Short Reasons for Communion with the Church of England / Or, The Churchman's answer to the question, "Why are you a Member of the Established Church?"

by Thomas Tregenna Biddulph

REASON II.

I maintain communion with the Church of England, not MERELY because she is ancient and venerable.

Her antiquity is a sufficient reason to justify my continuance in her communion, if it can be shown that nothing materially differing from the primitive and apostolic Church, in doctrine or discipline, has, in the long course of her existence, been introduced into her constitution. For the more ancient any Church can prove to be, the nearer is the approach to the source of Divine authority and sanction. Now the Church of England existed long before her corruption by popery; and the labours and sufferings of her Martyrs in the sixteenth century were employed, not in planting a new Church, but in correcting gross abuses in one which had been long established. They are therefore called Reformers. The Church of England, as is highly probable, was planted by St. Paul; and we know from credible history, that there was a church in Britain during the apostolic age, and that there were bishops who presided in it soon after that period.

But as that which is ancient may have been corrupted, antiquity alone would not fully justify my continuance in any visible Church, though it strongly enforces the necessity of earnestness and diligence in inquiring about the reality and nature of the supposed corruption, before I venture to quit the Church of which I have been made by baptism a member.