No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
‘The Clergy who Affect to Call Themselves Orthodox’: Thomas Secker and the Defence of Anglican Orthodoxy, 1758–68
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The spectre of the seventeenth century loomed large in the eighteenth century. The Anglican orthodox were particularly aghast at the radical assault on the religio-political order during the previous century and feared a reprise during theirs. In 1734, for instance, Thomas Seeker (1693–1768) warned his audience at St James’s, Westminster, that Charles I’s execution was ‘a most peculiarly instructive example of divine judgments, brought down by a sinful people on their own heads’. In all his providential interventions in human affairs, God teaches ‘an awful regard to himself, as moral governor of the world; and a faithful practice of true religion’. And what drew his divine wrath upon Britain during the 1650s was the abandonment of’real religion’ for ‘hypocrisy, superstition, and enthusiasm’. Certainly Laud and his followers might have displayed ‘an over warm zeal, and very blameable stiffness and severity’, Seeker acknowledged. ‘But there was also, in the enemies of the church, a most provoking bitterness and perverseness; with a wild eagerness for innovation, founded on ignorant prejudices, which their heated fancies raised into necessary truths; and then, looking on them, as the cause of Christ, they thought themselves bound and commissioned to overturn whatever was contrary to them.’
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2007
References
1 Worden, Blair, Roundhead Reputations: the English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity (London, 2001), 65–215 Google Scholar; Clark, J. C. D., English Society, 1660–1832: Religion, Ideology and Politics during the Ancien Regime (Cambridge, 2000), 43–123 Google Scholar; Pocock, J. G. A., ‘Within the Margins: the Definitions of Orthodoxy’, in Lund, Roger, ed., The Margins of Orthodoxy: Heterodox Writing and Cultural Response, 1660–1750 (Cambridge, 1995), 33—53, at 38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
2 ‘Sermon preached in the parish church of St. James, Westminster, January 30, 1733–4 [Isaiah 32: 9]’, in Thomas Seeker, The Works of Thomas Seeker, L.L.D., late Lord Archbishop of Canterbury: to which is prefixed a review of his life and character, 4 vols (Edinburgh, 1799) [here after: Gorfes], 3: 423. Compare ‘Sermon preached before the House of Lords, in the Abbey-Church of Westminster, on Thursday, May 29, 1739[Psalm 106: 12–13]’, in Works, 3: 460–71.
3 ‘Sermon preached … [on] January 30, 1733–34’, 425.
4 Ibid., 426.
5 Champion, Justin, ‘“Religion’s Safe, with Priestcraft is the War”: Augustan Anticlericalism and the Legacy of the English Revolution, 1660–1720’, The European Legacy 5: 4 (2000), 547–61 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Waterman, A. M. C., “The Nexus between Theology and Political Doctrine in Church and Dissent’, in Haakonssen, Knud, ed., Enlightenment and Religion: Rational Dissent in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge, 1996), 193–218 Google Scholar; Clark, , English Society, 1660–1832, 318–422.Google Scholar
6 Robert G. Ingram, Thomas Secker. Religion, Reform, and Modernity, 1700–1770 (forthcoming) will anatomize Seeker’s orthodox reform efforts fully.
7 Harris, Bob, Politics and the Nation: Britain in the Mid-Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 2002)CrossRefGoogle Scholar nicely captures the turbulence of mid-eighteenth-century Britain.
8 Young, B. W., Religion and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-Century England: Theological Debate from Locke to Burke (Oxford, 1998), 6 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, Pocock, J. G. A., ‘Post-Puritan England and the Problem of the Enlightenment’, in Zagorin, Perez, ed., Culture and Politics from Puritanism to the Enlightenment (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA, 1980), 91–112 Google Scholar; idem, ‘Clergy and Commerce: the Conservative Enlightenment in England’, in Ajello, R., Contese, E., and Piano, V., eds, L’età dei Lumi: Studi storici sul settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi, 2 vols (Naples, 1985), 1: 523–62 Google Scholar; idem, , ‘Conservative Enlightenment and Democratic Revolutions: the American and French Cases in British Perspective’, Government and Opposition 24: 1 (1989), 81–105.Google Scholar
9 Nichols, John, Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, 9 vols (London, 1812–15), 3:751.Google Scholar
10 Gwatkin, Thomas, Remarks upon the second and third of the Three letters against the Confessional by a country clergyman (London, 1768), 43.Google Scholar
11 Nichols, John, Illustrations of the Literary History of the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols (London, 1817–1858), 3:497.Google Scholar
12 See, for instance, Seeker, , Oratio quant coram Synodo Provinciae Cantuariensis anno 1761 convocata habendum scripseral, sed morbo praepeditus non habuit, Archiepiscopus [hereafter Oratio], in Works, 4: 217–30 Google Scholar. Quotations from the Oratio are taken from The Acts of the Canterbury Convocation, 1761–1852, ed. Gerald Bray (typescript): London, Lambeth Palace Library, shelfmark H5021.A1 [R], 357–67, at 361–2.
13 Seeker, , Eight Charges delivered to the Clergy of the Dioceses of Oxford and Canterbury (London, 1769) [‘Charge of 1741’], 48–54 Google Scholar; idem, Lectures on the Catechism of the Church of England; with a Discourse on Confirmation (8th edn, London, 1799), 5–9.Google Scholar
14 See, for instance, Lambeth Palace, Seeker Papers 3, fol. 147: Seeker to Matthew Kenrick, 26 March 1762.
15 Oratio, 363. See also Mandelbrote, Scott, ‘The English Bible and its Readers in the Eighteenth Century’, in Rivers, Isabel, ed., Books and Their Readers in Eighteenth-Century England: New Essays (London, 2001), 35–78 Google Scholar; Hitchin, N. W., ‘The Politics of English Bible Translation in Georgian Britain’, TRHS ser. 6, 9 (1999), 67–92.Google Scholar
16 Lambeth Palace, Seeker Papers 2, fols 1–88; Greaves, R. W. and Macauley, John, eds, The Autobiography of Thomas Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury (Lawrence, KS, 1988)Google Scholar [hereafter: Autobiography]; BL, Add. MS 32902, fols 104–5: Secker to Duke of Newcastle, 8 February 1769.
17 Katz, David S., God’s Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism (New Haven, CT, 2004), 204–9 Google Scholar; Ruderman, David, Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key: Anglo-Jewry’s Construction of Modern Jewish Thought (Princeton, NJ, 2000), 23–56.Google Scholar
18 Gregory, Jeremy, Restoration, Reformation, and Reform: Archbishops of Canterbury and their Diocese, 1660–1828 (Oxford, 2000), 33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
19 Lowth, Robert, Isaiah: a New Translation, 2 vols (3rd edn, London, 1795), 1 Google Scholar: xci. Lowth repeatedly cited Secker’s Lambeth biblical notes as an authority in his translation of Isaiah. Ruderman, , Jewish Enlightenment, 57–88 Google Scholar and Katz, , God’s Last Words, 153–9 Google Scholar assess the importance of Lowth’s work on the Bible as literature.
20 Ibid., xcii.
21 Tattersall, William Declair, Improved psalmody (London, 1794), 4 Google Scholar; Blayney, Benjamin, Jeremiah and Lamentations: a new translation with notes critical, philological, and explanatory (Oxford, 1784), vii Google Scholar; Newcome, William, An attempt towards an improved version, a metrical arrangement, and an explanation of the prophet Ezekiel (Dublin, 1788)Google Scholar; Wintle, Thomas, Daniel, an improved version attempted (Oxford, 1792), xvii, xxvii, xli Google Scholar; Roberts, W. H., Corrections of various passages of the English translation of the Old Testament (London, 1794), 232 Google Scholar. Even a Roman Catholic like Alexander Geddes sought out Seeker’s advice on questions of biblical translation: Critical remarks on the Hebrew scriptures, 2 vols (London, 1800), 1:36. Compare Hurd, Richard, A discourse, by way of general preface, to the quarto edition of Bishop Warburton’s works (London, 1794), 82–3 Google Scholar for contemporary criticism of the quality of Seeker’s biblical scholarship.
22 Lambeth Palace, MS 2577, front cover.
23 See Herbert, and Schneider, Carol, eds, Samuel Johnson: His Career and Writings, 4 vols (New York, 1929), 4:71 Google Scholar: Seeker to Samuel Johnson, 4 November 1760 for Seeker’s objections to Hutchinsonian natural philosophy.
24 Autobiography, 35, 42.
25 Peckard detailed his treatment by Seeker in three letters to Francis Blackburne (dated 3 November, 5 December, and 6 December 1760): Blackburne, Francis, The Works of… Francis Blackburne, M.A. …; with some of the life and writings of the author (Cambridge, 1804), xciv–cvii Google Scholar. Unless otherwise noted, the information in this paragraph is drawn from these letters.
26 Ibid., xciv-ci. Young, B. W., ‘ “The Soul-Sleeping System”: Politics and Heresy in Eighteenth-Century England’, JEH 45 (1994), 64–81 Google Scholar and Ahnert, Thomas, ‘The Soul, Natural Religion, and Moral Philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment’, Eighteenth-Century Thought 2 (2004), 233–53 Google Scholar provide further context.
27 Ibid., cii.
28 Ibid., ciii.
29 [Francis Blackburne], Remarks on the Revd. Dr. Powell’s sermon in defence of subscriptions, preached before the University of Cambridge on the commencement Sunday 1757 (London, 1758).
30 Quoted in Fitzpatrick, Martin, ‘Latitudinarianism at tie Parting of the Ways: a Suggestion’, in Walsh, John, Haydon, Colin, and Taylor, Stephen, eds, The Church of England, c.1689-c.1833: From Toleration to Tractarianism (Cambridge, 1993), 209–27, at 213.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 Blackburne, Remarks on… Dr. Powell’s sermon, 70–1.
32 Ibid., x.
33 On the theology and politics of the subscription controversy, see Young, , Religion and Enlightenment, 45–80 Google Scholar; Ditchfield, G. M., ‘The Subscription Issue in British Parliamentary Politics, 1772–79’, Parliamentary History 7 (1988), 45–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Fitzpatrick, , ‘Latitudinarianism at the Parting of the Ways’, 209–27.Google Scholar
34 Aston, , ‘The Limits of Latitudinarianism’, 407–33 Google Scholar explains why many Anglicans viewed Blackburne’s assault on clerical subscription requirements as a logical follow-up to Robert Clayton’s heterodox An essay on spirit (Dublin, 1750).
35 London, BL, Add. MS 39311, fol. 180: Home to George Berkeley, Jr, 17 July 1766.
36 Autobiography, 52.
37 Ibid., 68.
38 See, for instance, London Chronicle 23 (12–14 April 1768), 359 where Seeker defended Ridley under the pseudonym ‘Oxoniensis’. In particular, he was responding to attacks on Ridley’s critique of The Confessional by ‘Old Milton’ and ‘Cantabrigiensus’ that had appeared in earlier editions of the same paper.
39 Blackburne, , ‘Life of Francis Blackburne’, xxxiii.Google Scholar
40 Ibid.
41 Colin Bonwick, ‘Hollis, Thomas (1720–1774)’, ODNB.
42 Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society 69 (1947–50), 171–2: Hollis to Mayhew, 24 June 1765. Secker’s work to establish Anglican bishops in North America particularly enraged the Hollisites, who feared they would enable and encourage the spread of popery throughout the continent. Blackburne was a particularly fierce critic of the scheme to plant an American episcopate: Blackburne, Francis, A critical commentary on Archbishop Secker’s letter to the Right Honourable Horace Walpole, concerning bishops in America (London, 1770).Google Scholar
43 Autobiography, 57. Maclaine’s defence appeared in a book-length appendix to the second edition of Mosheim, J. L., An Ecclesiastical History, ed. and trans. Maclaine, Archibald (London, 1768), 45–137 Google Scholar. See also, Nichols, , Literary Anecdotes, 2: 40.Google Scholar
44 Autobiography, 58, 61, 178. These rumours were spread by [Francis Blackburne], The Root of Protestant Errors Examined (London, 1752). Baron, Richard’s Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy Shaken (London, 1767)Google Scholar identified Blackburne as the author of the Root of Protestant Errors.
45 Blackburne, Francis, Memoirs of Thomas Hollis, 2 vols (London, 1780), 1: 406–7.Google Scholar
46 Aston, Nigel, ‘Anglican Responses to Anticlericalism in the “Long” Eighteenth Century, c.1689-1830’, in Aston, Nigel and Cragoe, Matthew, eds, Anticlericalism in Britain, c.1500-1914 (Stroud, 2000), 115—37, at 122 Google Scholar; idem, “The Limits of Latitudinarianism: English Reactions to Bishop Clayton’s An Essay on Spirit ’, JEH 49: 3 (1998), 407–33, at 433 Google Scholar; idem, , ‘Infidelity Ancient and Modem: George Home Reads Edward Gibbon’, Albion 27: 4 (1995), 561–82, at 561.Google Scholar
47 Lambeth Palace, Secker Papers 7, fols 150–1: Secker to Theophilus Alexander, 4 December 1762.
48 Oratio, 366.