ystem, and generally holding Calvinistic
doctrine, being so far nearer to Whitfield than to Wesley, though
Calvinism gradually ceased to be a mark of the party. The Evangelicals
soon grew in number, and their influence for good was extensive. They
laid stress on the depravity of human nature, and on the importance of
conscious conversion, giving prominence to the necessity of personal
salvation rather than of incorporation with, and abiding in, the church
of the redeemed. Prominent among their early leaders after they became
distinct from the Methodists were William Romaine, Henry Venn and John
Newton. Bishop Porteus of London sympathized with them, Lord Dartmouth
was a liberal patron, and Cowper's poetry spread their doctrines in
quarters where sermons might have failed to attract. Religion was also
forwarded in the church by the example of George III. During his reign
the progress of toleration, though slow and fitful, greatly advanced
both as regards Roman Catholics and Protestant dissenters. The spirit of
rationalism, which had been manifested earlier in attacks on revelation,
appeared in a movement against subscription to the Articles demanded of
the clergy and others which was defeated in parliament in 1772. The
alarm consequent on the French Revolution checked the progress of
toleration and was temporarily fatal to free-thinking; it strengthened
the position of the church, which was regarded as a bulwark of society
against the spread of revolutionary doctrines; and this caused the
Evangelicals to draw off more completely from the Methodists. The church
was active: the Sunday-school movement, begun in 1780, flourished; the
crusade against the slave-trade was vigorously supported by
Evangelicals; and the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), a distinctly
Evangelical organization, was founded. Excellent as were the results of
the revival generally, the Evangelicals had defects which tended to
weaken the church. Some characteristics of their teaching were
repellent to the young; they were deficient in theological learning, and
often in learning of any kind; they took a low view of the church,
regarding it as the offspring of the Protestant reformation; they
expounded the Bible without reference to the church's teaching, and paid
little heed to the church's directions. Dissent consequently grew
stronger. By the Act of Union with Ireland the Churches of England and
Ireland were united from the 1st of January 1801, and the