views of expediency. On one side was alleged St. Peter's authority; on the other, St. John's. The former was preferred; because even the advocates for native usages admitted that Christ had intrusted to Cephas "the keys of the kingdom of heaven"."

Wilfrid, the principal Romish advocate upon this occasion, soon afterwards was driven from the see which had rewarded his exertions. In his distress, he sought a refuge in the papal court, and authorities there pronounced his deprivation uncanonical and unjust. Vainly, however, did this opinion, although strengthened by a letter from the Pontiff, seek for acquiescence from Wilfrid's countrymen. They treated with open contumely the results of this application, ordinarily represented as the first English appeal to the Roman sees. Even Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, foreigner as he was, and papal nominee besides, appears to have recognised no alien right of jurisdiction over the land of his adoption. He consecrated the two prelates, between whom, by royal authority, Wilfrid's diocese was divided, and if not an open adversary of that remarkable personage, he was at least a passive spectator of his misfortunes".

In the next age, Rome, once glorious in

the Church as "the faithful city," tarnished indelibly her lustre, by maintaining solemnly the worship of images. The Deutero-Nicene decrees, inculcating this principle, were transmitted by Charlemain to the Mercian Offa. By that powerful prince they were submitted to the spiritual guides of England. These, decisively, as they saw the papal see committed in them, treated them with unreserved contempt. Our English theologians plainly pronounced, that the Bithynian synod had approved "many things unsuitable to the Church of God, and contrary to the true faith; especially the worship of images, an usage altogether execrated by the Catholic Church" Who will believe, that men thus indifferent to the Pontiff's credit and authority could have acknowledged him as the supreme arbiter of the Christian world? Nay more: as iconolatry had long been sanctioned by papal influence, how came our distant ancestry to have been wholly unprepared for that solemn decision, which formally engrafted it upon the Roman faith? How came Egbert, Archbishop of York, one of the most celebrated prelates of his day, to supply us with a passage, (mutilated indeed, but sufficiently plain,) proving that the religious use of images was, when he lived, wholly forbidden

and reprobated by the Church of England"? In Italy it was then far otherwise. Again: how came Alcuin to have been recommended by Charlemain to the council of Frankfort; that famous assembly which condemned the Deutero-Nicene decrees? Undoubtedly our illustrious countryman brought from home principles adverse to the religious use of images. His, indeed, was the pen which wrote, on the part of his native land, an epistle, admirably confuting from Scripture, as we are told, those decisions which have brought so much obloquy upon the second council of Nice. To Alcuin, it has hence been inferred, posterity owes the Caroline Books; those inestimable monuments of a distant age and an unsullied faith "2. At least, we cannot doubt that Charlemain spoke, in their far-famed and most important pages, the sentiments of his revered English friend. That very work affords, therefore, an additional proof, that England in the eighth century neither allowed the worship of images, nor that papal authority which then sought to establish such an usage throughout the west.

This neglect, however, of the Pontiff's authority resulted not from any temporary disgust or alienation. On the contrary, Offa, then preeminent among Anglo-Saxon

princes, gladly received two legates of the Roman see, at the time, or very near it, when the Deutero-Nicene Fathers were earning an ever-memorable name. Anxious to mortify the Kentish court, and the prelate who filled the see of Canterbury, Offa determined upon establishing a metropolitan within his own dominions, and he sought to conciliate popularity for his purpose, by the judgment of Roman canonists in its favour. His Italian visitors refused not their approbation; and it is remarkable, that they describe themselves as the only bearers of a papal commission to England, since the time of Augustine". For such legations, indeed, the ordinary course of Anglo-Saxon polity afforded very little opportunity. Advice and information were the only objects of our distant ancestors in applying to their Italian friends. To the exercise of any ecclesiastical authority above that of the see of Canterbury, we are expressly assured they were utter strangers11.

In that see, accordingly, without even the form of a reference to Rome, was vested a controul over episcopal vacancies. On the death of their prelate, the principal inhabitants of a diocese, both clerical and lay, elected a successor. This individual was then presented to his metropolitan, and on conse

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cration he was required to swear canonical obedience to no other '5. The metropolitans themselves were indeed in the habit of receiving a pall from the papal see: an insidious compliment, which eventually undermined the independence of their several churches. But this consummation had not arrived within the Anglo-Saxon period. No member of our national religious establishment, as then existing, was reduced to the humiliating necessity of recognising any alien authority whatsoever, as entitled to interfere in the domestic affairs of England.

The supreme direction of religious concerns within their dominions, was indeed an undisputed and uninterrupted prerogative of our Anglo-Saxon kings. Hence among their ordinances are found many of a character strictly ecclesiastical; and among the privileges which they exercised are some which later ages have reserved exclusively for the papal see. Nay more: the monarchs of this ancient race have even made use of titles appropriated commonly to the Roman pontiffs. Thus Edgar styles himself "the Vicar of Christ," and Edward the Confessor asserts, that, as "Vicar of the Supreme King," his duty called him to rule the Church of God. Now these two sovereigns were eminently