The essays in this volume explore the important connections between religion, politics and identity in Britain during the 'long' eighteenth century. Asking broad questions about the identity and character of religion in Britain, the contributions touch such issues as the religious beliefs of the Jacobite rebels, the definitions of 'high' and 'low' Anglican churchmanship, and relations between religious dissenters and the established church. Through biographical analysis of a number of important individuals including Bishop Shipley, Richard Price, Thomas Secker, Charles Leslie, Sir George Pretyman-Tomline, John Henry Williams and Archdeacon Daubeny, the book makes an unambiguous and forceful statement about the centrality of religion to any proper understanding of British public life between the Restoration and the Reform Bill.

Robert G. Ingram, William Gibson

Contents: Introduction, William Gibson and Robert G. Ingram; Roger Morrice and the history of Puritanism, Mark Goldie; Charles Leslie and the political implications of theology, Robert Cornwall; Attitudinarian equivocation: George Smalridge's churchmanship, William Gibson; How heterodox was Benjamin Hoadly?, Guglielmo Sanna; The Jacobite failure to bridge the Catholic/Protestant divide, 1717-30, Jeffrey S. Chamberlain; William Warburton, divine action, and enlightened Christianity, Robert G. Ingram; James Boswell and the bi-confessional state, James J. Caudle; 'In the Church I will live and die': John Wesley, the Church of England, and Methodism, Jeremy Gregory; The waning of Protestant unity and waxing of anti-Catholicism? Archdeacon Daubeny and the reconstruction of 'Anglican' identity in the Later Georgian Church, c.1780-c.1830, Peter B. Nockles; Richard Price on reason and revolution, H.T. Dickinson; The 'most horrid and unnatural state of man': John Henry Williams and the French wars, 1793-1802, Colin Haydon; Sir George Pretyman-Tomline: ecclesiastical politician and theological polemicist, G.M. Ditchfield; 'Achitophel Firebrand' at St. Asaph: Dean Shipley and the withering of Whiggism in the Church of England, 1775-1825, Nigel Aston; Index.