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    sat there were turned to Aidan" ( one of their number ) ; that " they determined that he was worth y of the episcopal office , ( esse dignum episcopatu , ) and thus ordaining him , they sent him to preach" ( sicque ilium ordinantes , ad praedicandum miserunt ) : —the old English Version says , " thus making

    him Bishop , they sent him fbrthe to preach . * ' To this mission the great and venerable establishment of Lindisfarne or Holy Island owes its foundation . At his death Bede further reports , that " Finan in his stead received the degree of Bishopric , being ordained and sent by the Scots ; " and the same account is given of Colman , the successor of Finan , under whom the Roman institutions got the better of the Scotch .

    To what precise extent the Culdees or any other branches of the old Irish and British churches differed from the Roman Church , it must now be a matter of difficulty to discover . It would be surprising if they did not differ to a considerable degree , considering their local separation and the very small extent to which up to that period the papal court could have exercised any supremacy , if the parties had been supposed to submit to it . The ancient British churches , left to themselves , followed the traditions of their immediate

    ancestors , and perhaps adopted ( as in the case of the bishops ) from time to time those institutions which the exigencies of particular cases pointed out . In truth , it is rather amusing to see such eagerness subsequently shewn b y the papal court , to prove submission where obedience does not appear to have been thought of , either as being worth requiring on the one hand , or as ever likely to be asked on the other—where , in short , any submission which could have existed must have been merely theoretical . Nothing appears to be more probable in itself nor more consistent with historical testimony ,

    than that the papal supremacy was gradual ; that it arose out of many concurring circumstances , ajjd was long doubtful even among its immediate neighbours . One cannot be surprised that the British Christians should think the supremacy of the Bishop of Rome strange doctrine to be preached and practically enforced upon them , when even several centuries later we find the bishop of an Italian see plainly saying , he would have his nose slit rather than recognize any supremacy in his brother bishop of Rome . ( See Dr . M ' Crie's History of the Reformation in Italy . )

    There can be no doubt , however , that whencesoever the British and Irisb cjerived their earliest Christian institutions , and however they maintained them after Saxon heathens had intervened between their establishments and tthe rest of Europe , considerable peculiarities were found to exist when the Romish and British missionaries came in contact with each other .

    In doctrinal essentials there was probably then little difference . Pelagianism , it is true , had found its most favoured reception among the countrymen qf its author , but the arguments of St . Germanus and St . Lupus , or the miracles which conveniently assisted in their enforcement , had , if we are to believe Catholic writers , eradicated altogether a heresy before most widely diffused .

    Whatever we may think of the probability of this perfect restoration , to doctrinal orthodoxy , the whole course of events , in the early progress of the efforts of the court of Rome , through Augustine and his successors , to convert the Saxons , shews that the Catholic missionaries met on their progress with missionaries employed on the same work from the ancient British or Irish church , who , in some points , differed very considerably from the , Roman usages ; that difficulties arose in consequence ; that concession , to a considerable extent was , for a time at least , found necessary and was accordingly made ; and that , after all , the Catholic Saxpn Church was one

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    860 The Culdees ofloHa .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1827, page 860, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1803/page/4/