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Was Frederick Denison Maurice A Broad-Churchman?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2009
Extract
Although Frederick Denison Maurice, from about 1853 until his death in 1872, was frequently spoken of as a member of the Broad-Church school in the Church of England, and was considered by some of his contemporaries both the founder of that school and the greatest of the Broad-Churchmen, and although he is today usually referred to as a leader of the Broad-Church movement, his relation to it was not simple. He himself steadfastly refused to accept the label of “Broad-Churchman” for himself and to admit the need for a Broad-Church party. What the school stood for is as elusive of definition, furthermore, as his own thought was complex. Yet the question, in spite of its difficulty, is well worth going into, since its exploration serves to illustrate not only the difference between conservatism and liberalism, but also the differences between some of the forms of liberalism within itself. A satisfactory answer to the question would also do much to make clear the meaning and the nature of the Broad-Church movement.
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- Copyright © American Society of Church History 1934
References
1 Ed. Murray, J. A. H. (Oxford and New York, 1888), I, 1117.Google Scholar
2 “Report of the Judgment in the Case of Gorham versus the Bishop of Exeter,” Edin. Rev., XCII (1850), 266.Google Scholar
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6 The Life of Frederick Denison Maurice, Chiefly Told in His Own Letters, ed. by his son Frederick, Maurice (3rd ed.; London, 1884)Google Scholar [hereafter referred to as the Life], II, 358–9. H. R. Haweis related the following anecdote about Maurice. “I one day inadvertently let drop the word ‘Broad Church.’ ‘Broad Church! I am sure I don't know what you mean; if you mean the so-called liberal theologians, they seem to me extremely narrow.’ ‘Broad Church,’ he used to say, ‘is a fiction of Conybeare's. I never had, and never will have, anything to do with it.’ ” “Frederick Denison Maurice,” Contemporary Review, LXV (1894), 877.Google Scholar
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13 Vol. I, p. 1117. For later developments in the Broad-Church movement, see Haweis, H. R., “The Broad Church,” Contemporary Review, LVII (1890), 900–910.Google Scholar The treatment here, however, is not very penetrating.
14 (London, New York, etc., 1913), p. 284.
15 Life, II, 527.
16 “The Thirty-nine Articles and the Broad-Church,” Spectator, XLIII (1870), 435.Google Scholar Cf. also Sir Strachey, Edward, “Recollections of F. D. Maurice,” Cornhill Mag., LXXV (04., 1897), 541Google Scholar n. Contrast Thiriwall's attitude: “… I cannot bring myself to treat ‘Broad Church’ as a term of reproach” (op. cit., p. 481).
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18 Ibid., II, 7.
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21 Life, II, 607–8. His son wrote: “Beyond all other things he dreaded becoming the head of a party of Christian Socialists. His great wish was to Christianize Socialism, not to Christian-Socialize the universe.” (Ibid., p. 41).
22 Ibid., I, 239.
23 Ibid., II, 358–9.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
26 Ibid.
27 Ibid., I, 183–4.
28 Ibid.
29 The whole paragraph is abstracted from “The Thirty-nine Articles and the Broad-Church,” Spectator, XLIII (1870), 434–5.Google Scholar
30 An excellent study of this group has been mede by the Rev. Tuckwell, W. in Pre-Tractarian Oxford: A Reminiscence of the Oriel “Noetics” (London, 1909).Google Scholar
31 I have made a detailed study of Maurice's indebtedness to Coleridge in “The Relation of Frederiek Denison Maurice to Coleridge,” Dissertation for the Ph. D. The University of Chicago, 1934.