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the Conference of the people called Methodists shall be extinguished, . and the said chapels, &c., shall vest in the trustees for the time being . . upon trust that they shall appoint such persons to preach therein.., as to them shall seem proper.' . . .

(2) The Plan of Pacification:-'The sacrament of the Lord's Supper shall not be administered in any chapel, except a majority of the trustees of that chapel.., and of the stewards and leaders belonging to that chapel (as the best qualified to give the sense of the people), allow of it. Nevertheless, in all cases, the consent of the Conference shall be first obtained. . Provided that, in all chapels where the Lord's Supper has been already peaceably administered, the administration of it shall continue in future.. We agree that the Lord's Supper be administered among us, on Sunday evenings only; except where the majority of the stewards and leaders desire it in Church hours. . Nevertheless, it shall never be administered on those Sundays on which it is administered in the parish Church. The Lord's Supper shall always be administered in England, according to the form of the Established Church: but the person who administers shall have liberty to give out hymns, to use exhortation, and extemporary prayer. Wherever Divine Service is performed in England on the Lord's day, in Church hours, the officiating preacher shall read either the service of the Church, our venerable father's abridgment, or at least the lessons appointed by the calendar. But we recommend either the full service or the abridgment. The appointment of the preachers shall remain solely with the Conference... The hundred preachers mentioned in the enrolled deed, and their successors, are the only legal persons who constitute the Conference. And we think the junior brethren have no reason to object to this proposition, as they are regularly elected according to seniority.'

(3) The Model Trust-deed :-It first recites the origin of the Methodist Societies in 1738; it next notices the first formation of Conference in 1744: then recites the Deed of Declaration, &c.: and next recites a contract for the purchase of a piece of ground, &c. . . ' upon trust, to permit the said chapel and premises to be used as a place of worship for the people called Methodists. and to allow such persons only to preach and expound therein, as should be duly appointed by Conference, or by the superintendent preacher for the time being.. [who shall] have the direction and control of the said worship.. Provided always, that no person shall be permitted to preach or expound in the said chapel or premises, who shall teach any doctrine contrary to what is contained in certain Notes to the New Testament by the late John Wesley, and the first four volumes of Sermons reputed to be written by him.'. .

LECTURE VIII.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

A.D. 597.

Leading Idea:-A federation of National and Mission Churches.

Method adopted :-A bold adaptation of the ancient Catholic system to modern times.

*Αν μὲν οὖν δὴ καὶ ξυνεπιλαμβάνηταί τις ὀρθὴ τροφὴ παιδεύσεως, ὁλόκληρος ὑγιής τε παντελῶς,—τὴν μεγίστην ἀποφυγὼν νόσον-γίγνεται [ὁ ἄνθρωπος]· καταμελήσας δὲ, χωλὴν τοῦ βίου διαπορευθεὶς ζωὴν, ἀτελὴς καὶ ἀνόητος εἰς Αιδου πάλιν ἔρχεται. Plato, Timæus, p. 43 : ed. Stalb.)

A.D.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.

200. British (Welsh) Church first mentioned. (Tertullian, c. Judæos,

§ 7.)

314. Council of Arles: three British bishops present.

400. Pelagius, a British 'heretic,' at Rome.

457. English (pagan) invasions: first kingdom, Kent.
582. English occupation complete: last kingdom, Mercia.

597. English Church founded, by Augustin, at Canterbury.

664. All England christianized, mainly by 'British' clergy. Council at

Whitby.

680. First Reform (Archbishop Theodore). Organization completed. 785. New organization attempted by Offa.

Lichfield.

970. Second Reform (Archbishop Dunstan). 1070. Third Reform (Archbishop Lanfranc). in ritual (Sarum use), &c.

1140. Canon law introduced into England.

Higbert, Archbishop of

Discipline braced up.
Continental improvements

1164. Constitutions of Clarendon: Archbishop Becket, +1171.

1213. Papal supremacy culminates, under King John.

1221. Fourth Reform: Franciscan revival of religion. Bishop Grostête,

+1253.

1279. Parliament resists the Papacy. Statute of Mortmain' (1389,

'Premunire.')

1350. Lollards rebel against the Established Church. Wicliffe, +1384. 1400. Statute 'De heretico comburendo.' (Sawtre, +1401: Cobham,

+1418.)

1429. Archbishop Chicheley resists the intrusion of a Papal legate. 1457. Bishop Pecocke deposed for Rationalism.

1530. Fifth Reform (Archbishop Warham): Papal supremacy rejected. 1539. Monasteries converted into new Sees, new Cathedral chapters, &c.

many suppressed.

1559. English Church restored, after Queen Mary's reaction.

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1689. Toleration Act:' efforts towards 'comprehension of Dissenters.' 1739. Six'h Reform, begun: 'Evangelical' revival, Wesley and Whitfield. 1833. 'Catholic' revival begun at Oxford.

1871. Puritan attempt to 'liberate the Church from State control.'

LECTURE VIII.

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

'How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! and thy tabernacles, O Israel !—As the valleys are they spread forth; as gardens by the river-side: as the trees of lign aloes which the Lord hath planted.'—Numb. xxiv. 5, 6.

Fo

OR the completion of the task undertaken in these Lectures, viz. a study of the leading forms of Dissent in this country, and of their relation to the National Church, it only now remains to gather up the various threads of our inquiry, and to knot them into a conclusion. We have passed in review,-I trust, in no censorious or unfriendly spirit, although with outspoken truthfulness-six of the more important Denominations, which now exist in England. We have noticed how curiously they fall into pairs; and how each pair represents the two extreme poles of ecclesiastical thought, which prevailed respectively in the sixteenth, the seventeenth, and the eighteenth centuries. We have seen too how each denomination finds its counterpart, and point of attachment, within the Church of England itself; each being, in reality, nothing else than an interior dissension-such as always must exist in a free and healthy Churchcarried to a dangerous extreme, and ripened into exterior dissent. And we have observed, accordingly, that

each separated communion-unlike any really foreign and irreconcilable form of religion, such as Brahminism. or Positivism-offers important lessons for the Mother Church; and ought to awaken, among those to whose fidelity and statesmanship she is committed, the most anxious reflections, as to the possibility of improving her arrangements and of re-enkindling the dormant enthusiasm of her children.

For no one can surely doubt, that the Church of England might, with a very little skill, be made to root herself far more deeply in the affections of her own people than she has ever yet done'. No one, whose vision is not narrowed by partizanship, can doubt that she might, even now, with a good deal of prudence and self-devotion, be made once more (virtually) the Church of this whole nation. No one ought to doubt that, once reunited and self-disciplined she might, ere many generations were over, fulfil that magnificent part in the unfolding drama of history, to which her Divine Master seems to be every day more clearly calling and fitting her, viz. to become the reconciler of the great divisions of Christendom, and the peacemaker among the nations of the earth.

In making her approaches towards the fulfilment of

1

According to a carefully constructed 'Balance-sheet of the Church of England,' lately published by the Yorkshire Union of Church Institutes,' the voluntary contributions entrusted annually to her management amount to £5,445,298: while the entire gross amount of her standing endowments only amount to £4,200,255. Add to this, the testimony of men whom no one can accuse of bigoted attachment to her cause I know not that the Church

of England, as regards London, was ever stronger than now.' (Ritchie, Religious Life of London, p. 80.) 'Never were her services so well attended; never were her clergy more useful than now... In the East [of London], where the poverty is too great to admit of the existence of a church on Dissenting principles, the church is in some parishes the only place of worship, and the churchclergyman the only religious teacher.' (Ibid. p. 82.)

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