This description of the 18th century Church of England could have come from a Tractarian. Indeed, they would not have been at all out of place in Tract No. 1. But, no, this was J.C. Ryle's description of the 18th century Church of England. The unholy alliance of Victorian Evangelicals and Tractarians were united in their contempt for 18th century Anglicanism. That contempt has, unfortunately, continued to shape Anglican attitudes into the 21st century - and this despite a host historical studies in recent decades demonstrating that the 18th century Church of England was a spiritually serious, effective, and popular national Church.
As 'the long 18th century' drew to a close, the primary visitation charge of Thomas Burgess, Bishop of Salisbury (received holy orders in 1784, consecrated to the episcopate 1803), delivered to his clergy in August 1826, stands as an example of how Ryle's contemptuous portrayal of the 18th century clergy was little less than an exercise in bearing false witness against his spiritual forebears. (Yes, a good case could be made that Ryle was breaching the 5th and 9th Commandments.)
Burgess set before his clergy the weighty duties of their ministry:
Days of serious recollection, like the present, are calculated to remind us of our Ordination vows and engagements, in which we expressed our conviction, that we were truly called to the ministry of the Church; our belief in the sufficiency of the Scriptures for salvation; our determination faithfully to administer the doctrine, sacraments, and discipline of Christ, according to his will, and the usages of the Established Church; in which we promised to be ready with all faithful diligence to banish and drive away all erroneous and strange doctrines contrary to God's word; to be diligent in prayers (the prayers of domestic and personal religion,) and in the study of the Scriptures; to be exemplary, peaceable, and charitable among all Christians, and especially among them that are or shall be committed to our care.
"The vast majority of them were sunk in worldliness, and neither knew nor cared anything about their profession", declared Ryle's slander. Burgess, by contrast, points us to a faithful, spiritually serious clergy, fulfilling the vows of ordination.
As Bishop Burgess continues, he tells his clergy that such weighty duties call for a reliance on divine grace:
A Candidate for the Ministry, on a view of these solemn obligations, and of the sanctity, the abstraction from worldly cares and habits, the unwearied diligence in duties, and the learning implied in those obligations and promises, and in the incomparable Exhortation, which precedes them in the Ordination Service, might well say, "who is sufficient for these things," if the Scripture did not supply the answer, in the words of our Lord: "My grace is sufficient for thee;" and it will be happy for him, and for the Church, if the deep sense of duty, excited by the thought of these obligations, be not an evanescent impression.
Our understanding of the clergy of the Church of England during 'the long 18th century' should be taken neither from Ryle nor the Tractarians. We should, rather, listen to Burgess and recognise in his words the quiet faithfulness - shaped by the Prayer Book ordinal - of Georgian clergy, a quiet faithfulness that is considerably more attractive than smug, prim Victorian Enthusiasm, whether Tractarian or Evangelical.
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