of the nation, is the growth, unity, and continuity of the Church. The Church and the people, and the people and the Church, is the History of the British Isles. The one acts and reacts upon the other. If the Church in the day of the deepest humiliation of England by foreign usurpation, laid in the Magna Charta the foundation-stone of liberty to the nation-and in it to the nations of the whole world-so the people of Britain, when in the full possession of this liberty, enabled the Church to reclaim her freedom, and to hurl from her bosom forever the foreign usurpation of the Bishop of Rome' and the intolerable tyranny of Puritanism.

In every page of our history the continuity of the Church is found. It is co-extensive with the birth, growth, and manhood of the nation. The Church gave to the people of Britain their first impulse to national unity and consolidation. In her Councils she gave the idea of a national gathering for general legislation. This idea resulted in a Parliament which has been ever since regarded as the model on which all free nations govern themselves. The Canons of her Councils led to the idea of Acts of Parliament; the single Throne of her Primate, to a single temporal Throne; and the subordination of Deacon to Priest, and Priest to Bishop, and Bishop to Primate, to the civil organisation of the State.

And for sixteen hundred years the Church' was the only representative of the Christian religion in the British Isles, whether Briton, Scot, Saxon, Dane, or Norman ruled. And she was the only medium and organised Body through which these peoples exhibited their religious life and belief.

192

And as the blending together of these peoples into one harmonious whole forms the British nation, so the blending together of the Church of the Briton, Scot, Pict, Saxon, Dane, and Norman forms the National Church of the British people; and as the language of the nation took the form of the English tongue-the "Lingua Anglicana"-so the National Church was designated "The Church of the English," "The Church of England," "The Ecclesia Anglicana. And this is the designation of her to the present day. Her very name thus shows her historic continuity as the Christian Church of the nation. The Church of Rome, therefore, as such, never had any existence in Britain. That the Ecclesia Anglicana was at one time under the usurped dominion of the Bishop of Rome and received the errors of the Church of Rome cannot be denied; but that the Church of Rome had ever any existence in Britain at any time, or was at any time the National Church of the Realm, needs only to be mentioned in order to be refuted by every page of the history of the British Isles from the beginning.

The Ecclesia Anglicana is, as we have already seen above, a true branch of the Holy Catholic Church of Christ, and has always been from the day it was first planted there in Apostolic times the only authorised representative in the Realm of England of the Catholic Church. The Holy Catholic Church is one, but it has several branches.1 If one of these branches refuses to hold communion with her it is no fault of the Church of England. Asa branch of the Catholic* Church the Anglican Church holds communion with every other branch of the Catholic Church, whether it be Roman or Greek. In that she is Catholic she is, and always has been, one with them. In that she is "Anglican" she does not profess to be the Holy Catholic Church of Christ, but she does profess to be a very important branch of it planted in the British Isles in Apostolic times.

As the Historic Church of the nation she is independent, and has always resented all foreign interference, and protested, again and again, against the encroachments of the Roman Church and the usurped sovereignty of the Bishop of Rome. It would be well here to give a few instances of these protests, covering a period of over a thousand years.

A. D. 603.

II.

At the conference held between seven British Bishops and a goodly number of learned men from the famous Monastery of Bangor-is-yCoed, the British deputation refused to acknowledge that the Bishop of Rome had authority over them. Dinooth, the learned Abbot of Bangor, said "that they owed no other obe

It asserted its right to exist as the National

dience to the Pope of Rome than they

Catholic Church did to every godly Christian, to love by continued protest against every one in his degree in perfect foreign usurpation and tyran- charity; other obedience than this they

ny.

knew none due to him whom he (Augus

tine) named Pope. But they were under the government of the Bishop of Caer-Leon-upon-Uske, who was their overseer under God."2

Wilfrid, Monk of Lindisfarne, and Bishop of York, for attempting to introduce foreign jurisdiction by appealing to the Bishop of Rome against Ecgfrid, King of Northumbria, was asked in effect by the Northumbrian Witan, "Who is the Pope, and what are his decrees? What have they to do with us or we with them? Have not we the right and power to manage our own affairs, and punish in our own discretion all offenders against our laws and customs?"1 Wilfrid got imprisoned for his pains; and he was not released till he promised to go into exile from Northumbria.

2

When at the Council of Cloveshoo it was proposed to refer difficult questions to the Bishop of Rome, those present refused to entertain it, and declared they would submit to the authority of the Archbishop of Canterbury in such

matters.

Archbishop Odo excommunicated King Edwy for an incestuous marriage. The King appealed to Rome. Rome commanded Odo to absolve the King. Odo refused. Archbishop Dunstan, his successor, had also pronounced the marriage invalid.

Robert, Archbishop of Canterbury, being deposed for his indifference to English patriotism, went to Rome to gain the influence of the Pope in his favour. He obtained his favour; but

1 Lane, c. vi. § 8, pp. 90, 91.

A. D. 747.

A. D. 950.

A. D. 1051.

* He appealed again a second time, but the King and Bishops flatly refused to alter any sentence at the bidding of the Pope. Wilfrid had to be removed from York to another see. During the whole Anglo-Saxon period no other attempt was made in the direction of an appeal to Rome by any other Bishop in our land." -Turnock, p. 27.