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Charles Simeon and J. J. Gurney: A Chapter in Anglican-Quaker Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

David E. Swift
David E. Swift
Affiliation:
Wesleyan University
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Extract

The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in England were a time of rapid change, of bitter tensions, and of great hopes. This was what the economic historians describe as the “classical period” of the Industrial Revolution. These were also years in which new vitality of faith and a spate of educational and reform movements issued from the Evangelical movement within British Protestantism. Indeed, the energetic hopefulness of Evangelicalism was the child of industrial and commercial expansion as well as of renewed Christian vision. Though England suffered no such violent overthrow of authority as France, yet both industrial progress and Evangelical sense of responsibility produced a critical attitude toward the status quo in state and Church.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 29 , Issue 2 , June 1960 , pp. 167 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1960

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References

1. Pressnell, L. S., for instance, uses the dates 1760–1830. (Country Banking in the Industrial Revolution [Oxford, 1956], 1f.)Google Scholar

2. Cams, W. (ed.), Memoirs of the Life of the Rev. Charles Simeon (N. Y., 1847), 175ff.Google Scholar

3. The curriculum with his tutor, John Rogers, included the Latin of Cicero, Horace, Tacitus, Lucretius and Livy, and the Greek of Xenophon, Thucydides, Euripides, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Josephus, Plautus, Suetonius and the Greek New Testament. At sixteen Gurney was reading the Hebrew Bible. (Letters by Gurney to his family between 1805 and 1807, in the “Gurney Manuscripts” [The Library, Friends House, London], e. g. III: 254, 257, 261, 263, 266; and letter from Rogers to Gurney's father, 11/5/1803, “Gurney Mss.”, IV 46.)

4. Cf. the record of his reading in “Joseph John Gurney's Journal of his Readings, Studies and Literary Labours from 1811 to 1837” and his “Private Journal” which was begun three years earlier (Library, Friends House, London). Gurney's reading in 1811–1812, the year in which he committed himself to decided Quakerism ineluded, along with such Quaker works as Job Scott on baptism, the journal of Mary Alexander, and the life of Isaac Penington, also the following; Warburton's sermon on Christian Church Government Porteus' life of Archbishop Seeker, and his work on the evidences of Christianity, Cecil's Sernwns and Remains, unspecified writings by Doddridge, Pretymnn on Original Sin, Mimer's Church History, Paley's sermon on Devotion, Southey's essay on missions to India, William Magee's (later Archbishop of Dublin) Discourses on the Scriptural Doctrines of the Atonement and Sacrifice, Joseph Butler's Analogy of Religion and his sermons delivered at Rolls Chapel. Butler's works had been a decisive influence in the life of his older sister, Catherine, and were read again and again by Gurney himself, throughout his life. In general, his most frequent reading in Quaker works was in the writings of Fox, Penn, Barclay, Job Scott, and Quaker journals.

5. Review of Essays on the Evidences, Doctrines and Practical Operation of Christianity (1825), in The Christian Observer, conducted by Members of the Established Church, xxvi (1826,), 538–551.

6. Journal entry for 9/22/1817, in “Haverford Extracts”, 94. (This is a folio volume of extracts from Gurney's letters and journals, printed up by his widow for family use, shortly after his death. Volumes of these cxtracts, differing somewhat in content, are in the Quaker Collection of the Haverford College Library; The Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College; the Library of Pendle Hill, Wallingford, Pa.; and the Library, Friends House, London.)

7. Entry for 10/5/1818, in Hare, A. J. C., The Gurneys of Earlham (N. Y. and London, 1895; 2 vols.), I 316.Google Scholar

8. Letter of 3/30/1821 to one of the Gurney sisters, in Carus, Memoirs of Simeon, 322.

9. Brown, A. W., Recollection of the Conversation Parties of the Rev. Charles Simeon (London, 1863), 221.Google Scholar

10. Marlowe, J., The Puritan Tradition in English Life (London, 1956), 42.Google Scholar

11. Fox's use of “steeple house” and “church” is made clear in a passnge in his Journal for 1652, “And when I was at Ulrome before in the steeple house, there came a professor [avowed Christian] and gave me a push in the breast … and bid me get out of the church. ‘Alack, poor man,’ said I, ‘dost thou call the steeplehouse the church? the church is the people whom God has purchased with his blood, and not the house.’“ (The Journal of George Fox, rev. cd. by John L. Nick ails [Cambridge, 1952], 93f.Google Scholar)

12. Petition to Parliament, printed in The Yorkshi reman, vol. i, no. 24, 375–7, quoted in Jones, H. M., The Later Periods of Quakerism (London, 1921), I 149.Google Scholar

13. Eddington, A. J., “The Quaker Gurneys” Eastern Daily Press, 10/20/1920Google Scholar. John Gurney was in prison between 1662 and 1686. Friends had been meeting for worship in Norwich since 1654, although they had not built their own meeting house until the late 1670's.

14. Barclay, also, was Gurney's great- great-grandfather.

15. That is, he became a “recorded minister.” His local meeting acknowledged the fact that his utterances in meetings for worship were of such an order as to give clear evidence that he was being used as an instrument of the Spirit. This acknowledgment, however, carried with it neither rcmuncration nor responsibility for rcgular speaking in meeting, except as he should feel “moved” to preach or to pray.

16. Observations on … Friends (2nd ed. London, 1824), 130ff., 185ff., 191ffGoogle Scholar; Two Letters addressed by J. J. Gurney to Two Young Friends on the Occasion of their Leaving the Society (Philn., 1859), 22Google Scholar. These letters were written in Dec. 1843 to Priscilla and William Lcatbam.

17. Horac Hoinileticac or Discourses Digested into one Continued Series, and forming a commentary upon every book of the Old and New Test ament (8th. ed., London, 1855; 21 vols.), XVI 407ff., 419.Google Scholar

18. Shneon's memoir of his early life written in 1813, Carus, Memoirs of Simeon, 6.

19. Cited by Balleinc, G. R., A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England (London, 1951), 103.Google Scholar

20. Carus, op. cit., 435ff.

21. Ovcrton, J., The True Churchman Ascertained: or, An Apology for thpse of the Regular Clergy of the Establishment, who are sometimes called Evangelical Ministers (1801), 115ff.Google Scholar

22. “The Churchman's Confession,” Horae Homileticae, XVI 419f.

23. Letter to a friend in the foreign mission field, 8/16/1822, Carus, op. cit., 334.

24. That is, those who make profession of Christian faith.

25. The Journal of George Fox, ed. by J. L. Nickalls, 23.Google Scholar

26. I Cor. 1 (17); John 3 (7,8) [R.S.V.]1; cf. Simeon, , “The New Birth,” Horae Homileticae, XVI 255ff.Google Scholar; and Gurney, , Observations on Friends (1824), 80, 101f.Google Scholar

27. Gurney, Ibid., 36ff.

28. Letter of 4/8/1831 from J. J. Gurney, to J. H. Gurney, quoted in most complete version in “Pendle Hill Extracts” (cf. n. 6 above), in briefer form in Carus, op. cit., 394ff., and in Braithwaite, J. B., Memoirs of Joseph John Gurney: with Selections from his Journal and Correspondence (Phila., 1854; 2 vols.), I 451ff.Google Scholar

29. The Offices of the Holy Spirit: Four Scrmons Preached before the University of Cambridge in the month of November 1881 (N. Y., 1832), 19f., 26.Google Scholar

30. Carus, op. cit., 397.

31. Letter of April 1841 to unidentified addressee, Braithwaite, op. cit., frontispiece.

32. A Journal of the Life, Travels, and Gospel Labours, of that faithful servant and minister of Christ, Job Scott (N. Y., 1797), 28.Google Scholar

33. Quoted from another edition of Scott's Jouual by Gmubb, E., The Histnric and the Inuard Christ (1914), 56.Google Scholar

34. Journal (1797), 29.

35. Ibid., 73.

36. Many Friends in the twentieth century, however, have seen Evangelical Quakerism as a falling away from the very genius of Quakerism, its rich corporntc mystical experience, unobstructed by historical and theological preoccupations. This was the vieu- of the Quaker historian, Rufus M. Jonas, and of the British Quaker writer, Edward C rubb.

37. Letters from Simeon to Gurney, 1/25/1826, “Gurney Mss.”, III 427: 2/4/1831, Braithwaite, , Memoirs of Gurney, I 442ff.Google Scholar

38. The fullest published account of the family life of the Gurneys is A. J. C. Hare, The Gurneys of Earlham. Additional material is in the “Private Journal of Joseph John Gurney” and “Joseph John Gurney's Autobiography” (Library, Friends House, London), and in the transcript (ms.) of the journal of Elizabeth Fry (1796–1846), in the Department of Mss. of the British Museum.

39. Entry for 1/6/1823, “Haverford Extracts”, 160.

40. Essays on … Christianity (2nd. ed., London, 1826), 238ff., 247ff.Google Scholar

41. Ibid., 428ff.; Letter to Friends of the Monthly Meeting of Adrian, Michigan (N. Y., 1839)Google Scholar. Friends had traditionally affirmed the universality of God's beneficence, expressed through the Spirit. Gurney's contribution was to relate this again to the Crucifixion.

42. Letter of 1/25/1826 to Gurney, “Gurney Mss.”, III 427.

43. Letter of 7/22/1814 to Amelia Opie, Braithwaite, op. cit., I 249f.

44. Essays on Christianity, 390ff.; for a similar affirmation on the atonement by Sirneon, cf. his sermon of 1811, “Christ Crucified, or Evangelical Religion Described”, Horae Homileticae, XVI 42f.

45. In a letter to Lady Claypole. My attention was called to this passage by Edward H. Milligan's unpublished paper, “The Eighteenth Century.”

46. Letter of 4/8/1831; cf n. 28 above.

47. Letter of 2/4/1831, Braithwaite, op. cit., I 442f.

48. Letter front Jolia Barclay to Gurney, undated but written in 1818, Ms. Portfolio 30.22 (Library, Friends House, Londonl.

49. Because of criticism of the original title, Observations on the Religious Peculiarities of the Society of Friends, Gurney had changed it to Observations on the Distinguishing Views and Practices of the Society of Friends. Both editions had been examined and approved, prior to publication, by an authorized committee of London Yearly Meeting.

50. Observations on Friends (2nd. Amer. ed. based on 7th London ad., N. Y., 1880), 191.Google Scholar

51. Letter of 1/25/1826 to Gurney, “Gurney Mss.”, III 427.

52. Letters of 12/23 and 12/26/1829 to Gurney, “Gurney Mss.”, III 516, 518.

53. Norfolk Chronicle, 3/18/1815.

54. Carus, , Memoirs of Simeon, 335Google Scholar; Simeon's diary for 10/4/182 2.

55. Ibid., diary for 9/30/1822.

56. Transcript of testimony by Thomas Shillitoc, given orally to John Hodgkin three dnys before the former's death; ms. copy in the Charles Evans Colleetion in the Quaker Collection of the Hni-erford College Library.

57. Haldvy, E., A History of the English People in 1815 (Pelican, ed., 1938; 3 vols.) III 61.Google Scholar

58. Report by Gurney's brother-in-law, Francis Cunningham, Evangelical Anglican rector, on recant developments in the Church of England, in letter of 10/18/1838 to Gurney in North America, “Gurney Mss.”, I 146.

59. Letter of April 1841 to unidentified addressee, Braithwaite, op. cit., frontispiece.