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He was cordially ac

things that were wanting." cepted, and became, in fact, the second founder of the Church of England. No one of his predecessors is to be compared with this truly great and holy man. Nevertheless, he had marked faults and infirmities, and was not always considerate in dealing with what, no doubt, he considered as yet a mere mission among a rude and half-Christianized people, "wellnigh severed from the whole world."

17. PERILOUS INNOVATIONS.

It has been necessary for me to go thus largely into the character of the Primitive British and the Early English Churches, in order to free later questions from the difficulties with which profound and unpardonable ignorance has encumbered the mat

ter. We are now nearly at the end of the seventh century. The island has been Christianized from the Apostles' times. Its ultimate conversion and the Anglican Church, as a unit, result not from the Latin mission, but from Nicene churches, coming southward in their simplicity and purity from Iona and Lindisfarne. During this whole period the churches have enjoyed the insular privileges secured by the Cypriote canon to all churches so situated. The coming of Theodore was marked by one circumstance which shows how jealous. were the native churches of all foreign intrusion. Augustine and his successors had leaned too much on Rome as their natural base of supplies, and this had doubtless increased their difficulties. A thorough and immediate identification of themselves

with the native Christians would have worked better. Grace had been given to others to repair the breach, and to heal the old wounds. But Theodore's consecration with an implication that he was to be their "metropolitan," when they had elected Wighart, and without waiting for their action in the choice of another, was an infraction of discipline; more especially as the Church of England had never recognized as yet any metropolitical power whatever in the see of Canterbury. Wilfrid, now Bishop of York, had proved this, by going into France to be consecrated, which would have been resented by the then Bishop of Canterbury had he possessed any canonical right to consecrate the bishops of England. This same Wilfrid had seen the importance of accepting the Easter usages enjoined by Nicæa, and had favoured unity with the Latins of Kent and Surrey; but in the circumstances he showed, perhaps, only a proper self-respect by refusing attendance at Theodore's synods.

18. COMPROMISES.

However, by the humility of St. Chad, who represented the Northern churches, things were so far harmonized that he became Bishop of Lichfield, and Wilfrid was appeased, so that all things were ready for harmonious action. A synod was called at Hertford by the authority of the Saxon princes, where the old canons were examined and local canons passed. By these Theodore was virtually accepted as the first Metropolitan of the Church of England; according to the canons, that is, and

not by any authority of a foreign bishop. To show Theodore's own convictions on the subject, in which the churches and the local princes sustained him, he refused all recognition of Agatho, Bishop of Rome, when he presumed to interfere in the matter of a bishop deprived of his see. He did much more, and in a more important matter: for whereas Honorius, Pope of the city of Rome, fell into the Monothelite heresy, and was subsequently condemned as a heretic,1 Theodore summoned a council (A. D. 680) at Hatfield, just at the time when the sixth and last general council was held at Constantinople, for the same purpose, in which this heresy was condemned. This council of Hatfield marks a great point in the Anglican history; for it thoroughly recognized the Nicene Councils and Constitutions, and all the councils œcumenical, placing the united Church of the Britons and Saxons on the unequivocal base of Holy Scripture and primitive antiquity.

19. WHAT ITS FIRST ARCHBISHOP HAD MADE OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH.

In this happy estate Theodore the Great, as he may justly be called, left the Church of England, when (A. D. 690) he rested from his labours. He was nearly ninety years of age, and had sat in his see two-and-twenty years. He founded schools, increased learning, and left scholars who were masters of the Latin tongue not only, but of the Greek also, the native tongue of Theodore himself. 1 See Lecture III. § 27, page 107.

To such schools we owe the precious life and labours of Bede, and of the great Alcuin, of whom we have heard before. So stood the Church of our forefathers at the close of the seventh century.

20. THE VENERABLE BEDE.

We enter the new century at the date of Bede's ordination in the thirtieth year of his age. He loved the Latin churches and the see of Rome, to which he felt that the Saxons owed their Christianity, and his fidelity to this sentiment amounted in him wellnigh to a passion. But it was to the canonical dignity and character of the Apostolic See that he was attached. He owed it no subscription. In the year after his ordination to the presbyterate, an English council took occasion to declare that "No decree of English archbishops and bishops. should ever be altered by any decrees of the Apostolic See." This was precisely the position of Dinoth and the British bishops in their answer to Augustine. The greatest men of this age, and those most attached to the Latin rites and usages, reaffirmed this position two years later at a conference in Yorkshire; adding a strong defiance of any foreign power presuming to interfere with what the synods of the national Church had decreed.

21. FIRST ENGLISH MISSIONS.

Now went forth Winfrid (or Boniface) on his great mission to the Franks, and the light of Eng

But many

land began to illuminate the world. things in England itself began to awaken the anxiety of Bede, who reflects upon them with prudent reserve, and says, "Time will show." Egbert, the patron of Alcuin, was now Bishop of York, and Bede complains to him of the great ignorance of the peasantry, sending him copies of the Lord's Prayer and the Creed in the vulgar tongue, which he entreats may be used by the clergy in teaching the people. Here was in rudiments our own Catechism begun. And, indeed, now were the seeds of a subsequent restoration planted; for, in reproving the corruptions of the monasteries and other evils. which afterwards arose, he writes like a reformer. He was one of the greatest doctors of the age, and he met his death on Ascension day, May 25, A. D. 735, with his pen in hand, translating the Gospel of St. John into English. In the cathedral of Durham you may see his tomb and his epitaph:

"Hic jacent in fossa

Bedæ Venerabilis ossa."

"Here lie 'neath these stones

Bede the Venerable's bones.

22. THE LATER PERIOD.

Of Alcuin and his transcendent merits you have been so fully reminded that I add no more about him. Thus we reach the epoch which closes the history of the early English period, at the memorable date of Charlemagne, A. D. 800. In that same year Egbert began his reign. He nominally was

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