Anglican Identity: Historical, Ecumenical and Contemporary Reflections

Extract

In the first of the Tracts for the Times John Henry Newman famously posed the question of Anglican Identity, ‘On what ground do you stand, O presbyter of the Church of England?’ He answered his own question in terms of the apostolic commission and succession of the episcopate, and concluded—possibly drawing on what he had learnt from the Evangelical Joseph Milner's Church History, with its high praise of the martyr bishop St. Cyprian as an exemplar for all Christian bishops—that he could wish the episcopate of the Church of England no more ‘blessed termination of their course than the spoliation of their goods and martyrdom’.