The Religious Toleration and the Transformation of Anglicanism in the First Half of the 19th-century England

• Main Authors: Yu-Lu Tsai, 蔡育潞
• Other Authors: 王世宗
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2011
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/32898655921958269790

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 歷史學研究所 === 100 === This thesis aims to discuss the development of religious toleration in 19th-century England and the subsequent transformation of Anglicanism. The main issues include the Corporation and Test Acts Repeal Act of 1828, the Roman Catholic Relief Act in the next year and the Oxford Movement in the following period. From the ancient times, kings or rulers had tended to bring religious affairs under control, thus making their rule more solid and their state well-ordered. However, the predominance of the papacy in the high middle ages threatened the secular powers, so during the Reformation many kings and princes seized the opportunity to gain back their power. After the Anglican Church was founded, Nonconformists and Catholics had had few citizen rights, and since then some severe politic storms had arisen, e. g. the Civil War, and the party system had emerged as well. The Whigs tended to be sympathetic towards the Dissenters and the Catholics, while the Tories were the advocates of the Anglican Church. During the seventeenth century, the idea of toleration developed, and most dissenters were allowed to worship after the Glorious Revolution. In the next century, a series of Indemnity acts were passed to loosen the Corporation and Test Acts, which demanded those who will hold public offices take the sacraments in the Anglican Church. Most of the Whigs adhered to liberalism and tried to repeal the Corporation and Test Acts and to pass the Roman Catholic Bill, whereas some conservative Tories stood in their path. The ‘ultra-Tories’ opposed toleration very firmly, but others like Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington, who had voted against those bills at first, prepared to compromise. The foregoing bills passed with a premise that those who will be officials should promise not to injury or weaken the Anglican Church. Although the Establishment system was preserved, the Church of England was not in the ascendant anymore and its privileges were also going to be deprived; thus its relationship with the state became more irrelevant. Under such circumstances, churchmen such as C. J. Blomfield, one of the most important figures of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and the Oxford theologians tried to emphasize the spiritual role of the Church, the latter stating that the Anglican Church derived its authority from the primitive church and clergymen were the teachers leading the Christians to comprehend the religious doctrines and the truth. Therefore, the unity of the state and the church began to disintegrate.