The period from the Restoration to the accession of the House of Hanover was theologically remarkable. It witnessed the decline of ‘old’ Puritanism and the separation of the salvation of the individual from the salvation of the whole of the ‘godly community’. It observed the last period of aggressively persecuting Anglicanism and the establishment of religious toleration in Britain. In this period the terms ‘High Church’ and ‘Low Church’ were coined. It also saw the collapse of Anglican ideas of passive obedience. Now Stephen Hampton, in this impressive book, argues that in the field of doctrine and ecclesiology historians have under estimated the position of the Calvinist Anglican tradition. Revising his doctoral thesis on Thomas Barlow, William Beveridge, John Edwards, John Pearson and Thomas Tully, Hampton seeks to restore what he calls the Anglican ‘Reformed’ tradition to its proper place in the history of the period. Hampton shows that, from J.C. Ryle to David Bebbington, historians have largely proclaimed the eighteenth century a Calvin-free period in Anglicanism. Those historians who concede the existence of Calvinism within the Church of England, like Nicholas Tyacke and John Spurr, have treated it as a marginal survival in universities or in the minds of a few inconsequential clergy. Hampton claims the reverse: many mainstream and influential bishops and clergy were of the ‘Reformed’ tradition, indeed Calvinists lurked under many beds in this period. They included such notable churchmen as Robert South, William Delaune, Henry Compton, William Beveridge, Seth Ward, Edward Reynolds, and even later figures such as Gilbert Burnet and William Nicolson.

Hampton singles out George Bull, who is often assumed to have launched an assault on Calvinist, as a scholar who developed a subtle synthesis of ‘Reformed’ and Arminian theology. Nevertheless, that William Sherlock, John Tillotson and Edward Fowler all launched attacks on justification by faith suggests, for Hampton, the contemporary need for strong responses to Calvinism. Hampton also argues that the ‘Reformed’ theologians of the period defended Calvinism in three key debates on justification, Trinitarianism (especially in the response to Socinianism) and Thomist ideas of the nature of God.

Hampton concludes his book with the appointment of the Calvinist William Delaune as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford in 1715. What made this appointment significant is that it was in the hands of electors made up of Oxford bachelors and doctors of divinity. Thus a popular — if relatively exclusive — poll of theologians effected the appointment of a Calvinist. Moreover, Hampton points out that Delaune was a high flying Altitudinarian. So the ‘Reformed’ tradition could accommodate extreme High Churchmen as well as a standard-bearer for Latitudinarianism like Gilbert Burnet. Equally, opponents of Calvinism could cross the same spectrum, uniting the High Churchman William Sherlock and the Low Churchman John Tillotson. Hampton accordingly shows both the complex diversity of the ‘Reformed’ and Arminian traditions in the Church of England. This is as important a feature of this book as the technical details of the theological debates in which they engaged. Oxford remained the powerhouse of Calvinism; nevertheless Hampton concedes the predominance of Arminianism in the universities and the Church as a whole.

Hampton’s book is impressive. He handles the theological debates well and summarizes the position of each theologian clearly. He also connects the Church of England to continental theology, and this is an important feature of the study — and one often absent from studies of the period. Finally Hampton is aware of the consequences of his argument. If, for example, ‘Reformed’ theology survived in a far stronger form than hitherto conceded, it establishes a connection between the Calvinist High Churchmen of the seventeenth century and the Calvinist strands in the Evangelical Revival of the mid-eighteenth century. Moreover Hampton’s study endorses this period as one in which Anglican identity was still in flux and far from settling into the sedimentary layers of the Church in the nineteenth century. If there is one criticism to be made of Hampton it is that he neglects some of the opportunities to pursue connections between ‘Reformed’ theology and the religious politics of the period. If, as he convincingly argues, Calvinism was alive and well, did it influence the politics of Church and State in a particular direction? Despite this reservation, Hampton has written an important book which demands attention from historical theologians and church historians alike.