolution - what he terms the 'Long Glorious Revolution' - in "apocalyptic terms". Wesley took his stand against compromising Low Church bishops, scheming Whigs, Dissenters with invalid Baptism (because not administered by an episcopally-ordained priest), ghosts and witches, and a tidal wave of immorality and godlessness let loose because the Church's power had been undermined by 1688.
As Gibson notes, Tory High Church parsons like Samuel Wesley had a "soteriological approach to political and religious events" during the years of the 'Long Glorious Revolution'. This explains the theological passions of the 'Rage of Party', the intense culture wars that rent Church and State in the aftermath of the Revolution. In these Wesley was a significant participant, having a leading role in the Lower House of Convocation in 1710-15, that "dogmatic and fractious body". Thus, in the words of Burnet, this led "so many of the Bodies of the Clergy into Jealousies of their Bishops, and into Combinations against them, as if they were betraying the Church and its Liberties", giving rise to "the Insults and Fury of distracted Multitudes".
The High Church reaction against the Revolution, however, failed. The Hanoverian Succession, the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion in 1715, the widespread acceptance of the Toleration Act as an expression of British liberty, and - as Gibson demonstrates with the example of Wesley's parish of Epworth - the laity's rejection of high-flying notions of ecclesiastical power, resulted in the exhaustion of populist High Church Toryism. The consequences of this exhaustion and failure are suggested by Gibson's comment on Wesley's latter years: "As he matured, Wesley became less inflexible ... In 1735, in Advice to a young clergyman, Wesley commended Wake's [a Low Church Whig] translation of the Apocrypha. In addition ... Wesley endorsed Burnet's works".
In his latter years, Samuel Wesley was indicating how the High Church tradition would develop after the crisis in Tory piety following the Glorious Revolution. The influence of Daniel Waterland (d.1740) was significant, combining a serious doctrinal orthodoxy with commitment to the Revolution Settlement. A key moment in this development was also Secker's appointment to Canterbury (1758-68). He is described by Ingram as "an opponent of theological heterodoxy and a patron of the theologically orthodox", reflecting classical High Church concerns while also being a loyal Hanoverian. The reign of George III gave a renewed impetus to this chastened, wiser High Church tradition. Burnet and Tillotson would be admired. The Eucharist would be celebrated as a feast upon a sacrifice, after the Cambridge Platonist Cudworth. The Absolution would be reverently pronounced at Morning and Evening Prayer, a declaration of God's gracious forgiveness. And solemn thanksgiving would be offered for the constitutional settlement of 1688. Above all, however, the High Church tradition of the later 18th century would be very far removed from the populist zeal and righteous factionalism of Sacheverell. Renouncing such ways for the quiet modesty of a Hookerian peace, the Old High tradition would look back on that time with Wordsworth, in his sonnet 'Sacheverell':
... the Sentinel
Who loudest rang his pulpit ’larum bell,
Stands at the Bar, absolved by female eyes
Mingling their glances with grave flatteries
Lavished on Him - that England may rebel
Against her ancient virtue. High and Low,
Watchwords of Party, on all tongues are rife;
As if a Church, though sprung from heaven, must owe
To opposites and fierce extremes her life -
Not to the golden mean, and quiet flow
Of truths that soften hatred, temper strife.
It was the crisis in Tory piety during the 'Long Revolution' which demonstrated the futility and emptiness of populist, zealous High Church Tory factionalism, giving way to the "golden mean, and quiet flow" which would characterise Old High piety.
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