‘Master in the Art of Holy Living’: The Sanctity of William Stevens

2011 ◽  
Vol 47 ◽  
pp. 307-317
Author(s):  
Robert Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Close Friend ◽  
Holy Communion ◽  
Founding Member ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Church

The following paper explores the sanctity of the late eighteenth-century High Church Anglican layman, William Stevens (1732—1807), as seen through the eyes of his biographer, Sir James Allan Park (1763–1838). A largely unstudied figure, Stevens, a prosperous London hosier who dedicated most of his adult life to philanthropic, theological and ecclesiastical concerns, arguably represents one of the most important figures within pre-Tractarian High Churchmanship. Park was a close friend of Stevens. A judge of the Common Pleas and a founding member of Stevens’s ‘Club of Nobody’s Friends’, Park shared Stevens’s interest in theology and church-related concerns, even publishing in 1804 a short discourse directed towards young people, on the need for a frequent reception of Holy Communion. In focus here is a facet of Stevens’s life that came to be closely associated with his many achievements as a lay divine and activist within the pre-Tractarian Church of England, namely, his personal sanctity; this was marked by a close connection between faith and works, a strict dedication and devotion to the Church of England’s services and sacraments, and a rejection of’enthusiasm’ in its pejorative sense — all of which he held while maintaining a strong sense of cheerfulness and zeal. A portrait of sanctity that conforms to what is known about pre-Tractarian spirituality, the Memoirs may additionally be viewed as offering a representative understanding of what constituted holiness for this Anglican tradition.

Edmund Burke, Dissent and Church and State

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Fitzpatrick
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Church And State ◽  
Edmund Burke ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Church State Relations ◽  
State Relations ◽  
The Church ◽  
At Home

This chapter examines Edmund Burke’s attitude towards Protestant dissenters, particularly the more radical or rational ones who were prominent in the late eighteenth century, as a way of understanding his changing attitude towards the Church of England and state. The Dissenters who attracted Burke’s attention were those who were interested in extending the terms of toleration both for ministers and for their laity. Initially Burke supported their aspirations, but from about 1780 things began to change. The catalyst for Burke’s emergence as leader of those who feared that revolution abroad might become a distemper at home was Richard Price’s Discourse on Love of Our Country. The chapter analyses how Burke moved from advocating toleration for Dissenters to become a staunch defender of establishment as to have ‘un-Whigged’ himself. It also considers the debate on the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts as well as Burke’s attitude towards Church–state relations.

Common Law Confrontations

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (03) ◽  
pp. 763-786
Author(s):  
Bernadette Meyler
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
New Jersey ◽  
Supreme Court ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Common

This symposium essay contends that the image of the common law drawn by the Supreme Court in the Confrontation Clause context is both distorted and incomplete. In particular, the Court and scholars defending originalist positions rely almost entirely on English sources in their reconstruction of the common law basis for the Confrontation Clause, thereby neglecting the diversity of American common laws from the time of the Founding, a diversity that has already been unearthed by a number of legal historians. By drawing on hitherto untapped sources to furnish a bottom-up reconstruction of how testimony was treated in local criminal courts within mid- to late-eighteenth-century New Jersey, this essay demonstrates that, in at least some jurisdictions, the originalist vision of common law did not apply. The common law cannot, therefore, furnish a univocal answer to questions about the original meaning of the Confrontation Clause.

‘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

1998 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-236
Author(s):  
Peter B. Nockles
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
John Fletcher ◽  
Oxford Movement ◽  
Half Century ◽  
Catholic Religion ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Church

‘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.

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's Quest for Natural Species

1996 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-553
Author(s):  
Alexandre Métraux
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) was a prolific writer, a multifaceted naturalist, and a zoologist by second profession. Throughout his adult life he lived up to his passion of politely contributing to the advancement of natural philosophy by publishing more than 30,000 pages, probably too much for even the most scrupulous (and persevering) historians of science who seek to reconstruct his theories and to shed some light on the role he played in late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century biology.

Upland adjustments: west Wales and Swaledale and the sequences of migration

2018 ◽  
pp. 165-179
Author(s):  
Eric Richards
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Rural Population ◽  
British Isles ◽  
Classic Case ◽  
Rural Change ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Common

Wales, in common with many locations in the British Isles, had a mixed career during the economic and demographic upheavals of the late eighteenth century. Rural west Wales was especially prominent in the emigration account; it also vividly manifested some of the classic conditions making for mobility. Increased mobility in rural Wales was marked also by particular episodes of emigration which entered the folk memory. The demographic and economic career of the upland Swaledale region in the North Yorkshire Pennines demonstrates with unusual clarity several typical sequences within the long-term decline of its rural population. The Swaledale economy remained dominated by agriculture, and productivity increases were impressive, especially in dairying. Swaledale was a classic case of rural change associated with migratory adjustments to demographic and economic pressures, and was a regional variant of the common experience in rural Britain.

Conclusion

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert G. Ingram
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Modern State ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Wars Of Religion ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Church

The conclusion explains why the English Reformation ended in the late eighteenth century. It discounts a secular and secularizing Enlightenment as an explanation. Rather, it offers three other reasons for the Reformation’s ending. Firstly, by the last quarter of the eighteenth century enough time had passed to make the seventeenth-century wars of religion less threatening than they had seemed earlier in the century. Secondly, the Reformation issues with which the eighteenth-century English dealt got supplanted by other, more urgent ones, often having to do with England’s expanding empire. Finally, and importantly, the Reformation ended because the polemical divines who are the subject of this book failed fully in their tasks of defining truth and of defending the autonomy of the established Church of England. In the end, the modern state took on the role as truth’s arbiter and made the Church a subordinate, dependent institution.

scholarly journals Literary Correspondences: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and Mme de Genlis

2015 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-193
Author(s):  
Rebecca Ford
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Adult Life ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Ethical Implications ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Cultural Life ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Relationship

Although Bernardin's correspondence spans most of his adult life and involves a wide range of correspondents and subject matter, there is a marked increase in the number of correspondents and frequency of correspondence from the time he begins to enjoy real literary success. Indeed, the relationship between the reading and writing of letters and the writing and reading of Bernardin's published works is a close and multi-faceted one. The focus for this article is the correspondence between Bernardin and Mme de Genlis, one of the most significant literary figures in Bernardin's correspondence network. Their correspondence casts light on Bernardin's place in late eighteenth-century literary and cultural life and his developing identity as an author. Bernardin's correspondence with Mme de Genlis helps him to deal with practical issues surrounding the publication of his works, and to explore the moral and ethical implications of authorship; but it also reveals the difficulties inherent in the act of correspondence itself.

Anglophilia and Sensibility in Late Eighteenth-Century Vienna: Prince Charles Antoine de Ligne's Testament and the Indissolubles

2020 ◽  
Vol 51 ◽  
pp. 114-133
Author(s):  
Rebecca Gates-Coon
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Close Friend ◽  
Polish Academy ◽  
Small Circle ◽  
Left Behind ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Group Member ◽  
Last Will And Testament

AbstractPrince Charles Antoine de Ligne, son of Prince Charles Joseph de Ligne, died fighting French revolutionary forces at Croix-au-Bois in the Argonne region on 14 September 1792. He left behind a last will and testament (a copy is held in the Kriegsarchiv in Vienna) that evoked the memory of his small circle of aristocratic Viennese friends called “les Indissolubles.” Each member received a personal legacy, and Charles directed that a “temple of friendship” be established in his rooms at Beloeil featuring portraits of group members and a bust of himself. This poignant document, in combination with Charles's correspondence with close friend and group member Prince Joseph Poniatowski (preserved in the Polish Academy library in Cracow), confirms in striking manner the group's affinity for two popular European trends: Anglophilia and sensibility. Although Charles's will was not published at the time of his death he could assume that, as with any final testament, his statements would become known to, and honored by, a limited “public” of their own.

Perceptions of marriage in late-eighteenth-century Malta

2001 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 379-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANS CIAPPARA
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Sexual Relations ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
The Church ◽  
At Will ◽  
Parish Registers ◽  
The Catholic Church

Although the Catholic Church claimed to control marriage, in late-eighteenth-century Malta the faithful still considered matrimony to be a personal affair. The study is based upon episcopal court records and parish registers, which reveal substantial numbers of clandestine marriages, contravening the Council of Trent's directives concerning entry into marriage. Couples separated from each other at will, without the Church's consent. A few took other partners, despite the inquisitors' nets. Couples viewed sexual relations as matters for themselves to regulate, and sex outside marriage as not something into which the Church was to intrude. Especially noteworthy in this respect were relations between betrothed, since a man would not marry a woman who could not bear children.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document