imprudently invited the Saxons into the kingdom to assist them. The Saxons were heathens. They drove back the Picts, but they made themselves masters of the country of their allies. They massacred the greater part of the Britons, and the survivors took shelter in Wales. The Britons in Wales continued Christians, and their church was in a very flourishing condition in the year 596. In that year, Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome, sent Augustine and forty monks into Kent, for the purpose of converting the Saxons, who were pagans, to the Christian faith. The constant hostilities which the Saxons maintained against the Britons, would create an aversion to receiving Christianity from them. Ethelbert, king of Kent, had married Bertha, daughter of Caribert, king of Paris, and a Christian; so that Augustine did not experience so much difficulty as might have been expected. Ethelbert, well disposed himself towards Christianity, assigned the missionaries a habitation in the isle of Thanet. This favourable reception encouraged Augustine to preach the gospel to the Saxons, which he and his successors did with such success that the greater part of the Saxons were converted in the course of seventy years. Augustine went over into France, and received consecration from the archbishop of Arles. Gregory had appointed him archbishop of Canterbury, when he despatched him from Rome. At this time, the British church was confined to Wales. Augustine proposed to the British bishops that they should acknowledge the Roman pontiff as their head: this they peremptorily declined to do. The British church maintained its independence on Rome for many years. For 1100 years the British bishops were elected and consecrated by their own bishops, without any connexion with Rome or Canterbury. "Always," says Giraldus Cambrensis," until the full conquest of Wales by Henry I., the bishops of Wales consecrated the archbishop of St David's, and he likewise was consecrated by the other bishops his suffragans, without professing any manner of subjection to any other church." There was no difference in faith, in doctrine, or in discipline, between the British and the Saxon churches, their dispute was solely about the supremacy of the bishop of Rome. Parsons, the Jesuit, allows," that the faith which St Austin brought, and that which the Britons had before, must needs be one and the self-same in all material and substantial points." When Henry I. subdued Wales to the dominion of the crown of England, he also subjected the ancient British church to the supremacy of Rome. From this time the British merged into the Anglo-Saxon church, and remained in subjection to Rome till the Reformation. If the Saxons had happily received their Christianity from the Britons, the Romish slavery might have been avoided.

He

Ethelbert endowed the see of Canterbury with large revenues. likewise established the dioceses of Rochester and London. The other

kings of the heptarchy followed his example, and erected bishoprics equal in extent with their kingdoms. This in some measure accounts for the unequal size of the dioceses, which were of the same extent as the dominions of their respective kings. The bishops became their councillors, and were always summoned to take part in the national councils. This is the origin of the connexion between church and state, and of the infusion of a Christian spirit into the legislature. For many years this connexion subsisted with much harmony. But after the moral world was subdued, and the papal tyranny completely established, the popes soon discovered, that to secure their own dominion, it was necessary to sever the alliance which had hitherto subsisted between the church and the state. They represented the church as independent, and its head to be the pope. His creatures struggled hard to maintain this disunion, but many and severe were the repulses the papal power met with in England, and many laws were enacted to restrain his usurped power. His usurpations were continued till the year 1535, a period of 940 years, when the clergy, the monarch, and the people, could bear his tyranny no longer. Henry VIII. threw off the yoke, declared that the pope was not the head of the church of England, but that the king, as in times past, was supreme governor over all persons, and in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil.

This was the first step towards a reformation. The bishops Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, and others, are not the founders of the church of England; they are only her reformers. They corrected all the errors in doctrine, which during an usurpation of nine centuries the church had imbibed from popery. They condemned the doctrine of transubstantiation, the worship of saints and images, communion in one kind, and the constrained celibacy of the clergy. They thus restored the church to its original state of purity and perfection. "They did not," says Mr Hook, "attempt to make a new, their object was to reform, the church. They stripped their venerable mother of the meretricious gear in which superstition had arrayed her, and left her in that plain and decorous attire with which, in the simple dignity of a matron, she had been adorned by apostolic hands."* The church of England can trace her origin up through the apostles to our Saviour himself. To use the words of Mr Palmer, "the orthodox and undoubted bishops of Great Britain and Ireland are the only persons who in any manner, whether by ordination or possession, can prove their descent from the ancient saints and bishops of these isles. It is a positive fact, that they, and they alone, can trace their ordinations from Peter and Paul through Patrick, Augustine, Theodore, Colman, Columba, David, Cuthbert, Chad, Anselm, Osmund, and all the other worthies of our church."+

* Hook's Serm. on the Church.

+ Origines Liturgiæ, ii. p. 252.

At the Reformation, therefore, the church of England returned to the state of purity which she enjoyed previous to the usurpation of the bishop of Rome. There was no new church formed, the reformers restored the old one, swept and garnished from the rubbish of Roman superstition. The church did not introduce a new religion, she only revived the old. It has been frequently asked.where the protestant religion was before the Reformation, and it has been as appropriately answered, in the Bible, where it is now, and where alone all true religion is to be found. The protestant church of England is more ancient than the modern church of Rome, and their accusing the church of England of being heretics is a bold and groundless charge, which she justly despises and protests against. For after the way which they call heresy," the church of England "worships the God of our fathers, believing all things which are written in his holy word."

The essentials of faith, distinctly considered, are most advantageously taught, and most securely preserved, in the form of creeds. Such forms are calculated not only to inculcate a knowledge of the faith, by exhibiting in one point of view its leading and fundamental articles, but also to mark the important boundary between fundamental doctrines and such as are not fundamental. They serve, moreover, as standing records of primitive doctrine, to guard the pure faith from adulteration. Still following the example of the primitive church, the church of England has in this manner declared its faith, by the adoption of three creeds; which she receives and teaches on the sole authority of the word of God. Though successively introduced, these creeds were all in general use in the primitive church, and two of them were meant to counteract certain alarming corruptions of the Christian doctrine. In which point of view it cannot be denied, that they are now to the full as necessary as ever.

Besides the adoption of creeds, for the inculcation and preservation of its fundamental doctrines, the church of England has also deemed it necessary to frame articles of religion, upon points both fundamental and not fundamental. And she pursues with regard to these different classes of doctrine, a course which corresponds precisely with their respective importance. It is peculiar to fundamental doctrines, that a belief in them is essential to salvation. It is therefore of the first importance not merely to teach these doctrines systematically as fundamental articles of the Christian faith, (which is the object in the creeds,) but also by a more precise exposition than creeds are calculated to convey, to guard them against error:-for, in such cases, error is heresy. The church has endeavoured to effect this object by the articles, which explain its doctrines on fundamental points, in terms so clear and explicit, as to be susceptible of no latitude of construction, and to leave no room for difference of

opinion. It is also the effect of such precision to bar the door against controversy. No controversy upon fundamental points can possibly arise among those who conscientiously sign the thirty-nine articles. But nonfundamental doctrines are of a subordinate importance. They are not among the essentials of the Christian faith. Differences of opinion, with regard to these, though liable to the imputation of error, do not authorize the charge of heresy. In the exposition of these doctrines, therefore, the church of England, instead of employing the same precision of language, as in the other case, declares its faith in terms which do not preclude a difference of construction, and confines itself as nearly as possible to the general language of Scripture. By pursuing such a course, it enables persons, who differ from each other in their views upon such subjects, alike to subscribe these articles. It seems indeed to have been the anxious wish of those eminent divines and reformers who framed the articles, that none who agree with the church in fundamentals should be kept out of its communion by differences upon points of minor importance. But the generality of expression thus employed, with regard to such points, left the subject open to controversy. In order, however, to guard against such a result, an express declaration has been prefixed to the articles in the form of a preamble. It states that they were agreed upon for the "avoiding of diversities of opinion, and for the establishing of consent, touching true religion."*

"Confessions of faith are necessary. They ought never to be ambiguous; but also they ought not to be too minute, and still less ought they to maintain the uncharitable and exclusive spirit of a party. The church of England asserted in her articles the great truths of religion, and bore her testimony against the popish and other leading errors of the day. But she bears no name, and above all, she is not actuated, in such her code of doctrine, by the partial spirit of any sect. She asserts the truth as she holds it, such as men of very various views in matters of detail, and in modes of explanation may entertain, without disturbing the public peace and the church's unity. The church is the spouse of Christ, his mystical body; and every sound branch of it is the common and impartial parent of Christians, not the fondling or fosterer of a party. This character of perfect impartiality, belongs remarkably to the church of England. She has opened her arms as wide as the character of a faithful witness of the truth permits, in order to embrace all who, with many differences of sentiment, agree in the essential truths of sound religion."†

It is not, however, so much to the Articles as to the Liturgy, that the members of the church of England in general are' to look for an exposi

* Claims of the Established Church.

Dr Walker's Life of Archbishop Whitgift.

tion of its doctrines. The former, important as is their object, are of limited application, being intended only for the consideration of the comparatively few, who in different situations may be called upon to subscribe them. But the liturgy is intended for general use. Its creeds are to be repeated by every member of the church. All its members are required regularly to join in its forms of worship, and to participate in all its ordinances. In the liturgy, then, whatever the church deems it necessary for a Christian to believe or to practise, is to be found incorporated with its congregational services, and familiarized in its forms of devotion. In short, it is to the liturgy of the reformed church, that its members are chiefly to look for its interpretation of Scripture upon all points of vital importance. The great pains taken by the reformers in framing and revising the liturgy, were proportioned to the vast importance of the object. This work engaged the assiduous attention of successive committees of bishops and other learned divines for many years, who, taking the Scriptures for their guide, and the primitive church for their model, carefully retained the services which had been in use in the church, and rejected the superstitions which had been superadded thereto by the church of Rome. After undergoing many revisions, the Book of Common Prayer, in its present form, was the result of the labours of these pious and learned men, and its production is to be considered as the deliberate act of the church in its collective capacity; as upon its completion, it received the unanimous sanction, and indeed the actual signature of both houses of convocation.

The prayers of the church of England are generally of great antiquity. Many of them are copied literally from the oldest liturgies, and the rest are formed upon their model. And it is worthy of remark, that the collects, (prayers,) with their epistles and gospels, are proved from many concurrent testimonies, to have been used on the same Sundays and holidays to which they are now appropriated, for above thirteen hundred years. The Te Deum and other hymns are of no less ancient usage. That which is called the Apostles' Creed, if it was not drawn up by the apostles themselves, seems, the greatest part at least, to have been extant in their times; for most of its articles are to be found in the epistles of Ignatius, a disciple of St John. This is mentioned simply, because if antiquity be ever allowed to set the stamp of authority, it must be more particularly in the institutions of religion. In which the nearer we can approach to the days of the apostles, the better we may hope to retain the pure and uncorrupted ordinances of the church of Christ.*

The Liturgy, or Common Prayer of the Church of England, as the

*Claims of the Established Church,