'Better thoughts of our excellent Liturgy': Nelson's 'Life of Bull', Dissent, and the Toleration Act
Added to this, Nelson's readers in 1713 would also have recognised the situation, as the Toleration Act of 1689 gave recognition to Dissenting bodies largely defined by a rejection of the Prayer Book. How the established Church responded to the Toleration Act and provided an apologia for its common prayer, rites, and ceremonies loomed large in Church of England discourse in the early decades of the 18th century. In the words of Jeremy Gregory:
The Toleration Act of 1689 made the pastoral task and responsibilities of Anglican clergy appear even more central to the well-being of the established Church; lacking the exclusive support of the state, pastoral pressure was seen as the most effective method of making any headway against the presence of Dissenters.
It is almost certainly with this in mind that Nelson's description of Bull's Avening ministry is written. Nelson present Bull's as a pattern for ministry in context defined by the Toleration Act, with Dissent an established feature of English society. Crucially, despite Bull's Avening ministry being pre-Toleration Act, Nelson makes no reference to Bull having any use for the legal powers that were intended to enforce Conformity.
Instead, Nelson points to Bull as a model for pastoral ministry in the context defined by the Toleration Act. He begins by describing how Parson Bull recommended the Church of England by his grace and generosity:
This State and Condition of the Parish did not discourage Mr. Bull from doing his Duty, tho' it occasioned him many difficulties in the Discharge of it; and he suffered many Indignities and Reproaches, with admirable Patience and Christian Fortitude, for not complying with those irregular Practices, which had too long prevail'd among them. But by steadiness and Resolution, in performing his holy Function according to the Rubrick, by his patient Demeanour and prudent Carriage, by his readiness to do them all Offices of kindness, and particularly by his great Charity to the Poor, who in that place were very numerous; he did in the End remove all those Prejudices which they had entertained against him, and reduced them to such a Temper, as rendred his Labours effectual among them.
Alongside such gracious generosity, Nelson implies that Bull also had to particularly address qualms concerning the Sacrament of Baptism. It is perhaps not immediately obvious to what it is exactly Nelson is referring. It is unlikely to have been a rejection of infant Baptism in general: the Baptist appeal was always to a small minority. Nor, as we shall see, was it specific objection to the use of the sign of the Cross in the Prayer Book rite. It was, rather, a more general scepticism about the administration of Baptism in the parish church, at the font, according to a liturgy rather than, somewhat casually and with minimal liturgy, in the home:
In so much, that they generally became constant in their Attendance upon the publick Worship, and very decent in their Behaviour at it; and what was effected with the greatest Difficulty, they brought their Children to be Baptized at Church; when all other Arguments failed, the Assurance he gave them, that this was the Practice of the Reformed Churches, perswaded them to comply without any farther Scruple. Indeed the People by degrees, perceiving that he had no Design upon them but their own good, of which they frequently experimented several Instances, their Aversion was changed into Love and Kindness.
When Bishop of St Davids, Bull - in a 1708 visitation charge to his clergy - addressed this matter and made explicit that to which Nelson is here referring:
the Church strictly requires that [Baptism] be performed publicly, in the House of God, not in private houses, except in case of real necessity; as when a child is weak, and cannot without endangering itself be brought to church. But notwithstanding this strict order of our Church, in most places in this country, Baptism is altogether administered in private houses, and scarce any (if any) baptized in the church. If this may be allowed, away with the fonts in your churches; what do they signify? to what purpose are they there? If all the authority I am invested with can do it, I will see this lamentable abuse ofthe sacrament of Baptism reformed.
Again, we are to note that Nelson states that it was patience and gracious generosity upon which Bull relied to reconcile parishioners to the practice of the Church of England. What is more, invoking "the Practice of the Reformed Churches" to defend the practice of the Church of England was not only an earlier 17th century Conformist approach, it also continued to be significant in post-Toleration Act apologetic arguments, placing the Church of England alongside the Continental Reformed churches in a shared practice of administering Holy Baptism publicly, in the parish church, with due solemnity. This was also a common 18th century understanding of the Church of England's relationship with the Continental Reformed.
Finally, there was Bull's approach to divine service. While employing a curate, Bull demonstrated that to "read the Prayers" was not to be considered as beneath the parson, merely a task for the lowly curate:
Yet not withstanding this Assistance, except he was prevented by Sickness, he preached once every Lord's Day, and read the Prayers frequently himself the other part of the Day, when his Curate preached. He chose to divide after this manner the publick Administrations, that the People might not entertain a mean Opinion of his Curates, as if they were not qualified for the Duties of the Pulpit; and that they might have better Thoughts of our excellent Liturgy, when they saw the Parochial Minister officiate himself.
Again we see this theme reflected in his 1708 visitation charge:
the Prayers of the Church are to be read with great reverence and devotion, so as to excite and kindle devotion in the congregation. Thus the Prayers of the Church are to be read, if we would keep up the reputation of them, and render them useful to the people ... I am verily persuaded that this is one cause that there are so many sectaries and separatists among us. They find so little reverence and devotion in the use of our common prayers, that they cannot away with them, but run from the Church to the conventicle, where they hope to find more devotion.
There is very good reason to think that Nelson's account, of how Bull reconciled to the liturgy sceptical parishioners (influenced by a long tradition of Non-conformist critique of the Prayer Book), was written specifically to contribute to thinking within the Church of England regarding the post-Toleration Act context. Bull, therefore, becomes an exemplar for a Church of England that had left the Tory idyll, a Church of England which had to draw to its "excellent liturgy" those shaped by a tradition of sustained critique of that liturgy.
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