Sincerity and the unreformed Church of England

During the late eighteenth century, two new concepts of civil religion came to challenge hitherto dominant Anglican versions. The first new concept remained Anglican, but its supporters were committed to a more comprehensive vision of an established church. Proponents of the second new concept rejected Anglicanism for a Dissenting vision of civil religion that, approaching the arrival of the millennium, would not require an established church. Both had much in common with earlier strands of civil religion. They celebrated the civil magistrate as the guarantor of Protestant spiritual liberty. Until the point of millennial perfection, proponents of both new concepts of civil religion remained committed to a church establishment in the Protestant nation against the dark forces of Roman Catholicism at home and abroad. The church establishment also upheld Christian morality in support of social order. Superstition and sacerdotal priests were to be prevented by the secular protections of the state in the Christian commonwealth. Committed to a sola scriptura approach, they aimed to construct anew the precepts of primitive Christianity. Learned ministers of the gospel would guide the laity in accessing the scriptures to maintain the relationship between the believer and God without sacerdotal mediation. Ministers were also pastoral and pedagogical to prevent backsliding into enthusiasm. Reason, science, and polite letters remained key signifiers of enlightened religion.

Such features remained constant. But the features that changed were the targets of the language of Protestant Reformation and spiritual enlightenment. A language once used to justify the Christian commonwealth of Whig England founded on the Revolution settlement of 1689 was now being redeployed, to varying extents, against that very order. Dissenters turned the touchstones of Anglican anti-Catholicism – corruption, priestcraft, and usurpation – into a manifesto for reform. Proponents of both new concepts of civil religion sought a comprehensive vision of the church establishment. If the church was the whole nation at prayer, it should include the entire people without doctrinal speculation in matters of faith. The church establishment must institutionalise a common worship as the expression of a commonwealth founded upon gospel Christianity.

The first new concept of civil religion emerged during the subscription controversy between the 1760s and 1780s.