ABBEY AND OVERTON'S ENGLISH CHURCH IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.*
ADEQUATELY to notice this work would require the limits of a quarterly rather than of a weekly reviewer. Its two authors have been able in producing it to avail themselves of the ample and enviable leisure of rural benefices ; and a critic cannot but be conscious of a certain presumption in attempting in such brief space and time as are at his command to estimate the results of labours that have evidently been a constant occupa- tion through many years. The joint authorship of the book has been arranged on the principle of a division rather than of a sharing of labour. Each chapter is attributed to its writer, and the partnership does not imply any responsibility for opinion expressed by a colleague. There is a certain con- venience in this arrangement. It is not often that two writers, even when accustomed to work together, can combine to use a style which shall not betray the workmanship of a particular hand ; and it is better to acknowledge a difference which is easily detected. On the other, there is a certain danger of repetition, which Messrs. Abbey and Overton have not always avoided. Each writer, indeed, some- times repeats himself ; in fact, a certain want of compression is almost the only fault that we have to find with a work which, as a whole, deserves high praise for its literary ability, for the conscientious industry with which it has been put together, and, above all, for the admirable justice and liberality which charac- terise its judgments.
The controversies which agitated the eighteenth century have, in not a few cases, survived, though often under very different names, to the present day. The struggle, once so fierce and of such vital importance to the nation, between Jacobites and Hanoverians, supplies an instance in point. It may be pre- sumed that Jacobitism is extinct, except in its sentimental recollections. There were Scotch Episcopalians who were disposed to look to the House of Savoy for the true King of England when the male line of the Stuarts should become extinct in the Cardinal of York. It is not likely that, even if there should exist any survivor of this remnant, his faith in divine-right has survived the shock of being trans- ferred to the very revolutionary dynasty of the Kings of Italy. But one of the side questions of the controversy has a remark- ably close application to questions of the day. The argument advanced by Charles Leslie, in his Case of the Regale and Pontificate, when dealing with the perplexing case of a Romanist Prince presiding over a Protestant Church, expresses as closely as possible the views of the memorialists who, headed by the Dean of St Paul's, lately protested in behalf of what they held to be the spiritual freedom of the Church. It is a subject, as Mr. Overton remarks (I., 93), of even more pressing importance
• As English Church inSh43 Bightsenat Cotury. By °hark* J. Abbey, Rector of Oheckendon: and John 11. Overton, Vioar of T„eighbourne. 2 vole. Loudon: 'Rasmus, Green and. 0o. 1212,
at the present day than in the early part of the eighteenth century, and all who are interested in it will find much light thrown not only on its history, but also on its probable future in the excellent chapter to which we have rfeiTed.
The Nonjurors are as extinct as the Jacobites. But their doctrinal position is one that is likely to become, if it is not now, the dominant power in the English Church. The descrip- tion. of the leading men of this party has been skilfully con- nected by Mr. Abbey with the name of Robert Nelson. Around him are grouped in a chapter, distinguished for its literary skill„ a group, or rather two groups, of singular interest. Nelson was a Nonjuror for many years after the Revolution, but he gladly availed himself of the opportunity, which presented itself to him_ some time before his death in 1715, of returning to the com- munion of the National Church. A man of admirable piety and benevolence, he attracted to himself the regard of friends who differed widely from each other, both in character and. opinions. Both Nonjurors and Conformists loved and trusted him.
Indeed, the splendid list of the society in which he lived, should do. no little towards taking away the reproach of barrenness of great names in religion so often made against the eighteenth cen- tury. It must be allowed, however, that many of these men were, so to speak, survivals of the century that had just closed.
This chapter (the third, in the first volume) is one of the most interesting in the book. We would specially commend to our readers' attention a very excellent account of the way in which the dogma of the "divine right of Kings" had got its hold_ on the intellect and conscience of some of the best of English- men. We do not observe that the writer has dealt with Dr.
Johnson's very curious remark about the morality of the ordinary Nonjuring clergy.
Mr. Abbey's chapter on "Latitudinarian Churchmanship suggests another subject, the interest of which has certainly not passed away. The writer has gone beyond the limits of the century for the name which he associates with this topic.
Archbishop Tillotson, he says, "struck the key-note which in his own day, and for two generations and more afterwards, governed the predominant tone of religious learning and senti- ment ;" and it is Tillotson that he makes the central figure of his.
study. He is careful to explain that he uses the term " Lati- tudinarian " in default of a better, but with no sinister meaning.
His description of a "Latitudinarian thinker" is such, indeed, that we, to whom the term is probably often applied in a less favourable sense, would gladly appropriate it to ourselves. We must quote a part of it, only regretting that our limits do not. permit us to transfer the whole to our columns :— "He would feel little perplexity at the progress of speculations which might modify his opinions on what he considered lesser matters, that did not touch essential doctrines and deeper grounds of faith. He would be a friend to seasonable reforms, and might probably be in- clined to favour schemes of comprehension, so long as they involved no compromise of individual opinion and were fair to all ; not (as has sometimes been the case) enlarging the boundaries on one side, only to contract them on another. He has no idea of compromising any truth. On the contrary, he thinks that every one should realise and embody to himself in thought and feeling to the very utmost a& much of truth as he can make his own. He thinks that religion& doctrine should be fertile in its associations and in suggestiveness ; that it should be no bare outline, but rich in beauty of form and feature. He does not deny the possibility of a Church or an individual attaining to complete truth, though he feels that where there is so much conflict of opinion among men of piety and thought, over-confident assertion would in any case be presump- tuous. And even if a Church or an individual could be absolutely certain of having reached a higher stand of truth than was elsewhere to be found, it appears to him that exclusiveness and self-glorification. would still be as much out of place as if a man who had attained a. high degree of moral excellence were to vaunt himself over those who. were struggling upwards at a lower level than his own. But he does not think it likely that any one Church is pre-eminently superior to. all others in full realisation of Christian truth. He deems it consonant to the whole analogy of our human state that a man's perception in spiritual matters should be amply sufficient for all practical needs, and yet fall somewhat short of the clearness and precision. which he would gladly lay claim to. lie is content to Immune that there may probably be an element of imperfection and. one-sidedness in his own views, as in those of others. Of this he is sure : that if„, by the defect of his mind or through lack of opportunity, a man is unable to take in a higher form of truth, it is far better that he thoroughly realise and assimilate what he can really apprehend of it, even in a lower and more imperfect shape, than that he should super- ficially acknowledge, in mere deference to authority, a belief which may be objectively truer, but which is too high for him, and which fails therefore in influence on his life. A man with these views cannot fail to be tolerant and sympathising in his religious opinions, but there is obviously nothing in them to encourage a negligent indifferentism.
We can only notice, in passing, some excellent remarks ma 'Tillotson's failure to recognise the moral and spiritual value of 4' honest doubt," and a correction of the commonly received view of his attitude on the subject of the future life.
The chapter on "'The Evangelical Revival," which occupies about a third of the second volume, is due to the pen of Mr. 'Overton. It contains, among other things, what we are in- clined to consider the best account of John Wesley that has yet been given to the world. A controversy not altogether edify- ing has been waged about Wesley. High Churchmen claim him for their own. The disciples who still call themselves by his name passionately resist the claim. Mr. Overton asks the pertinent questions, How is it that Wesley impressed these High-Church views so little on his disciples? How is it that so little trace is to be found of them in his sermons? The answer which he -suggests probably explains the whole difficulty, and shows that High Churchmen and modern Wesleyans are looking on the golden and silver sides of the same shield. Wesley's "one great object was to promote the love of God, and the love of man for God's sake." His views he held to himself, they were his own taste ; but "if he had followed out this taste, he would have been isolated." There was no sympathy for it in the world which he sought to influence. The third section of this chapter deals with the Evangelicals ; Venn, Newton, Cowper, Thomas Scott, are among the great names with which it deals. We have followed it with unfailing interest, and almost uniform agreement. We may notice a defence, that seems to us in a great degree convincing, of Newton in his relation to Cowper. • Mr. Overton is clear that Newton was wholly guiltless of the poet's melancholy, which, indeed, had its origin in a singular delusion, for which no theological system can be held responsible. It would have been better, however, to give us the effect of Newton's letter to his friend warning him against going into "worldly society." He ought to have 'known enough 'of the poet to have been sure that this was not a danger to which he was really exposed ; and the interference may have done something to hinder him from enjoying a whole- some distraction.
We take leave of these volumes, which we may say, in pass- ing, are as agreeable as they are learned, with a hearty com- mendation of them to our readers.
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