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‘The Difficulties of Protestantism’: Bishop Milner, John Fletcher and Catholic Apologetic against the Church of England in the era from the First Relief Act to Emancipation, 1778–1830*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Extract

‘It is an old theory of ours, that there are very few of the positions assumed by the antagonists of the Catholic church, which may not be turned against each other, with far more effect than they carry against the common adversary whom they all seek to assail. A skilful use of the weapons employed against each other by various sects of Protestantism, in their internecine warfare, would supply one of the most curious, and we will venture to say, one of the most solid and convincing arguments of the truth of the Catholic religion to be found in the whole range of polemical literature’.

(Dublin Review, 1855).

Anti-Catholicism, represented in the era of the eve of Emancipation by a rich genre of polemical literature focusing on the supposed ‘difficulties of Romanism’, has been the subject of much recent study; notably for the eighteenth century by Colin Haydon, and for the nineteenth, by Walter Amstein, Edward Norman, D. G. Paz, Walter Ralls, F. M. Wallis and John Wolffe. In contrast, English Catholic controversial writing against the Church of England, focusing on what one Catholic writer (in a conscious reversal of the stock Anglican polemical title) called the ‘difficulties of Protestantism’, with notable exceptions such as Sheridan Gilley, Leo Gooch and Brian Carter, 5 has been comparatively neglected for the half century prior to the dawn of the Oxford Movement in 1833.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973

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Footnotes

*

I wish to record my gratitude to Dr. Nigel Aston, Fr. James Pereiro, Dr. Grayson Ditchfield, Dr. Martin Fitzpatrick, Dr. Sheridan Gilley, Dr. John Walsh and Dom Geoffrey Scott, O.S.B. for their helpful and constructive comments on earlier drafts of this article.

References

Notes

1 Haydon, C., Anti-Catholicism in eighteenth-century England: a political and social study (Manchester, 1993)Google Scholar; Norman, E R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (London, 1968)Google Scholar; Arnstein, W. L,, Protestant versus Catholic in Mid-Victorian England (London, 1982)Google Scholar; Wolffe, J., The Protestant Crusade in Great Britain, 1829–1860 (Oxford, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Paz, D. G., Popular Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (Stanford, 1992)Google Scholar; Wallis, F. M., Popular Anti-Catholicism in Mid-Victorian Britain (New York, 1993)Google Scholar.

2 Fletcher, J., The Difficulties of Protestantism (London, 1829)Google Scholar. The Difficulties of Romanism was the title of a work by the Rev. George Stanley Faber, an Anglican divine and prolific anti-Catholic polemicist, whose writings were refuted by the Catholic controversialist, Frederick C. Husenbeth.

3 S. Gilley, ‘John Lingard and the Catholic revival’, SCH, 14 (1977), pp. 313–27; Gilley, S., ‘Nationality and Liberty: Protestant and Catholic: Robert Southey’s Book of the Church ’, SCH, 18 (1982), pp. 40932.Google Scholar

4 L. Gooch, ‘Lingard v. Barrington, et al’, Durham University Journal, 35 (1993), pp. 7–26.

5 Carter, B., ‘Controversy and conciliation in the English Catholic Enlightenment, 1790–1840’, Enlightenment and Dissent, 7 (1988), pp. 424.Google Scholar

6 Questier, M., Conversion, politics and religion in England, 1580–1625 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 5875 Google Scholar; M. Questier, ‘“Like locusts all over the world”: conversion, indoctrination and the Society of Jesus in late Elizabethan and Jacobean England’, McCoog, T. M., ed., The reckoned expense: Edmund Campion and the early English Jesuits. Essays in celebration of the first centenary of Campion Hall, Oxford (1896–1996) (Woodbridge, 1996), pp. 26584.Google Scholar

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8 For discussion of the writings of these authors, see Tavard, G. H., The seventeenth-century tradition: a study in Recusant thought (Leiden, 1978)Google Scholar.

9 On Challoner as Catholic apologist, see S. Gilley, ‘Challoner as controversialist’, Duffy, E. (ed), Challoner and his Church: a Catholic Bishop in Georgian England (London, 1981), pp. 90111 Google Scholar; Burton, E. H., The Life and Times of Bishop Challoner (1691–1781). 2 vols. (London, 1909)Google Scholar.

10 Edward Hawarden was appointed to prepare printed Catholic apologetic after 1715. Blackey, R., ‘A war of words: the significance of the propaganda conflict between English Catholics and Protestants, 1715–1745’, Catholic Historical Review, lviii:4 (1973), p. 547.Google Scholar

11 Duffy, E., ‘“Poor Protestant flies”: conversions to Catholicism in early eighteenth century England’, SCH, 15 (1978), pp. 289304 Google Scholar. On protestant scares about ‘converts to popery’ in 1778–81, see Lambeth Palace Library, Fulham Papers, Porteus Ms 16, fols. 6–69; Hodgson, R., The Life of the Right Reverend Beilby Porteus, D.D. late Bishop of London (2nd edn, London, 1811), pp. 5868 Google Scholar. On the other hand, although not an altogether reliable source, the Catholic writer Joseph Berington insisted in 1780, that ‘the number of those, who conform to the established church, is far beyond those who come over to us’, and that charges of Catholic proselytism were unfounded. [J. Berington], The State and Behaviour of English Catholics, from the Reformation to the year 1780. With a view of their present number, wealth, character etc. (London, 1780), p. 164.

12 Burton in his two-volume Life and Times of Bishop Challoner, 1691–1781, i, p. xvii, seems to concur with Newman in regarding the period 1688–1778, as ‘the Dark Ages of our later history’. In his Catholicism in England, 1535–1935 (London, 1936), David Matthew agreed but (p. 144) regarded the years 1781–90 as the lowest point in Catholic fortunes. For a similar view, see Amherst, W. J., The History of Catholic Emancipation and the Progress of the Catholic Church in the British Isles (chiefly in England) from 1771 to 1820, 2 vols (London, 1886) I, p. 32 Google Scholar. For a revision of the ‘pessimistic’ historiography of Georgian Catholicism, see Linker, R. W., ‘English Catholics in the eighteenth century’, Church History, 35 (1966), pp. 288310 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bossy, J., The English Catholic Community, 15701850 (London, 1975)Google Scholar; Aveling, J. H. C., The Handle and the Axe (London, 1976)Google Scholar; E. Duffy, Peter and Jack: Roman Catholics and Dissent in Eighteenth Century England (Friends of Dr. Williams’s Library, Lecture 36; 1982), p. 3; Haydon, Anti-Catholicism in eighteenth-century England. It was a tactical ploy of some Cisalpine authors, in response to protestant scares over a supposed ‘growth of popery’ in the second half of the century, to understate the strength of English Catholic numbers in order to encourage further toleration. For a contemporary Cisalpine ‘pessimistic’ view, see [J, Berington], State and Behaviour of English Catholics; Geddes, , A Modest Apology for the Roman Catholics of Great Britain: addressed to all moderate Protestants; particularly to the members of both houses of Parliament (London, 1800), pp. xixx Google Scholar. This work was mainly written twenty years prior to publication.

13 See P. B. Nockles, ‘Sources of English conversion to Roman Catholicism in the era of the Oxford Movement’, McClelland, V. A. (ed), By Whose Authority? Newman, Manning and the ‘Magisterium’ (Bath, 1996), pp. 140.Google Scholar

14 Nockles, P. B., The Oxford Movement in Context: Anglican High Churchmanship 1760–1857 (Cambridge, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15 S. Gilley, ‘The Roman Catholic Church in England, 1780–1990’, Gilley, S. & Sheils, W. J. (eds), A History of Religion in Britain (Oxford, 1994), p. 349.Google Scholar

16 Carter, , ‘Controversy and conciliation’, pp. 1219.Google Scholar

17 Haydon, Anti-Catholicism, ch. 5.

18 Ibidem, ch. 6.

19 Carter, , ‘Controversy and conciliation’, pp. 710.Google Scholar

20 Gilley, , ‘Nationality and liberty’, pp. 4312.Google Scholar

21 Duffy, E., ‘Ecclesiastical Democracy Detected: I. 1779–1787’, Recusant History, 10, no. 4 (January, 1970), p. 197.Google Scholar

22 Ward, W., The Life of John Henry Cardinal Newman, 2 vols London, 1913) i, p. 119.Google Scholar

23 Gilley, , ‘Nationality and liberty’, p. 431.Google Scholar

24 Gillow, J., A Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics, 5 vols (London, [1885–1902]) v, pp. 1753 Google Scholar, J. Kirk, Biographies of English Catholics in the eighteenth century, J. H. Pollen and E. Burton, eds., (London, 1909), pp. 164–5.

25 T. H. Lowe, Two Letters to the Rt. Rev. J. Milner, D.D. Bishop of Castabala, occasioned by certain passages in his ‘End of Religious Controversy’ (London, 1826), p. 2. The hopes of the Anglican high churchman, Bishop Van Mildert that ‘its bulk may somewhat retard its publication, and confine the mischief it probably contains to a small circle of readers’, were to be disappointed. Lambeth Palace Library, Howley Papers, Ms 2184, fol. 202, Bp. W. Van Mildert to Bp. W. Howley, 27 October 1818. Numerous protestant writers testified to the skill and subtlety of Milner’s controversial discourse. For example, an American episcopalian, Bishop John Henry Hopkins later paid a back-handed tribute to the ‘peculiar talent, vigor and sophistical ingenuity’ of Milner’s End of Controversy. See Hopkins, J. H., The ‘End of Controversy’ controverted: a refutation of Milner’s ‘End of Controversy’, 2 vols, (New York, 1854) i, p. 6.Google Scholar

26 Milner’s biographer, Provost Husenbeth, conceded Milner’s lack of elegance and style in composition, while insisting on the temperate tone of most of his controversial writings. Husenbeth, F. F., The Life of the Right Rev. John Milner, D. D, Bishop of Castabala (Dublin, 1862), p. 549 Google Scholar. For a brief but positive reassessment of Milner as historiographer and controversialist, see Code, J. B., Queen Elizabeth and the English Catholic Historians (London, 1935), pp. 1379.Google Scholar

27 Gillow, , Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, ii, pp. 298301.Google Scholar

28 Chinnici, J. P., The English Catholic Enlightenment: John Lingard and the Cisalpine movement, 1780–1850 (Shepherdstown, 1980), p. 37.Google Scholar

29 The Catholic’s Manual. An exposition of the controverted doctrines of the Catholic church, by Bossuet. With preliminary reflections and notes by the Rev. John Fletcher, D.D. (Newcastle, 1817), p. 136; Eustace, J. C., An Answer to the Charge delivered by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln to the clergy ofthat diocese at the triennial Visitation, in the year 1812 (London, 1813), p. 28.Google Scholar

30 Orthodox Journal, and Catholic Monthly Intelligencer, viii (October, 1820), p. 373.

31 Plowden, C., Remarks on the writings of the Rev. Joseph Berington addressed to the Catholic clergy of England (London, 1792), p. 14 Google Scholar. On the Rev. Joseph Berington (1743–1827), distinguished priest-scholar, Professor of Philosophy until 1771 when removed for propagating liberal ideas, see Kirk, , Biographies of English Catholics, pp. 1720 Google Scholar; E. Duffy, ‘Joseph Berington and the English Catholic Cisalpine Movement’, Cambridge Ph.D. thesis (1972–3). On the Rev. Charles Plowden S.J. (1743–1821), see Gillow, , Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, v, pp. 3227 Google Scholar; Kirk, , Biographies of English Catholics, p. 185.Google Scholar

32 Geddes, , Modest Apology, pp. 309 Google Scholar. On Geddes, see Fuller, R. C., Alexander Geddes, 1737–1802: a pioneer of Biblical criticism (Sheffield, 1984)Google Scholar.

33 Ibidem, p. viii.

34 Berington, J., An Address to the Protestant Dissenters (2nd edn, Birmingham, 1787), p, 34.Google Scholar

35 J. Berington to H. More, 1809, Roberts, W., Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More, 3 vols (3rd edn, London, 1835) iii, p. 283.Google Scholar

36 Ibidem, p. 291. Even Berington’s earlier, eirenic State and Behaviour of English Catholics contained anti-protestant flourishes; for example, see Berington’s (p. 11) contemptuous references to Cranmer as ‘that ductile and time-serving priest’.

37 Fletcher, Guide; Fletcher, , Catholic’s Manual, p. 5 Google Scholar; Fletcher, J., A Comparative View of the Grounds of the Catholic and Protestant Churches (London, 1826), p. 13 Google Scholar; A Dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist, on the subject of popish absolutions, jubilees and indulgences (n. pi, 1776), p. 5.

38 Fletcher, , Catholic’s Manual, p. 8 Google Scholar.

39 Fletcher, , Guide, p. 116.Google Scholar

40 Fletcher, J., Transubstantiation, etc: a letter to the Right Honourable Lord – in reply to certain enquiries (London, 1836), p. 75 Google Scholar.

41 Baines, P. A., A Remonstrance in a third letter addressed to Charles Abel Moysey, D.D. Archdeacon of Bath, on the renewal of his former attacks upon the Catholics in his late Charge to the clergy of the Deanery of Bedminster (London, 1824), p. 187 Google Scholar. The protestant Archbishop of Dublin, Richard Whately, later conceded that ‘the books written to put ‘down Catholicism tend generally to prop it up’, cited in Maclachan, P., The Rock: the Infallibility of the Church vindicated: a reply to the Rev. Richard Lee’s discourse on Papal Infallibility and the reasons of the late conversions to Romanism (Edinburgh, 1858), p. 69.Google Scholar

42 Challoner, R., Grounds of the Old Religion, or general arguments in favour of the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman Communion (5th edn, London, 1798), p. 214.Google Scholar

43 Fletcher, , Guide, p. 61.Google Scholar

44 Lingard, J., Remarks on a Charge delivered to the clergy of the diocese of Durham, by Shute, Bishop of Durham, at the ordinary Visitation of that diocese in the year 1806 (London, 1807), p. 63.Google Scholar

45 Fletcher, , Catholic’s Manual, p. 8.Google Scholar

46 One later female convert to Roman Catholicism maintained that it was through reading the nonconformist Daniel Neal’s anti-Catholic History of the Puritans (1st edn, 4 vols, 1732–8), that she decided to quit protestantism. Anon, , The Converts: a tale of the nineteenth century; or, Romanism or Protestantism brought to bear against one another (London, 1837), p. 363.Google Scholar

47 Best, H., Four years in France, or a Narrative of an English family’s residence there during that period; preceded by some account of the conversion of the author to the Catholic faith (London, 1826), pp. 45 Google Scholar. A French émigré priest in Lincoln, the Abbé Beaumont, was influential in Best conversion’s, but Best’s Catholic family connections also played a part. For discussion of links between the French émigré clergy and conversions to Catholicism after the 1790s, see Bellenger, D. A., The French Exiled Clergy in the British Isles after 1789 (Bath, 1986), pp. 378.Google Scholar

48 Ibidem, pp. 57–8.

49 For examples, see Reeves, J., Considerations on the Coronation Oath, to maintain the Protestant Reformed religion, and the settlement of the Church of England (London, 1801)Google Scholar; Phillpotts, H., A letter to an English layman on the Coronation Oath (London, 1828)Google Scholar.

50 N. Aston, ‘Burke, Christianity, and the British state’, Aston, N., ed., Religious change in Europe, 1650–1914: essays for John McManners (Oxford, 1997), pp. 185212 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sack, J., From Jacobite to Conservative: reaction and orthodoxy in Britain, c. 1760–1832 (Cambridge, 1993), p. 227.Google Scholar

51 Berington, J., The Rights of Dissenters from the Established Church in relation principally to the English Catholics (London, 1789), pp. 227.Google Scholar

52 A Letter to Francis Plowden Esq. Conveyancer of the Middle Temple, on his work entitled ‘Jus Anglorum’, by a Roman Catholic clergyman (London, 1793), p. 116. For Cisalpine eulogies of the Revolution of 1688, see Plowden, F., Church and State: being an enquiry into the origin, nature and extent of ecclesiastical and civil authority, with reference to the British Constitution (London, 1795), pp. 6970 Google Scholar; A Letter addressed to the Catholics of England, by the Catholic Committee (London, 1792), p. 3.

53 Cited in Ward, B., The eve of Catholic Emancipation, 1803–1829: being the history of the English Catholics during the first thirty years of the nineteenth century, 3 vols (London, 1911), i, p. 129.Google Scholar

54 P. A. Baines, A letter to Charles Abel Moysey, D.D. Archdeacon of Bath, on the subject of an attack made by him upon the Catholics, in a Charge to the clergy of the Deanery of Bedminster, at the Visitation of the Archdeacon, June 21, 1821 (2nd edn, Bath, [1821]), p. 44.

55 Fletcher, J., Thoughts on the rights and prerogatives of the Church, and State, with some observations upon the question of Catholic securities (London, 1823), p. 78.Google Scholar

56 Lingard, J., A review of certain anti-Catholic publications (London, 1813), pp. 278.Google Scholar

57 Fletcher, Thoughts, pp. 92–3; Butler, C., Historical Memoirs of the English, Irish, and Scottish Catholics, since the Reformation 4 vols (London, 1822), iii, pp. 1934.Google Scholar

58 Geddes, , Modest Apology, pp. 40, 44.Google Scholar

59 Baines, P. A., A defence of the Christian religion, etc. in a series of letters to Charles Abel Moysey, D.D. Archdeacon of Bath (London, 1825), pp. 1323.Google Scholar

60 Milner, J., A Sermon preached in the Roman Catholic chapel at Winchester, April 23, 1789, etc. being the General Thanksgiving Dayfor his Majesty’s happy recovery (London, [1789]), p. 15 Google Scholar. Catholic writers eulogised George III for his role in breaking down the penal code. See Eustace, , Answer to the Charge delivered by the Lord Bishop of Lincoln, p. 21 Google Scholar. The sermons of the Rev. James Archer were especially forthright in inculcating loyalty to the crown in the era of the French Revolution. In 1793, Archer preached on the text (Romans ch. xiii) beloved of high church Anglican exponents of passive obedience; ‘let every soul be subject to higher powers’. Archer, J., A sermon preached at St. Patrick’s chapel, Sutton-Street, Soho Square, London, on Monday the eighteenth of March MDCCXCIII (London, 1793), pp. 289.Google Scholar On James Archer, D.D. (1751–1834), see Gillow, , Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, i, pp. 557.Google Scholar

61 Milner, , Sermon, p. 13.Google Scholar

62 [Geddes, A.], A letter to a member of Parliament, on the case of the Protestant Dissenters, and the expediency of a general repeal of all penal statutes that regard religious opinions (London, 1787), p. 27.Google Scholar Geddes’s position was untypical, though in 1769 the Benedictine Anselm Mannock’s The Poor Man’s Controversy, had tried to reconcile protestantism to English Catholicism by adopting a minimalist view of the Papacy, Scott, G., Gothic rage undone: English Monks in the Age of Enlightenment (Bath, 1992), p. 141 Google Scholar. A more characteristic moderate Cisalpine view than that of Geddes, was espoused by Charles Butler who allowed a definite, if limited, supremacy of jurisdiction and authority as well as rank in the Papacy (Butler, C., The Book of the Roman-Catholic Church: in a series of letters to Robert Southey Esq. LL.D. on his ‘Book of the Church’ [London, 1825], pp. 11921)Google Scholar.

63 Williamson, J., A Defence of the doctrines, establishment and conduct of the Church of England, from the charges of the Rev. Joseph Berington, and the Rev. John Milner (Oxford, 1790), p. 9.Google Scholar

64 Berington, , Address to the Protestant Dissenters, p. 22.Google Scholar

65 Geddes was complacent in his ‘Enlightenment’ historical assumptions: ‘What, pray, have we of the eighteenth century to do with the ignorance of the ninth, the superstition of the twelfth, or the fanaticism of the sixteenth?’. Geddes, Modest Apology, pp. 4—5.

66 Ibidem, p. 245.

67 [Geddes, ], Letter to a member of Parliament, on the case of the Protestant Dissenters, p. 26.Google Scholar

68 Nockles, , Oxford Movement in context, p. 318.Google Scholar

69 J. Milner, Letters to a Prebendary: being an Answer to ‘Reflections on Popery’ by the Rev. J. Sturges… with Remarks on the opposition of Hoadlyism to the doctrines of the Church of England (2nd edn, Cork, 1802), Letters iv, vi.

70 Ibidem, pp. 204–5.

71 Butler, , Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 145.Google Scholar

72 [Milner, J.], Strictures on the Poet Laureate’s ‘Book of the Church’by Johh Merlin (London, 1824), pp. 267.Google Scholar

73 Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, pp. 2957.Google Scholar

74 ibidem, p. 297; [Milner], Strictures, p. 80.

75 Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, p. 329 Google Scholar. Disputing Sturges’s interpretation of 1 Peter c. xi. v. 5, ‘Be subject to every ordinance’, Milner (p. 330) taunted him for writing like Dr. Priestley.

76 Dodd, C., The Church History of England, 3 vols (Brussels, 1737–42), iii (1742), p. 24.Google Scholar For the author, see Gillow, , Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, v, pp. 54854 Google Scholar. Dodd stressed (p. 29) that Catholics had nothing to gain from the Puritan destruction of episcopacy.

77 [Milner], Strictures, p. 77.

78 Husenbeth, Milner, p. 81. Milner’s Case of Conscience solved was also commenced in the Monthly and Critical Reviews.

79 Ward, , Eve of Catholic Emancipation, i, p. 132.Google Scholar

80 Ibidem.

81 Ibidem, p. 130.

82 Milner, , End of Religious Controversy, pp. 12, 17 Google Scholar; Gilley, , ‘Challoner as controversialist’, p. 108 Google Scholar. Challoner directed much of his anti-protestant polemic against the Methodists. See Butler, D., Methodists and Papists: John Wesley and the Catholic Church in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1995)Google Scholar, ch. 8.

83 Mather, F. C., High Church Prophet: Bishop Samuel Horsley (1733–1806) and the Caroline tradition in the later Georgian Church (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar, ch. 6.

84 Berington, Address to the Protestant Dissenters; [Geddes], Letter to a member of Parliament, on the case of the Protestant Dissenters.

85 Ditchfield, G. M., ‘Dissent and Toleration: Lord Stanhope’s Bill of 1789’, JEH, 29 (January 1978), p. 72.Google Scholar

86 [Geddes, ] Letter to a member of Parliament, on the case of the Protestant Dissenters, p. 7.Google Scholar

87 Cited in Evans, J., Protestantism and Popery illustrated. Two letters from a Catholic priest to the author of the ‘Sketch of the denominations of the Christian world’ with his reply (2nd edn, London, 1812), p. 30.Google Scholar Berington cooperated with Rational Dissenters against slavery.

88 Berington, Address to the Protestant Dissenters, p. 7; [Berington, J.], A Letter to Dr Fordyce, in answer to his sermon on the delusive and persecuting spirit of popery (London, 1799), p. 49.Google Scholar

89 J. Priestley to T. Lindsey, 18 October 1790, Rutt, J. T., Life and correspondence of Joseph Priestley, LL.D. FRS, etc. 2 vols, (London, 1832), ii, p. 93 Google Scholar; Fitzpatrick, M., ‘Joseph Priestley and the cause of universal toleration’, Price-Priestley Newsletter, i (1977), 330 Google Scholar; J. Champ, ‘The seminary priests of old Oscott’, Bellenger, D. A., ed., Opening the scrolls: essays in honour of Godfrey Anstruther (Bath, 1987), p. 148 Google Scholar. Berington turned down Priestley’s invitation. Shortly before his death in 1804, Priestley dedicated to Berington his Doctrine of the Heathen Philosophy compared with that of Revelation. Rutt, Life, iii, p. 342. Unitarians were supportive of the 1791 Catholic Relief Act, and Unitarian petitioners for parliamentary relief in 1792 were notably pro-Catholic, eschewing traditional dissenting hostility to ‘popery’. G. M. Ditchfifeld, ‘Anti-trinitarianism and Toleration in late eighteenth century British politics: the Unitarian petition of 1792’, JEH, 42 (January, 1991), pp. 54–5.

90 Williamson, Defence, p. 59.

91 Plowden, C., Remarks on the writings of the Rev. Joseph Berington, p. 32.Google Scholar Charles Plowden also criticised Berington for an apparent partiality to the memory of Oliver Cromwell and to republicanism. Plowden, C., Remarks on a book entitled ‘Memoirs of Gregorio Panzoni. Preceded by an address to the Rev. Joseph Berington (Liège, 1794), pp. 2723.Google Scholar

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94 Ibidem, pp. 102–3. See Horsley’s comment (p. 103) to Milner that if the ‘democratic phrenzy’ drove some of ‘your people’ out of the Roman Catholic church, ‘though a protestant bishop, I should little rejoice in the accession of such converts’. Milner’s, Divine Right of Episcopacy (p. 11)Google Scholar pointedly stressed the political dangers of Cisalpine ideas of lay nomination of bishops ‘at the present moment of democratic extravagance’. Horsley must have been reassured by Milner’s insistence that ‘the licentiousness of revolutions must ever be unfriendly to a religion so rigidly disciplined as ours is, and of so austere and unpopular a countenance’. Milner, , Divine Right of Episcopacy, p. 108 Google Scholar. Likewise, the high church Anglican British Critic in 1800 (p. 15), congratulated Milner on writing ‘like a friend to the British constitution’, in contrast to Berington who was condemened as ‘a partisan of democracy, a flatterer of opposition… and applauder of the horrible defection in France’.

95 G. Scott, ‘“The times are fast approaching”: Bishop Charles Walmesley OSB (1722–1797) as prophet’, JEH, 36, no. 4 (October, 1985), pp. 590–605; J. A. Oddy, ‘Eschatological prophecy in the English theological tradition, c. 1700–c. 1840’, Ph.D. dissertation, University of London, 1982, pp. 4654.

96 Gilley, , ‘Challoner as controversialist’, p. 93.Google Scholar

97 Eyre, F., A Letter to the Rev. Mr Ralph Churton, M.A. Rector of Middleton Cheney, on his address to his parishioners (London, 1795), pp. 10–11, 47–8, 69–70, 834.Google Scholar

98 Milner, Letters to a Prebendary, Letter viii.

99 Ibidem, p. 419.

100 J. Milner, The History and Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester [1798] (3rd edn, Winchester, 1839), I, p. xxxi; ii, p. 46.

101 Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, p. 353 Google Scholar; Milner, End of Religious Controversy, pt ii, pp. 12–13. Milner boldly contended (Letters to a Prebendary, p. 420) that there was not one of the great Anglican divines of the seventeenth century, ‘who if he were reduced to the necessity of holding communion with a Catholic or a Hoadlyite, would not infinitely prefer uniting with the former’.

102 Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, p. 355.Google Scholar

103 J. Sturges, Reflections on the principles and institutions of Popery, with reference to civil society and government, especially that of this kingdom, occasioned by the Rev. John Milner’s ‘History of Winchester’ (Winchester, 1799), pp. 103–4.

104 Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, p. 451.Google Scholar

105 Sturges, , Reflections, p. 103.Google Scholar

106 Milner, , Letters to Prebendary, pp. 44950.Google Scholar According to Geddes, if only Dr. Sturges ‘had contented himself with repelling the odious accusations, and animadverting on the injurious reflections, of the Historian of Winchester [Milner], the Roman Catholics would have had no cause of complaint: many of them would have been well pleased’, Geddes, Modest Apology, p. ix. But Geddes (p. x) took comfort from Sturges’s clarification in his second edition, that he had intended no adverse reflection on the ‘Protesting Catholics’. Geddes was discomfited by Bishop Horsley’s apparent sympathy with ‘Transalpine divinity’, which he questioned. Letter from the Rev. Alexander Geddes LL.D. to the Rt, Rev. John Douglass, Bishop of Centurine, and Vicar-Apostolic in the London District (London, 1794), P. 35.

107 AAW, iii, 13. Bp. J. Milner to Bp. C. Douglass, 6 January 1800; cf. 93, do. to do. October 1799.

108 Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, p. 365.Google Scholar

109 Ibidem, p. 465.

110 Husenbeth, Life of the Rt. Rev. John Milner, p. 75. The high church Anti-Jacobin Review also conceded that Milner’s History of Winchester furnished no just grounds for Sturges’s Reflections on Popery. On the other hand, it was reported that the History of Winchester had made Milner persona non grata with the English government and that this influenced the Papacy, then anxious to maintain good diplomatic relations, into cancelling his appointment as vicar apostolic of the Midland District in 1800. Ward, B., The Dawn of the Catholic Revival in England, 1781–1803, 2 vois, (London, 1909) ii, p. 228.Google Scholar

111 Pari. Reg. xli (1800), pp. 342–51.

112 AAW. Ms. ‘Diary of Bishop Douglass’, 22 March 1800, ii, p. 13; Bellenger, French Exiled Clergy, pp. 41–2.1 am grateful to Christopher Sleight for the Douglass diary reference.

113 Husenbeth, , Life of the Rt. Rev. John Milner, p. 75.Google Scholar

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115 AAW, Ms. ‘Diary of Bishop Douglass’, 21 March 1800, ii, p. 12. For evidence of English Catholic appreciation of Bishop Horsley’s rôle in opposing attempted legal restrictions on Catholic schools and convents in 1800, see Baron Arundell to Bp. S. Horsley, 16 July 1800, Horsley Papers, LPL, Ms 1767, fols 1–2.

116 Milner, , End of Religious Controversy p. iii Google Scholar; [Milner], Vindication of the End of Religious Controversy, p. 5; Husenbeth, , Life of the Rt. Rev. John Milner, p. 75.Google Scholar

117 Letter from the Right Honourable Lord Petre, to the Right Reverend Doctor Horsley, Bishop of St David’s (London, 1790), p. 5; Letter from the Rev. Alexander Geddes LL.D. to the Rt. Rev. John Douglass, p. 35.

118 Fletcher, Comparative View, especially, pp. 10, 23, 39, 59–60.

119 [J. Lingard], ‘Introduction’ to The Protestant Apology for the Roman Catholic Church; or, the orthodoxy, purity and antiquity of her faith and principles proved, from the testimony of her most learned adversaries by ‘Christianus’ [W. Talbot] (Dublin, 1809), pp. iv–v.

120 Letter from the Rev. Alexander Geddes LL.D. to the Rt. Rev. John Douglass, p. 35. Even a protestant author remarked of Geddes, that he ‘seemed almost inclined, as some have thought, to give up Transubstantiation, to please the Church of England; the Trinity, to gratify the Unitarians; and even, it is to be feared, the Scriptures themselves, to conciliate the Deists’, Nightingale, J., A Portraiture of the Roman Catholic Religion; or, an unprejudiced sketch of the history, doctrines, opinions, discipline, and present state of Catholicism: with an appendix containing a summary of the laws now in force against English and Irish Catholics (London, 1812), p. 29.Google Scholar

121 Author of Reflections concerning the expediency of a Council of the Church of England and the Church of Rome being holden with a view to accommodate religious difficulties, and to promote the unity of religion in the bond of peace (London, 1818).

122 See Berington, J., ed, Memoirs of Gregorio Panzani (Birmingham, 1793)Google Scholar.

123 Bellenger, D. A., ‘The émigré clergy and the English church, 1789–1815’, JEH, 34 (1983), pp. 392400 Google Scholar; Bellenger, French Exiled Clergy, esp. chap. iii.

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127 Protestant authorities against concessions to the Roman Catholics: being speeches of the late Dr Horsley, Lord Bishop of St Asaph and of Lord Ellenborough, delivered in the House of Lords, May 13, 1805 (London, 1813).

128 Fletcher, , Guide, p. 134.Google Scholar

129 Milner, End of Religious Controversy, pt iii, pp. 242–3. Cf. A Letter to the Rev. Dr Milner occasioned by some passages in his book, entitled, ‘The End of Religious Controversy’ by the late Reverend Samuel Parr (London, 1825), p. 46.

130 Butler, , Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, iii, p. 162.Google Scholar

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138 Fletcher, Guide, sermons i–vii.

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141 Milner, , End of Religious Controversy, pt. ii, p. 119.Google Scholar

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147 Best, H., Personal and Literary Memorials, by the author of ‘Four Years in France’, ‘Italy as it is’, etc. (London, 1829), p. 94.Google Scholar

148 Fletcher, , Catholic’s Manual, pp. 835 Google Scholar; Fletcher, , Difficulties of Protestantism, p. 52 Google Scholar; Trevern, , Amicable Discussion on the Church of England, p. 351 Google Scholar; Butler, , Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 170.Google Scholar

149 Fletcher, Guide, p. 25; Milner, End of Religious Controversy, pt. ii, pp. 12–13.

150 Milner, End of Religious Controversy, Letter xvi; Geddes, Modest Apology, pp. 163–4; Eyre, F., A Reply to the Rev. Ralph Churton, Rector of Middleton Cheney, in Northamptonshire (London, 1798), p. 44 Google Scholar. Lingard maintained that differences between the established church and Roman Catholic church over eucharistie doctrine were minimal during the era stretching from that of the divines of James I’s reign through until after the Revolution of 1688, when ‘a new race of theologians arose’—such as Tillotson and his school. [Lingard, J.], The Faith and Practice of the Roman Catholic Church, proved by the testimony of the most learned Protestants (Dublin, 1813), p. ix.Google Scholar Overlooking evidence of the spread of Tractarian views, even in 1836 Fletcher argued that the Anglican clergy continued their eighteenth-century abandonment of ‘this once revered’ doctrine of the real presence as taught by Andrewes, Laud and Cosin. Fletcher, , Transubstantiation, p. 28 Google Scholar. Milner, however (in Letters to a Prebendary, p. 384), conceded that ‘amongst the divines of the present day [1800], who have not been ashamed of the genuine doctrine of the Church of England in this point, is the learned Dr. Cleaver, late bishop of Chester, now bishop of Bangor’. Milner singled out Cleaver’s Sermon on the Sacrament, before the University of Oxford, Nov. 25, 1787.

151 Wiseman, N., The Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Blessed Eucharist, proved from Scripture, in eight lectures, delivered in the English College, Rome (London, 1836), pp. 1819.Google Scholar

152 Milner, End of Religious Controversy, pt ii, pp. 13–14, 59, 141. Fletcher likewise maintained in 1810 (Guide, p. 375) that ‘the establishment of this nation is washing rapidly away’, and predicted ‘that the trumpets of Socinianism, united to the tides of sectarianism, will, ere long, have left nothing of its greatness, but the name’.

153 Fletcher, Comparative View, p. 60; Fletcher, Guide, ‘Sermon’ vii, On the want of apostolicity in the protestant churches’.

154 Fletcher, , Comparative View, p. 78.Google Scholar

155 Ibidem, pp. 81, 211; Eyre, Reply, p. 60.

156 A Protestant Dissenting minister, Caleb Fleming justified protestant nonconformity in an open letter to the clergy of the established church on the same grounds as those indicated in Catholic apologetic: ‘their dissent from your church establishment, is upon the very same principle with that of your dissent from the Church of Rome; viz. the light of private judgment’. [Fleming, C.], A Letter from a Protestant-Dissenting-Minister, to the clergy of the Church of England, occasioned by the alarming Growth of Popery in this Kingdom, wherein several late Popish Publications are considered (London, 1768), p. 65.Google Scholar

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158 Ibidem, p. 60.

159 Ibidem, p. 62.

160 ibidem, p. 208.

161 Ibidem, p. 209.

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163 Ibidem, p. 141.

164 Challoner, Grounds of the Old Religion, ‘Appendix: the case of the English orders stated’, p. 162.

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166 Milner, End of Religious Controversy, pt ii, p. 146; [Milnerj, Strictures, p. 82; Fletcher, , Comparative View, p. 237 Google Scholar. Examples of ministers ordained by the presbyterian form and holding office in the Elizabethan established church, included William Whittingham, Dean of Durham, and Walter Travers, Master of the Temple. Whittingham’s canonical credentials appeared to be approved of by Archbishop Matthew Hutton of York, who regarded him as ‘ordained in better sort than the Archbishop himself”.

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169 Ibidem, pp. 149–50.

170 Fletcher, , Comparative View, p. 211.Google Scholar

171 Ibidem, p. 214.

172 Fletcher, Guide, p. 424.

173 Fletcher, , Comparative View, pp. 209, 215.Google Scholar

174 Ibidem, pp. 216–17.

175 Eyre, , Reply to the Rev. Ralph Churton, p. 44.Google Scholar

176 Fletcher, Guide, p. 155.

177 Trevern, , Amicable Discussion on the Church of England, p. 13.Google Scholar

178 Fletcher, , Comparative View, p. 224 Google Scholar. Fletcher even argued (Difficulties of Protestantism, p. 107) that the French revolutionists ‘did nothing more than apply with consistency and courage, the leading principles of the first Reformers’.

179 Fletcher, , Comparative View, p. 266.Google Scholar

180 F. C. Husenbeth, Defence of the Creed and Discipline of the Catholic Church, against the Rev. J. Bianco White’s ‘Poor Man’s Preservative against Popery’: with notice of every thing important in the same writer’s ‘Practical and Internal Evidence against Catholicism’ (“London, 1826), p. 36. The Lancashire priest controversialist, James Curr made the point bluntly: ‘Was the mission of the first Reformers ordinary or extraordinary? If ordinary, who sent them? Surely not an apostate or idolatrous church! and that too against itself! If extraordinary, what miracles, did they, in imitation of the primitive Apostles, perform on commencing their second conversion of mankind from error and apostacy?’. Curr, J., Catholicism: or the old rule of faith vindicated from the attacks of Mr Roby (Manchester, 1821), p. 14 Google Scholar; Fletcher, , Transubstantiation, p. 87.Google Scholar

181 Eyre, , Reply to the Rev. Ralph Churton, pp. 4724.Google Scholar

182 [Sebastian Redford], An Important Inquiry; or the nature of a Church reformation fully considered; wherein is shown, from Scripture, Reason, and Antiquity, that the late pretended Reformation was groundless in the attempt and defective in the execution [1751] (2nd edn, London, 1758), p. 254.

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184 Ibidem, p. 113. Bishop Richard Montagu, Bishop Samuel Parker and Hugo Grotius were also cited in repudation of charges of idolatry against Roman Catholicism. [Potts, T.], An Inquiry into the Moral and Political Tendency of the Religion called Roman Catholic (London, 1790)Google Scholar; Eyre, , Reply to the Rev. Ralph Churton, pp. 199200.Google Scholar

185 Fletcher cited Towgood approvingly (Comparative View, p. 210); ‘“how astonishing it is, to see, that from this idolatrous and apostate church, you {Anglicans] derive your spiritual and sacerdotal powers, and boast, that from her you can trace, by an uninterrupted line, your ecclesiastical descent!”’.

186 Fletcher, , Guide, pp. 535 Google Scholar.

187 Gilley, , ‘Challoner as controversialist’, pp. 1014.Google Scholar

188 Milner, , End of Religious Controversy, p. 87 Google Scholar; Trevern, , Amicable Discussion on the Church of England, p. 187 Google Scholar. In complete contrast, when courting high church Anglicans in his earlier Letters to a Prebendary (p. 385) Milner had sought to embarrass Dr. Sturges by pointing out that the established church, ‘so far from undervaluing the ancient fathers, requires her clergy under pain of excommunication to consult their interpretation of the scriptures, in preaching to the people’.

189 Fletcher, Guide, pp. 208–11; Lingard, J., Strictures on Dr Marsh’s ‘Comparative View of the Churches of England and Rome’ (London, 1815), p. 70 Google Scholar; Eyre, , Reply to the Rev. Ralph Churton, pp. 11617.Google Scholar

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197 Gandolphy, , Second Letter to the Rev: Herbert Marsh, p. 31.Google Scholar

198 Ibidem, p. 16.

199 Gandolphy, P., A Congratulatory Letter to the Rev. Herbert Marsh on his judicious inquiry into the consequences of neglecting to give the Prayer Book with the Bible; together with a Sermon on the inadequacy of the Bible to be an exclusive rule of faith (London, 1812), p. 6.Google Scholar

200 Ibidem, p. 17.

201 Letters that lately appeared in the Oxford and Cambridge papers, under different signatures, on the crusade of the nineteenth century; collected and republished, and addressed to the Rt. Hon. Lord Grenville, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge (3rd edn, London, 1812), p. 191.

202 Geddes, , Modest Apology, p. 50 Google Scholar; Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, pp. 423.Google Scholar

203 Eyre, , Letter to the Rev. Mr Ralph Churton, pp. 4950 Google Scholar; Eyre, , Reply to the Rev. Ralph Churton, p. 122 Google Scholar; Husenbeth, F. C., A further exposure and refutation of Faberism (Norwich, 1836), p. 9.Google Scholar

204 [F. Whittingham], The old fashion farmer’s motives for leaving the Church of England and embracing the Catholic Faith [1778] (new edn, London, 1815), p. 9; Fletcher, , Comparative View, pp. 11920 Google Scholar where Montagu is cited in favour of the invocation of saints and veneration of relics); Eyre, , Letter to the Rev. Mr Ralph Churton, p.54 Google Scholar (where Pearson is cited in favour of the necessity of reverence to ‘the Mother of our Lord’). For contemporary high church Anglican sensitivity to, and repudiation of Catholic exploitation of, Laudian testimonies to Catholic doctrine and practice, see Phillpotts, H., Letters to Charles Butler on the Theological Parts of his ‘Book of the Roman Catholic Church’ (London, 1825), pp. 5160.Google Scholar

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206 Husenbeth, F. C., The Difficulties of Faberism, being a Vindication of a late Reply to the Rev. G. S. Faber’s ‘Supplement’ to his ‘Difficulties of Romanism’ (London, 1829), p. 11 Google Scholar. The theme of protestant corruption of patristic texts can be traced back at least as far as the Jacobean Catholic convert Francis Walsingham’s Search made into Matters of Religion (1609), and was taken up by both Challoner and Milner. See Challoner, , Grounds of the Old Religion, pp. 21415.Google Scholar

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208 Fletcher, , Transubstantiation, pp. 89.Google Scholar

209 [Potts], Inquiry, p. 40; Eyre, Reply to the Rev. Ralph Churton, p. 400; Geddes, Modest Apology, pp. 171–2.

210 Milner, End of Religious Controversy, letter xxi; Fletcher, Difficulties of Protestantism, p. 76.

211 In response to the low church Dr. Sturges’s complaint that fasting and abstinence were among the ascetic works ‘that answer no moral purpose’, Milner argued in favour of ‘the advantages and necessity of fasting’ from Anglican sources; urging Sturges: ‘consult then the learned works on this subject, of your celebrated prelates, Patrick, Beveridge and Gunning’. Milner, , Letters to a Prebendary, pp. 612 Google Scholar. Milner (p. 67) also reminded Sturges of The Table of the Vigils, Fasts, and Days of Abstinence, to be observed in the year prefixed to The Book of Common Prayer, ‘which amount in all to nearly one third part of the whole year’. Similarly, Fletcher (Guide, p. 252) cited Thorndike’s testimony in favour of clerical celibacy, and (p. 258) Montagu’s in favour of sacramental confession. Milner (End of Religious Controversy, pt iii, p. 4) even cited the ‘father’ of Anglican latitudinarianism, William Chiliingworth, in support of the doctrine of sacramental absolution.

212 Fletcher, , Guide, p. 259 Google Scholar; Reasons for not taking the Test; for not conforming to the established church, and for not deserting the ancient Faith, with preliminary and concluding observations together with some remarks on the Bishop of Peterborough’s late Charge. By John, Earl of Shrewsbury (London, 1828), pp. 114–15.

213 [Whittingham], Old fashion farmer’s motives for leaving the Church of England, p. 18.

214 Best, Four years in France, p. 58.

215 Milner, End of Religious Controversy, pt iii, p. 6.

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217 For example, Milner pointed up the contradiction between Jeremy Taylor’s extreme eirenicism towards Roman Catholicism (e.g. in his Liberty of Prophesying) while in exile under the Commonwealth, and his anti-Catholic intolerance (e.g. in his Dissuasive from Popery) while an Irish bishop under the Restoration. [Milner], Vindication of the End of Religious Controversy, pp. 40–1. Milner also contrasted Archbishop Wake’s virulent anti-Catholicism in his Persuasive against Popery with his extreme moderation in his Commonitorium composed when negotiating with the Gallican divine Du Pin (Vindication, pp. 45–7).

218 Fletcher, , Short Historical View, p. 4 Google Scholar; Butler, , Book of the Roman Catholic Church, p. 198 Google Scholar; Fletcher, Guide, p. 293; [Whittingham], Old fashion farmer’s motives for leaving the Church of England, pp. 130–1.

219 Gilley, ‘John Lingard and the catholic revival’, 314; Gilley, ‘Nationality and liberty’, 415. Fletcher cited an Edinburgh Review article arguing the unprincipled and rapacious foundation of the Church of England by a despotic Henry VIII. Fletcher, Transubstantiation, p. 88.

220 [Gandolphy, P.], Letters addressed to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Protestant clergy of England, on the secret causes of the increase of Catholics; as inserted in the British Press (London, 1813), p. 73.Google Scholar

221 Westminster Review, 3, ‘Southey’s Book of the Church, etc.’, (January, 1825), pp. 72–3.

222 British Critic, 23 (June, 1825), p. 176.

223 For example, the Tractarian William Lockhart in 1843. See Lockhart, W., Cardinal Newman: Reminiscences of fifty years since. By one of his leading disciples (London, 1891), p. 13.Google Scholar

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225 Plowden, F., Human subordination: being an elementary disquisition concerning the civil and spirituai power and authority, to which the Creator requires the submission of every human being (Paris, 1824), pp. 77, 85.Google Scholar

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229 J. Richardson, The Roman Catholic convicted upon his own evidence of hostility to the Protestant churches of Britain. Being a series of extracts (with remarks) from the Controversial Sermons of the Rev. Peter Gandolphy, Priest of the Roman Catholic Church (York, 1823). Berington’s angry condemnations of protestantism cited above (n 34–6) likewise helped to modify his early reputation as a conciliator. E. Duffy, ‘Ecclesiastical Democracy Detected: III, 1796–1803’, Recusant History, 13, no. 2 (October, 1975), pp. 143–4.

230 Fletcher, , Comparative View, p. 367.Google Scholar

231 A Free Address to those who have petitioned for the repeal of the late Act of Parliament in favour of the Roman Catholics (London, 1780), p. 20.

232 Hopes and expectations, grounded on the present situation of the members of the emigrant members of the Roman Catholic church, now resident in England (London, 1793), pp. 15–16.

233 Reasons why the Roman Catholic emancipation cannot be granted, without imminent danger to, and violation of, the principles of the Protestant constitution, as settled at the Reformation (2nd edn, London, 1826), p. 29. The only notable prosely tiser among the French exiled clergy, however, was Nicolas Gilbert, who wrote most of his controversial and spiritual works in English. Bellenger, French Exiled Clergy, pp. 56–7. From his mission base at Whitby, Gilbert’s apologetic was directed mainly against Presbyterians and Methodists and other branches of Protestant nonconformity. See Gillow, , Bibliographical Dictionary of English Catholics, ii, pp. 4656 Google Scholar. Protestant nonconformist recipients of Gilbert’s polemics complained that his writings were ‘quite in the ancient Roman Catholic style, when opposers of their doctrines were described’. Gilbert’s style was compared to that of Francis Walsingham’s Search (1609). Slack, J., The pursuit; a reply to the Rev. N. Gilbert’s Second Defence of Popery and attack upon Methodists; in a series of letters to Robert Campion, Esquire (Whitby, 1813), p. 206.Google Scholar

234 For example, a Catholic journal reviewer stated: ‘To compare such a [Catholic] Priesthood, and such a Church with any or all of the ephemeral ones of Protestantism, would be like holding forth to the choice of the multitude, the Saviour Jesus, and the robber and murderer Barabbas’, The Catholic Spectator and Selector; or Catholicon. Third Series, iv (London, 1826), p. 286. See also, Andrewes, W. E., A critical and historical review of Foxe’s book of martyrs, showing the inaccuracies, falsehoods, and misrepresentations in that work of deception (2 vols, London, 1824, 1826)Google Scholar; Andrewes, Doctrinal lash at the champion.

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236 Ibidem, p. 102.

237 Fletcher, , Transubstantiation, p. 24.Google Scholar

238 Lingard, , Review of certain Anti-Catholic Publications, p. 2 Google Scholar. Lingard contended that each anti-Catholic argument ‘in its day, was deemed unanswerable; each has yielded to discussion’.

239 [N. Wiseman], The high church Claims: or, a series of papers on the Oxford Controversy, the high church theory of dogmatical authority, Anglican claim to Apostolical Succession etc. ‘Tract 16, no. 2 ‘occasioned by a sermon by the Rev. John, Keble, M.A. entitled “Primitive Christianity recognised in Holy Scripture” (London, 1838), p. 24.Google Scholar

240 Ibidem, p. 25.

241 For example, see [M. D. Talbot], Letters addressed to the Rev. Walter Farquhar Hook, D.D. on the eucharist, the Mass, and communion under both species, together with a full reply to each of the gross calumnies (against the Catholic Church) contained in Dr Hook’s sermon, preached at Manchester, entitled ‘Novelties of Romanism’. By Verax, a Catholic layman (London, 1840), pp. 143–9.

242 Nockles, , Oxford Movement in Context, pp. 127–36, 179.Google Scholar

243 Towgood’s critique of the established church continued to be utilised by Catholic apologists. See [M. D. Talbot], A Short Vindication of the Church of Rome, consisting of Letters addressed to the Rev. Dr Hook, on the Catholic Church and on the Church of England; together with Letters to the Bishop of Exeter, on the holy eucharist, and on the holy Fathers with notes. By Verax, a Catholic layman (London, 1839), p. 21.

244 P. B. Nockles, ‘Church parties in the pre-Tractarian Church of England 1750–1833: the “Orthodox”—some problems of definition and identity’, Walsh, J., Haydon, C. and Taylor, S., eds, The Church of England c. 1689–c. 1833: from Toleration to Tractarianism (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 3568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

245 Butler, , Historical Memoirs of the English Catholics, iii, p. 194.Google Scholar

246 Nockles, , ‘Sources of English conversions to Roman Catholicism’, pp. 140 Google Scholar; M. Beard, Faith and Fortune (Leominster, 1997), pt. ii.