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of Berkshire, 20 received Christianity under its King, Cynegilsus; Oswald, King of Northumbria, being his godfather, and Birinus being its first bishop, settled at Dorchester, in Oxfordshire, A.D. 635. What countryman this bishop was, says William of Malmesbury, could never be known; but at Birinus's death, this kingdom relapsed into Heathenism; from whence it was recovered A.D. 650, under Coinwalch, the successor of Cynegilsus, by Bishop Agilbert, from Gaul, already mentioned; who had studied among the Irish Scots.

21 Upon a review, then, of the Anglo-Saxon Church in Britain during these times, it will be seen that from the Frith of Edinburgh on the North, to the river Thames on the South, the establishment or the re-establishment of Christianity was owing to the Britons, Scots, or such of the Anglo-Saxons, as were educated among them, excepting only Felix, Bishop of the East Angles. And the like, if we omit the kingdom of Kent, founded by Hengist, about A.D. 457, was also the case with the remainder of the country, though in an inferior degree. 22 At this time, although reckoned as belonging to the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, the independent Britons in the West, as Cornwall, and in the North, as Cumberland, with their dependencies, had their independent Churches, princes, and bishops. 23 The bishops and other clergy, educated or ordained by the Irish Scots, and their people, of the kingdoms of Northumbria, Mercia, and the East Saxons, were, at this period, wholly free from any subjection to, or dependance upon the Roman mission, which, as we have seen, began under Augustine, in Kent. Thus,

20 Bede, III., vii., 109-111. Malmesburiensis, II., de Episcopis Occident., Saxon. 240, in Rer. Anglic. Script. post Bedam.: Francof., 1601.

21 Inett's Origines Anglicanæ, or History of the Church of England, I., iv. § x. 60. London, 1704.

Usser, XVII., 478; XV., 348. Stillingfleet, V., 513, 514, and notes.

23 Usher's Discourse of the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British, X., 115, 116. London, 1631.

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In this Tract, 21.

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then, it is evident from the foregoing pages, that Aidan and his disciples restored the Church in, or "converted the larger part of England," and a considerable portion of Scotland, now so called. These were men of "extraordinary sanctity of life, and painfulness in preaching the Gospel; wherein they went far beyond those of the" Roman mission, "that afterwards entered upon their labours."

We have already heard that Deus-dedit of Canterbury having deceased, A.D. 664, that bishopric remained vacant for several years, 24 upon which Egbert, King of Kent, and Oswy, King of Northumbria, made choice of Wighard, a Presbyter of Kent, and sent him to Rome for ordination, to supply the vacancy occasioned by Deus-dedit's decease. Deus-dedit, otherwise Frithena, was a West-Saxon; all his predecessors had been Romans; Wighard also was an Anglo-Saxon. But Wighard, and all who accompanied him, died of the plague at Rome; when Vitalian, the Bishop of Rome, seizing the opportunity, A.D. 668, ordained Theodore, a Greek of Tarsus, in Asia, a man of great learning; and he became the first metropolitan, properly speaking, of Canterbury. Under the auspices of these two potent princes of the Anglo-Saxons of Kent and Northumbria just mentioned, Theodore held a metropolitical visitation, A.D. 669, which, and its consequences, we can relate only in few words. 25 Ceadda, Bishop of Northumbria, consecrated by two British, and one of the Anglo Saxon bishops, and whose preceptor was Aidan, his predecessor, upon the instigation of Theodore, resigned his see, to which Wilfrid was re-admitted; and, after some interval, Ceadda became Bishop of Mercis

26

P Wharton's Defence of Pluralities, 72, London, 1692. Usser. ibid. 116.

24 Bede, IV., i., ii., 141-143, compared with III. xx. 125. ≈ Bede, III., xxviii., 137, 138; IV., ìi., 143. See in this Track 26, 27.

26 Bede, IV., iii., 143. Lloyd, VI., § 9, 134, and note m, 133, &c. Usher's Discourse, ibid., 108, and note k.

having shortly before joined the Anglo-Saxon Church, under Theodore; being received with imposition of his hands. In this way a large portion of England, with part of Scotland, now so called, came under his authority; as did the remainder in various ways, as far as the Anglo-Saxon power extended; so that, as Bede relates, 27 Theodore was the first of the successors of Augustine to whom the Churches of the AngloSaxons at large submitted. 28 For Cedda, Bishop of the East-Saxons, elder brother of Ceadda, had previously, A.D. 664, when the conference on Easter was concluded, attached himself to the Anglo-Saxon Church; and thus, through them, a commencement was effected for the amalgamation of the British and Saxon Churches, 29 which centuries after, when Bernard, the first Norman Bishop of St. David's, chaplain of King Henry I., acknowledged what he had disputed in the Council of Rheims, in France, A.D. 1148, the primacy of Canterbury was fully completed. And thus, by this amalgamation, the Church of England, also clearly tracing its descent from the ancient British Church, is apostolical in its origin. 30 We omit, then, any lengthened notice of the dispute on the proper time for the observance of Easter, in the conference at Streansalch, or Whitby, in Yorkshire, A.D. 664, between Colman, Bishop of Lindisfarne, on the part of the Britons and Scots, and Wilfrid on that of the Roman Church. The true stateCement, however, of this matter is, that the Britons and Scots adhered to the Cycle of eighty-four years, which the Roman Church had used till about A.D. 525, when the latter adopted another Cycle of nineteen years, and to which Wilfrid demanded acquiescence, as though of apostolical appointment. I hasten to the following particular.

Bede, IV. ii., 143.

*

Godwin, under Bernardus, 576.

Antiq., V., 45, 46.

See in this Tract, 4, 5.

28 Ibid., III., xxvi. 134.

Usser. Britan. Eccles.

Bede, III., xxv., 131-134. Lloyd, II., § 9, 90, and notes, compared with Bede, V., xxii., 216, 217. See in this Tract, 21, 26, and note *.

SECTION II.

The Church of England Episcopal in its Government.

The Episcopacy of the Holy Scriptures established in the Epistles of St. Paul to Timothy and Titus, 32.-The Apostolical origin of Episcopacy; how much insisted upon by ancient and modern Church writers; and wherein-the continuing and abiding portions of their office-Bishops are successors of the Apostles, 32, 33.-Proofs of ancient British Episcopacy from the Council of Arles, in the time of Constantine the Great; and from the latter conference of the British clergy with Augustine, the Roman missionary, 33, 34.

THAT the Church of Christ has been episcopal in its government, even from the Apostles' times, 31 is evident to those who consider the Epistles of St. Paul addressed to Timothy and Titus. In the century succeeding that of the Apostles, 32 "Tertullian," observes Stillingfleet, "puts the proof of apostolical churches upon the succession of bishops from the Apostles, which were a senseless way of proceeding, unless it were taken for granted, that wherever the Apostles planted Churches, they appointed bishops to take of them." Tertullian, in his work on Prescription, here referred to by Stillingfleet, challenges his opponents of the newly risen Heretics; 33 "Let them shew," says he, "the Original of their Churches,that their first bishop had either some apostle, or some apostolical man, living in the time of the Apostles, for his author, or immediate predecessor." Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, almost contemporary with Tertullian, observes, in his epistle to Cornelius, Bishop of

31 Morton's Episcopacy of the Church of England justified to be Apostolical, IV., iii., 78, &c. London, 1670.

32 Stillingfleet, II., 116, quotes Tertullian de Præscript., XXXII. For the original Latin of Tertullian and Cyprian, see Potter's Discourse of Church Government, 168, note; 179, note t.

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Rome; "We ought to labour, and employ diligence, in order to obtain that unity, which is derived from our Lord, through the Apostles to us, their successors." 34 The bishops then upon the departure or death of the apostles became "their successors," as the very learned Bishop Pearson remarks, in the continuing and abiding portions of their office ;-in the ruling of the Church, and in ordaining and appointing the various orders of men for its service. 35 And if, from the loss of our Church records, arising from political changes, and various persecutions, we cannot, in Britain, trace up the Episcopal succession to the Apostolic times, yet immediately the Church had breathed from the lengthened persecution of Diocletian, and Constantine had summoned the first general Western Council, at Arles, in Gaul, we have sufficient proof, taken in conjunction with the universality of Episcopal Government, that the British Church had, from its origin, agreed with 36 "the Church," in the words of Irenæus, "diffused over the whole earth." For in this general Council of Arles, we have, as subscribing to its Canons:

37 Eborius, Bishop of York,

Restitutus, Bishop of London,

Adelfius, Bishop of Caerleon.

38 Other councils, foreign and domestic, might be adduced to the same effect; but this is unnecessary, especially when we shall have the concessions of Salmasius and Blondel, when pleading for parity in matters of Church government. Let it then suffice

Pearsonii Oper. Posthum. De Successione, &c., IX., iii., 72, 73, &c., compared with ix., 82-84. Londini, 1688. Barrow's Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy, III., § 7-10, 116-118. London, 1680.

35 Stillingfleet, ibid.

36 Irenæus adv. Hæres, I., x., 48, 49. Paris, 1710. Stillingfleet's Rational Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion, II., i., in his Works, IV., 288.

Stillingfleet's Orig. Britan., or the Antiq. of the British Churches, II., 112–115.

Ibid., Index, under Council,-David.

In this Tract, 40.

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