Freedom and Order: History, Politics and the English Bible by Nick Spencer

Author:Nick Spencer [Spencer, Nick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Published: 2011-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

If any man chose to marry, without a prospect of being able to support a family, he should have the most perfect liberty so to do . . . [but] he should be taught to know, that the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, had doomed him and his family to suffer for disobeying their repeated admonitions; [and] that he had no claim of right on society for the smallest portion of food, beyond that which his labour would fairly purchase.78

‘What shall we abolish next?’: morality and integrity

The irrefutable logic of political economy lent particular emphasis to evangelical conviction that personal reformation was the only serious solution to social problems. Evangelicals were not entirely against using legislation to address such problems, however. In the celebrations following the passing of the Abolition Bill in 1807, Wilberforce had ‘playfully’ asked Henry Thornton, ‘Well, Henry, what shall we abolish next?’ ‘The lottery, I think,’ Thornton replied solemnly.79 Nearly twenty years later, he was proved right when the 170-year-old state lottery was closed down. Evangelicals played a part in this, although they did not have as significant a role as later Victorian chroniclers believed.80 For over fifty years economists had warned that gambling diverted the resources and attentions of the poor away from their necessary labours. Some evangelicals, like Thomas Buxton, were adamant in their opposition, but the majority were lukewarm and the parliamentary campaign against it was led predominantly by non-evangelicals. Ultimately, economic and political concerns, along with old-fashioned paternalism, were as much behind the lottery’s demise as evangelical moralising.

It was a similar story regarding blasphemy and obscenity. The Blasphemous and Seditious Libel Act of 1819 allowed magistrates to seize unsavoury publications and provided for more punitive measures against their authors but, eagerly supported by many evangelicals as this was, it was simply part of the so-called Six Acts that were introduced by the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth in the wake of the Peterloo Massacre. There was, of course, no doubting the evangelical disapproval of sexual immorality but, in as far as this had a legislative impact, it was delayed and somewhat unexpected. Their preoccupation with sexual propriety, for example, would lead evangelicals later in the century to campaign for mining legislation (as miners of both sexes worked scandalously stripped to the waist), against overcrowding (as overcrowding led to incest) and for an end to the health inspection of prostitutes (on the grounds that the Act appeared to sanction sexual immorality). Given how very seriously evangelicals judged sexual misconduct this was meagre fare.

It was the same story even with regard to Sabbath observance. The Old Testament was clear that God punished his people for flouting the Sabbath and no contemporary nation could claim the mantle of godliness if it ignored the Sabbath. The French had been notoriously lax when it came to observing the holy day and look what had happened to them. Even here, however, legislative efforts were muted. Wilberforce drew up a bill in 1792 to obstruct Sunday

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