It is difficult to prevent my note running beyond the limits of "N. & Q.," with the ample
materials I have to select from; but I cannot wind up without a definition; so here are two:
"Mr. Thelwall says that he told a pious old lady, who asked him the difference between High Church and Low Church, 'The High Church place the Church alcove Christ, the Low Church place Christ above the Church.' About a hundred years ago, that very same question was asked of the famous South:—'Why,' said he, 'the High Church are those who think highly of the Church, and lowly of themselves; the Low Church are those who think highly of themselves, and lowly of the Church."—Rev. H. Newland's Lecture on Tractarianism, Lond. 1852, p. 68.
The most celebrated High Churchmen who lived in the last century, are Dr. South, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Rev. Wm. Jones of Nayland, Bp. Horne, Bp. Wilson, and Bp. Horsley. See a long passage on "High Churchmen" in a charge of the latter to the clergy of St. David's in the year 1799, pp. 34. 37. See also a charge of Bp. Atterbury (then Archdeacon of Totnes) to his clergy in 1703.
Jarltzberg.
Footnote 1:[(return)]
There is a book called History of Party, from the Rise of the Whig and Tory Factions Chas. II. to the Passing of the Reform Bill, by G. W. Cooke: Lond. 1836-37, 3 vols. 8vo.; but, as the title shows, it is limited in scope.
See Haweis's Sermons on Evangelical Principles and Practice: Lond. 1763, 8vo.; The True Churchmen ascertained; or, An Apology for those of the Regular Clergy of the Establishment, who are sometimes called Evangelical Ministers: occasioned by the Publications of Drs. Paley, Hey, Croft; Messrs. Daubeny, Ludlam, Polwhele, Fellowes; the Reviewers, &c.: by John Overton, A. B., York, 1802, 8vo., 2nd edit. See also the various memoirs of Whitfield, Wesley, &c.; and Sir J. Stephens Essays on "The Clapham Sect" and "The Evangelical Succession."
It is not so very "singular," when we remember that the bishops were what Lord Campbell and Mr. Macauley call "judiciously chosen" by William. On this point a cotemporary remarks, "Some steps have been made, and large ones too, towards a Scotch reformation, by suspending and ejecting the chief and most zealous of our bishops, and others of the higher clergy; and by advancing, upon all vacancies of sees and dignities, ecclesiastical men of notoriously Presbyterian, or, which is worse, of Erastian principles. These are the ministerial ways of undermining Episcopacy; and when to the seven notorious ones shall be added more, upon the approaching deprivation, they will make a majority; and then we may expect the new model of a church to be perfected." (Somers' Tracts, vol. x. p. 368.) Until Atterbury, there were few High Church Bishops in Queen Anne's reign in 1710. Burnet singles out the Bishop of Chester: "for he seemed resolved to distinguish himself as a zealot for that which is called High Church."—Hist. Own Time, vol. iv. p. 260.
Of Izaak Walton his biographer, Sir John Hawkins, writing in 1760, says, "he was a friend to a hierarchy, or, as we should now call such a one, a High Churchman."