Evangelicalism and authority in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries

Evangelicalism in the later eighteenth century had a somewhat uncertain status in terms of legality. Evangelical parish clergymen in the Church of England, of course, were free to pursue their own style of preaching and pastoral work, although they were unlikely to receive promotion to the highest ecclesiastical rank. Their lay colleagues similarly were not directly inhibited by the law. Dissenting congregations with ministers who espoused evangelical values, though subject to the minimal conditions of the Toleration Act of 1689, had little reason to fear a clash with authority. The various branches of Methodism, however, and particularly that of Wesley, were gradually obliged to define themselves as Anglican or non-Anglican, with the attendant legal consequences of that decision.