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 III.

I maintain communion with the Church of England, not MERELY because she is established by law.

This, like the two former reasons, is a sufficient one to enforce my continuance in communion with the Church of England, unless she be found, after due inquiry, to be contrary, in her constitution or doctrines, to the word of God. For I am required to “submit myself to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” Nothing can justify my departure from a church so established, but the well-known decision in cases where the law of God and the law of man are in opposition to each other. In any such case the duty is clear to “obey God rather than man.”

Such an opposition may exist between human laws and the law of God; and therefore “I maintain communion with the Church of England, not MERELY because she is established by law.”