'He was not less concerned to relieve their Temporal Wants': Nelson's 'Life of Dr. George Bull' on the parson, parish, and the poor

In the Middle Ages, the poor were regarded as our brothers and sisters in Christ to whom we were bound in love.

After the Reformation, poverty came to be seen as a sign of God's punishment and ... a problem to be dealt with through discipline and often punishment.

So said Timothy Radcliffe OP - now a cardinal - in a 2012 letter to the Daily Telegraph, critiquing the late Hilary Mantel's praise for Thomas Cromwell. It is, of course, a rather standard Roman Catholic meme, entirely lacking in serious historical research, the result of 'Merrie England' fantasies encouraged by some readings of Duffy's panegyric of pre-Reformation English religion. Ironically, Radcliffe's letter opened by stating that Mantel "is not as good a historian as she is a novelist".

At the heart of this fantasy is the view that with the dissolution of the monasteries, the care for the poor provided in pre-Reformation England by religious orders was abolished, to be replaced by grubby, greedy secular hands, grasping at land and riches. Needless to say, this entirely overlooks how the hands of religious could be no less grubby, greedy, and grasping. What is more, it also ignores how - contrary to Radcliffe's very odd summary of Reformation teaching regarding the poor - Reformed England was very conscious of its obligations to the poor.

Philip Anderson, in a marvellous paper for the Prayer Book Society publication Faith and Worship (Michaelmas 2021), has demonstrated how Elizabethan provision for the poor was rooted in a Reformed theological vision:

The English tradition of public welfare free at the point of use, paid for from public funds, stands on deep legal and theological foundations - namely the Tudor poor laws, rooted in a Protestant understanding of the Church, to be precise a Reformed ecclesiology.

This was also given significant liturgical expression:

lay almsgiving was inserted into the middle of the Communion service, in the 1549 book in parallel to, and in the 1552 book instead of, the ritual preparation of bread and wine for Holy Communion by the priest.

While, as Anderson notes, "by the eighteenth century, the Tudor idea of religious uniformity had been shattered", complicating the relationship between church and the poor of the parish, it remained the case that clergy and parish were very conscious of their obligations to the poor.  In his study of the Church of England in 18th century Devon, Arthur Warne highlights how of the 370 parishes in the county, in 241 the parson was a trustee of charities caring for the local poor. He goes on to state:

The evidence of the clergy's vigilance in seeing that the poor were not robbed by a misuse of charities is very impressive.

What is more, "there is no doubt of the motive behind all this well-meant charity", with support for the poor being explicitly understood as a Christian, scriptural obligation.

Which brings us to this week's reading from Nelson's 1713 Life of Dr. George Bull. Here we see Parson Bull ministering to the physical welfare of his poorer parishioners:

As Mr. Bull was intent upon the Spiritual Welfare of his Parishioners, by performing the Part of a diligent and pious Pastor among them; so he was not less concerned to relieve their Temporal Wants when the Necessities of the Poor required his Assistance. He had not the least Tincture of Covetousness in his Temper; Hospitable he was to all his Neighbours, and they never wanted Relief who were known to him to stand in need of it. When he visited any poor sick Family, his Prayers and his Alms went ever together upon those Occasions. He would send largely to poor House-keepers in the Time of their Distress, when they were visited with Sickness, or had sustained any great Loss. But the Widows and Orphans of Clergymen, who were unprovided for, were the constant Objects of his Care and Concern; he usually gave liberally himself and and was very active in procuring Charities from the Gentry in the Neighbourhood upon such Occasions; and his Character was so valued among Persons of the best Figure, that he seldom solicited the Cause of the Poor, but they found the Benefit of such an Advocate. His particular Method in doing good for a great part of his Time consisted in keeping Poor Children at School; he was very sensible of the Advantages which attend that Sort of Charity; so that where the Parents were Poor, he became a Father to their Children in the Care of such an Education, which was not only of use to them in the World, but very Instrumental in promoting their Eternal Salvation.

It is difficult not to hear in Nelson's account another echo of the Ordinal, this time from a question addressed to those to be made deacon:

it is his office, where provision is so made, to search for the sick, poor, and impotent people of the Parish, to intimate their estates, names, and places where they dwell, unto the Curate, that by his exhortation they may be relieved with the alms of the Parishioners, or others.

For all of the insufficiencies in provision for the poor the post-Reformation Church of England and English state in the centuries after 1558, it is quite simply utterly ridiculous to state that the poor were as "a problem to be dealt with through discipline and often punishment". Charity towards the poor was a key concern of parson and parish, as we see in the example of Bull. 

Nelson also refers to how Bull understood - to use the Radcliffe's words - "the poor ... as our brothers and sisters in Christ to whom we were bound in love":

His usual Discourse upon this Subject was, That when we give to the Poor, we do good to our selves; not so much because God is sometimes pleased to Bless our Charity with an Increase of our earthly Substance, as because they who abound in good Works acquire an Interest in the Prayers and Benedictions of the Poor, which he was persuaded did prevent them from falling into many Dangers in this Life, and were of mighty Prevalence with God, through the Merits of Christ, toward their Eternal Salvation and Admission into his Heavenly Kingdom. 

This extract from Nelson's Life, therefore, offers an important insight into how care for the poor was a fundamental aspect of the ministry of parson and parish in the Church of England of the 'long 18th century', flowing from the Elizabethan Settlement. Without romanticising such local charitable provision, and its undoubted weaknesses, it is difficult not to think that it could be more rooted in grace, love, and community than both the New Poor Law of 1834 and the faceless bureaucracy of the modern welfare state.