ABSTRACT
Over the centuries, the diocese of Exeter and the county of Devon have given the Church of England three of its greatest theologians. In chronological order they are John Jewel, Richard Hooker and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The first two made their major contribution in the second half of the sixteenth century, the last in the first half of the nineteenth. The first was a bishop, the second a priest and the third a layman. This trinity of divines gives me my starting point for a reflection on the Church of England in memory and hope, in tradition and in mission, on the need to conserve the past and to build for the future.
