'I like that in Anglicanism': New Georgians and the way of austere Anglicanism

DS: "In the 18th century, if you were part of the Virginian gentry, your Anglicanism was very austere and restrained."

TH: "I like that in Anglicanism."

In a recent episode of The Rest is History, discussing George Washington, Dominic Sandbrook and Tom Holland sounded as if they were recruiting for the 'New Georgians'. An 'austere, restrained Anglicanism', after all, could very well act as a summary for that which New Georgians seek.

It is a description which brings to mind places that the New Georgian soul will cherish. Places like The Middle Church, in the heart of Jeremy Taylor country. Old St Stephen's, Fylingdales, North Yorkshire. St David's, Manordeifi, Pembrokeshire. St Andrew the Apostle's, Bayvil, Pembrokeshire. Pohick Church, Virginia. Old Wye Church, Maryland. Christ Church, Lancaster, Virginia. Old Trinity Church on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Old St. Edward's Church, Clementsport, Nova Scotia. Old Holy Trinity Church, Middleton, Nova Scotia.

With their plain windows, box pews, and quiet, bare interiors, these churches embody the austere, restrained Anglicanism that the New Georgian sensibility desires. Here is nothing loud nor brash. These places are for worship in spirit and in truth, not for the transports of hot zeal; for solid, rational piety, in prayers and sermon, not the outpourings or declarations of either Enthusiasm or Sacerdotalism.

They represent that modest, rational, decent piety, combined with a quiet, understated charm. In doing so, they draw us in heart, mind, and soul - as a 1694 commentator said of the sermons of Tillotson - to "all the charms of a calm and blessed temper and of pure reason ... excited to the uncontroverted, indubitable duties of religion".

An 'austere, restrained Anglicanism' is seen in Parson Woodforde, with his quiet, faithful routine, Sunday by Sunday, as the years pass: "I read Prayers and Preached this morning". It is a phrase which quietly captures how Sunday Morning Prayer is a sanctifying ordinance, observing the Lord's Day, for here "we assemble and meet together to render thanks for the great benefits that we have received at his hands, to set forth his most worthy praise, to hear his most holy Word, and to ask those things which are requisite and necessary, as well for the body as the soul".

As to how we might describe the austere, restrained ethos of Morning Prayer read by Woodforde Sunday by Sunday, we can turn to the words of William Paley regarding the Prayer Book services: "The style throughout is excellent; calm, without coldness; and, though everywhere sedate, oftentimes affecting". We might also recall Jeremy Taylor defending the Prayer Book liturgy by quoting Seneca:

The consideration of the vast distance between God and us, Heaven and Earth, should create such apprehensions in us, that the very best and choicest of our offertories are not acceptable but by God's gracious vouchsafing and condescension: and therefore since we are so much indebted to God for accepting our best, it is not safe ventured to present him with a dowbaked sacrifice, and put him off with that which in nature and human consideration, is absolutely the worst; for such is all the crude and imperfect utterance of our more imperfect conceptions; Hoc non probo in philosopho cujus oratio sicut vita debet esse composita, said Seneca, 'A wise man's speech should be like his life, and actions; composed, studied, and considered'.

'Austere, restrained Anglicanism' is seen in the prayers composed by that exemplar of Georgian Anglicanism, Jane Austen - not in any way extravagant, not at all dramatic, but reverently heeding the teaching of our Lord, that "when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret":

Give us grace, Almighty Father, so to pray, as to deserve to be heard, to address Thee with our hearts, as with our lips. Thou art everywhere present, from Thee no secret can be hid. May the knowledge of this, teach us to fix our thoughts on Thee, with reverence and devotion that we pray not in vain.

In her beautiful and otherwise excellent A Year With Gilbert White: The First Great Nature Writer (2025), Jenny Uglow mistakes Parson White's austere, reserved piety for something quite different, describing it as "closer to ... Deism":

The word 'God' appears only a handful of times in The Natural History, and 'Creator' only once. When baffled, he appeals to 'Providence' ...

Parson White - a good son of the Church of England - was certainly no Deist: indeed, he would have been shocked at the very suggestion. But this is a reminder of the characteristic austerity of Georgian Anglican piety, a recognition that a reverence for God and the things of God calls for a cautious modesty in invoking both; an acknowledgement that as we follow "too much the devices and desires of our own hearts", an austere piety is wise and prudent; that too frequent, loud, demonstrative references to our Lord Jesus Christ can seem to disregard his words, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven". 

A fine and quietly moving example of this austere piety is found at the conclusion of Paley's Natural Theology. It is, of course, a text much derided by the representatives of both - to refer to divergent streams in contemporary Anglicanism - New Wine and Radical Orthodoxy . This alone, of course, might give us cause to reconsider Paley. Here, in the work's final words, he sets before us the quiet hope and confidence of austere, modest Georgian Anglican piety:

Upon the whole; in every thing which respects this awful, but, as we trust, glorious change, we have a wise and powerful Being, (the author, in nature, of infinitely various expedients for infinitely various ends), upon whom to rely for the choice and appointment of means, adequate to the execution of any plan which his goodness or his justice may have formed, for the moral and accountable part of his terrestrial creation. That great office rests with him: be it ours to hope and to prepare, under a firm and settled persuasion, that, living and dying, we are his; that life is passed in his constant presence, that death resigns us to his merciful disposal.

To hear Tom Holland declare that he likes an austere Anglicanism was, while welcome to us small band of New Georgians, somewhat surprising. He has, after all, urged "keep Christianity weird", whether by means of incense or speaking in tongues. By contrast, 'weird' is not the first term that comes to mind when thinking of the austere Anglicanism desired by New Georgians. Perhaps, however, in the mid-21st century it is weird not to seek the brash and the loud; to counsel modesty and restraint in piety; to prefer the rational, sober piety of Morning Prayer and sermon to the splendour of High Mass or an enthusiastic, packed praise service. Let New Georgians, then, take heart from Holland's wise words: "I like that in Anglicanism".