Anglican Evangelicalism in the West of England, 1858–1900
The Church of England Clerical and Lay Association (Western District) for the maintenance of Evangelical Principles was started in 1858 as part of a ‘more comprehensive plan for a general organized association’ of Anglican Evangelicals. The case for such an association was graphically made by an anonymous clerical pamphleteer: Now that the Church of England seems called upon to choose, whether she will give her allegiance to Christ, or to Anti-Christ either as Roman or Neologian or a compromise of both—now that hundreds have actually passed away to Rome, and also that so considerable a number of the younger Clergy are more or less under the seductive influence of her errors so as to render it difficult to meet with like-minded men as fellow-helpers,—now that the State, hitherto bound up with the Church, apparently either contemplates casting her adrift or reducing her to a conation of political servitude,—under these, our present exigencies, the desire for union becomes more intense and irresistible. We want to know each other’s thoughts and feelings. We are in great need of mutual information and counsel. We thirst for sympathy and encouragement. We want to act together as one man.