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The Evangelical Alliance in the 1840s: An Attempt to Institutionalise Christian Unity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
in 1844 Baptist Wriothesley Noel, minister of the Anglican proprietary chapel of St. John’s Bedford Row since 1827, published a book of verse, with a piece on ‘Schism’ containing the following stanzas:
- For man-made discipline let bigots fight
- Canons and rules old fathers have approved;
- By us may those whose faith and life are right,
- Be owned as brothers and as brothers loved.
- All true believers are the ransomed church,
- Children of God by Jesus owned and loved;
- And in the day when God the heart shall search
- Will they who part them be schismatics proved.
In the 1820s Noel had been an enthusiastic sympathiser with the pan-evangelicalism then prevalent in London and had remained loyal to these views during the period of stormier relations between Church and Dissent in the 1830s. In the slightly calmer waters of the 1840s Noel’s sentiments again came to represent the views of a small number of Anglican Evangelicals and a rather larger proportion of moderate Dissenters whose efforts to promote Christian unity were to culminate in the formation of the Evangelical Alliance in 1846.
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- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1986
References
1 Noel, B.W., Protestant Thoughts in Rhyme (London 1844) p. 73. On Noel see DNB; Bebbington, D.W., ‘The Life of Baptist Noel: Its Setting and Significance, The Baptist Quarterly 24 (1972) pp. 389–411.Google Scholar
2 Ibid. pp. 391-2; Noel, B.W., The Unity of the Church, Another Tract for the Times, Addressed particularly to Members of the Establishment (London 1837).Google Scholar
3 Kessler, J.B.A., A Study of the Evangelical Alliance in Great Britain (Goes, Netherlands 1968). The problem of slavery in relation to the Alliance is considered by MacLear, J.F., ‘The Evangelical Alliance and the Anti-slavery Crusade’, The Huntington Library Quarterly 42 (1978-9) pp. 141–164.Google Scholar
4 cf. Norman, E.R., Anti-Catholicism in Victorian England (London 1968) pp. 50–1; Machin, G.I.T., Politics and the Churches in Great Britain, 1832-1868 (Oxford 1977) p. 176; Martin, R.H., Evangelicals United: Ecumenical Stirrings in Pre-Victorian Britain (Metuchen, New Jersey and London 1983) pp. 200–1.Google Scholar
5 Noel, The Unity of the Church p. 9; London, Dr. Williams’s Library Blackburn MSS L52/2/101, Radford to Blackburn, 16 April 1834.
6 On the London City Mission see D.M. Lewis, ‘The Evangelical Mission to the British Working Class: A Study of Anglican Support for a Pan-evangelical Approach to Evangelism, with Special Reference to London, 1828-1860’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, thesis 1981) pp. 81-124.
7 Cox, F.A., On Christian Union: being a Brief Inquiry into the Causes of Disunion among Christians and the Reasons of Failure in the Efforts at Union hither to made (London 1845) p. 7.Google Scholar
8 Birks, T.R., Memoir of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth (2 vols London 1850) 2 p. 236.Google Scholar
9 Dale, R.W., The Life and Letters of John Angell James: including an Unfinished Autobiography (2 ed London 1861) pp. 397–8.Google Scholar
10 Ibid. pp. 399-402; The Congregational Magazine new series 6 (1842) pp. 458-62.
11 Dale p. 399; cf p.17
12 Dale pp. 404-7; The Congregational Magazine new series 6 (1842) pp. 905-11.
13 Ibid. 7 (1843) pp. 140-52.
14 Ibid. pp. 376-8, 542-4.
15 Cox pp. 11-14; Birks 2 pp. 229-31.
16 The Congregational Magazine 7 (1843) p. 230; A.J. Hayes and D.A. Gowland eds Scottish Methodism in the Early Victorian Period, The Scottish Correspondence of the Rev. Jabez Bunting (Edinburgh 1981) pp. 88-9, Bunting to Chalmers, 5 April 1843. Hayes and Gowland date this letter to 1840 but, from internal evidence, it quite clearly belongs to 1843. I have been unable to trace the original: Hayes and Gowland state that it is in the Thomas Chalmers Collection at New College, Edinburgh, but, despite considerable efforts, the Library staff there have been unable to find it.
17 New College, Edinburgh, Thomas Chalmers Collection, CHA.4.311.23-4, Smith to Chalmers, 9 May 1843.
18 Hayes and Gowland pp. 14-17, 88-9, Bunting to Chalmers, 5 April 1843.
19 Hanna, W., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D. (4 vols Edinburgh 1849-52) 4 pp. 378–9.Google Scholar
20 Massie, J. W., The Evangelical Alliance: its Origins and Development containing Personal Notices of its Distinguished Friends in Europe and America (London 1847) pp. 91–8; The Congregational Magazine new series 7 (1843) pp. 74–6.Google Scholar
21 Ibid. 7 (1843) PP. 617-9.
22 Dale pp. 408-11; Massie p. 383; Essays on Christian Union (London 1845).
23 Dale pp. 408-11. The best account of the anti-Maynooth agitation, though unreliable in details, is given in Norman pp. 23-51.
24 The Congregational Magazine new series 9 (1845) p. 767.
25 Massie p. 109; Dale p. 412; Hanna, 4, p. 385; A.S. Thelwall, Proceedings of the Anti-Maynooth Conference (London 1845) pp. clxxxvi-clxxx vii; Conference on Christian Union - Narrative of the Proceedings of the Meeting held in Liverpool, October 1845 (London 1845) p. 59.
26 The Congregational Magazine new series 9 (1845) pp. 769-72.
27 Birks 2 pp. 303-8; C.E. Eardley, A Brief Notice of the Life of the Rev. Edward Bickersteth (London 1850) p. 13.
28 Conference on Christian Union held in Liverpool on Wednesday the 1st of October 1845 and Subsequent Days (Liverpool 1845) PP.6-13.
29 The Congregational Magazine new series 9 (1845) pp. 775-6.
30 Narrative of the Proceedings of the Meetings held in Liverpool pp. 8, 34, 37. The printed record is, probably deliberately, vague regarding the details of this incident. Press reporters had been excluded from the meeting.
31 Birks 2 pp. 311-2; Dale pp. 413-5; Massie pp. 169, 198-210.
32 Birks 2 p. 303.
33 Noel, B.W., On Protestant Unity in Fundamental Doctrines (London 1828).Google Scholar
34 Massie pp. 10-17.
35 Birks 2 p. 308; Hanna 4 pp. 386-7; T. Chalmers, On the Evangelical Alliance; its Design, its Difficulties, its Proceedings and its Prospects: with Practical Suggestions (Edinburgh 1846).
36 Narrative of the Proceedings of the Meetings held in Liverpool p. 16; William Arnot, Life of James Hamilton, D.D. (London 1870) pp. 188, 203, 231; Massie p. 149.
37 Wolffe, J.R., ‘Protestant Societies and Anti-Catholic Agitation in Great Britain, 1829-1860’ (unpublished Oxford D.Phil, thesis 1984) pp. 279–81, 303–7.Google Scholar
38 This is against Martin who contrasts (pp. 200-1) the Evangelical Alliance unfavourably with early nineteenth century pan-evangelicalism, as being pre dominantly negative and anti-Catholic.
39 Massie pp. 137-8, 205, 231-3 and passim; John 15. 9-17; 17.21.
40 Essays on Christian Union pp. 38-48.
41 Massie p. ii; Birks 2 p. 356. Lewis (p. 162) relates Anglican Evangelical dif ferences over the Alliance to differing views of eschatology. This is an ingenious argument which sheds light on the respective positions of McNeile and Bicker-steth, but should be regarded with some caution, if only in the light of Birks’s statement (2 p. 480) that those Christians who concurred most with Bickersteth’s views of prophecy disagreed with him over the Alliance.
42 R. Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism: Popular Evangelicalism in Britain and America 1790-186; (Westport 1978) pp. 71-83, 94-100, 102 seq.
43 Massie pp. 201-5; Birks 2 pp. 233-4, 327-50.
44 Massie p. 153.
45 W.R. Ward ed Early Victorian Methodism - The Correspondence of Jabez Bunting, 1830-1858 (Oxford 1976) pp. 333-4, Barrett to Bunting, nd (Oct. or Nov. 1845).
46 Ibid. p. 335; Chalmers pp. 33, 36.
47 Massie pp. 126, 173.
48 Narrative of the Proceedings of the Meetings held in Liverpool pp. 34-5.
49 Ibid. p. 35.
50 Ward pp. 343-4, John Wesley Thomas to Bunting, 20 August 1846; James Gibson, Speeches of the Rev. James Gibson, A.M. and Rev. Andrew King, A.M. in the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr with a Review of the Principles Maintained in the Speeches of the Rev. Dr. Candlish and others on Christian Union Delivered in Glasgow, on the 28th October 1845; also Remarks on the “Narrative” and “Address” of the Liverpool Conference (Glasgow 1846) p. 13.
51 Massie p. 304.
52 MacLear pp. 156-60.
53 The Eclectic Review 4 series 19 (1846) p. 500.
54 The Evangelical Alliance the Embodiment of the Spirit of Christendom (Edinburgh 1847) pp. 35-43; The Free Church of Scotland. A Report of the Proceeding in the General Assembly on Wednesday, May 27, 1846 on the Subject of Christian Union. Revised (Edinburgh 1846).
55 Massie p. 190.
56 Wolffe p. 278.
57 Ibid. pp. 146-51.
58 The Record 18 Dec. 1845.
59 Hayes and Gowland p. 119, George Scott to Bunting, 4 June 1846.
60 Eclectic Review 4 series 19 (1846) pp. 493-502.
61 Evangelical Alliance, British Organization. Report of the Proceedings of the Conference of British Members held at Manchester, from November 4th to the 9th inclusive 1846 (London 1847) pp. 151-66.
62 Dale p. 418.
63 Ibid. pp. 520-1.
64 Birks 2 pp. 406-7; Bebbington p. 396.
65 Massie pp. 164-6; Dale p. 417.
66 Evangelical Alliance, British Organization. Abstract of the Proceedings of the Second Annual Conference, held in Bristol, June 1848 with the Annual Report presented to the Conference and Lists of Members and Contributors (London 1848) p. 46.
67 Evangelical Alliance, British Organization. The Annual Report Presented to the Conference held in Glasgow, October 1849 with an Abstract of the Proceedings of the Conference (London 1849) pp. 18-21; Hayes and Gowland p. 126, Farmer to Bunting, 15 Oct. 1849.
68 Evangelical Alliance, British Organization. Abstract of the Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Conference, held in Liverpool, October 1850 with the Annual Report presented to the Conference and a List of Members (London 1850) pp. 17-23; Evangelical Protestantism: Report of a Meeting Convened by the Evangelical Alliance but Open to all Christians holding the Doctrines of the Protestant Reformation, held in the Large Room, Exeter Hall on Thursday, February 27 1851 (London 1851); Lewis p. 257.
69 Evangelical Alliance, British Organization. Abstract of the Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference, held in Dublin, August 1852, with the Annual Report presented to the Conference; and a List of Members and Subscribers (London 1852) p. 62; The Bulwark 2 (1852-3) p. 15.
70 Dale p. 524 (italics in the original).