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Church of England

Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion

The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain by the 3rd century and to the 6th-century Gregorian mission to Kent led by Augustine of Canterbury. Henry VIII broke it away from the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation. Its Supreme Head is the monarch of the United Kingdom, currently Charles III. Its spiritual leader is the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby. Its adherents are called Anglicans.

Canterbury Cathedral, c. 1906

Quotes

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  • The principles of submission and obedience to lawful authority, are as inseparable from a sound, genuine member of the Church of England, as any religious principles whatever. This Church has always been famed and respected for its loyalty, and its regard to order and government. Its annals have been never stained with the history of plots and conspiracies, treasons and rebellions. Its members are instructed in their duty to government, by Three Homilies on Obedience, and six against Rebellion, which are so many standing lessons to secure their fidelity. They are also taught to pray in the Litany, that the Almighty would preserve them, "from all sedition, privy conspiracy and rebellion." And more than one solemn office is provided, for the annual commemoration of former deliverances from the power of those, whether Papists or Protestants, "who turn religion into rebellion, and faith into faction." But if you regard none of these things, you are untoward, undutiful, and degenerate sons of the Church; and she will be ashamed to own you for her children.
    • Myles Cooper, A Friendly Address to all Reasonable Americans, On the Subject of our Political Confusions: In which the Necessary Consequences of Violently opposing the King's Troops, And of a General Non-Importation, Are Fairly Stated (1774), pp. 49-50
  • Where by divers sundry old authentic histories and chronicles, it is manifestly declared and expressed that this realm of England is an Empire, and so hath been accepted in the world, governed by one Supreme Head and King having the dignity and royal estate of the imperial Crown of the same, unto whom a body politic compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided in terms and by names of Spirituality and Temporalty, be bounden and owe to bear next to God a natural and humble obedience.
  • A wise Government, allying itself with religion, would, as it were, consecrate society and sanctify the State. But how is this to be done? It is the problem of modern politics which has always most embarrassed statesmen. No solution of the difficulty can be found in salaried priesthoods and complicated concordats. But by the side of the State in England there has gradually arisen a majestic corporation wealthy, powerful, independent with the sanctity of a long tradition, yet sympathising with authority, and full of conciliation, even deference, to the civil power. Broadly and deeply planted in the land, mixed up with all our manners and customs, one of the main guarantees of our local government, and therefore one of the prime securities of our common liberties, the Church of England is part of our history, part of our life, part of England itself.
    • Benjamin Disraeli, speech in Aylesbury (14 November 1861), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (1929), p. 96
  • English Churchmen are often unduly apologetic for their Church. With our national habit of self-depreciation they see more easily its defects than its strength. Persistent and carping criticism of the Church of England by those who are either its commissioned officers or its communicant members injures it more than any attacks by its open foes. No thoughtful Churchmen will deny the existence of anomalies and defects which should be dealt with as soon as possible. But recognition of the necessity of reform should not lead to forgetfulness of the true greatness of our Church, both Catholic and Reformed, and of the special contribution which God has called it to make to the Church throughout the world. Uncompromisingly the Church of England is the Catholic Church in this land, set free from subjection to the Church of Rome.
  • [T]he Anglican Church...was at the heart of England's – and so Britain's – separation from the Roman Catholic, supranational Continent. It was an important symbol of the restoration of monarchy after a brief and unhappy period of Republicanism under Cromwell, and so part of the structure which resisted the ideas of the French Revolution. It was the core of the United Kingdom, Catholic and Reformed, open-minded yet governed by rules, intensely English, rooted in the distant past. Its version of the divine order was a mirror of the English state at the end of the seventeenth century.
  • Then I remember, we went on over to Westminster Abbey. And I thought about several things when we went into this great church, this great cathedral, the center of the Church of England. We walked around and went to the tombs of the kings and queens buried there. Most of the kings and queens of England are buried right there in the Westminster Abbey. And I walked around. On the one hand I enjoyed and appreciated the great gothic architecture of that massive cathedral. I stood there in awe thinking about the greatness of God and man’s feeble attempt to reach up for God. And I thought something else. I thought about the Church of England. My mind went back to Buckingham Palace, and I said that this is the symbol of a dying system. There was a day that the queens and kings of England could boast that the sun never sets on the British Empire. A day when she occupied the greater portion of Australia, the greater portion of Canada. There was a day when she ruled most of China, most of Africa, and all of India. I started thinking about this empire.
  • I thought of many things. I thought of the fact that the British Empire exploited India. Think about it! A nation with four hundred million people and the British exploited them so much that out of a population of four hundred million, three hundred and fifty million made an annual income of less than fifty dollars a year. Twenty-five of that had to be used for taxes and the other things of life. I thought about dark Africa. And how the people there, if they can make a hundred dollars a year, they are living very well they think. Two shillings a day—one shilling is fourteen cents, two shillings, twenty-eight cents—that’s a good wage. That’s because of the domination of the British Empire. All of these things came to my mind, and when I stood there in Westminster Abbey with all of its beauty, and I thought about all of the beautiful hymns and anthems that the people would go in there to sing. And yet the Church of England never took a stand against this system. The Church of England sanctioned it. The Church of England gave it moral stature. All of the exploitation perpetuated by the British Empire was sanctioned by the Church of England. But something else came to my mind. God comes in the picture even when the Church won’t take a stand. God has injected a principle in this universe. God has said that all men must respect the dignity and worth of all human personality, “And if you don’t do that, I will take charge.” It seems this morning that I can hear God speaking. I can hear Him speaking throughout the universe, saying, “‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ And if you don’t stop, if you don’t straighten up, if you don’t stop exploiting people, I’m going to rise up and break the backbone of your power. And your power will be no more!” And the power of Great Britain is no more. I looked at France. I looked at Britain. And I thought about the Britain that could boast, “The sun never sets on our great Empire.” And I say now she had gone to the level that the sun hardly rises on the British Empire. Because it was based on exploitation. Because the God of the universe eventually takes a stand.
  • Having myself been a priest of the Church of England, and knowing... the disputes as to whether that Church really has the apostolic succession or not, I was naturally interested in discovering whether its priests possessed this power. I was much pleased to find that they did... I soon found by examination that ministers of what are commonly called dissenting sects did not possess this power, no matter how good and - earnest they might be. Their goodness and earnestness produced plenty of other effects which I shall presently describe, but their efforts did not draw upon the particular reservoir to which I have referred... When the priest is earnest and devoted, his whole feeling radiates out upon his people and calls forth similar feelings in such of them as are capable of expressing them. Also his devotion calls down its inevitable response, as shown in the illustration in ThoughtForms and the downpouring of force thus evoked benefits his congregation as well as himself; so that a priest who throws his heart and soul into the work which he does may be said to bring a double blessing upon his people, though the second class of influence can scarcely be considered as being of the same order of magnitude as the first. Ch. 8
  • The Church of England depends, for its existence, almost entirely on the solidarity and conservatism of the English ruling class. Its strength is not in anything supernatural, but in the strong social and racial instincts which bind the members of this caste together; and the English cling to their Church the way they cling to their King and to their old schools: because of a big, vague, sweet complex of subjective dispositions regarding the English countryside, old castles and cottages, games of cricket in the long summer afternoons, tea-parties on the Thames, croquet, roast-beef, pipe-smoking, the Christmas panto, Punch and the London Times and all those other things the mere thought of which produces a kind of warm and inexpressible ache in the English heart.
  • We do not pretend that any Church is Infallible, and therefore not ours: But this we dare say and we can justifie; that if we take our measures concerning the Truths of Religion from the Rules of the Holy Scriptures, and the Platform of the Primitive Churches, the Church of England is undoubtedly both as to Doctrine and Worship, the Purest Church that is at this day in the World; the most Orthodox in Faith, and the freest on the one hand from Idolatry and Superstition, and on the other hand from Freakishness and Enthusiasm of any now extant.
    • John Sharp, A Sermon Preached on the 28th. of June, At St. Giles in the Fields (1691), pp. 7-8
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