_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.