The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia — John Shaqi
The American Church Dictionary and CyclopediaMiller, William James
Philosophy
The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia
Miller, William James
Episcopal Church -- Dictionaries; Theology -- Dictionaries
Anglican Church, The.--The name given to the Church of England as
being the Church of the Anglo-Saxon race. The Church was introduced
into Britain as early as A.D. 61, probably by St. Paul and it has
continued there the same organization ever since, and the Church
of the whole English nation until within the last 300 years, when
divers and sundry religious bodies have sprung up. Thus the English
nation from that early period of the Church's first introduction
into Britain down to the present time, has never been without the
Orthodox _Faith_; the _Apostolic Ministry_ in three orders--Bishops,
Priests and Deacons; the _Sacraments_ and the ancient _Liturgy_.
Moreover, the Church of England has always affirmed her own national
integrity and independence and although overcome and brought into
subjection to a foreign power, and finally regained her former
independence--yet throughout all she has ever retained the four
essentials of Christian Truth and Order mentioned, and thus {20}
demonstrates that she is a true branch of the Church founded by
Christ, and as such Catholic and Apostolic. For one to say that the
Church of England was founded by Henry VIII, or to say that it is
a "schism from the Roman Church" shows great ignorance of even
the plainest facts of history. The following statement, from a
secular paper, the _Providence_ (R. I.) _Journal_ is worth
reprinting: "It is still quite usual even for intelligent persons
to misunderstand the purposes of the English Reformers, and the
result of the English Reformation. . . . The supremacy of Rome has
never been borne patiently by the English people, whose church
organization was established long before Rome took the trouble to
interfere with it; and several English kings had quarreled before
Henry the Eighth's time with the Holy See. What the English
Reformers wanted, and what they accomplished under Elizabeth,
was Reform _within the Church_. It was on the continent that
Protestantism _without the Church_, built up a new ecclesiastical
organization. All this, it may be, is a matter only of historical
value to the busy nineteenth century. But even if facts in a
historical aspect are of small importance to an intensely practical
generation, it is as well to have these facts right as wrong."
(See UNDIVIDED CHURCH).
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