Christiantiy in Great Britain (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1874 Excerpt: ... Court of Queen's Bench. The parish church is the property, not of a sect, but of the parish. The revenues of the Church are intended to provide religious instruction and the institutions of religious worship for the nation. There is no concordat between the Church and the State in this country; for a concordat or alliance, to quote Burke's language again, can exist only "between two things that are in their nature distinct and independent," and the English Church has no distinct and independent existence. There is no such corporation known to English law as the Church of England. The Church cannot sue or be sued. It can hold no property. In the event of its disestablishment, it will be necessary to create a corporation to receive whatever portion of the existing ecclesiastical revenues may be appropriated to its use, The theory which identifies the nation with the Church was carried out in former times with relentless severity. To refuse to submit to the National Creed was made a crime. Henry VIII. and his Parliament made it a felony to deny the Sacrifice of the Mass, and punished the denial with death. Under Elizabeth, two men were put to death for being Anabaptists, and two more under James I. for being Arians. To be present at any other form of worship than that prescribed by the Book of Common Prayer, was punishable by imprisonment under the 5th and 6th Edward VI., c. 1, and one of the earliest acts of Queen Elizabeth empowered the churchwardens to levy a fine of twelve pence. for absence from church without reasonable excuse. Under Charles II. it was decreed, in a series of Acts, that no person should be capable of holding any municipal office who had not, within a year previous to his election, taken the Lord's Supper according to the rites of the Chu...