In the seventeenth century, a Civil War and the removal of two kings suspected of attempting to reimpose Catholicism and foreign power decided England on an independent course in religion. Anglicanism's image of itself was as the reasonable middle way between the extremes of Protestantism (such as the Puritanism which had felt so oppressive during the Commonwealth) and Catholicism (which was seen to involve subjecting English sovereignty to foreign power). The conditions were not favourable for promoting the visible unity of Christians, as long as this was seen to have political consequences. In the eighteenth century, with the German Lutheran Hanoverians establishing their hold on the United Kingdom, Catholics were still seen as a threat for as long as the exiled Stuarts sought to recover the throne. Relations between British Anglicans and Protestants and the Catholic Church became a matter of how to handle foreign affairs and foreign people.
This was the age of Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, and the rise of the British Empire's maritime and trading superiority. Self-sufficient, industrious, prosperous and extending its power across the globe, Britain needed Europe less, still less the Catholic religion. Its faith described as 'somnolent', Britain was pious, found its native Churches congenial, and tried to avoid the enthusiasm for religion it blamed for the conflicts of the past. Indeed, Anglicanism saw itself as superior to the Catholic Church abroad, purified of error by Reformation, tolerating Dissent. It would not tolerate Catholics in the same way, because it still felt them to represent a political threat. The scholars of the time set aside the tradition of dialogue from the reign of James I in a previous age and argued instead the inadequacy, superstition and irrelevancy of Catholicism as more suited to climes and conditions beyond British realms.
Yet in 1718, Archbishop William Wake of Canterbury spoke forcefully of the Anglican desire for reunion with Rome, to be based on an identification of beliefs that Anglicans and Roman Catholics actually held in common. To this end he conducted a dialogue with doctors at the Sorbonne in Paris (Ellies du Pin and Piers Girardin), on the strength of his contacts in Paris when he had been chaplain to the ambassador there 1682-85. This explored, however, a union between the Church of England and a French 'Gallican' Church, detached from Rome. Far from a reconciliation between Anglicans and Roman Catholics, it would have increased the schism within Christendom and came to nothing. With 'Dissenters' in England too, Archbishop Wake wanted to get beyond received views of others and their positions, allay fears and reservations and find points of convergence. Although he may have failed to discern the essential ecclesiological questions to be settled first, it is interesting how his generosity of heart and thinking prefigures that of Pope Paul VI and Archbishop Michael Ramsey when they set up the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission in 1966. Rather than a discussion where persuausion of the other was the main objective, he believe strongly that closer unity would come through rediscovering the thinking and will of Christ. This strongly prefigures, too, the desire of Paul Couturier in the mid 20th century for convergence through 'spiritual ecumenism'. But in the early 18th century in Britain, the time had not yet come for Anglican-Catholic dialogue, any more than it had for Anglican-'Dissenter' reunion in this spirit.
But a new spirit was in the air. Catholic Europe, despite political upheaval and religious controversies, had been experiencing religious renewal. In many ways, the emergence of the Roman Catholic Church as distinct from the various Protestant movements and national churches which separated from it, led to a Reform far more thorough and comprehensive than that of the Church of England. At the very moment of Henry VIII's breach with Rome and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in England, great spiritual movements were beginning in the rest of the Church, especially that of St Ignatius of Loyola and his Society of Jesus and St Teresa of Avila and the Carmelite Reform. Succeeding generations saw St John of the Cross and his influence on contemplative prayer; St Vincent de Paul with his call to serve the poor and needy (which continues to this day), to education and the spiritual life; St Francis de Sales whose gentle holiness brought many back to Christ and unity in the Catholic faith; and St Margaret Mary Alacoque, whose devotion to the mercy of the Saviour's sacred Heart and passion led to widespread missionary work, bringing people back to their faith and those who had never before encountered Christ to the Gospel for the first time. None of this quiet spiritual revolution can have failed to have an effect on the Christians of Britain.
So it was in England that an Evangelical movement, which had first taken root among Independents and Congregationalists, began to affect people within the Church of England. With John Wesley as its principal figure, it emphasised preaching and mission; conversion of life; trust in the merits of Christ as Saviour; the hope of salvation for all; devotional life based on the study of the Bible; disciplined examination of conscience; works of charity; the relief and improvement of the poor; and a systematic programme of religious education and formation in faith. Wesley furnished those who followed his 'Method' with a wealth of spiritual direction in sermons, letters and treatises. With his brother Charles he also left to Christian posterity a vast treasury of hymns to sustain and extend this renewal of spiritual life. The spiritual affinity with movements in the Catholic Church is obvious and it has often been remarked that, had there never been a separation between Rome and England, the Wesley brothers would certainly have been founders of a great religious order in the undivided Universal Church.
An important principle to John Wesley was that of 'Catholic spirit', the idea that the body of Christians was one Church, united to the Lord not by way of adherence to separate ecclesiastical confessions, but through faith in the core essentials of belief set out in the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. This has been called 'transconfessional Evangelicalism' because, loyal as he expected his followers to be to the churches to which they were subject, Wesley had no time for 'party spirit', that is, setting any consideration or loyalty above belief and trust in Christ, the Lamb of God, slain for all, for the redemption of all from sin, and the union of all in the New Man, the Second Adam, the new Creation.
Even though Wesley shared the prejudices of his day concerning Roman Catholicism, the breadth of his conception of the Body of Christ, the Church, can genuinely be said to be ecumenical, and thus it laid vital foundations for the future coming of the modern movement for the Unity of Christians:
John Wesley had a great love for his own Church of England, and an intense devotion to Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion, but it is not unfair to say that his conception of the Church as communion, beyond the idea of the mystical Body in which all are united in a common faith, is not well developed. Nevertheless, building on the first steps in genuine dialogue in the preceding century, his sense of 'Catholic spirit' and of a need for spiritual renewal in the lives and mission of all the followers of Christ began to touch the conscience of succeeding generations, as they realised that Christian Unity could no longer be resisted. In 1749 he preached in Newcastle on Catholic Spirit, calling for a spiritual inclusiveness beyond denominational boundaries, an approach that has more recently been termed 'transconfessional evangelicalism'. Nearly thirty years later in 1788, his brother Charles issued Catholic Love, a poem calling for unity in 'the hidden Church unknown', 150 years before Paul Couturier proposed the idea of coming together in the prayer of heaven, above the Church's walls of separation, and uniting in the 'Invisible Monastery'.
Meanwhile, in 1744, Jonathan Edwards, a Congregationalist pastor in Connecticut, preached a sermon that set Protestants in America alight with spiritual fervour. A Concert of Prayer, or A humble attempt to promote the agreement and union of God's people throughout the world in extraordinary prayer for a revival of religion and the advancement of God's kingdom on earth foretold the glorious state of the Church, its people united in seeking the Lord. Observing unity in prayer, they were exhorted to ask the Lord to show mercy to mankind, pour out his Spirit, revive his work and advance his kingdom in the world as he promised. Scottish ministers agreed to set aside the first Tuesday of every quarter for uniting in prayer in this way in 1746, as well as every Saturday evening and Sunday morning; and these 'concerts of prayer' had also begun to take off in North America. Pentecostalists look to this time of unity in prayer for spiritual renewal as the "Great Awakening". Christian history looks back on this movement of prayer as the beginning of spiritual ecumenism, the Week of Prayer, the recovery of the Church's vision of itself as one Body, and the sanctification of all the faithful in the unity and humanity of Christ.
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