BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH

First Period

FROM THE PLANTING OF THE CHURCH IN BRITAIN TO
THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII.,

596-1509

A HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH Second Period

FROM THE ACCESSION OF HENRY VIII. TO THE SILENCING OF CONVOCATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, 1509-1717

The right of translation is reserved.

PREFACE

THE present volume completes the Student's Manual of English Church History, and brings to a conclusion a work which has been the labour of many years. This volume is intended to displace the short sketch of the history of the eighteenth century inserted as an Appendix in the first edition of Part II., and to supply a history of the present century down to the year 1884. It is now more than twenty years since I first wrote the History of the Church of England in the Eighteenth Century. At that time no one, I think, had attempted it. Since my book was published (1864) numerous writers have employed themselves on this period. this period. Of these Messrs. Abbey and Overton are distinguished for the fulness of the information furnished by them, the result of very extended research, and the numerous biographies of bishops and others, to be found in their pages. In spite, however, of the great amount of information on this period now within the reach of the public, there seems still room for a concise and systematic account of the eighteenth century, which I have endeavoured to furnish here. As regards the history of the nineteenth century, the work has been found one of considerable difficulty. To treat, indeed, the religious history of the present century in absolute historical fashion, within the compass of a

small work, seems almost impossible. I have endeavoured to set before students the main points of interest, preserving chronological order as much as possible. I have also endeavoured to give somewhat of the history of opinion in the Church by means of numerous quotations from pamphlets, charges, etc. I do not flatter myself that I have altogether succeeded, or that my statements will be accepted by all as fair representations. I have endeavoured honestly to make them so, but in speaking of contemporary events, one cannot altogether occupy the position of an outsider; and a colourless and dispassionate criticism is not, perhaps, the temper most suitable for a narrator of events having the strongest bearing upon the most weighty of all subjects.