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185 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA England, Church of
was a failure in England. The accession of Charles II. (1660) restored the Church of England to the national position which it has ever since held. Stern measures against the Puritans soon followed, By the Act of Uniformity (q.v.) of 1662, the use of the Prayer-Book was rigidly enforced; and two thousand English clergymen, among them some of the most scholarly and pious divines of the time (such as Baxter and Howe), were deprived of their benefices. These penalties for dissent were increased by the Five-Mile Act (q.v.) of 1665, while the Test Act (q.v.) of 1673, by excluding all Puritans from office, marked the culmination of legislation against dissenters. Charles II. died, it is commonly held, a Roman Catholic, and his brother, James IL, lived as one; but the nation was against him, and his efforts to restore confidence and toleration for the Roman Church failed. The accession of William and Mary in 1688 ushered in a new epoch. The principle that the Established Church had an exclusive right to existence and protection was abrogated. The movement in favor not only of toleration but of absolute freedom of worship and political equality without reference to ecclesiastical connection began with this reign. Put into more and more extensive practise, this principle has effected the abolition of most, if not all, political disabilities on account of religious differences. The first legislation in this direction was the Act of Toleration (q.v.) of 1689 establishing freedom of worship. The nineteenth century witnessed the repeal of the Test Act (1828), the removal of the disabilities of the Roman Catholics (1829) and Jews (1858), and the dieeatabliahment of the Irish Church (1868).
The eighteenth century was characterized by a wide-spread religious apathy and worldliness among
the clergy, and witnessed the cuhni7. Deism, nation of Deism, which identified
Rise of Christian revelation with natural re Methodism. ligion, and excluded from Christianity, as ungenuine and false, all that was not contained in the latter (see DEI$bI). But the influence of Deism was more than counteracted by the Evangelical spirit and activity of Whitefield and the Wealeys, graduates of Oxford, which worked with irresistible power upon the masses, sad aroused the clergy out of their indifference to a new sense of their spiritual obligations. John Wesley (q.v.; 1702-91), the founder of the movement, a man of notable, power of organization as well as a great preacher, reached the masses and spoke as no single individual had spoken to England since Wyclif. Charles Wesley (q.v.) gave the English people some of its beat hymns. Whitefield (q.v.) in America as well as in England made the reputation of the greatest popular preacher England had produced. Against his will John Wesley founded a new church organization (see METHODIBTa). Fresh life sprang up in the Church of England as a result of this revival of practical religion. The so-called Evan gelicals, including some of the most famous pastors, fervent preachers, devout poets, and self-sacrificing philanthropists-men like Vena and Newton and Cowper and Wilberforce-brought a warm conse cration to their work and vied with the more elo-quent and equally devoted leaders of the Methodist movement in spreading the truths of vital religion. The century closed with an intense sympathy for the heathen abroad and the depraved classes at home. Sunday Schools were organized by the layman Robert Raikea of Gloucester in 1780, and in 1799 the Church Missionary Society was founded, while later still the movement which resulted in the abolition of the sle,ve-trade was inaugurated by Wilberforce.
The nineteenth century was characterized by earnest philanthropic movements, by the rise of the Oxford Movement, which profoundly
8. Later influenced the Church (see T$ACTABI- History. .uvlanl), and by the close affiliation with the Episcopal churches in the United States and the English colonies. The British and Foreign Bible Society united Church men and dissenters in a common enterprise, and the Evangelical Alliance, in 1846, again sought to unify them in spirit and prayer. No preceding period was distinguished for piety at once more practical and more liberal. However, the Church received a blow which, in the eyes of her opponents, threatened to crush her, when John Henry Newman, Henry Edward Manning, Frederick W. Faker, and other men of eminence among both the clergy and the laity became converts to the Roman Catholic communion. A far different school, equally devo ted to the Church of England, but adhering to Reformation rather than to Anglo-Catholic tenets, included ouch men as the Hares, F. D. Maurice, and Archbishop Whateley. In the last half of the century Biblical scholarship was earned on to a high point by such men as Archbishop Trench, Dean Alford, Bishops Lightfoot and Weatcott of Durham, Bishop Ellicott, Dean Stanley, and Pro fessors Hatch and Hort, not to mention the living. These Biblical studies culminated in the movement to revise the English translation of the Bible (see BIBLE VER$IONa, B, IV., § ?). The High-church party lays emphasis upon the exclusive right of episcopacy and apostolic succession, and main tains an advanced ritual, together with insistence on the doctrines of the Real Presence and baptismal regeneration. The extreme wing has reintroduced practises abrogated under Lutheran and Calvinistic influence, such as veneration of the Blessed Sacra ment, auricular confession, communion in one kind for the laity, and the establishment of monastic orders. They are distinguished for the elaborate and reverent character of their services, for the frequent celebration of the Eucharist, which is held to be sacrificial, and for their great zeal and devo tion in benevolent church work. Occupying oppo site ground is the Low-church party, which holds strictly to the natural interpretation of the Thirty nine Articles (q.v.), denies episcopacy to be of the essence of the Church, and ~ denounces so-called ritualistic practises. Between these two schools a third has grown up since the middle of the nine teenth century. Its combination of tolerant, and sometimes latitudinarian, sympathies with loyalty to the Church has secured for it the name of the Broad-church party. Among its more prominent representatives have been Arnold, Julius Hare,