Since that time the Church of England has suffered hardly any change in its formularies or in its constitution; but it has been profoundly changed by the influence of various schools of thought, each of which has interpreted its form ularies in accordance with their convictions. The close of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the writings' of Hooker, mark the beginning of a typical theology, and Anglicanism in the modern sense of the term was developed and worked out by the great divines of the 17th century. The result of the Commonwealth and of the Puritan domination was to strengthen the hold of the English Church on the nation, and at the time of the Restoration a vast majority of the people were attached to it. A very little more statesmanship on the part of the restored Cavaliers might have almost wiped out Puritan traditions. At the time of the Restoration the High Church party were the dominant factors in the Church, but the Roman tendencies of Charles II, the Roman Catholic position of James II, the fear of papal influence, and the Non-Jurors schism on the accession of Wiliam weakened its influence. Some of the ablest members of the High Church party left the Church at the time of the Non-Jurors' seces sion. High Churchmen were under suspicion as being opposed to the reigning dynasty, and in the first half of the 18th century the prevail ing influence was the latitudInarian movement associated largely with the name of Tillotson. The Whig ascendency, the suppression of con vocations and the influence of the deistic literature reduced the spiritual life of the country to the lowest ebb. The movement for religious awakening grew up in the Church of England, but a secularized church was unable to contain the vigorous spiritual life of Wesley anism. But though the Wesleyan Society passed outside the Church, its influence lived within it, and at the close of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, the evangelical movement was strong. All through this period the High Church party had lived on. The failure of the Stuart succession destroyed all suspicion of disloyalty, and eventually latitudinarianism and evangelicalism lost their hold on the country. High Church influences began to assert them selves again. The religious movement was as sisted by a romantic reaction against the com monplace 18th century traditions and by the revival of an idealistic philosophy, and it came to a head in the well-known Oxford "Movement, which is usually supposed to date from the year 1833. The Oxford Movement in its double aspect of High Church principles and of ritualism has profoundly changed the religious life of the whole Anglo-Saxon world. It was followed rapidly by a broad church reaction, and there has been a tendency of recent years for a new party to arise, combining many of the elements of both the schools. At the pres ent time the theology of the Church of England is influenced by all the different movements we have described. The Church of England is not but it has created Anglicanism within the fold of an Establishment. Various different types of thought prevail and the posi tion can only be understood by looking at the Church as the result of the history we have described.
General Principles.— The Church claims to be that portion of the Universal Church of Christ located in England, a and apostoli cal church teaching the doctrine of the Apos tles." It acknowledges that to the Crown ((the chief government of all estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all cases doth appertain." It is established, i.e., it is part of the constitution of the country. It is National; Protestant in so far as denying that the Bishop of Rome has jurisdiction in England and condemning the errors of the Roman Church; Catholic as claiming to be a portion of the Universal Church of Christ. It grounds itself on Scripture and the three creeds. Its m'ilisters arc bishops, priests and deacons. It claims to be continuous with the primitive church.
Constitution and The constitution of the Church was influenced by two main characteristics. One was a desire to do away with what we believe to be mediaeval corrup tions; the other to preserve the primitive or ganization of the Church. Naturally also there
was a tendency to preserve all the distinctly na tional institutions which were inherited from the past. The orders of the Church of Eng land are bishops, priests and deacons, and it is definitely laid down that the possession of episcopal ordination is necessary for holding office in the Church. The clergy of the Church meet in their own assemblies in Convocation which were originally the meetings of the clergy for taxing themselves at the time when they were immune from general taxation. At the present day, convocations have no legisla tive nower except such as is intrusted to them on any special occasion by Parliament, and no change can be made in any law or custom of the Church without the consent of Parliament. But it was the theory, not perhaps always acted upon, of the Reformation and it has been the custom since, that Parliament should not legis late for the Church except with the advice of the clergy. Practically the result of this has been that external changes in either form or constitution of the Church have hardly been made since the Act of Uniformity of the year 1662. By the common law of the country the parson or parish nriest has a freel.old in his cure, and he can only be removed by very complicated legal processes. The result of this has been to make the English clergy very in dependent of any authority. The influence of the bishops as men may be very powerful and effective but if they wish to support their opinions or the administration of the law by any appeal to authority they are hampered at every turn by a complicated legal system which makes it exceedingly difficult for them, even in spite of recent changes, to interfere with acrimonious or refractory clerks. The diffi culties have been increased by the unsatisfac tory character of the Church Courts. It is a fundamental principle of the English law that the Sovereign is in all causes, as well ecclesi astical as civil, supreme. The Church has its own courts and those courts are very largely secular in character and do not command the adherence of. the clergy, while the Judicial Com mittee of Privy Council which is the final court of appeal in matters ecclesiastical, has not con fined itself to reviewing judgments of courts on the point of view of Justice to the individual, but has attempted to legislate by its judgments, and has not met with anything like universal acceptance. The position then is that the con stitution of the Church and the Church Courts has grown up not in obedience to any particu lar theory, but by modifications from time to time of the traditional system and that it does not at present satisfy the convictions of a large section of the Church.
position of the Church of England is that it is established by law and it is part of the constitution of the country.
i What exactly this implies has never been clearly defined and there are different sections of opinion on the subject in the country. The High Church party claim that the position of the Church is continuous with that before the Reformation and that the Church is by consti tutional right free to determine its own teach ing. A party which would be called by their opponents Erastian would claim that the Church was entirely subject to the Sovereign and to the Houses of Parliament. The former would point out that the Sovereign is rightly supreme in all actions relating to liberty of person and property, that (as shown by many Acts of Parliament, notably the Scottish Church Act of 1905), when questions of property are in volved the Civil Courts or Parliament have to deal with the internal matters of the different religious bodies whether they call themselves "Free" or not, and that what the state has done is to accept to a large extent the Church Courts as part of its constitution. The Church of Ire land (Protestant Episcopal) was disestablished in 1869. An Act of Parliament was passed in 1914 disestablishing the Church of \Vales and Monmouthshire, but the operation of the Act was postponed until after the termination of the war.