William J. Bulman.Anglican Enlightenment: Orientalism, Religion and Politics in England and Its Empire, 1648–1715.

Abstract

This book, despite its general title, is a study centered on the writings of Lancelot Addison (1632–1703), father of the more famous Joseph Addison (discussed briefly in the conclusion). Lancelot Addison’s papers provide a useful vantage point from which to look at discussions within the Anglican Church in the second half of the seventeenth century. Addison was a Tory churchman from relatively poor origins as the son of a parson. He managed, thanks in part to his writings, to become archdeacon of Coventry and a leading defender of Anglican orthodoxy. While the book is by no means an intellectual history, the different chapters follow Addison from his studies in Appleby and Oxford during the civil war, Commonwealth, and Protectorate, to his time as chaplain in the British possession of Tangier (which produced his book West Barbary in 1671), and then to his involvement in the internal church debates during the Restoration. William J. Bulman adeptly charts Addison’s attempts to convert the Moroccan Jews and, later, his path to obtain preferment in the church.