History of the Church of England, for schools and families

Front matter

HISTORY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND, for Schools aitfc families.

r v

HISTORY

Preface To The New Edition

A knowledge of English Church History, especially amongst the rising generation, is a desideratum of the present day. Unhistorical and imaginary assertions are put forward by opponents to mislead people, especially the young and uninstructed, as to the true nature of their Church. They are taught that the Church to which they belong is of comparatively modern date ; that it was founded at the Reformation, before which it was Roman- Catholic, and since which it is Protestant ; that the State estab¬ lished and endowed a new Church with the Cathedrals and Parish-churches and endowments taken from the older Church.

The stildent of Church History is enabled to detect the fallacy of such statements, and the more he reads the more he is convinced that they are entirely false and devoid of authority. He will understand how such claims as were made by Rome in the later Middle Ages would have been impossible in the days of Gregory the Great, and that the Church of England has more in common with the Church of the earlier period than has any other Church or Community in the land.

When once the Pope got a footing in England, as he did at the Norman Conquest, and again in the reign of John, it was difficult to get him out again. But the Church no less than the State was always endeavouring to do so ; and the Reformation was only the crisis of what had been going on for centuries. We hear much now-a-days about the Divorce and the avarice and immoral character of Henry VIII., but they are mere accidents in the case ; for after the Art of Printing was invented, and people began to read and think for themselves, the Reforma¬ tion was a mere matter of time ; and when the crisis came it was

Vlll

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION.

the Clergy , and not the laity of England, who first suggested the withdrawal from the allegiance of the Pope. The object, in which they eventually succeeded, was not to make a new Church, but to preserve the identity of the old Church ; not to do away with anything Catholic ; but to purge out what was uncatholic ; and to bring it back to the purer faith of the days of SS. Gregory and Augustine, and the age of the Apostles.

The Author in putting forth a new edition of the present work has availed himself of several improvements which friends and friendly critics have suggested. He has enlarged considerably on the late judgments of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council; for he cannot but think that those judgments (and not least that of the Privy Council) inaugurate a new and important departure, or rather a return to old paths, in the History of the Church of England.

January , 1893.

Preface To The First Edition

The Author in the present Volume aims at setting before the younger members of the Church of England a concise, but continuous, History of their Church from the earliest preaching of Christianity in this country to the present time.

His Eighteen Centuries of the Church in England having been long out of print, it has often been suggested to him that he should publish a shorter edition, specially adapted for use in Schools and Families. Of the excellent works which exist on the subject, some, as Dean Hook’s and Canon Perry’s Histories, seemed too long for the purpose; another, Canon Jennings’ Ecclesia Anglicana , was written for more advanced students ; whilst the work published by the S.P.C.K., entitled Turning Points of English Church History , purposes to put forward some of its principal points and not to give a connected History of the Church of England.

The opponents of the Church were never more active than they are now. Erroneous and unhistorical assertions are freely made to mislead people as to the true nature of the Church of England. Young people especially are taught to believe that their Church was founded at the Reformation ; that before that time the Church in England was Catholic, since then Protestant ; that at the Reformation the State established and endowed a new and Protestant Church with the cathedrals and parish churches and endowments taken from the older and Catholic Church.

The Author, whilst avoiding controversy as far as possible, has put forward the plain facts of history. The standpoint of the Church of England is, that it is the original Church of the Country; that the Church in the present day has more in common with that founded by St. Augustine and the Celtic

X l

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.

missionaries than has any other Church or community ; that we are the rightful and historical heirs of that Church; that by degrees new and uncatholic principles had crept into it ; that long before the sixteenth century, owing to the intrusion of a foreign element, the Church had become fearfully corrupt ; that the Renaissance, or the period which saw the birth of the New Learning. , opened the eyes of the nation to its corruptions ; that a Reformation was looked upon not only in England, but in other Catholic countries also, as absolutely essential ; that the object of the English Reformation (even if it was not all that could have been desired) was to eradicate those corruptions which were like weeds encumbering a fair garden ; not to do away with anything Catholic ; not to make a new Church : but to bring the old Church back to the purer religion which existed in earlier and more Catholic days.

It will be observed that in treating of the Reformation Period, the Author has deviated from the general plan of the work, and has placed the events under the different years in which they occurred. The history of the Reformation alone is sufficient to fill volumes ; and he found that by this method, which he has followed through the Tudor and Stuart times, he could compress more events into the necessarily limited space at his command.

The book is compiled principally from original sources ; for the history of the nineteenth century he has drawn largely on a work of his own, The Church in England from William III. to Victoria. As few foot-notes as possible have been appended, as being only calculated to distract the mind of the reader ; although when secondary authorities have been quoted, he has th'ought it only meet and just to mention the sources from which his information is derived.

February i, 1891

The Church of England at the close of the Nineteenth Century.

Index

A

BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL

TABLE.

A.D.

78. Britain conquered by the Romans.

177. Persecution of the Christians of Lyons and Vienne. Possible introduction of Christianity into Britain about this time.

303. Commencement of Diocletian Persecution. Martyrdom of St. Alban.

306. Constantine becomes Emperor.

313. Toleration granted to Christianity.

314. British Bishops present at Council of Arles.

325. Council of Nice.

347. Council of Sardica.

360. Council of Rimini.

381. First Council of Constantinople.

409. Rome taken by the Goths.

410 {circ.). St. Ninian Apostle to the Southern Piets.

429. Pelagianism introduced into Britain. The Alleluia Victory.

430. Palladius preaches in Ireland.

432. St. Patrick the Apostle to the Irish.

447. Second Visit of St. German to Britain. Pelagians banished. 451 — 585. Conquest of Britain by the English.

563. St. Columba the Apostle of Scotland. Iona founded.

587. Last remnant of British Church seeks refuge in Wales.

589. St. Columban the Apostle of Burgundy.

590. St. Gregory the Great elected Pope of Rome.

597. St. Augustine lands in the Isle of Thanet.

597 — 681. Conversion of the English Kingdoms to Christianity.

603. Conferences between St. Augustine and Welsh Bishops.

604. Laurence second Archbishop of Canterbury.

613. Battle of Chester.

619. Mellitus third Archbishop.

624. Justus fourth Archbishop.

627. Paulinus first Bishop of York.

633. Battle of Heathfield.

XVI A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

A.D.

634. Battle of Heavenfield.

635. St. Aidan consecrated first Bishop of Lindisfarne.

642. Battle of Oswestry.

664. Council of Whitby.

666. Theodore appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

672. Death of St. Chad.

673. Council of Hertford.

674. Monastery of Wearmouth founded.

680. A Papal Bull sent into England. Council of Hatfield.

682. Monastery of Jarrow founded.

685. St. Cuthbert Bishop of Lindisfarne.

734. Death of the Venerable Bede.

735. Egbert first Archbishop of York.

755. Martyrdom of St. Boniface.

785. Council of Calcuith.

787. Commencement of Danish Invasions.

803. Council of Cloveshoo.

870. Martyrdom of St. Edmund.

878. Treaty of Wedmore.

959. Dunstan Archbishop of Canterbury.

978. Council of Caine.

1002. The Massacre of St. Bryce’s Day.

1013. Martyrdom of St. Alphege.

1042. Edward the Confessor elected King.

1065. Consecration of Westminster Abbey.

1066. William the Conqueror crowned in Westminster Abbey.

1070. Lanfranc appointed Archbishop of Canterbury

1075. Precedence of Prelates arranged at Council of London.

1083. Sarum Use drawn up.

1093. Anselm appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

1098. Council of Bari.

1 107. Question of Investiture in England settled.

1138. Battle of the Standard.

1162. Thomas Becket appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

1164. The Constitutions of Clarendon drawn up.

1170. Martyrdom of Becket.

1207. Stephen Langton consecrated by the Pope Archbishop of Canterbury.

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

XVII

A.D.

1208. Pope Innocent III. places England under an Interdict.

1213. King John does fealty to the Pope.

1215. Magna Charta signed.

1221 — 1252. Arrival of the Friars in England.

1226. Commencement of Papal Exactions.

1248. Canonization of St. Edmund of Pontigny.

1253. Grosseteste opposes the Pope.

1268. Constitutions of Othobon enacted.

1279. . Statute of Mortmain.

1283. Convocation assumes its present shape.

1295. The Prcemunientes Clause first introduced into the Bishops’

Parliamentary Writ.

1296. The Bull Clericis Laicos issued.

1301. Parliament of Lincoln.

1302. The Bull Unam Sanctam issued.

1307. The Parliament of Carlisle.

I3°9 — 1 377* The Papal Secession to Avignon.

1351. First Statute of Provisions.

1 3 53- First Statute of Prcemunire.

1365. New Statute of Prcemunire.

1366. The Three Estates protest against the action of King John. 1374. Wicliffe goes on a Commission to Rome.

J377. Wicliffe summoned before Convocation.

1381. Murder of Archbishop Sudbury.

1382. The Earthquake Council.

1388. Commencement of the Great Schism of the West.

1390. Statute of Provisions re-enacted.

1393. Statute of Prcemunire re-enacted.

1401. Statute de Fleer etico Comburendo passed.

1409. Council of Pisa.

1414 — 1418. Council of Constance. Communion of the Laity in One Kind only decreed.

1431. Council of Basle.

1450. Art of Printing invented.

1453. Constantinople taken by the Turks.

1455 — 1485. Wars of the Roses.

1476. First Printing-press set up in England.

1497. Colet commences his Lectures at Oxford.

b

XVlll

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

A.D.

1498. Erasmus goes to Oxford.

1 5 1 1. Erasmus appointed Margaret Professor at Cambridge.

1514. Wolsey appointed Archbishop of York.

1516. Erasmus publishes the Greek Testament at Basle.

1517. Martin Luther nails ninety-five Theses on the Church door

at Wittenburg. Wolsey appointed Papal Legate.

1526. Tyndale’s New Testament published.

1529. Diet of Spires, at which the word Protestant was adopted.

1530. Luther publishes a German Translation of the Bible.

Wolsey dies at Leicester Abbey. The introduction of Papal Bulls into England forbidden. The Clergy subject ed to prcemunire.

1531. The King’s power over the Church defined to be quantum per

Christi legem licet .

1532. Convocation petitions against the payment of Annates.

1 533. Cranmer appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Annates

abolished.

1534. Act for the Submission of the Clergy and the Restraint of

Appeals passed. The two Convocations declare against the jurisdiction of the Pope. Act of Supremacy passed.

1535. Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas More executed.

1536. Suppression of the smaller Monasteries. Coverdale’s Bible

published.

1 537- Matthew’s Bible published.

1539. Suppression of the remaining Monasteries. Six new Bishop¬ rics founded. Cranmer’s Bible published.

1542. A revised edition of the Sarum Breviary issued.

1544. The Litany compiled.

1547. Edward VI. succeeds to the throne. The Former Book of Homilies published. Marriage of the Clergy sanctioned by Convocation. Canon passed by Convocation for receiving Communion in both Kinds.

1549. First Prayer-book of Edward VI. taken into use.

1550. The Ordinal drawn up.

1551. Hooper consecrated Bishop of Gloucester.

1552. Second Prayer-book of Edward VI. issued.

1553. Forty two Articles of Religion and. first part of the Church

Catechism published.

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

XIX

A.D.

1 5 54- The Papal Supremacy re-established in England.

1 55 5* Latimer and Ridley burnt at Oxford on October 16. x556. Cranmer burnt at Oxford March 21. Cardinal Pole con¬ secrated Archbishop of Canterbury March 22.

1558* Pole dies on November 18.

1 559* Supremacy Act of Queen Elizabeth passed. A new Prayer-book taken into use. Parker consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury December 17.

1560. Pope Pius IV. offers to authorize the new Prayer-book.

1562. The Forty-two Articles reduced to Thirty-nine.

J5^3- The Second Book of Homilies published.

1566. The Advertisements drawn up by Archbishop Parker.

1568. The Bishops* Bible becomes the authorized version.

1570. Pope Pius V. excommunicates the Queen.

1576. Grindal Archbishop of Canterbury.

1577. Grindal suspended by the Queen.

1578. The first mission of Jesuit Seminarists despatched into

England.

1583. Whitgift Archbishop of Canterbury.

1594. First four Books of Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity

published.

1595. The Lambeth Articles drawn up.

1603. A Millenary Petition presented to King James I.

1604. The Hampton Court Conference. Canons published. Also

the part of the Church Catechism concerning the Sacraments. Bancroft Archbishop of Canterbury.

1605. Gunpowder Plot.

1610. Three Bishops consecrated for Scotland.

16 1 1. Abbot appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. A new Author¬

ized Version of the Bible published.

1618. The Synod of Dort.

1622. Laud’s Conference with Fisher published.

1633. Laud appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.

1637. Stony Sabbath in Edinburgh.

1638. The Solemn League and Covenant ordered in Scotland.

1640. Convocation continues its sittings after the Dissolution of

Parliament. A Grand Committee of Religion appointed. Also a Committee for Scandalous Ministers.

XX

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

I

A.D.

1641. The Smectymnuan Controversy. Abolition of Episcopacy

in Scotland sanctioned by King Charles I.

1642. The Bishops excluded from the House of Lords. A Committee

for Plundered Ministers appointed.

1643. The Westminster Assembly of Divines appointed.

1644. The Solemn League and Covenant ordered to be used in

England.

1645. Laud executed on January 10. A Directory for Ptiblic

Worship published and the Prayer-book forbidden.

1649. The King beheaded on January 30. The Commonwealth commences.

1660. The Restoration of the King and Prayer-book and the Church

Services.

1661. The Savoy Conference held. The Corporation Act passed.

1662. The last Revision of the Prayer-book. Puritans ejected on

St. Bartholomew’s Day.

1664. The Conventicle Act passed. Convocation abandons its right

of taxing the Clergy.

1665. The Five Mile Act passed.

1666. The Fire of London.

1673. The Test Act passed.

1683. The Rye-House Plot.

1685. Ken consecrated Bishop of Bath and Wells. The Religious

Societies.

1686. A Roman Catholic appointed Dean of Christ Church.

1687. King James II.’s attack on Magdalen College, Oxford. He

published Declarations for Liberty of Conscience.

1688. Seven Prelates committed to the Tower. Their trial and

acquittal. The King escapes from England.

1689. The Bills for Comprehension and Toleration.

1690. The Nonjurors refuse to take the oath to the new King and

Queen, and are deprived.

1691. Tillotson consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury on May 31.

The Boyle Lectures founded.

1692. Societies for the Reformation of Manners formed.

1693. Commencement of the Trinitarian Controversy.

1694. Tenison Archbishop of Canterbury.-

1696, Toland publishes Christianity not Mysterious.

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

XXI

A.D.

1 698. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge founded.

1701. Disputes between the two Houses of Convocation commence.

Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign parts

foupded.

1702. Presbyterianism re-established in Scotland.

1704. First Assembly of Charity Schools in London. Queen Anne restores the First-fruits and. Tenths to the Church.

1707. The Union of England and Scotland.

1710. The Sacheverell Riots.

171 1. Tax of .£350,000 voted towards building new Churches.

1713. Dr. Bentley’s Work against the Deists.

1715. Hoadley consecrated Bishop of Bangor.

1716. Wake appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Convocation

silenced. The Bangorian Controversy. Concordat between Nonjurors and Eastern Church proposed.

1723. Bishop Atterby deprived and banished.

1728. Act of Indemnity of Nonconformists first passed.

1729. Law’s Serious Call published.

1730. Tindal publishes Christianity as Old as the Creation .

1:735. J°hn Wesley goes to Georgia.

1736. Butler’s Analogy published.

1752. Change made in the Calendar.

1753. Lord Hardwick’s Marriage Act passed.

1770. Death of Whitfield.

1772. The Feathers' Tavern Petition.

1 77 5. Commencement of War with America.

1780. The Lord George Gordon Riots.

1784. Wesley’s action with regard to America. Consecration of Dr. Seabury.

1787. Drs. Provoost and White consecrated in England. Diocese of Nova Scotia founded.

1791. Death of John Wesley. The Birmingham Riots. Conces¬ sions made to Roman Catholics.

1793. Diocese of Quebec founded.

1795. Vote granted for Maynooth College.

1797. Wilberforce’s Practical View published.

1799. Church Missionary Society founded.

1800. Act of Union between England and Ireland passed.

J

XXli A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

A.D.

1801. The Religious Tract Society founded.

1804. The British and Foreign Bible Society founded.

1807. The British and Foreign School Society founded.

1 81 1. The National Society for Promoting the Education of the

Poor in the Principles of the Established Church founded.

1812. Lord Harfowby’s Act for improving the condition of Curates

passed. >

1813. Disabilities of Unitarians removed.

1814. See of Calcutta founded.

1816. Simeon commences the Purchase of Advowsons.

1818. Church Building Society founded.

1824. Sees of Jamaica and Barbadoes founded.

1827. The Christian Year published.

1828. Corporation and Test Acts repealed. King’s College, London,

founded.

1829. Roman Catholic Emancipation Act passed.

1832. The Reform Bill Passed. University of Durham founded.

1833. The Irish Bishoprics suppressed. Keble’s Sermon on

National Apostasy. Meeting at Hadleigh Rectory. Com¬ mencement of Tracts for the Times. Court of Delegates superseded by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. First Parliamentary Grant for Education made.

1836. Marriage and Registration Acts passed. The Ecclesiastical Commission constituted. The Episcopal Act passed. Dr. Longley appointed first Bishop of Ripon. Tithe Commuta¬ tion Act passed. Dr. Hampden appointed Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford.

1838. The Pluralities Act passed.

1839. The Camden Society founded at Cambridge.

1840. The Cathedral Act passed. The Church Discipline Act

passed. The Colonial Bishoprics’ Council established.

1841. Tract XC. appears. Foundation-stone laid of Martyrd

Memorial. The Tracts discontinued.

• 1843. Dr. Pusey suspended. Newman resigns the Vicarage of St. Mary’s. The Peel Districts formed. St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, refounded.

1845. Further grants made to Maynooth College. Newman secedes to the Church of Rome.

A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

A.D.

1847. Dr. Hampden appointed to the See of Hereford.

1848. Dr. Prince Lee appointed first Bishop of Manchester.

1850. The Gorham Case. The Papal Aggression.

1852. Convocation resumes its Synodal functions.

1854. Religious Tests for B.A. Degree abolished at Oxford.

1856. Tests for Degrees, except in Divinity, abolished at Cambridge.

1857. Liddell v. Westerton Judgment. Divorce Act passed.

1858. Jewish Disabilities removed.

1860. A Royal Letter granted to Convocation. Essays and Reviews

published.

1861. The first Church Congress held.

1863. St. Alban’s, Holborn, consecrated.

1865. Acquittal of Dr. Colenso by Privy Council. Terms of

Subscription modified by Convocation.

1866. Church Rates abolished. Dr. Colenso’s works condemned by

Convocation.

1867. First Pan-Anglican Conference held.

1870. Ritual Commission appointed. The Elementary Education

Act passed. Revival of Suffragan Bishops. Keble College founded.

1871. Disestablishment of the Irish Church. Diocesan Synod in

Lincoln Cathedral. Nonconformists admissible to Fellow¬ ships at the Universities. Martyrdom of Bishop Patteson.

1872. A new Lectionary and shortened form of Church-service

sanctioned by Convocation.

1874. Public Worship Regulation Act passed.

1876. Dioceses of St. Alban and Truro founded.

1 878. Second Pan- Anglican Conference. Additional Bishoprics Act passed.

1880. Revision of New Testament completed. Burial Laws Amend¬

ment Act passed. See of Liverpool founded.

1881. Selwyn College founded.

1882. Headships of Colleges thrown open. Bishopric of Newcastle

founded.

1884. Bishopric of Southwell founded. Pusey House founded.

Revision of Old Testament completed. Act of Parliament passed to make Bristol a distinct Diocese.

xxiv A BRIEF CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

1885. Martyrdom of Bishop Hannington. House of Laymen for Southern Province appointed.

1887. Further advance of Convocation.

1888. Third Pan-Anglican Conference. Diocese of Wakefield

founded. The Church Association attack the Bishop of Lincoln.

1890. House of Laymen appointed for Northern Province. Arch¬

bishop Benson’s Judgment in the Lincoln Case.

1891. Free Education Act passed.

1892. The Privy Council Judgment in the Lincoln Case. New

Clergy-Discipline Act passed.

CHAPTER I. The Celtic Forerunners of the Church of England

The combination of Celtic Churches — (i) The British Church — Introduction of Christianity into Britain — Statements as to Apostolic Preachers in Britain — King Lucius — Persecution of the Churches of Lyons and Vienne, A. D. 177 — Probable immigration of Christians thence into Britain — The Diocletian persecution — St. Alban — The Age of the Councils — Arles, Nice, Sardica, Rimini — Pelagianism in Britain — Missions of St. German — The Alleluia Victory — The English Conquest — The British Church in Wales — Schools of Wales — Monasteries— Saints — The same four Sees in Wales then which have existed ever since — Church of Cornwall — (2) The Irish Church — Palladius — Patrick — The first Order of Irish Saints — Monasteries in Ireland — The Second Order of Irish Saints — David, Gildas, Cadoc — Missionary spirit of the Irish Church — Columban — Gall — Independence of the Celtic Churches — (3) The Scottish Church — Ninian — Kentigern — Columba — Iona — The Culdees —Death of Columba, a.d. 597.

The land which we now call England was, in the earliest times of which we have any certain record, known as Britain, and its inhabitants as Britons, a people of the same Celtic family as the Welsh, the Irish, and the Scotch, and the inhabitants of the neighbouring country of Gaul, or as it is now called France.

In b. c. 55, and again in the following year, the great Roman General, Julius Caesar, having conquered Gaul landed in Britain, obtained several victories over the Britons, and burnt their strong¬ hold of Verulamium, the modern St. Albans. But Caesar by no means met with the success which usually attended his arms, and being obliged to return to Rome, Britain was left unmolested by the Romans till the reign of the Emperor Claudius, when (a.d. 43) more effectual means were taken for its subjugation. Several battles were fought in Britain with unequal success ; after a time • the tribes which inhabited the south-eastern parts of the country submitted to the Romans ; but the north and the middle part of Britain remained unconquered ; and it was not till the last quarter of the century (a.d. 78) that the Romans succeeded in conquering the island as far north as the Firths of Forth and the Clyde.

But the conquest of Ireland, or as it was then called Scotia (for the name of Scotland was not till the twelfth century confined to the country which now bears it), and that of Scotland was never effected by the Romans. In the course of time a combi¬ nation of Celtic Churches grew up — the British, including the Church of Wales; the Irish, and the Scotch — forming a com¬ munion of their own ; independent and conscious of no subjection to a foreign See; differing from Churches of the Roman Com¬ munion not in doctrine, but in certain matters of ritual; having their own liturgy, their own version of the Scriptures, their own regularly-ordained episcopate, their own mode of conferring bap¬ tism, their own missions, and their own, but antiquated and erroneous, mode of observing Easter a. A short sketch of these Churches forms, therefore, a necessary introduction to a history of the Church of England.

1. The British Church. — For nearly four hundred years Britain remained a Province of the great Roman Empire. The early religion of the Britons was Druidism. The Druids were not only the priests but the legislators and judges of the people. No species of superstition was more cruel than theirs, no idolatrous worship ever gained such an ascendancy over its votaries. The Romans rarely, if ever, interfered with the religion of the countries which they conquered. But the superstition of the Druids had long been to them particularly hateful, and they saw that so long as Druidism prevailed, they could never govern Britain quietly; so, contrary to their usual custom, they abolished it by penal statutes, and introduced into the country their own religion ; a religion, more refined perhaps, but not less idolatrous and scarcely less cruel, viz. Paganism.

It was during the time that Britain was a Province of the Roman Empire that Christianity was introduced into the country.

The Celtic Forerunners of the Church of England.

At what precise time, or by whose agency, it was first preached in Britain it is impossible to determine. Some have attributed it to Apostolic times, and even to the Apostles themselves b. From the connection which existed between Rome and Britain, it is more than probable that • individual Christians existed in Britain in the first century, in fact it is difficult to conceive how it could be otherwise. Rome had received Christianity. There was one uninterrupted empire connecting the two countries; there were roads or streets (strata) laid down with most consummate engineering skill, along which Roman merchants and soldiers were constantly travelling to and fro between Rome and Britain ; religious persecution, which was common in Rome, would induce many Christians to seek a refuge in Britain, where it was un¬ known. But as to there being anything which could be called a Church, , the evidence is too vague to found on it any historical fact ; if one passage seems to support the evidence, another de¬ stroys it; so that modern investigation, which has brought to light every document bearing upon the subject, has been forced to the conclusion that “ statements respecting .... Apostolic men preaching in Britain in the first century rest upon guess, mistake, or fable c.”

The same must be said respecting the narrative recorded by Bede as to a British king named Lucius, in the middle of the second century, writing to Eleutherius, Bishop of Rome, re¬ questing that “ by his command he might be made a Christian,” and that his “pious request” was granted. The legend did not originate till three hundred years after the supposed event, and then in Rome : Gildas (516 — 570), a Welsh monk and our earliest historian, knows nothing of it ; Bede copied the Roman account,

b The introduction of Christianity into Britain has been variously ascribed, (1) in the first century, to St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Simon Zelotes, St. Philip, Joseph of Arimathsea, Aristobulus, and others ; (2) in the second century to missionaries sent over by Eleutherius, Pope of Rome, at the request of a British king, named Lucius.

* Kaddan and Stubbs, Councils and Ecclesiastical Documents, i. 22.

and introduced it into England in the eighth century, and in the ninth century the conversion of King Lucius grew into that of the whole of Britain. The lateness of the authority is sufficient to condemn it, and has led modern commentators to reject it as a “ legend,” a “ fable deserving of no credit.”

Still it would appear that in the last quarter of the second century Christianity gained some footing in Britain. For, as on the one hand Irenseus, Bishop of Lyons, writing about a.d. 176, knows of no Church existing at that time in Britain, on the other hand Tertullian, who wrote some twenty years later, speaks of

British districts where the Roman arms had never penetrated being subjected to Christ d.” Now it is an interesting question, whether any event occurred between those two periods which would account for the spread of Christianity in Britain.

The general conversion of Gaul to Christianity did not take place till the middle of the third century. Yet a few scattered Churches, notably those of Lyons and Vienne, were founded in the south of that country, between the years 1 50 — 1 70, by missionaries from Asia Minor under Pothinus, who became Bishop of Lyons, and young Irenseus, who on the martyrdom of Pothinus succeeded him as bishop of that See. In a.d. 177 those two Churches were subjected to so terrible a persecution under the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius, that, says Mosheim, “ they were nearly destroyed or obliterated.” The violence of the persecution, the cruel tortures to which the Christians were subjected, and the firmness with which they bore them, only stimulated the faith of others ; and it is recorded how that those who had at first been frightened into sacrificing to the pagan gods were induced to declare themselves Christians, and became themselves martyrs. It has always been a characteristic mark of the Christian Church that the blood of martyrs has sown the seeds of Christianity in other places. In what country then, or amongst what people, were those perse¬ cuted Christians of Gaul so likely to seek and find an asylum as d Britannorum inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero subdita.

The Celtic Forerunners of the Church of England.

in the neighbouring country of Britain, amongst a people of the same Celtic race as themselves? and in what part of the country were they so likely to settle as in those regions which were not garrisoned by Roman soldiers ? The influx might not have been, probably was not, general ; the conversions to Christi¬ anity were perhaps only local and partial ; so that Origen, writing some twenty years later, says that the greater part of Britain had not received the Gospel. But the Gospel, if it once took root, would spread to other parts, and in course of time to the districts occupied by Romans ; indeed it appears that it spread more extensively amongst the race of immigrants which clustered round the chief Roman colonies, than amongst the native population e.