Evangelicalism and Churchmanship
Simeon and Church Order. The Birkbeck Lectures for 1937-8. By Charles Smyth. (Cambridge University Press. t6s.)
. MANY years ago a very young man visiting Cambridge referred, in the course of conversation with older relatives, to the " famous " Church of Holy Trinity. "Notorious, I should say," was an aunt's good-humoured but definite correction. The young man, somewhat abashed, agreed that doubtless that was a truer word. His knowledge did not extend to a defensive argu- inent. Had Canon Smyth's book existed and been read by him, he might have held his ground despite what was then the handicap of youthful immaturity. For he would have possessed amply sufficient evidence to show that while Simeon was a strong Evangelical he was also a strong Churchman, and that Holy Trinity, during his vicariate, was not a kind of sub- Anglican conventicle. It is to this conclusion that Canon Smyth's lectures lead, and the book's final chapter gives the title to the whole book. But the chief interest of this most interesting and competent work, to which an impressive amount of research, amply docu- mented and admirably controlled, has contributed, lies neither in its biographical nor in its latent controversial aspect, but in the light it throws on English religion- and on the evangelical revival in the eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries. The first three chapters deal with Religion in the Home, Religion in the School, and Religion in the University. Much is to be learnt from them as to such subjects as family prayers, the comparative attention given to classical and sacred knowledge in great schools like Eton and Westminster, illustrated by refer- ence to contemporary polemical documents, and attendance at college chapels. Cambridge men, especially the alumni of Trinity College, will find a wealth of interest in this third chapter, with its records of the opinions of great scholars—Porson, Thirl- well, Adam Sedgwick. There follow two studies of notable Evangelicals, Berridge of Everton and Cadogan of Reading. The account of Berridge, and of the emotional results which at times followed his preaching, makes plain the difficulties which an Evangelical incumbent, convinced of a mission to all men, might easily find in a Church order of which the parochial system was an established part. Berridge would have been more at ease could he have been an itinerant evangelist; and if his influence on the young Simeon had not been checked by the better- balanced judgement of Henry Venn, Simeon's own history might have been very different. And great might have been the effect upon the position of Evangelicals in the Church of England.
The story of Charles Simeon is, in its development, a curious contrast to that of John Wesley. Wesley never thought of himself as having left the Church of England, nor was it his desire that the relation of the Methodist Society to the Church should be that of an external dissenting body. Yet the schism came, and, however great was the responsibility of those who set themselves in opposition to Wesley's evangelistic campaign, Wesley went his own way in dealing with circumstances ; he was too strong a man and too confident in his mission to be simply the victim of them. Simeon, whose evangelicalism was as real as Wesley's was resolute, when once the importance of Church order had become clear to him, in his adherence to its conse- quences. He "honestly believed," as one who left a record of his Conversation Parties puts it, "the Church tight, and the principles of Dissent wrong," and that schism was a great evil. Any such break as came to pass between the Church of England and Wesley would, I think it may be said, have been impossible in the case of Simeon. Not everyone will regard that as a sign of virtue ; but be that as it may, it is a witness to the compatibility of a zeal for evangelical religion with an intense loyalty to Church order.
Canon Smyth begins his book with a brief mention of the funerals of three English clergymen objects of deep suspicion and obloquy during many years of their lives, but then of a profound and widespread honour and reverence as the last scenes revealed. Dr. Pusey, Father Lowder of St. Peter's, London Docks, and Charles Simeon were not formed after one pattern, and in their life's work they walked in very different paths. But a society which could hold them all has more to be said for it than is sometimes allowed or understood. And they show, not one, but all, that evangelicalism and churclunanship are not
alternatives in thought and practice. J. K. MOZLEY.
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