Page:The Church of England, its catholicity and continuity.djvu/21

 some of its champions, and, above all, I shall endeavour to show that the Church of England has grown out of the first Christian movement known to have come to Britain. We shall see that the first line of Archbishops belonged to the Church of England, as distinct from the Roman Church, as much as Archbishop Temple belongs to us to-day.

It will be as well to give at the outset the subjects of the Lectures which I hope to deliver. To-night I shall speak upon the founding of the Church of England. Then, in order, I shall show how the Papal power tried to usurp the religious life of England, and that the nation was continually resisting the Roman claim. I shall speak of the Reformation, explaining what that movement really meant. The rise, progress, and work of the Puritans will come next under consideration. Then will follow a lecture in the form of a biography of Bishop Andrewes and Archbishop Laud, in which we will estimate the value of their work and character. We shall conclude the course with an account of the Oxford Movement, referring to the circumstances which gave it birth, and with a lecture dealing with the renewed life in the Church of England during the last sixty years.

To-night I am to speak upon the Founding of the Church. The time covered in this Lecture will extend from the beginning of the Christian Era to the year 690, the death of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Very little is known about the religious history of our ancestors during the first century of the Christian Era. The early Britons were heathens, and had a form of religion called Druidism. They made the oak and the mistletoe objects of veneration and worship. They are said to have