England, Church of: The Eighteenth Century

The Eighteenth Century

In the 18th cent. latitudinarians held control in the church; dogma, liturgy, and ecclesiastical organization were subordinated to the appeal to reason, abhorrence of religious enthusiasm, and Erastianism. In 1701 the first Anglican missionary society, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), was founded for work overseas, and much of its early work was done in America. In George I's reign the Bangorian Controversy led to the prorogation of convocation in 1717; the next council of the church was not reconvened until 1852. The revival of religious fervor in the late 18th cent. resulted both in the rise of the evangelical movement within the Church of England and in the Methodist schism. The Church Missionary Society, founded in 1799, grew out of the evangelical movement.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
The Oxford Movement to the Present
The Eighteenth Century
The Glorious Revolution
The English Civil War and the Restoration
Creation of the Church
Origins
Organization and Doctrine
Bibliography

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