Chapter 5

LATITUDINARIAN CHURCHMANSHIP.

(2.) CHURCH COMPREHENSION AND CHURCH REFORMERS.

(_C.J. Abbey._)

Comprehension in the English Church, 147 Attitude towards Rome in eighteenth century, 148 Strength of Protestant feeling, 148 Exceptional interest in the Gallican Church, 149 Archbishop Wake and the Sorbonne divines, 149 Alienation unmixed with interest in the middle of the eighteenth century, 152 The exiled French clergy, 154 The reformed churches abroad:-- Relationship with them a practical question of great interest since James II.'s time, 155 Alternation of feeling on the subject since the Reformation, 156 The Protestant cause at the opening of the eighteenth century, 158 The English Liturgy and Prussian Lutherans, 160 Subsidence of interest in foreign Protestantism, 163 Nonconformists at home:-- Strong feeling in favour of a national unity in Church matters, 164 Feeling at one time in favour of comprehension, both among Churchmen and Nonconformists, 166 General view of the Comprehension Bills, 169 The opportunity transitory, 174 Church comprehension in the early part of the eighteenth century confessedly hopeless, 175 Partial revival of the idea in the middle of the century, 177 Comprehension of Methodists, 180 Occasional conformity:-- A simple question complicated by the Test Act, 183 The Occasional Conformity Bill, 184 Occasional conformity, apart from the test, a 'healing custom', 185 But by some strongly condemned, 186 Important position it might have held in the system of the National Church, 187 Revision of Church formularies; subscription:-- Distaste for any ecclesiastical changes, 188 The 'Free and Candid Disquisitions', 189 Subscription to the Articles, 190 Arian subscription, 193 Proposed revision of Church formularies, 195 Isolation of the English Church at the end of the last century, 195 The period unfitted to entertain and carry out ideas of Church development, 196