Battle Rejoined

Abstract

The outbreak of the French Revolution created a great fear of reform in any sphere of national life, and religious practice was no exception. The first quarter of the nineteenth century was a period of inactivity in the Established Church, except for the small band of Evangelicals, who were not at that time interested in liturgical reform. There was, however, a revival of liturgical study. Richard Laurence, afterwards archbishop of Cashel, devoted his Bampton Lectures of 1804 to showing that our Reformation was Lutheran, not Calvinistic.² Though the text of the lectures makes little reference to the Prayer Book, they are supported by extremely full notes, in which Laurence points out similarities between Poullain’s Liturgia Sacra and the Prayer Book of 1552. More important, he analyses in some detail the indebtedness of our Baptism service to Hermann’s Consultation, the influence of which had not previously been appreciated. Later, Laurence published the documents of the Visitation of Saxony in 1527 and 1528, thus opening up a line of inquiry which was not pursued for half a century.

The church is larger than before;

You reach it by a carriage entry;

It holds three hundred people more,

And pews are fitted up for gentry.

W. M. Praed, The Vicar

Let them, on the one side and the other, consider that men’s judgments of perfection are very various, and what is imperfect, with peace, is often better than what is otherwise more excellent, without it.

Irish Prayer Book of 1877, Preface

It is now clear to me that all the Clergy, of whatever school, are equally stupid.

A. J. Balfour, 3 March 1904¹