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Politics and religion are closely linked within the British intellectual debate of the early nineteenth century, when fear of the wave of the French revolution makes the defence of faith and the safety of the State ever so essential for public tranquillity. In this perspective, the Catholic Emancipation Act represents a turning point in the reflections concerning the identity of the Church of England. This essay aims to reconstruct this new cultural context in the political thought of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Thomas Arnold. The former, in accordance with philosophical concepts, traces the role of the Church in society back to its fundamental principles, in other words, back to the idea; the latter makes proposals for a number of Church reforms. In spite of their different approaches to the problem concerning the Church and the State, Coleridge and Arnold share the same confidence in the contribution that the spirit of the "Establishment", intended as the united State and Church, can make to the life of the entire nation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]