Reform, as a grass roots movement, envisages action coming from members who have thought, studied, discussed and agreed. Discussion papers such as this one are written by individual members for the council of Reform and the wider church. The author alone is responsible for the paper. This paper may be copied freely.

Foreword, Rod Thomas, Chairman of Reform

Is the Church of England the place to be? This booklet reaches the unashamed conclusion that the answer to that question is 'yes'. This is for two reasons. First, the theological basis of the Church of England is thoroughly evangelical. Secondly, the Church of England is capable of being reformed.

Much of the thinking underlying the assertion that theologically the Church of England is the right place to be was expressed at the 2006 Reform Conference by David Holloway, Vicar of Jesmond. He said then that the Church of England represented the best of the Western Reformed tradition. This was because the genius of the Elizabethan Settlement was that it was clear on the essentials of Protestant faith, but tolerant over matters of secondary importance. This approach - articulated in the 39 Articles, the Ordinal and the Book of Common Prayer - distinguished the Church of England from other groupings such as Anabaptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Lutherans, yet reflected some of their emphases. Thus, for example, the Church of England was against the Presbyterian (and Congregational) stress on the 'regulative principle' which sought guidance from Scripture where guidance was available in General Revelation rather than in the Special Revelation of Scripture. Hence 'good' episcopacy was seen to be of the 'bene esse' of the church, since it provided personal rather than committee leadership. At the same time the Presbyterian critique of prelacy and its stress on the importance of the laity was something that needed to be heeded. A fuller outline of David Holloway's analysis will, we hope, be published as a book later this year.

It is, however, one thing to say that the Church of England's doctrinal foundations are good and quite another to argue that it is, in practice, a good place for the proclamation of the gospel. This is where this booklet by Jonathan Fletcher is so helpful. He points to a time when the situation in the Church of England was extremely dire and then demonstrates how dramatically different it became over a period of 100 years. What made the difference were people motivated by the same desire for reform that motivates us today. Jonathan identifies five lessons from their lives that we should learn from today. My hope is that this thrilling account and analysis will continue to encourage us as we work for reform within the Church.

Back To The Future.

Reforming The Church of England - Learning From The Past

by Jonathan Fletcher

Best expression of the Protestant Reformation

At the Reform Conference last year, we had a magisterial presentation from David Holloway demonstrating that the Church of England, with its Thirty-nine Articles, Ordinal and Book of Common Prayer, is the best expression of the Protestant Reformation. (to hear the audio files of DH's talks click here)

The Church of England, as we heard last year, is not halfway between Rome and Geneva; it is halfway between Luther and the Anabaptists, which brings you to Calvin - we stand for moderate Calvinism. We heard last year that the Thirty-nine Articles have a marvellous breadth - they are not as narrowly tight as the Westminster Confession. There is predestination but there is a silence about double predestination. There is the reality of heaven and hell, but the article that attacked annihilationism was dropped, so we do not break fellowship with those who are annihilationists, although I am not one myself. Penal substitution is clearly there in the Book of Common Prayer with its reference to the satisfaction Christ made on the Cross. But Article 31 seems to speak against limited atonement.

So there is a breadth. We like bishops - the idea of bishops at any rate - because they are better than a committee. David's talks last year were important and memorable. There was at least one person present who was under pressure to leave the Church of England because he was experiencing difficulties. But because of what he heard he realised that theologically this was the place to be.

Now it is true that the goalposts seem to be moving the whole time: my generation gave assent to the Thirty-nine Articles ex animo because they express the official legal, historical, and theological position of the Church of England - not the Lambeth Conference, or the debates of Synod, or the deeply-flawed Issues in Human Sexuality. This is where we must stand and it is a heritage that we must not forsake. I believe that the Church of England belongs to us and that we belong to it.

The legacy of Keele

A few of us here were at the first National Evangelical Anglican Congress at Keele in 1967, which, as Roger Beckwith has described it, was a two-headed monster. The founding fathers of Keele, men such as John Stott, Jim Packer, Norman Anderson, Alec Motyer, and Philip Hughes, who wrote the papers in Guidelines (which is still a great book to hold onto) set out, in Alec Motyer's phrase, to 'crusade' for the Church of England to be brought back to its evangelical, Reformed, Protestant roots.

As such, Reform is the natural successor to the vision of the founding fathers of Keele. That is expressed in the Reform Covenant, and I do not apologise for quoting from it, just to remind us how basic it is:

'We lay emphasis on the following: the triune personhood of God as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit; the historical incarnation of the Son of God through the virgin Mary; the substitutionary sin-bearing death, bodily resurrection, present heavenly reign, and future return to judgement of Jesus Christ the incarnate Son; the universality of sin; the present justification of sinners by grace through faith in Christ alone, and their supernatural regeneration and new life through the Holy Spirit; the calling of the Church and of all Christian people to a life of holiness and prayer according to the Scriptures; the primacy of evangelism and nurture in each local church's task of setting forth the kingdom of God; the significance of personal present repentance and faith as determining eternal destiny; the finality of God's revelation in Jesus Christ and the uniqueness of his ministry as our prophet, priest and king, and the only saviour of sinners; the infallibility and supreme authority of God's Word written and its clarity and sufficiency for the resolving of disputes about Christian faith and life.'

That is a marvellous Covenant statement, and that was the position of the founding fathers of Keele. But, as I said, Keele was a two-headed monster because the baton was then handed to some of the then younger evangelicals who had a different agenda. Their agenda was not so much to crusade for the Church of England to be once again Reformed, Protestant and evangelical, but to make evangelicalism an accepted stream within the Church of England, and I have had a private letter from one such. He said that in order to do that there had to be 'compromise' and that was something that the founding fathers had not bargained for.

Eighteenth century worse than today

Now we want to move on from last year, where we had the evangelical theological position of the Church of England spelt out, to look at what evangelicals have done historically in the national Church. This approach can be mocked by those who accuse of us of only being committed to the Church of England because we believe that it is the best boat to fish from. Actually, that is what I am going to argue for, but only once we have convinced the unconvinced that theologically it is the right place to be.

As will be obvious, I am greatly indebted to Bishop J. C. Ryle and his Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century and also to an excellent biography of William Grimshaw by Faith Cook and bits of William Haslam's book Yet not I.

In the middle of the eighteenth century, the state of the Church of England was far, far worse than it is today. In the mid-1750s on Easter Day in St Paul's Cathedral there were a total of six people - that is how far things had shrunk. Six undergraduates were sent down from Oxford for reading the Bible. This is how Ryle puts it: 'Does anyone ask what the churches were doing a hundred years ago in the eighteenth century? The answer is soon given. The Church of England existed in those days with her admirable Articles, her time-honoured liturgy, her parochial system, her Sunday services and her ten thousand clergy. The non-conformist church existed with its hardly won liberty and its free pulpit. But one account unhappily may be given of both parties: they existed, but they could hardly have been said to have lived.'

The celebrated lawyer Blackstone, early in the reign of George III, went out of curiosity from church to church to hear every clergyman of note in London. He says that he did not hear a single discourse that had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero and that it would have been impossible for him to discover from what he heard whether the preacher was a follower of Confucius, Mohammed, or Christ. And it was said that when occupants of the Episcopal bench were troubled by the rapid influence of Whitefield it was gravely suggested in high quarters that the best way to stop his influence from spreading was to make him a bishop!

If you think that this picture is an exaggeration, then read William Hague's brilliant biography of Wilberforce, which in an impartial way describes that this was indeed the case in the Church of England. So the situation was very, very grim and much worse than it is today. And yet over the next century, things changed dramatically, so that by the middle of the nineteenth century a third of the clergy in the Church of England, it is estimated, were evangelical, the great missionary societies had been founded, the Clapham Sect was achieving great things, and at least three-quarters of the societies that were trying to ameliorate the situation were of evangelical foundation.

Ryle's first eleven

There were a number of contributing factors to that improvement, but Ryle's theory, as a cricketer, was that it could be put down to a first eleven of eighteenth century Christian leaders, although there were other factors as well. And here are some of the marks of the people that Ryle talks about in his book. First of all, they held very firmly to their evangelical doctrine and convictions. If you had asked someone at the beginning of the nineteenth century what it meant to be an evangelical he would have said it was to be a 'Bible person' and 'to be converted', and that perception reflected the priorities of our eighteenth century heroes.

These leaders held firm to the convictions of the Bible, such as are spelt out in our Reform Covenant although there was the constant pressure to 'move on' (as someone here has said, when people 'move on' it actually means that they have 'moved away'). In the nineteenth century sadly, men such as Newman and Manning and the Wilberforce sons, who had come from an evangelical background, did move on, not least as a result of Tractarianism. That very moving book by David Newsome The Parting of Friends spoke of people who had moved on from their evangelical roots. Some had become Anglo-Catholics and some became Roman Catholics. But our heroes stood firm to their theological convictions. According to Jim Packer, Wesley himself was really a four-point Calvinist though he was called an Arminian. He could not call himself a Calvinist because his mother did not like Calvinists!

True to the Church of England

Secondly, they remained in the Church of England. That is true of Ryle's first eleven apart from Daniel Rowlands, who was ejected in 1763. He was a curate to his brother, and when his brother died Daniel Rowlands' son was appointed vicar, so Daniel Rowlands became his son's curate. But while he was just about to preach the bishop very tactlessly produced a note revoking his licence. Daniel Rowlands read it; he wanted to obey the law, so he came down from the pulpit and asked people to gather with him in the courtyard outside the church where he continued to preach. William Romaine was a very brilliant preacher but was having difficulty - for eighteen years he could not get a permanent job - and therefore he was under terrific pressure to go overseas and take up an independent church there but he stayed in the Church of England.

Making places strategic by teaching the Bible

Not only did they stay in the Church of England but they did not necessarily seek out what could be called 'strategic places'. Some of them did later - men like Charles Simeon who was in a very strategic place in Cambridge and did an amazing work. But our eighteenth century heroes went wherever they could. So of Ryle's first eleven, John Berridge went to Everton. Most of us here when we think of Everton think of Liverpool, but this was an Everton in Bedfordshire, and most of us have not heard of that. William Grimshaw went to Haworth in Yorkshire. Samuel Walker went to Truro. Henry Venn went to Huddersfield and then to Yelling. Toplady went to Broad Hembury in Devon and James Hervey to Weston Favell. So they went wherever they could and by preaching the Bible they made those places strategic.

Thinking outside the box

Thirdly, they thought outside the box. They kept the law, but they were not bound by conventions and structures. The result is that they did things that were deemed highly irregular, for example field preaching and going into other people's parishes when invited. They did not break the law but they did break convention. They were not empire builders but they were kingdom builders. First and foremost they worked their parishes. They did that with great intensity as they went visiting house to house. There is the famous story of Grimshaw up in Haworth (it is not known whether this is apocryphal). He was very keen that people should hear the message, so before the sermon he used to announce a Psalm, usually Psalm 119, and he would then leave the church and go around the village, allegedly with a whip, to make sure that people came to church to hear the message. So they worked their parishes.

On occasion they went beyond their parishes, and Haslam (admittedly a century later) did exactly the same. I hope you have come across Haslam's first book From Death unto Life. This recounts how he was converted by his own sermon. I quote from his in some ways more significant second book Yet not I: 'My parish of Buckenham was but a small one. I accepted it in the hope that I might be more free to do good in the county at large, or rather in the two counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. My hope was not disappointed for I received letters from all parts inviting me to come and preach the gospel. Besides the invitations I also received letters from bishops and clergy taking me painfully to task. As to these complaints, I must say that I never intended or desired to make myself obnoxious to the ecclesiastical powers, but for all that I could not refuse the appeals which were continually sent to me. It was not pleasant to be reproved, nor can I say that my heart did not beat with some agitation when I read these letters. Bishops one after another reprimanded me and sometimes two or more at the same time.'

He was reported to the Archbishop of Canterbury and somebody intervened on his behalf: 'There was some delay in the delivery of a letter with its great seal owing to my absence from home. In the meantime a friend of mine in London heard that the Archbishop had 'got hold of Mr Haslam and was about to stop him'. He immediately called upon the Earl of Shaftesbury who promptly took occasion to remind his Grace of the Act of Parliament which legalises such preachings. His Lordship was good enough to say that he thought the clergy of the Church of England ought to be as free to preach the gospel anywhere as other people, if not more so.'

He was summoned up before his bishop: 'On the appointed day and time I put in my appearance and was asked to take a seat. Then this methodical prelate went to a drawer and took out a large bundle of letters. He proceeded to another drawer, as if the one devoted to my parish was not enough, and took out more letters and deposited the heap on the table in silence. Looking at me the bishop said: 'It would appear that you have care of all the churches.' I made no reply. Selecting one letter from the pile his Lordship asked me whether I'd been preaching at Kent. 'Yes', I said, 'I have in several places - Hythe and Folkstone among the number.' 'Pray, upon what authority did you do this?' I replied: 'I've already answered that question in a letter to the Archbishop.' However, I had to go over the whole story of many years. Bishops and clergy would not or as it appeared could not see that gospel preaching is not an official ministerial act. I claimed the liberty to preach the gospel wherever I was invited. The bishop asked me how I divested myself so easily of my ministerial character. 'Why, my Lord', I replied, 'this is one of the easiest things possible. In this county the clergy do not go out shooting and fishing ministerially. The rural dean himself shot me the other day as I was passing along the road because some partridges happened to rise. Fortunately they were spent shots and they pattered on my waistcoat but they might have struck my face and put out my eyes.' His Lordship said no more on the subject.'

So they thought outside the box. It seems that they did not break the law but they were prepared to act irregularly, when invited to preach the gospel, the same gospel we preach. The Covenant for the Church of England produced a year ago has made absolutely clear that there can be no 'no-go' areas for the gospel.

They practised what they preached

Fourthly, they lived holy lives. A little group of us were reading 1 Peter recently and I wonder whether these words fit us as they fitted those men of the past.

'Finally, all of you, have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing. For 'He that would love life and see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile; let him turn from evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those that do evil' (Psalm 34:12-16). Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is right? But even if you do suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts reverence Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to make a defence to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and respect; and keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are abused, those who revile your good behaviour in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing right, if it should be God's will, than for doing wrong' (1 Peter 3:8-17 - RSV).

It was said of Grimshaw that he was marked by a rare diligence and self-denial, but he was pre-eminently a peace-maker, and he was marked by a rare humility, a rare charity and brotherly love. I take it that preachers of the gospel of grace must manifest grace in their lives. Ryle comments on all these heroes and then bemoans what he sees missing in his own day, the late nineteenth century: 'I am obliged then to say plainly, that, in my judgement, we have among us neither the men nor the doctrines of the days gone by. We have no-one who preaches with such peculiar power as Whitefield or Rowlands. We have none who in self-denial, singleness of eye, diligence, holy boldness and unworldliness, come up to the level of Grimshaw, Walker, Venn.... It is a humbling conclusion: but I have long felt that it is the truth. We lack both the men and the message of the last century. What wonder if we do not see the last century's results.'

But those men did make a change - slowly - it took several decades - when the Church of England and the nation was in a far worse state than conceivable today. They stood by those evangelical convictions, they preached the Word and the situation changed.

Lessons of history - stay evangelical

Let me draw out in conclusion some of the lessons. First of all, we must stay with our evangelical theology and convictions, though there will be the constant pressure to move on, that is, to move away. When some of us were in our Christian Unions or helping on Pathfinder or CYFA camps we were called narrow, blinkered, obscurantist, fundamentalist and extreme. This is what we are still called, what we were called in the Church Times recently, and that suggests that we have not moved, and that is good.

I fear some of us have mellowed since then; the Archdeacon told me that he thought I had mellowed, which I took as an insult. We must stand firm. Tragically, those who were with us in Christian Unions, CYFA and Pathfinder camps are very angry with us. It is almost as though they hate us, probably because we have not moved with them, so that very tragically when the Reform Covenant was published there were a lot of evangelicals who were upset with it.

When Richard Coekin (Senior Minister of the Co-Mission Initiative) had that brilliant Co-Mission ordination, in which it was a great privilege to take part, as it was in the ordination of Ed Moll up in Northumbria - easily the best ordinations I have ever been to - it was many so-called evangelicals who were up in arms. Similarly, when that excellent Covenant for the Church of England, which has a broader base of support than Reform, was produced a year ago, vitriolic attacks came from those who would call themselves evangelicals. We are seeing the same reaction now over Oak Hill and Wycliffe Hall. The tradition of Wycliffe Hall is Griffith Thomas, who was Principal there, and it produced Jim Packer, Alec Motyer and a number of other people. So I want to issue a plea to those who are not here, broadly speaking the Fulcrum constituency: you were once with us, and we love you, you are our brothers and sisters; will you not stay with us? As for ourselves, we must stay true to our theological convictions, our evangelical doctrine.

Do not neglect holiness

Secondly, we must not neglect holiness. It is very easy to be provoked, and to boil internally with some of the things that are said to us. We have got to control ourselves. We may indeed disagree very seriously with much of what the Archbishop of Canterbury says but it cannot be right to be rude and offensive. He never is himself. We must remain gracious. There is no place for discourtesy. Remember what was said of Cranmer. 'Do the Archbishop a disfavour, and you have him as your friend for life.' So we must match our gospel of grace with lives of grace and we must concentrate on holiness of living.

Stay with the Church of England

We must stay with our evangelical theology, not neglecting holiness, and then stay with the Church of England. Theologically we must be convinced that this is the right place to be. Pastorally, we dare not leave the sheep without shepherds. There are people going to Church of England churches who are clueless and lost and we must not desert them! Geographically and pastorally, it is significant that the Church of England has been able to maintain at least a physical presence in tough areas, because we are a connectional church, whereas the Methodists and other churches have had to close. We must not desert those areas.

Now I do not want to be misheard: there is a very important place for church planting. We at Emmanuel, Wimbledon, did that ourselves twenty years ago when we planted a church at Dundonald. It was uncomfortable; some of you know the story that I was summoned up before the bishops who were threatening to take away my licence. I took with me Brigadier David Stileman who knew how to stand up to bishops. He kept on calling the bishop 'General' - 'Bishop, you're our General, our Chief of Staff'. After a bit he said to the then Bishop of Southwark: 'See if I can put this very simply - I'm just a plain ordinary soldier: in doing this church plant, Emmanuel is trying to preach the gospel, and you are trying to stop that - have I got that right?' The bishop did a sort of goldfish act and nothing came out.

We must do church planting but, having said that, church planting can become a form of idolatry. I was very liberated at the evangelical Ministry Assembly a few years ago, which was on church planting. Dick Lucas (former Rector of St Helen's, Bishopsgate, City of London) stood up and said that he was not a 'church planter', he was a 'church plodder', despite the fact that St Helen's provided one of the most innovative and effective forms of evangelism of the twentieth century. It was essentially a lay movement, which Dick would affirm, and was very remarkable indeed. Incidentally, I worked at St Helens for five years, and it was a great privilege because St Helens existed and still exists for the benefit of other churches. We are all wanting to grow, but St Helens wanted to give. People would come to the lunch hour service, and they would be sent back to their little, struggling, probably slightly unorthodox churches, and even some who came to our mid-week Bible classes were sent back to the churches where they lived. It was a great privilege to work for a church that exists for others, not wanting to grow, but wanting to give. If we are going to talk about real church planting, then it is the sort of thing that Martin Reakes-Williams has done in Leipzig, where he went off with just one other Christian and from scratch began a church.

UPAs and funny little places not second-rate

Of course there are strategic places - university towns and so on- but the danger of talking too much in those terms is that it makes people who are working in the Old Kent Road or Streatham Vale or Burford or Yeovil feel that they are doing something second-rate. We must realise that what those heroes of the eighteenth century did was to go to funny little places and make them strategic through teaching the Bible, and if we want to win the country, that is what we must do.

By the same token, it is rather sad that evangelicals have got a bad reputation of not going to Urban Priority Areas, such that when St Nicholas' Tooting was advertised as an evangelical church only two people applied for it. We will not win the country unless we can stick with those sorts of places. The model that Holy Trinity Brompton in London has given us of planting in existing parish churches that are about to close and giving them new life is remarkable. We must not lose those opportunities. It may be much slower, there may have to be little accommodations, we may have to wear robes ' it is very worrying if some of our young men say: 'Oh, I can't go there, I might have to wear robes.' Robes are totally unimportant. We must be prepared to wear them for the gospel's sake. Phillip Jensen (Dean of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney) says that if you have the opportunity of going to a church which has not had an evangelical tradition, then what you are to do is to take the services really well, you are to preach really well, and you are to go visiting around the parish. So we must not forsake the Church of England.

Dick Lucas said to me on one occasion: 'Why is it that some of our young men are in such a hurry?' He answered his own question by saying: 'It's because they don't trust the Word. They haven't read the parable of the seed growing secretly - it takes time, it takes time.' John Stott (former Rector of All Souls, Langham Place, London) used to say that for their first living younger ministers ought to consider going to a country parish. There was a very moving talk at the recent EMA on the importance of rural ministry. There was also a challenge from Tim Keller (Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church, New York). Speaking as an American, he highlighted our class divisions and how there is this tendency among so many of us to go into places like leafy Wimbledon and middle-class suburbia and almost a snobbery in that we think people in the UPAs cannot emerge as leaders. If you ever fear that then read Stephen Lungu's story Out of the Black Shadows. It is a remarkable story of a gang member, who could not read or write. He went into a meeting to blow it up and was converted, and then over several years - and it took time - he was cared for and nurtured and mentored. He has now taken over from Michael Cassidy leading Africa Enterprise.

Growth takes time and it may be that we are too impatient, but I am issuing a strong appeal to stay with the Church of England and not to make ourselves unacceptable. This is so that as gospel opportunities arrive we are acceptable for those opportunities.

Principled irregularity

Fourthly, think outside the box. There are very exciting initiatives taking place. The challenge of reaching the nation for Christ ' the fact that there can be no 'no-go' areas for the gospel ' means principled irregularity has to be what we need. In a sense, because of Fresh Expressions the door is open for us and a number of initiatives are taking place, such as what Mike Cain is now doing in Bristol, that are very imaginative indeed. The example of those leaders of the eighteenth century is that they did think outside the box. They were prepared to be irregular in a principled way.

Maintain unity

Fifthly, and lastly: an appeal that we maintain unity. I think we need to trust one another more and have a greater humility towards one another. I was greatly helped by Paul Barnett (former bishop of North Sydney). I slightly cheekily chided him for not voting for lay celebration of the Lord's Supper, and he said to me: 'Look, it was a matter of judgement. I do believe in it doctrinally, but my judgement is that this is not the right moment.' That opened things up for me. It meant that I disagreed with his judgement over the timing - I think that lay celebration is something we ought to go for - but judgement issues are areas beyond the Bible where we may disagree. We have got to be very careful that we do not fall out over those things. There is going to be disagreement over what we advise bishops to do about Lambeth. We will have strong opinions, and in one sense they cannot all be right, but they are in this category of judgement issues, and we must make sure that our unity is not broken by them.

Similarly, on some doctrinal issues. I hope we would be willing to go to the stake and be burnt on some key things, not least things connected with the Lord's Supper, just as the Reformers were willing to be burnt. I hope that we would be willing to be burnt rather than subscribe to some of the things which you see in some versions of Common Worship. But there are secondary issues where we will disagree: creationism; limited atonement; annihilationism. We will disagree, and I am not suggesting that every position is equally valid on those issues, but there needs to be a proper humility towards one another and a trusting of one another.

Similarly on an issue that may touch some of us ' our approach to charismatics. As long as they are believing in the sufficiency of God's Word, and they are not saying that there are two stages in conversion, and they are trusting in Christ, not in experience, then we want to stand with them, and we are grateful that John Coles, Mark Stibbe, and other leaders in New Wine have signed the Covenant. We will disagree on some things but we must not fall out, and that may be quite hard for some of us.

Enormous battle on our hands

We have got an enormous battle on our hands. It is vast. The situation is not as bad as it was in the eighteenth century, but we are campaigning for the reform of the Church of England and our sights are set on the evangelisation of our nation: that is where we are heading. The lesson from the past is that we must hold fast to our theological convictions; we must continue to strive for that holiness without which no-one will see the Lord; we must have a loyalty to the Church of England and remember that this is the place to be; there must be a boldness as we think outside the box with principled irregularity; and we must stand together. We must.

Bibliography

J. C. Ryle, Christian Leaders of the Eighteenth Century, 1869, reprint: Banner of Truth Trust, 1978
Faith Cook, William Grimshaw of Haworth, Banner of Truth Trust, 1997.
William Haslem, Yet not I, Morgan & Scott, 1882.
William Hague, William Wilberforce: the Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner, HarperPress, 2007.
Steven Lungu, Out of the Black Shadows, Monarch, 2006.

Footnote

(1) Audio files of David Holloway's talk can be found on the Reform web site: www.reform.org.uk/pages/holloway.php There are three files: gospel foundations; gospel futures; gospel first and last.