The Development of Anglican Moral Theology, 1680–1950 by Peter Sedgwick is the second volume on Anglican Moral theology written by a scholar who has a deep and broad knowledge and feel for the Anglican theological tradition. Throughout this book, Sedgwick pursues the conviction that there is a coherent and discernable genealogy in Anglican theology, which revolves around, what Timothy Sedgwick has termed, the “Anglican exemplary tradition.” This tradition, though pursued variously in shifting intellectual climates, roots Christian moral teaching on the person and character of Jesus Christ, and his moral teaching in the gospels, elaborated by the Church Fathers. In this way, Peter Sedgwick adheres to the long-standing conviction, that Anglican theology has been primarily driven by the practical, lived realities of Christian life, even in the midst of the metaphysical and speculative approaches that have come and gone in the long history of Anglican theological writing.

Sedgwick sets the stage for this endeavor, by exploring in the opening chapters, the intellectual and social climate of 17th Century England, which posed fundamental challenges to Anglican moral teaching. The first two chapters contain discussions on the profound upheaval created by the English Civil war and the political and philosophical ferment that ensued. Sedgwick writes: “There was a search for peace and a moral order that did not depend inherently on either the authority of the church or the authority of Scripture, but rather on the response of the individual, especially through their feelings or praise or blame (29).” This marked a new horizon for Anglican moral theology, as the concerns of the Reformation faded from view, and the new empiricism, represented most fully by John Locke, spread its influence in a variety of expected and unexpected ways. Though Sedgwick notes Locke’s faithful Christian conviction, his philosophy opened up a new set of theological difficulties for Anglican writers. Most prominent of these challenges was “a much diminished sense of the transcendent (63)” in the writings of moral philosophers.

In response to the challenges of the English Enlightenment, Sedgewick explores various writers who sought to provide theological responses within the new intellectual climate. In the 18th century, Sedgewick focuses on the key figures of Joseph Butler, William Law, John Wesley, and William Paley. All three of these chapters provide broad overviews of these writers, their context in writing, and their unique contributions. Butler especially features prominently, as the Analogy of Religion and the Rolls Chapel Sermons, would endure as touchstones for Anglican moral theologians even into the 20th century. Butler, Sedgwick argues, centered the conscience within his moral reasoning, but in a way that deepened the narrow empiricism of some of the prominent advocates of this school, such as Locke, Hobbes, and Shaftesbury: “The result of Butler’s responses to these philosophers was that his own work on the unity of human nature, and the intertwining of reason and emotion in making judgements, could come to the fore (94).”

Part 1 of the book concludes with a chapter on Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who along with Butler provides for Sedgwick another counterpoint to the growing rationalism in English thought. Sedgwick captures well the idiosyncratic nature of Coleridge’s career and also the depth of his resistance to the empiricist theology of Paley in particular. For Sedgewick, Coleridge is important because he deepens moral reasoning beyond the rational and empiricist approach that he so loathed: “Coleridge grasped intuitively what the Anglican exemplary tradition was, in its focus both on the person and work of Christ, and on the revivifying work of the Spirit (188).” Coleridge represents the first major incursion of German idealism into England, and as with Butler, though in a very different style, Coleridge’s blend of Anglican theology and German philosophy would endure well into the 20th century.

Part 2 begins with chapters on John Henry Newman and Frederick Denison Maurice, both theological giants of the 19th-century Church of England. Sedgewick highlights the legacy of Butler and Coleridge in both of these figures, though they both represent trajectories that ultimately move in different directions. Newman’s moral vision, Sedgewick claims, was rooted in subtle and profound understanding of conscience that has clear roots in Butler and Coleridge. However, Newman’s stringent and oppositional ecclesiology made his thinking difficult to apprehend by an increasingly sceptical public: “It was left to F.D Maurice and Charles Gore…to present an apologetic that could appeal to the many sceptics and critics of the church (237).”

Sedgewick’s book provides an excellent survey of the Anglican theological tradition and of the some of the features that can be traced through the centuries and identified as a coherent genealogy of ideas and theological instincts. There are times, perhaps, when the articulation of this coherent tradition leads Sedgwick to gloss over real differences within the tradition. Between Butler and Coleridge for example, there are notable contrasts between their understanding of Scripture and how the Bible might inform moral action. For Butler, the difficult portions of Scripture are part of the moral probationary character of Christian living. Whereas such an understanding is less obvious for Coleridge, for whom a sense of spiritual communion based on an elevated faculty of reason, provides a kind inner compass to navigate or in some cases, dismiss difficult elements of the Scriptural tradition. This tension is one that can also be traced through 19th-century Anglican theology and provides some context for differences that are with us still.

Nevertheless, in these two volumes taken together, Sedgewick has provided a deeply informed and accessible survey of the Anglican tradition. The lens of moral theology in particular provides an illuminating window into the heart of Anglicanism, and its specific character and place within the broader church. Either for the scholar or the informed reader, who wish to understand the distinctive perspectives of Anglican theological thinking, Sedgewick’s two volumes provide an important contribution.