Church Society - National Church League

Church Society - National Church League

National Church League : "For the Defence and Promotion of the Reformed Faith of the Church of England."

"Catholic - Apostolic - Reformed - Protestant"

The National Church League was formed in 1906 by the amalgamation of the Church of England League and the National Protestant Church Union.

The League was amalgamated with Church Association, and renamed as Church Society in 1950.

In the first annual report it was stated:

"The League appeals only to loyal members of the Church of England. It is not a party, or political organization, and has no connection with any other Society."

Its chief objects were:

"To unite in one association all members of the Church of England who feel the necessity of supporting the principles of the Church as based on the Bible, and set forth in the Prayer Book, and the 39 Articles.

To encourage the promotion of true Scriptural religion in Home life and in Society. To set forward works of piety and charity, in cordial co-operation with the clegy of all schools who are faithful to the principles of the English Reformation.

To found schools and training colleges, to inculcate, spread and defend the principles of the Church, not with rigid uniformity, but in the broad and tolerant spirit which has ever been the glory of the Church of England.

To support the authorities of the Church in the maintenance of the law, and to prevent the introduction into the service of the Church of anything forbidden by the Prayer Books, which is the standard of worship and doctrine in the English Church.

To urge upon all patrons of Church livings the duty of avoiding the appointment of clergymen who hold in contempt the work of the Reformation, who advocate the adoration of the Sacrament, who seek to impose private confession, who invocate the Virgin mary and the Saints, or who teach any doctrine repudiated by the Church of Engalnd.

To provide definite instruction in the history of Christiantiy; and to awaken the nation to the dangers with which Chuch, homes, the right of conscience, and the Empire are threatened, by the attempt to interpose the preist between God and man, and to re-constitute Priestcraft as an authoritative guide in faith and morals.

To show by means of lectures, meetings, and the circulation of literature, that the chief teachings and practices of Ritualism are irreconcilable with the teachings and practices of the primitive Catholic Church. They are merely a revival of mediaeval superstitions which the Church disowned at the reformation."

The first Chairman of the League was Dean Henry Wace.

The Church Gazette was the magazine of the National Church League up until the merger with Church Association in 1950. The Gazzette had begun as the magazine of the Ladies League. Lady Cornelia Wimborne, President of the Ladies League, wrote : “The Gazette we have now published will be the means of informing the public both of our work and of the Church questions of the day, at the modest sum of three shillings a years we trust it will obtain large circulation.”