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"I give ih^e Books
for Vief(>ii}iding,iifit£ollegi in this Colony'

Presented by the Author

LECTimES

EARLY HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY
IN ENGLAND.

0enn0ns

DELIYEBED ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

THOMAS WINTHROP COIT, D.D., LL.D.,
EBCTOR OF ST. PAUl'S CHURCH, TROT, N. T.

" Ego tamen Deo nostro gratias ago, quod in his libris non qualis essem, cu
multa desunt, sed qualis esse debeat, qui in doctrina sana, id est, Christiana, non
solum sibi, sed etiam aliis laborare studet, quantulacunque potuit facultate." —
8t. AttgtisPme de Doct. Christ.

LONDON:
W. WELLS GARDNER, 10 PATERNOSTER ROW.
1860.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S59,
Bt Thomas W. Coit,
In the Clerk's OfBce of the District Court of the United States for the
Northern District of New York.

NEW YORK :
BILLIN AND BROTHER, PRINTERS,
XX, NORTH WILUAM ST.

TO THE
|ms|i0n,ers af St. Iral's €\mt\, %xau, p. |.
BEFORE WHOM
THESE LECTURES AND SERMONS WERE DELIVERED;
AND FROM "WHOM
THB AUTHOE HAS EBOEIVED MTJOH KINDNESS,
SliJEj ttu itoSn JitlluatllT,
¦WITH 8IN0KEB SENTIMENTS
OF
REBPEOT AND AFFECTION.

NOTICE.

These Lectures and Sermons have not sought publicity. Their
author has ofl»n been asked to print these, or similar produc
tions, and has often declined to do so ; waiting (if God should
grant it) for a period of leisure, to enable him to review the
labors of years gone by. Last Christmas Day, however, a sub
scription list was handed him, the object of which was to defray
the expense of a printed volume, and to make of that volume
a present to himself, suited to a festive religious season. Such
a gift, under such circumstances, he could not well refuse, and
the result has been the following book. The Lectures on the
Early History of Christianity in England are unfinished ; but,
as they were particularly asked for, all which had been written
were given to the press. The notes are designed, of course, for
those only who wish to examine the subject somewhat more
critically. Any reader who finds them cumbersome can easily
pass them by, and confine himself to the text alone.
Rectoet, St. Paul's Church, Trot, )
AprU 5, 1859. )

CONTENTS.

LECTURE L

Christianity in Britain derived from the East, and not from
Rome. — As old in Britain as it is in Italy.  1

LECTURE n.
Sketch of the Christian History of Britain, to the Invasion of the
Pagan Saxons, and the Retreat of the Christian Britons into
Wales and Cornwall  35

LECTURE in.
The Italian Mission of Gregory the First to East England, at the
close of the Sixth Century. — Ita Motives and earlier For
tunes  66

LECTURE IV.
Bearing of the new Religion from Rome towards the old Chris
tianity, which it encountered in the British Isles  101

LECTURE V.
Means by which Romanism intruded and fastened itself upon
the British Isles. — Proof that it was not the principal
Means of converting the Pagans there, and was not at all
necessary for converting them  136

Vm CONTENTS. SERMON L
THE QUESTIONER OF FUNDAMENTAL TEKITIE8.
"And the serpent said unto the woman, Te shall not surely die.
For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then
your eyes shall be opened ; and ye shall be as gods, know
ing good and evU." — Genesis, iii. 4, 5  177
SERMON II.
THE EUKNING BUSH: nS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS.
" And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him, out of the midst
of a bush; and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned
with fire, and the hush was not consumed." — Exodus, iii. 2. 193
SERMON in.
HISTORY OF THE SOUL: IIB ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINT.
" And the Lord God formed raan of tbe dust of the ground, and
breathed into his nostrils the breath of hfe ; and man be
came a living soul." — Genesis, ii. 7  213
SERMON IV.
PROVIDENCES OF GOD IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN.
" Now, Naaman, captain of the host of the King of Syria, was a
great man with his master, and honorable, because by him
the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria : he was also a
mighty man in valor, but he was a leper." — 2 Kings, v. 1. . 232
SERMON V.
god's uses of evil beings.
FROM THB PSALTER.
"Slay them not, lest my people forget it; but scatter them
abroad among the people, and put them down, 0 Lord, our
defence." — Psalm lix. H  247

CONTENTS. IX
SERMON VI.
THE RAINBOW.
" And God said. This is the token of the covenant which I make
between me and you, and every living creature that is with
you, for perpetual generations : I dp set my bow in the
cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me
and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a
cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the
cloud : and I will remember my covenant which is between
me and you, and every living creature of all flesh ; and the
waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
And the bow shall be in the cloud ; and I will look upon it,
that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God
and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant
which I have established between me and aU flesh that is
upon the earth." — Genesis, 'vs.. 12-17  264

SERMON VIL
SUBMISSION OF THE WILL, A PREREQUISITE FOB KNOWLEDGE.
TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY.
" If any man wiU do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." — John,
vii. 17  280
SERMON VIIL
THE REPENTANCE OF THE WOMAN wmCH WAS A SINNER.
FOR SEXAGE3IMA SUNDAY.
" And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when
she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee's house,
brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet
behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears,
and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed
his feet, and anointed them with the ointment." — Luke,
vu. 37, 38  297

CONTENTS.

SERMON IX.
THE STANDARD OF APPEAL ON DOUBTFUL POINTS, WHERE THE BIBLE
FAILS TO PRODUCE UNITY.
" For the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess
that he was Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue."
— John, ix. 22. " Behold, I thought, he will surely come
out to me." — 2 Kings, v. 11. "I verily thought with my
self, that I ought to do many things contrary to the name ,
of Jesus of Nazareth." — Acts, xxvi. 9. "Lord, what wilt
thou have me to do ?" — Acts, ix. 6  311

EAELT HISTOET

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND.

EARLY HISTORY

CHEISTIANITT IN ENGLAND.

LECTURE L
OHEISTIANITY IN BEITAlN DEEIVBD EEOM THB EAST, AND NOT
FEOM EOME. — ^AS OLD IN BEITAIN AS IT IS IN ITALY.
The question is often asked me, 'Which is the
oldest portion of the Christian Church?' And the
question is put with an especial view towards the hy
pothesis, that the Church of Eome was the oldest
Church of Great Britain, and indeed the only Church
which the Kingdom of Great Britain ever knew, until
the period of the Protestant Eeformation. I say Prot
estant Eeformation; because it would be easy to show,
that Eome had the word reformation on her own
tongue, and for her own sake, in many a day long
gone ; though she now uses it with a sneer, in refer
ence to ourselves.*
a. In Gallemart's Council of Trent " Reformation" is about the most
frequent running title ; and in the " Reformed Edition" also. Richerius
says, that the excesses of Gregory VII. compelled his Church to enter
on the business of Eeformation, in the Councils of Constance and Basle.
— Eistoria Condi Gen. Golonim, 1680, vol. i. 402. Richerius receives
high praise from Bossuet, in his Defensio Cleri Gallioani, vol. i. p. S19,
etc. Brown, in his Fasciculus, gives us the titles of some 9,50 books, or
authors, in favor of a reformation of the Church of Rome, he/ore the era
1

2 EARLY HISTORY OF
The question referred to ought not to be asked by
people, who know from their New Testament, that
Christianity was founded, not at Eome, but far away
from Eome, in the metropolis of the Holy Land ; and
that, at the great Pentecost celebrated after our Lord's
Ascension, there was not a convert from the City of
Eome, known in the history of Christianity. There
were.Eomans at that Pentecost, beyond a doubt, since
the second chapter of the Acts informs us of the fact.*
Yet these Eomans were not Christians, but Jews, or
proselytes to the Jewish faith, who had come to Jeru
salem to celebrate one of the grand festivals of Juda
ism, and moreover, as such, were strangers, i. e., quite
unknown to their brethren in the famihar, central
home of their people and their religion. Some of
these strangers may have carried Christianity back
with them to Italy;" and their faith, more than a
quarter of a century after, did become somewhat fa
mous, as we learn from St. Paul's Epistle to the Eo
mans.*^ ISTevertheless, even then must Christianity
of the Protestant Reformation. — Brown's Fascuyalus, ii. pp. 794r-97.
Brown's work is a folio.
To crown this matter, let us hear what the President of the Coun
cil of Trent said, in his opening speech ; " The depravation and corrup
tion of discipline and manners in the Church of Rome, was in a great
measure the cause and original of all those schisms and heresies, wliich
then troubled the Church." — Orat. prcef. sessio 11, Labb'e Ooncil, vol.
xiv. col. 800. Paris, 1672. Compare Hussey's Academical Sermons, p.
130. Oxford, 1849. Eeformation, according to Bossuet, ought to have
begun very far back ; for he speaks of the Council of Constance's potior
cmctoritas in reformatione gefieraUpromovenda. — Defensio Cleri Gallicani
vol. ii. p. 85.
h Acts, ii. 10.
c Burton's Lect. Ecc. Hist. i. 230.
d Eomans, i. 8.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 3
have been quite ia its infancy at Eome; since we
find St. Paul, on his first arrival there (a. d. 63),<!
speaking to his Jewish, rather than to his Christian
brethren ; while we find them replying in terms, which
clearly indicate, that a personage not a whit behind
the very chiefest apostles was an individual, whose
advent to the Eternal City had created no stir, though
he came with an appeal to Csesar on his lips,/ St.
Paul found himself ignored by his Jewish brethren,
whom he had left behind him — ^utterly ignored, as
one likely to make a movement in behalf of Chris
tianity, on the most important of all earthly theatres,
where it could rouse and draw attention.
Christianity then, in Eome, at St. Paul's first visit
to a spot afterwards claiming unrivalled precedence
in Christian history — some thirty years after our
Lord's Ascension, and when the religion had spread
very extensively in the East — ^was known ihere, only
as a sect, and not (as we should now say) as a see — ¦
known too but as an almost universally derided and
depreciated sect,? which probably had no recognized
tangible head, and no ostensible Church, except such
an one as we read of in the house of Aquila and
Priscilla — the Church of a domestic oratory. In Je
rusalem (on the contrary) there was such a recognized
tangible head, with its surrounding cabinet of asses
sors ; we discover it in Acts, xxi. 18, when St. Paul
made his missionary report before James Bishop of
e In the spring of a. d. 62, according to Dr. Hales, Chronology, iii.
545, 2d ed.
/ Acts, xxviii. 21. 9 Acts, xxviii. 22.

4, EARLY HISTORY OF
Jerusalem, with his elders all about him. The Epis
tle of this Bishop was placed in the canon of the
New Testament, before the Epistles of St. Peter, be
cause of his position at the head of the oldest Church
of Christendom.''' In Jerusalem — a dozen years be
fore Christianity had a Church out of a private resi
dence in Eome — ^there was an ecumenical council of
the Church Catholic, as we are informed ia the 15th
chapter of the Acts.i This council issued not mere

Tl The authority for this is the venerable Bede, in his preface to St.
James's Epistle. And that preface, accordingly, has often been left out
by the Eomanists : because it reflects, in their view, upon " the roy
alties of St. Peter!" — See Giles Bede, vol. xii. pp. xii. and 157. Also
Cav^s Ulstoria, Literaria, edit. 1740. i. 614. — This is but one instance,
among a thousand, of the manner in which Eomanists hack and garble
"ancient authors," to make them suit iheir purposes. Luther, Zuingle,
and the Continental Eeformers, have too often been blatned by Episco
palians, for declining a trial by the Fathers. They did so, because Eome
had so garbled the Fathers, that the trial would have been unfair, and
would, of course, have gone against them. This is admitted by such
divines as Field and Reeves. — Field on the Church, new edit. ii. 407,
note ; Reeves's Apologies, 2d edit. ii. 356, note. Chemnitz, the pro
found examiner of the Council of Trent, has nearly fifty closely printed
octavo pages on Traditions ; divides them into eight distinct species ; ad
mits, that not the text only of the Scriptures was entrusted to the Church
Catholic, but also its true interpretation ; and finally, talks like any intel
ligent churchman, about the value of the Catholic consent of the Fa
thers ; esteeming it in the same way in which any sensible lawyer would
esteem a clear tissue of precedents. Cranmer did not appeal to the Bible
alone, in disparagement of primitive antiquity ; but of " schoolmen and
Popish canons." — Strype's Cranmer, new edit. p. 62. The assent of
French Protestants to Tradition, properly understood, is quoted by
Bingham. Antiquities, vol. ix. p. 65. Continental Protestants have
always had doctrinal sympathy with the Church of England. Bishop
Andrews spoke of them most kindly; Archbishop Laud corresponded,
on affectionate terms, with the Calvinists at Zurich ; and Mr. Palmer,
in his elaborate treatise on the Church, refuses to call Continental Prot
estants either heretics, or schismatics. — Palmer on the Church, pt 1.
ch. 12, § 4.
i Gerson admits, as does Prof. Hug, that James, and not Peter, was
the president of this Council. — Gersoni, Opera ii , cols. 1, 12. Compare

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 5
hortatory advice, but "decrees for to keep,"i in the
name of the whole authority of Christendom, under
the sanction of the Holy Ghost — decrees especially
addressed to "the brethren which are of the Gentiles,
in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia ;" but which would
have been sent also to Eome, with the plenitude of apos-
tohc power, to be obeyed by Eomans, if Christianity
had then had in Eome a local habitation and a name.*
Why, my brethren, if I may add one more circum
stance to this series of circumstances, to show that
Christianity began in the East, and was circulated ia
the East, long before a Eoman of Italy knew so much
as its bare existence,^ I may call your attention to the
fact, that our Eeligion got its very name in the East,
and not in the West. The disciples of Jesus first re
ceived their present distinctive appellation at Antioch
in Syria : they had previously been nicknamed Naza-
renes.™ The very word " Christian," then, is one
column 924. Antwerp, 1706. — Richerius says, that James was the judi
cial ofBcer of the Council; Spanheim, that he was its president and
organ. No doubt, had Peter but acted the part of James, we should
never have heard the last of it.
j Acts, xvi. 4. ASyfiara. Nebuchadnezzar's decree of death, 4n Dan. ii.
18, is called by the LXX. Aoyfia.
Jc The second General CouncU, called Jerusalem's Church, " the Mother
of all the Churches :" and this in an epistle to the Bishop df Eome in
Council! — Theodoret (Bagster's ed.) p. 292, bk v. ch. 9; — Crakan-
thorpe's Defensio, ' new ed. pp. 23, 24; — Perceval on the Eoman Schism,
pp. 82, 69. Jerusalem called by the Fathers, " The Lord's own Throne."
— Forbes's Historic Theology, lib. xv. ch. 4, § 5. — Comp. Eusebius's
Life of Constantine. Bagster. pp. 334^5.
I Not only are Jerusalem and Antioch older in Christianity than Eome,
but Edessa too. Indeed, Edessais said to have been the first city in the
world which openly professed Christianity, and built the first church-
edifice. Edessa, or Osrohcena, is situated in the north of Mesopotamia,
hard by the Euphrates.— ^Aerw^e's ^jiriara Ghia-ches. London, 1846. p.37.
m Acts, xi. 26 ; xxiv. 5. — In olden and more honest times, it was not

6 EARLY HISTORY OF
with whose origin Eome has had nothing to do ; and
I might add just as much and more (if time permit
ted) to show that it has had as little to do with the
origin of a word it now glories in as exclusively its
own, the word Catholic."- Catholic is a Greek word,
such a novelty, as it would now be, to find a Romish divine acknowledg
ing that the Greek Church was older than his own. Thus Nicholas De
Clemangis (A. D. 1417) could do it frankly. — Opera, edit. Lydirn, Trac-
tatus, p. 92. Nor so only; Clemangis acknowledged that Rome had de
generated. — " Cujus ultima non correspondent primis." — Rid.
n Any scholar, who has a Greek Concordance, knows that this word is
not to be found in the New Testament. But it may be important to som,e
to know that such a thorough devotee of the Roman Church as Dela-
hogue admits the fact. — Tractatus de Ecclesid, p. 62. Another divine of
the same Church, Bernard Marechal, in his concordance of the Early
Fathers, gives Ignatius's Epistle to the Smyrneans, as the first authority
forits use ; which I believe to be correct. — Goncordantla, torn. i. p. 24. Eu-
sebius, in his Church History, represents the Church in Smyrna as using
the word, (after the example perhaps of Ignatius,) in giving an account of
the martyrdom of Polycarp ; who is called in that Epistle, " bishop of
the Catholic Church in Smyrna" — and who, possibly, is the first Chris
tian ecclesiastic, who ever had Catfiollc attached to his name. — Eusebius's
Hist, bk iv. ch. 15. At any rate, it is clear that the word Catholic is of
Greek, and not of Latin origin ; and the Latin Church has no peculiar
title to it, and least of all an exclusive one. Her proper title is the Ro
man Church : as this is the first title which her own creed (Pope Pius's)
gives her ; and is the only title given her in that most stringent of in
struments, a Romish bishop's oath of allegiance to the Pope. No mem
ber of that Church, accordingly, can complain of this title ; and Prot
estants of all sorts are most unwise and careless, to voluntarily degrade
themselves, and call a Eomanist a Catholic, when he, in turn, will give
them only the worst andmost abusive of all ecclesiastical appellations —
that of heretic ! If, however, a member of the Church of Eome com
plains that he is not called a Catholic the matter can easily be settled by
saying. He may be called so, if he will return the title I See what answer
such a proposal will bring.
To prejudiced Protestants, who ignorantly eschew the word CathoUc
as dangerous, it may be enough to say, it is ridiculous (not to use a more
solemn word — blasphemous) to say, in Church, in God's presence, " I
believe in the Holy Catholic Church," and to repudiate or dishonor the
word, iu man's presence !
Any one who wishes to pursue, further, the history of the word Catli-
olio among the records of antiquity, will find ample matter in Suicer's

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 7
and not a Latin one, and was developed not among
the Christians of the West, but among the Christians
of the East. The East, too, has always had more
regard to genuine Catholicity, than (to say the least)
Italian Christianity ; and has laid down rules both as
to creeds and discipline, which, if faithfully adhered
to, would have rescued us from the thraldom of Po
pery forevermore."
Thesaurus, under 'KaSoXmo;; and in the first Epistle of Pacian, which
may be found in vol. 17 of the Library of the Fathers, p. 319. The use
of the word became controverted in Pacian's tirae, (say a. n. 350, or about
the middle of the fourth century,) and he wrote in its defence. His for-
Tnal advocacy of the word is the first I am acquainted with. Pacian ad
mits that the word was not used in the days of the Apostles ; but defends
it, strenuously, on the ground recognized in the sixth canon of the
Council of Nice, i. e. old custom. In other words, on the ground of re
spectable precedent; the one constantly recognized in our courts of law.
If, however, any one thinks it strange that " a fuss" should be made
about the word Catholic, at the present day, let him know, that our an
cestors, in the great battle fought with Eomanism in the latter part of
the seventeenth century, deemed it worth while to be particular, and to
complain, not that the word itself was a bad one, but misappropriated,
because self-appropriated, by the Church of Rome. Bishop Lloyd ex
plained the matter, and contended for the exclusive, oriental pedigree of '
the word, in a sermon preached before the King of England, in 1678.
See Gibson's Freservati/i)e, octavo edition, vol. xii. p. 3, etc. Bp. Lloyd
brings up one very important fact, that the amcient Unitarians, like the
modern Romanists, called themselves exclusively " the Catholics."
To crown the whole matter, it is now evident, that the simple word
Catholic is becoming insufficient, in the view of Romanists themselves.
In Spain, they have enlarged the Apostles' Creed, putting the epithet
Soly before the Virgin, and Roman before Church ! — Meyrich's Work
ing of ihe Church in Spain. London. 1851. p. 172. — McCoan's Protest-
a/nt Endurance. London. 1853. pp. 170, 171. Development must go
on. A Quaternity in Unity has already been hinted at. — Hales's Ch. of
the British Isles, p. 185, note. The Spaniards have enlarged the Apos
tles' Creed for the Virgin ; the present Pope has made her sinless ; the
next Pope may give her a place amoug the persons of the Godhead, and
then the Quaternity in Unity will be substantiated !
0 Canons 7 and 8 of the Council of Ephesus, A. d. 431. Hammond on
the Council, Eug. edit. pp. 69, 70. — So Bp. Jewel, Works, iv. 883 ; and

8 EARLY HISTORY OF
The East then it is, and not the West, which has
founded our religion — given it its most venerable and
abiding names of Christian, and of Cathohc — ^inaugu
rated its commencement — disseminated its principles
— spread far and wide its blessings. Nay, and I may
add, the East it is, which accomplished aU this in its
own peculiar way, and under its own pecuhar sanc
tions.? The first Christian Church which was founded
in Eome itself, was a Greek Church, and not a Latin
Church ; and a more palpable and irresistible evidence
of this fact, you could not possess, than the circumstance
that when St. Paul wrote his Epistle to the Eomans,
he wrote in the Greek tongue, and not in the Eoman.?
We should have expected him to write to Corinthians,
and to Bphesians in Greek, and in the same tongue,
perhaps, to Colossians and Galatians.*" But to write
to people in Eome in the Greek tongue — ^himself a
charged Rome with falling away from the Greeks. Apology, pt v. ch.
15, div. 2. Wks. iii. 92. Parker, Soc. Edition.
p So Christianity in Africa not from Eome. — Jewel, iv. 883.
q Some interpreters of Scripture have contended that Paul wrote iu
Latin. But a candid member of the Eoman or Latin Church admits,
that almost all critics allow that he wrote directly in the Greek tongue.
— Janssen^s Hermeneutigue Sacree, p. 215. Paris, 1855.
r " For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek," (Rom.
X. 12,) does not prove that St. Paul considered himself writing to Jews
and Greeks only ; but it certainly looks that way. Then sometimes he
has said Jew and Greek, in the original, when our translators make him
say Jew and Gentile. For example, Rom. ii. 9, 10 ; iii. 9. Dean Mil-
man, I am informed, considers the first Christian Church in Eome a
Greek one. But I have not, at present, access to his new history of the
Latin Church. St. Jerome says, that no ecclesiastical author wrote in
Latin, till Victor did so. Pope from a. d. 192 to 202. — Art de vei-ifier
les dates. Paris, 1770, p. 241. Bower's Popes, i. 89. There were but
three Latin Fathers of distinction for 800 years ; TertuUian, Minutius
Felix, and Cyprian. All three Africans ! In the same period, there were
ten or more Greek Fathers !

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 9
Eoman citizen, and for the age a universal scholar —
for Mm to do so, demonstrates that he was dealing
with Greek Christians, more than with Latin Chris
tians; and that Christianity, even in Eome, was an
exotic, and not an indigenous production. The long
list of salutations with which the Epistle to the Eo
mans closes — the personal familiarity which St. Paul
seems to have had with many or most of the Eoman
Church, though he wrote to them, when as yet he had
never set foot upon Italian soil^ — demonstrates that
Christianity had not sprung up in Eome, out of the
inhabitants of Eome, but had been imported thither
by, and retained among comparative strangers. All
which goes to show, that in the City of Eome itself,
Christianity was indebted for its foundation to Orien
tals, rather than Occidentals — was an Eastern, and not
a Western religion — and, therefore, that Eome has as
much to thank the East for, as that very Syria, where
first Christianity was known as a distinctive name.
How idle, how absurd, m view of such testimony,
to think and speak of Christianity as if Eome were
its first habitation — its birth-place, and self-extending
home — as if from Eome came the Church, the minis
try, the sacraments, the faith, the genealogy, the de
scent, the perpetuation, and all the consequent glories
of Christianity as a system : — and as if the Church of
Eome had ever been in fact, what it now fancies itself
to be, and what it now most presumptuously claims
s Romans, i. 13 ; xv. 22, show that St. Paul had never visited Rome at
the time he wrote the Epistle to the Romans. Dr. Burton thinks that, at
that time, no apostle had visited 'Rome.— Lectwres on dice. Hist., i., 230.
1*

10 EARLY HISTORY OF
to be, the Church Cathohc inclusively, and to the ex
clusion of all Christendom beside.* Why nothing is
clearer than this, that although Eome, at the founda
tion of Christianity, was the capital of the greatest
empire of the age, yet, that in an ecclesiastical sense,
you might have applied to it such language as St.
Luke applied to Philippi, when Christianity was in
troduced there, and he described it as the chief city
of that part of Macedonia where it was situated, and
a colony .» Eome was then (ecclesiastically speaking)
but the chief city of that part of Italy where it was situ
ated, and a Christian colony. Nor for centuries could
it be styled much more than is included in the first
part of this description. Down to the era, for instance,
of the great Nicene Council, usually called the first
of the councils ecumenical, or general, i. e., down to
A. D. 325, Eome had no more predominance assigned
to it, than such, and just such a local and geographical
distinction as was assigned to the chief city of Egypt,
viz. : Alexandria ; and to the chief city of Syria, viz. :
Antioch. And even this predominance was conceded
by the supreme ecclesiastical legislature, not at all as a
matter of Divine warrant, but simply as one of con
venience and propriety, which had grown up by cus
tom.'" Alexandria and Antioch and Eome were each,
t " Whoever,""said Pope Leo I., " doth affect more than his due, doth
lose that which properly belonged to him." — Quoted by Barrow on ihe
Supremacy. Works. Hughes's edit., vol. vii., p. 437. By setting up this
undue claim, Rome becomes not catholic, but anti-catholic. The title
amti-catholic is as pertinent as any which can be given her. Rome, icone
judice, has ceased to be catholic.
u Acts, xvi. 12.
V Sixth canon of Nice. — Du Pin's Ch. Hist., Dublin edit., i. 600; with

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 11
by the sense of courtesy and expediency entertained
by the Council, to enjoy a similar control over the
Churches in their immediate vicinity ; and no greater
popedom than this (the patriarchal superintendance
of central cities) has the Church Catholic, the true
Church Catholic, ever created, or sanctioned, or trans
mitted. Yet out of such a germ (for error like truth
always has a nucleus, and sometimes a nucleus which
is real and substantial — and some of the worst errors
the Church has ever been cursed with are errors of
overgrowth and superaddition,) out of such a germ,
has grown the enormities of the patriarchate of Italy,
until it has resembled the little horn of the prophet's
vision,"" and waxed exceeding great, towards the south,
and the east, and the pleasantest of lands — till it has
waxed great, even to the host of heaven, and has oast
down some of the host, and of the. stars, to the ground,
and stamped upon them with the heel of despotic
scorn. This power, in its overgrowth, its superaddi-
tions, has arrogated as much as Satan in the tempta-
a full discussion of it in his Dissertations on Ancient Discipline. Printed
at Mayence or Mentz, on the Rhine, 1787 ; p. 65, etc. — Palmer on the
Church, part vii., chap, vii., shows the bearing of the canon on the Eo
man Patriarchate. This canon, of course, bas been subjected to Eomish
garbling. Yet Abp. Caranza and John Cabassutius, while they would
fain alter it, do not do so ; and Eenaudot, with commendable honesty, re
bukes a fellow -Eomanist for fibbing about it. — Caranza Swnma Concilio-
rwm. Lovanii, 1681. pp. 87, 88. — CdbassvMi NoUticR Condliorum. 1670.
pp. 89, 90. — Renaudotii Liturg. Collectio, 2d edition, 1847, ii. 95. " It
were easy, by many other examples, to declare that the Popes have made
this a very trade and custom, as if it were a piece of Pope-craft, either
themselves to forge, or, which is every way as bad, to abet, countenance,
and maintain by their authority, such writings as were forged by others ;
and, by them, to build up their own pomp and pontifical glory." — Orach-
enihorp's Defence of Constantine. London, 1621. p. 242.
w Dan. viii. 9.

12 EARLY HISTORY OF
tion of Christ^ — ^has claimed the entire globe as its
spiritual domain. And in particular has it both
claimed, and insisted, that Great Britain was its do
main, twice or even three times over — ^first, by its
general viceregency over the globe — secondly, by its
introduction of Christianity upon British soil, when
Christianity was utterly unknown there — and thirdly,
by its redemption of Britain from Paganism, when it
had relapsed and become idolatrous.
A higher claim than this — ^better ribbed and banded
with extra strength — ^it is probable could not well be
found, or be manufactured to order, if given out to
human witlings for the trial of their ingenuity. If
there is truth in it, then Britain belongs to Eome, in
a sense comporting somewhat with the extravagance
of Eome's pretensions ; and the British Eeformation,
with the abnegation of Papal jurisdiction, was a pre
sumptuous error. This, of course, is the issue we are
now to try ; and thereby to ascertain (as I think can
be done without great difficulty) how much Britain
owes Eome, on the score of ecclesiastical allegiance.
The issue depends on the answer to three questions —
What does Britain owe to Eome, on account of her
claim to universal dominion ? What on account of the
pretension, that Christianity came first to her shores,
through Eoman instrumentahty Iv What on account

X Luke, iv. 6.
y This agreement has been more talked of, than written about, accord
ing to FuUwood. — Roma RuU, new edit. 1847, p. 29. Cardinal Wise
man revived it in the Dublin Review ; and received an overwhelming
answer from Mr. Palmer, in his "British Episcopacy Vindicated," a
12mo. vol. of 253 pages, printed by the Rivingtons in London, in 1840.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 13
of the allegation, that when Christianity in Britain
had, in the progress of dark centuries, subsided into
Paganism, Eome renewed and perpetuated its exist
ence, so that, to her interference, the permanence of
Christianity on Enghsh soil is altogether indebted ?
I. — As to the first of these questions, it relates
simply to the old presumption of Eome, in which
England is no more concerned than all the rest of
Christendom ; and we may safely say to it, that Eng
land will admit it, when Eome's old peers in the prim
itive patriarchate admit it also.^
Christendom in primitive times, was divided into
five principalities or patriarchates, taking their names
from the cities of Eome, of Constantinople, of Alex
andria, of Antioch, and of Jerusalem. Among these,
Eome had no primacy, but that of dignity ; no prece
dence, but that of numerical order ; no headship, but
that of courtesy ;« and since there must always
be some way of distinguishing equals, when they
z Optimus interpres rerum usus. — Broom's Legal Maxims, 2d edit. p.
712. This is the lawyer's rule, and a sound one, about contested titles
and claims, which date far back. We must then be determined by usage,
by precedent, by the evidence especially of contemporaries. This is
plain enough; and the simple question is, Did Eome's contemporaries
allow her assumptions? Have these assumptions come down undis
puted ? Only this need be added, for a reminder, when Eome gets ex
cited, and pronounces most dogmatically in her own behalf. I allude to
Aristotle's maxim, "Every man is a bad judge in his own case."
a Like one ambassador's eminence over another, — Birlcbeck's Protest
ants' Evidence, 2d edit. p. 208. Birkbeck was an author relied on by
John Selden and Robert Southey, most competent judges. In respect to
the powers or control of patriarchates, it is a curious fact, that as a pa
triarch the bishop of Alexandria had a more complete authority than
any of his colleagues. — BeaveriJs Irenoms, pp. 19, 20. Hook, in his
Church Dictionary, says the Patriarch of Alexandria calls himself,
"The Grand Judge of the whole world." — Diet., 6th edit. p. 465.

14 EARLY HISTORY OF
meet on the same platform, it was no harm to give
Eome, the chief city of the greatest empire on the
globe — the empire's oldest capital — a presiding superi
ority : no greater harm,, than to give our oldest bishop
such a superiority among his brethren, when they
meet and act officially. The heads of these five pa
triarchates (they were called heads, because the first
letters of their sees composed a Greek word signify
ing heads)b were the five presiding bishops of ancient
Christendom ; and when they met in council, the
patriarch of Eome was the presiding prelate among
his peers, and nothing more.« As such, no doubt, he
attracted an immense amount of reverence and hom
age, which was finally, by skilful management, con
verted into submission to claims of arrogant author
ity. This arrogant authority was bolstered, and
confirmed, by pohtical grants and financial revenue,
until it became a fixture — was nursed into a govern
ment, and extended into a dormnion. And the fruit
is all before us in history, and in our own passing
times. The patriarchate of Eome has become a duke
dom, a monarchy, a popedom. The most dignified
ecclesiastic of antiquity has become the Church's Em-
b KAPAI. To call the Patriarchs mpai was harmless enough ; but
to say there must be five patriarchs, because man has five senses, is a
specimen of mediaeval reasoning in theology. — Suicer's Thesaurus, 2d
edit. ii. 648.
c Meld on ihe Church, new edit. i. 113. — Thorndihe de Ratione Piniendi
Controversias, p. 412. The Greeks looked carefully after t?w faitli. Loss
of faith was, with them, loss of place. , They acknowledged the Pope's
patriarchate, if he were orthodox. Field, ibid. And doubtless this is
right; orthodoxy goes before orders. See the bishop's oath in the Con
secration Service for Bishops. It puts ecclesiastical matters thus, (1)
doctrine, (2) discipline, (3) worship.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 15
peror. The little horn of by-gone ages, whose cathe
dral was a chamber in the domicil of Aquila and
Priscilla — whose palace the cottage of Simon the tan
ner — has magnified itself into the princedom of the
Christian host ; and its pretended charter now is (with
the whole globe as a field to work in) " to root out,
and to throw down, to destroy, and to pull down, to
build, and to plant."*^
But if this was wrong from its inception, it can not
have become right by the lapse of time, and persistive
usage. The rule of law, and of common sense, is,
that prescription does not run against a party who is
unable to act ;« yet the assumptions of Eome have been
forced upon milhons, who were not among the living
when those assumptions were born. A usurper is
none the less a usurper because he has estabhshed a
permanent sovereignty./ If Cromwell had become
(what he sorely wanted to be in title, and more than
which he was in strict reality) a king, and if his de
scendants, with his unquestionable talent for govern
ment, still sat upon England's throne, would they —
d Jerem. i. 10. Comp. Dan. v. 19. Compare Gregory's Dictates.
Giesler's Ch.Hist., Eng. edit. iii. 5, 6. Murdock's Mosheim, ii. 188, 189.
Richenu^ Hist. Coneil. Gen. i. 396. Du Pin's Epitome Ch. Hist. iii.
108, or 116. Prof. Richardson's Pralectiones, ii. 217.
e Broom's Legal Maxims, 2d edit. p. 700.
/ "The Popes," says Fleury, "acquired a right, by being asked for
favors when there was no occasion; and to render themselves neces
sary, they set up pretended titles." — Fleury's Ecc. Hist. vol. xvi. p. xviii.,
or, pp. 258^ 259 of his translated Discourses. Bossuet, after showing
how, once, the Popes swore to obey the canons, then shows how they
behaved, when tbey departed from the good old rule — " ah ea regula."
He solemnly declares, that by degrees, "paullatim," they began to
draw to themselves the rights of bishops, and all other clergy. — Defen
sio Cleri Gallicani, lib. xi. chaps. 8 and 9.

16 EARLY HISTORY OF
at this late day— -be any more the constitutional sov
ereigns of England, than in the middle of the 17th
century ? Assuredly not. And so, if the Bishop of
Eome was not at the first, and under Divine sanction,
what he at present insists on being accounted, his
present claims are as illegitimate, and impertinent,
and repudiable, as when, not far from A. D. 200, he
began to play the part of a grandee among his breth
ren, and threatened to break from their communion,
if they would not observe his behests about the ob
servance of Easter? — or rather, about the mere day
for the observance of that universally acknowledged
festival. His menaces flew by the prelates of the
Bast, as if but idle wind ; and the menaces of a suc-
.cessor, though about a more serious matter, passed as
unheeded by the prelates of the South in Africa.* •
The prelates of the East, the prelates of Greece and
of Turkey in Europe, the prelates of Eussia, still re
fuse submission to him. The heads of the 'old quin
tuple patriarchate still refuse submission to him — four
out of the 'five having , always been determinedly
against him — Cleaving him always, in his unitarian
minority of a single one, and still leaving him there ;
having actually, since the present pope came into
power, as earnestly and solemnly protested against
g Robertson's Church History, i. pp. 68, 69. Bower's Popes, i. 37
etc. Eusebius, book v. 24. Mosheim's Commentaries by ¦Murdoch i.
535, etc.
h Robertson's Ch. Hist., i. 438, 39. Allies on Schism, 2d ed. pp. ISO-
etc. Morton's Catholihe Appeal, bk i. ch. 2, § 28, or, p. 31. Meyrick's
sensible little book on the Papal Supremacy. Prof Hussey's thorough
lectures.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 17
his usurpations, as their predecessors have done,
strait through a thousand years.*
And how then can it be esteemed a very strange
thing, that the prelates of England should be found in
their company, and amid such an outspread congrega
tion? Or why should they be distinctively called
Protestant ; when perhaps half of Christendom (some
think more than half)/ is still in the same protestant
attitude with themselves, towards the assumptions of
Eome's patriarch ; and if it regards him, as all now
might consent to regard him, i. e., as, the most dignified
ecclesiastic in Christendom, yet never allows him to
be, what he proclaims himself to be on pain of dam
nation to the dissenting, as the most authoritative ec
clesiastic in Christendom ? Will it not be time enough
to impugn England, and her fellow-churchmen in these
States, when it can be shown, how Eome can outface
and put down the Church of Constantinople, thS
i One sample will sufiBce. Theodore Balsamon, who died in 1204, was
one of the ablest of the Greek canonists. He holds this language: "The
Popes have separated, and are divided, from the four other Patriarchs."
This is quoted by Mathew Scrivener, in his Body of Divinity, who well
adds, " If four of the Patriarchs of the Church may be heretics and
schismatics, what becomes of that argument for the true Church, taken
from the universality of its profession?" — Scrivener's Divinity, bk i. pt
1, p. 235.
j According to Neue's Repertorium, there are in Protestant states,
193,624,000 inhabitants. In Eoman Catholic, 134,164,000. In Greek,
60,000,000. This calculation, with allowance for variations, makes Prot
estants and Greeks greatly outnumber Eoman Catholics ! — Kitto's Journal
of Sac. Literature, vol. vii., 454. For a view of the matter in olden time,
• consult Sir Edwin Sandy's Europse Speculum, and his Travels. Also,
Cerri's Account of the State of the Rom. Cath. Religion, translated by
Sir Richard Steele. Warcupp's Italy, " its original glory, ruin, and re
vival," is a curious standard by which to compare the development of
two centuries. It was printed in London, in 1660. ,

18 EARLY HISTORY OF
Church of Alexandria, the Church of Antioch, the
Church of Jerusalem, the Church of Greece, the
Church of Eussia? She has never vanquished the
arguments, never silenced the upbraidings, of her pa
triarchal equals.* Their accusations, and protests, and
appeals, and disclaimers, and downright refusals, are
on record still ; as they have been for weary centuries.
England and America but echo and reiterate them ;
and when Eome can subjugate and satisfy Protestant
Germany, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and
Prussia — when all the East, with Greece, and Turkey,
and colossal Eussia, then, and not till then, will it be
time enough for her to say, that England is one of
her fiefs, by virtue of her possession of an undisputed su
premacy. Till then, we may safely say. Supercilious
pretender, your claims are a downright usurpation ; and
we can never listen to you for a moment, till you are
» more effective demonstrator of your boundless as
sumptions. II. — The second question of the issue under discus
sion, was to be. What indebtedness does England owe
to Eome, on account of the pretension, that Christian
ity came first to British shores, through Eomish
instrumentality ?
k Perhaps one way in which she contrived to keep them at bay was, to
keep the Greek language out of Western Europe. This was so effectually
done, that, as Ookley testifies, " Greek was not understood in this part
of the world, till the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, A. n. 1453 ;
when several learned Greeks escaping with their libraries, and coming
westward, that language was restored." — Ockley's Hut. Saracens, Bohn's
edition, pref p. xvii. The Pope (Victor) who began with excommuni
cations of the East, excommunicated the Greek tongue also ! See note
r, p. ¦i^ ?«

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 19
It is no doubt a fact, that Christianity was widely
disseminated, by the instrumentality of the apostles
themselves, in person. The last words uttered by
Christ, on a globe wherein He died to bring it back to
God, seemed to point precisely to such an eventua-
tion.^ It is true, that " the uttermost part of the
earth" may here be taken in a rhetorical, rather than
in a logical sense, and Tnay mean, the uttermost part
of the earth to be visited by them, or by their succes
sors. But traditionary history throws such light upon
the labors of the apostles, as to incline one to believe,
the words are to be understood more literally than
some apprehend. The apostles did not long continue,
after Christ's Ascension, as they did up to, and after
the "great persecution," which followed the martyr
dom of Stephen.™ They remained at first, and for
mally, a coherent body, to regulate doubtless, and to
arrange, a thousand particulars, while as yet the New
Testament was all unwritten, and the Christian Church
had to be organized by oral, and not by recorded in
struction, as was the Church of the elder dispensation.
But they soon commenced Episcopal and missionary
tours, such as became them, as the pioneers of a new
faith, whose duty it was to carry it far and near, and
whose geographical field of action was, literally, the
world." They took care, nevertheless, to make Jeru
salem their common and habitual head-quarters. Eor
it was here, and not at Eome, that St. Paul met St.
I " Ye shiill be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea,
and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." — Acts, i. 8.
"World's end'." — Tyndale and Cranmer.
m Acts, viii. 1. n Matt. xiii. 38.

20 EARLY HISTORY OF
Peter by appointment." It was here, so long as four
teen years afterwards, that Paul and Barnabas were
enjoined to go, to communicate to the pillars of the
Church their mode of addressing the "Gospel to the
Gentiles.? Peter was one of these pillars, and not a
pillar of the Church of Eome. He was not the first
or foremost of these pillars: James was that tran
scendent dignitary? — and their proper place, for meet
ing and concurrent action, seems to have been neither
of those places which have been as.signed to Peter as
his own peculiar see, but the bishopric of Jerusalem,
of which James was the undoubted head.*" It was in Je
rusalem, long years after the Ascension, that (not apos
tles; but) the apostles, with the elders and the brethren
around them, met in solemn conclave,* and established
the great canon which absolved the Gentiles from the
practice of circumcision. It was for Jerusalem, if not
at Jerusalem, that, even after the capture of that city
by the Eomans in the reign of Vespasian, there was
an assembly of all the surviving apostles, and a multi-
0 Gal. i. 18. p Gal. ii. 1, 2.
q Gal. ii. 9. Compare Millar's Propagation of Christianity, i. p. 298.
Ordericus Vitalis (a. u. 1075-1141) considers James as "the common
father" of the apostles and "their master." — Bohn's edit. vol. i. p. 248.
r James was made bishop of Jerusalem by Peter, James, and John. —
Eusebius, bk ii. ch. 1. Rufinus, the Latin, says he was made "Bishop
of the Apostles" by them. Eainolds, in his conference with Hart, (p.
4S2,) gave up Rufinus's reading — a thing no Jesuit would have done, had
the variation favored Peter's supremacy. But, it may be, I am too
severe. Stephen Gardiner, in his tract on True Obedience, in which he
contends against the Pope, reads the text as Rufinus does ! — BrowrCs
Fasciculus, ii. p. 814. Stephen Gardiner against the Pope, and in favor
of loyalty towards an anti-Papal monarch ! Well, there are some
Eomish miracles which we must, per force, believe in !
s Acts, 15th.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 21
tude of others, "from all parts," to elect and consecrate
a bishop for Jerusalem, as the successor of James, who
had died a martyr.'
Nevertheless, while Jerusalem was thus obviously
regarded as the central see of Christendom, that one
alone, and above all others, in which all Christians,
from the highest to the lowest, had a common interest,
it is a notorious fact of Church History, that the
apostles did not make it a place of permanent resi
dence, but simply of frequent, perhaps habitual,
resort. They had no individual home. They ought
not to have had ; for they were missionaries for " all
the world," bishops at large, patriarchs ecumenical,
who, while they might plant ministerial successions in
localities, had no special locality of their own. If St.
John, in the days of his decrepitude, became the
metropolitan of Ephesus,'* (as seems evident from
his epistles to seven diocesan Churches,) Paul clearly
had no fixed home; and why Peter should be sup
posed to have one, rather than he, is a problem which
Eome never has solved, and never can solve, but by
conjectures which we have as good a right as herself
to entertain.* She pretends, indeed, that St. Peter
was at first the metropolitan of Antioch ; but St. Paul
once rebuked him at Antioch,'* as if he were an in-
t Eusebius, bk iii. ch. 11.— Hind's Early Christianity, p. 243. Jerusa
lem, too, was probably a centre for charitable contributions " from all
parts."— Acts, xi. 27-30 ; Eom. xv. 26 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 3.
u Eusebius, iii. 23. Bagster's Trans, p. 130.
« According to 1 Cor. ix. 5, Peter travelled about ; and with his wife,
too !— Eusebius, bk iii. ch. 30, tells us Peter's wife was a martyr. Of
course, then, he must have lived with his wife, after he was appointed
Pope ! w Gr"'- "• 11-

22 EARLY HISTORY OF
trader upon his oion territory ; and he also slunk into
insignificance at Antioch, before the legates of James,'"
sent, no doubt, • to see if the canon of the Great
Council about the Gentiles were duly executed. She
pretends, also, that he was the metropolitan of Eome
— yet he never wrote an epistle to the Eomans ; while
St. Paul did, without honoring Peter in it by so much
as the mention of his name.y She pretends that Peter,
with St. Paul, established the present episcopate of
Eome ; which possibly he might have done (or Ignatius
after him) when both went to Eome to suffer martyr
dom. And if he did do it, it is no more than he did
for the Church at Corinth f yet, who ever heard that
the Corinthians claimed, in consequence, a precedency
over all Christendom beside themselves ? The Church
of Corinth had more of the Epistolary portion of the
New Testament addressed to it than any other: St.
Paul and St. Peter are its putative founders* — one,
most manifestly, and the other believed to be so on
respectable authority. Yet, who ever heard that the
Church of Corinth ever plumed itself, because of such
a distinction, or assumed any patriarchal supremacy,
in so much as the little Kingdom of Greece ?*
X Gal. ii. 12.
y So Ignatius wrote an epistle to the Romans; but never Peter. Dio-
nysius, first bishop of Corinth, also wrote an epistle to the Romans. — ¦
Eusebius, bk ii. ch. 25.
z Polycarp made Bishop of Smyrna by "the apostles." — Beaven's
Ireneeus, p. 2, n. 3. Also, p. 58.
a It is" evident, from 1 Cor. i. 12, that Peter had a party at Corinth,
which looked up to him as a head, or as one of the founders of their
Church. b Eusebius, bk ii. § 25 ; bk iv. § 23. TertuUian tells the Churches
of South Greece to defer to Corinth. De Praescr, Haer. § 36. Dodgson,

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 23
All this goes to show, 'that no one Christian Church,
or see of the Christian Church, has a right to style it
self the patron, the pattern, the paternal see, of any
portion of Christendom, unless that of its immediate
neighborhood, which might be dependent on it for
support, and which it was more especially bound to,
superintend and nourish. And with such a premise
before us, we might say, that if Christianity was intro
duced into England by St. Paul, or by St. Peter, after
they had passed through Eome, and established there
the genuine apostohc succession, this would no more
prove England's subserviency to Eome, than it would
prove the same for Grecian Corinth. Moreover, it is
not possible to prove, that Christianity did enter into
England by the way of Eome. Fuller, our well-known
Church of England historian, goes carefully over the
pretension that St. Peter, that St. James the son of
Zebedee, that St. Paul, that St. Simon Zelotes, that
Aristobulus one of the seventy," that Claudia, the
i. 470. Eusebius, bk iv. 23, represents Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, as
writing " Catholic Epistles," i. e. encyclical letters, like a modern Pope !
He addresses Asia, and Rome, too ! And his letters were of so much
consequence, that they were cut, and hacked, and garbled, as the fathers
are by the Papists !
c "Eusebius," says Dr. Burton; " certainly believed the Britons were
converted as early as the apostolic age." — Lectures, i. 285. The Rev.
Beale Poste, in his Britannic Researches, contends that Aristobulus
brought Christianity into Britain. — Paste's B. Researches, London, 1853,
p. 410. The Ven. John Williams, late Archdeacon of Cardigan, in a very
ingenious tract, admits that Aristobulus preached Christianity in Brit
ain ; and contends that Claudia, mentioned 2 Tim. iv. 21, was a British
princess. Archdeacon Williams's tract covers 68 pages, and was pub
lished in London, by Longman k Co., in 1848. Baronius, guided by a
manuscript in the Vatican, says, that Joseph of Arimathea brought the
Gospel to Britain, A. n. 35. — Forbes's Historic Theology, vol. i. p. 159 ; or,
bk 3, ch 30, n. 13. — ChevaMier's Apostolic Fathers, etc., 2d edit. p. 363.

24 EARLY HISTORY OF
wife of Pudens mentioned in the second Epistle to
Timothy, that Joseph of Arimathea with Lazarus
and his sisters, are to have the especial honor of hav
ing introduced Christianity into Britain ; and his con
clusion, in review of the seven different suppositions,
is as follows: — " By all this it doth not appear, that
the first preachers of the Gospel in Britain did so
much as touch at Eome ; much less, that they re
ceived any command or commission thence to con
vert Britain, which should lay an eternal obhgation
of gratitude on this island to the see of Eome."'^ In
deed, it may now be quite impossible to ascertain who
did inaugurate Christianity in Britain, since Gildas,
the earhest of all the English historians, who hved
and died^ before papal Eome had any connexion with
England whatever, says, that the early records of his
country were all destroyed in wars, and he had to
glean what he could from foreign sources, or from the
narratives of exUes./
I see not, then, but we must consign the early Chris
tian history of Great Britain to the obscurity of con-
d Fuller's Ch. Hist., bk i. § 18 ; or, vol. i. p. 23, Brewer's edition, Ox
ford, 1845.
e In Glastonbury, say some, a. n. 570. In Bangor, others, a. d. 590.
Du Pin dates his book a. d. 564. — Ecc. Hist., i. 561. It was written in
Armorica, or French Britain, according to Collier. — Ecc. Hist., 8vo. ed.,
i. 144. Birckbeck says, that in "ancient charters" the Church of Glas
tonbury " was termed the grave of tbe saints, the mother church, the
disciples' foundation."— Pcofestorafe' Evidence, 2d ed., p. 75. Of Glaston
bury, as the Mother Church of England, and of Gildas, the father of
English Historians, a work like Eugene Lawrence's, intended for Ameri
cans, might have given us some account. Yet of Gildas himself, a work,
written professedly about English historians, gives us but the most
meagre description. ./ Giles's Gildas, p. 8.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 25
jecture, and admit (what plainly we are quite obliged
to do) that no one can tell us, with any satisfactory
degree of certainty, to whom such a most interesting
fact in the history of our forefathers, as the establish
ment of Christianity among them, is to be accredited.
While, however, we can not speak of this fact in a
positive way, we can undoubtedly speak of it in a
negative way. We can maintain, that there is not a
shadow of credible proof, to estabhsh the hypothesis,
that Christianity was brought into England, either
from Eome, or hy Eome. In fact, Gildas helps to this
conclusion, since he declares that Christianity reached
the shores of Britain in the latter part of the reign of
Tiberius, who died A. D. 37.^ And, beside, ample evi
dence will, by and by, come up to clear the way to the
declaration, that, let Britain have been indebted for
her Christian inheritance to whomsoever she may,
Eome could not have been the patron to whom her
thanks are due. Gildas himself illustrates this point,
indirectly, but with singular effect ; since, while he
quotes the Scriptures abundantly, he never quotes
the version of them current in his age at Eome.*
This demonstrates, potentially, that from the first,
g Collier, i. 8, says in the apostles' times. — Prof. Richardson, in his
Prselections, i. 231, says five or six years after Christ's Ascension. His
version of Gildas sustains mine. Giles's Gildas, p. 10 ; and Ancient
Britons, i. 198, 199. Blumhardt, Estab. of Christianity, i. 407, agrees.
Hales's Prin. Brit. Ch., quotes a more crabbed version of Gildas, pp. 98,
99. Colossians, i. 23, may bear on the point. This Epistle dates, say,
A. n. 64. Bergier, Theol. Diet., i. 127, dates Christianity in Britain as
late as a. d. 182; and says Pope Eleutherius sent it. Cardinal Pole's ad
mission, that Britain was the first of all islands that received the light
of Christ's religion. Jones's Brit. Ch., pp. 132, 33. Soames's Reforma
tion, iv. 260. h Giles's Gildas, pref p. viii.
2

26 EARLY HISTORY OF
England's Bible and Eome's Bible have been two
very different things ; and other early differences be
tween England and her would-be mistress will in due
time appear.
Let who may, then, have been nursing-fathers and
nursing-mothers to Christianity in our father-land, the
Church of Eome has no right nor title to consider
these personages as her distinctive members.* She did
not send them, she could not have sent them ; for, (as
Gildas has taught us,) Christianity in Britain is quite
as ofd as Christianity in Italyi — so old there, that
Christianity in Eome could give it no aid whatever;
for, being itself in swaddling clothes, it had to strug
gle for so much as simple existence.*
In all human probability, Christianity took a more
direct route to the British Islands, than through the
capital of the empire. There was, e. g., a remarkable
connexion between the East and the City of Lyons on
the Ehone. Lyons was, no doubt, in the earliest Chris
tian ages the first, as it is still but the second city in
France ; it had been constituted a granary, an empori-
i "The ancient British Church, by whomsoever planted, was a stran
ger to the Bishop of Rome, and all his pretended authority." — Black-
stonis Commentaries, bk iv. ch. 8.
j " We were converted nine years before Eome." Fullwood makes
this assertion on the authority of Baronius and Suarez. — Roma RuU, 2d
ed. p. 30, note. " Rome is no mother Church to Britain, neither by con
ception, nor education ; for she was neither conceived in her womb, nor
nourished on her breast ; but was a virgin of full age, when her pre
tended mother was in her swaddling clouts and cradle." — T. Jones's Brit
ish Church, in 12mo. London, 1678. p. 150.
h As Fuller quaintly expresses it, " religion came into Britain, not by
the semi-circle of Rome, but in a direct line from the Asiatic Churches."
— Ch. Hist., bk ii. cent. 7 ; or, vol. i. 150.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 27
um, and often a sort of metropolis imperial, by the Eo
man emperors. It was in the most advantageous posi
tion for a grand centre of operations, at the confluence
of two large rivers.^ And, accordingly, we here find
missionaries dispatched from the East (not from Eome)
to disseminate Christianity throughout France ; so that
France, as well as England, is indebted for her reli
gion, not at all to Italy, or to Italian emissaries. The
first Bishop of Lyons was an Oriental ;™ its second
Bishop also was an Oriental — ^the celebrated Irenaeus,
who was personally familiar with Polycarp, the angel
of the Church of Smyrna, and the disciple of St.
John.'' In the latter part of the second century, as
we learn from the 5th book of the History of Euse
bius, there was a terrible persecution at Lyons and in
its vicinity." A long and interesting account of this
I Eusebius, bk v. chap, i., calls Lyons and Vienne " the two chief -
cities" of Gaul. Lyons oldest Ch. in France. Its Bishop a patriarch.
Churton's Early Eng. Ch., new ed. p. 40 — Compare Blondel, De la Pri-
maut6, chap. 30, p. 712. — Prof Palma, in his Prasleotions, calls Irenaeus
Archbishop of Lyons. — Vol. i. p. 51. Eome, 1848. 2d ed. " Ciyus an-
tistes," says Miraeus in his Notitise Episcopatuum, '^hodie Priniatum
cleri Gallicani obtinet." — Antwerp. 1613. p. 357. The Bishop of Lyons
called the Archbishop of France. — Giles's Bede, ii. p. 363. By a curi
ous coincidence, which some may like to be informed of, Lyons has a
celebrity not to be rejoiced in. It is supposed to be the birthplace of
Pontius Pilate. — Mexio's Treasurie of Ancient amd Modern -Times. Trans
lation. London. 1613. p. 419, col. a.
m The first bishop of Lyons was Pothinus; who, says Mr. Oxlee,
quoting a high French authority, was sent by Polycarp the disciple of
St. John. His author gives this as current Gallican tradition. The
French theory, then, undoubtedly is, that Lyons traces itself to St. John.
—OxUe's Sermons on ihe Christian Hierarchy, sermon Sd, p. 82.
n Irenseus was of course originally a member of the oriental, or Greek
Church ; and must have found Greek Christians around him in the West,
as he wrote in the Greek language.
0 Chap. i. bk v.

28 EARLY HISTORY OF
persecution was transmitted to what we might sup
pose would be the ecclesiastical head-quarters, for
Christians of that locality and time. Beyond a ques
tion, a Eomanist would say ; and such an epistle, if
sent, was of course sent to the palace of his Holiness
in the city of seven hills. But it was not so sent, by
any means. The Bishop of Eome was utterly ignored
in it, and passed entirely by.? It was addressed to
" brethren in Asia and Phrygia, having the same
faith and hope ;" who (the inference is natural, if not
unavoidable,) are thereby designated as fathers in God
to the Church in Lyons, and, through Lyons, of all
the Churches of France.
The result of all this process undoubtedly is, to
establish the conclusion, that Lyons, and Lyons in di
rect connexion with oriental Christendom, is the chan
nel through which Christianity penetrated France, and
the northern circumjacent countries.? This is the con
clusion reached by the erudite and unwearied Mo
sheim, in a work more elaborate than his Institutes of
Church History, and one of the most elaborate works
ever written, to illustrate the rise and progress of
Christianity — the conclusion to which he arrives in
his Commentaries on the early affairs of the Christian
Church. He declares, that it is proved to a demon-
p All this, too, when Lyons couU write a hortatory letter to Rome,
and even an objurgatory one, to induce it to keep the peace of the Church!
-Eusebius, bk v. 3,. at end; v. 24, in the middle. For the last state
ment, Cardinal Perron pours abuse upon Eusebius. This proves its
truth. The Cardinal would disprove Eusebius's allegation, if he could.
He cannot, so he slanders him.— Perron's Reply to King James, bk ii.
chap. 6.
q So Neander, Ch. Hist., i. 114^117, Eng. ed.

CHRISTLINITY IN ENGLAND. 29
stration, that no legates from Eome, but devout men
from Asia, established Christian discipline among the
ancient Britons.'"
The process which has been followed out may have
been a, somewhat tedious one ; but the end reached
will amply compensate for all the fatigue it has cost
to reach it. For it establishes the cardinal fact, that
the paternity of Christian missions in France and Eng
land is due to that quarter of the world where St.
John spent the latest of his days, and where he wrote
the striking Epistles to the Asiatic Churches, which
we find in the book of Eevelations. The seven
Churches mentioned in that book were all of them in
proconsular Asia, (a territory far less extensive than
what we now call Asia Minor,) or in Phrygia. And
as it was with the Churches in proconsular Asia and
in Phrygia, that the Church in Lyons communicated
in the hour of its deepest sorrow, so doubtless it was
to these Churches, that the foundation of Christianity
is due for France, and for regions further northward
and westward — indeed, for all that portion of the
globe which has given a character to humanity, and
exercised a sway over its noblest welfare, that Popery
well may envy. France has never been Popery's
sure and certain ally ; for there has been a school of
theology fostered on Gallican soil, which has made
r Mosheim de Rebus, etc., p. 216, of the Latin copy which reads " ad
de7non,sirandum," vol. i. 273, Murdock's translation. Gibbon (ch. xv.,
note 18,) calls this a " masterly performance ;" and he says he shall often
have occasion to quote it.— IProf Palma, Pius IX.'s teacher of Ch. His
tory, quotes it, and appropriates its language.— Palma's Praelections, i.
pp. 22, 23, 52.

30 EARLY HISTORY OF
Popery writhe and quail, more, if possible, than the
unbending Protestantism of England." This school
has not yet died out ; and France may one day be

s Bossuet's great work Defensio Cleri Gallicani (a quarto of 1024
pages) is a magazine upon this subject. The power of this work, much
as Bossuet had done for Romanism in other ways, constrained Eome to
put it into her Index. — Rose's Biog. Diet., iv. 461. Maimbourg, (a Jes
uit,) who followed the lead of Bossuet, was expelled from his order by the
command of the Pope himself; and, but for the protection of his king,
might have languished in a dungeon, as the Benedictine Barnes did for
thirty years ! Hontheim (alias Febronius,) suffragan to the Abp. of Treves,
gave, says Nsebe, an incurable wound to Papal pretensions. — Nceb^s Ecc.
Hist., pp. 477, 478. If long wincing is a sign of great hurts, then Nfflbe
is right about Hontheim's work ; and a saying of the celebrated Charles
Leslie was not too severe : " A French Papist would be burnt at Eome
for a heretic, if they durst." This sentence is quoted from a work of
Leslie's, now but little known ; but which contains much of that pecu
liar talent for which Dr. Johnson complimented his other works. — The
Rehearsal, 2d ed. London, 1750, vol. v. p. 35. The celebrated Abauzit
well understood the ecclesiastical character of his countrymen, measured
by Eomish instruments. He speaks, in his famous letter to a liidy of
Dijon, of " the heresy of tlie French, who, during several centuries, re
jected the second Council of Nice [a. d. 787 ;] and who, I do not know
by what fatality, are almost always the last to receive the decisions of
the [Eoman] Church." — Abauzit's Miscellanies. London, 1774, p. 92.
But it is useless to identify a series, whose succession yet continues. In
1817, was published Abp. De Barral's defence of tbe same liberties, for
which Bossuet was a champion in 1682.
According to Guicciardini, France was on the eve of separation from
Rome, at the time England was contemplating that act. — Hist, of the
Wars in Italy, vol. x. p. 232. So also in Henry IV.'s time. — Sandys,
Europa Speculum, p. 259. It is well known how Richelieu and Louis
XIV. braved the Popedom, without much ceremony. — Robson's Life of
Richelieu, p. 392. And why should this be wonderful ? The little king
dom of Portugal has done the same thing — has caused a book, as bad as
Hontheim's, (Pereira's T/ieologia Tentativa,) to be published under the
sanction of ber prime mifiister ; and has at last con fiscated all the Church
property ! — Dumouiiez's Portugal, p. 190. Oldknow's Month in Portugal,
pp. 37, 38. Indeed, men like Sir Robert Cotton, and the great antiquary
Selden, were wont to declare, that they " could show undoubted testi
monies," that all the princes of Europe envied Henry VIIl.'s ecclesias
tical independence, and would gladly have imitated him, if they durst. —
Hacheis Life prefixed to his Sermons, p. xlii.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 31
religiously the ally of England, as rduch as she now
is politically, in spite of the Vatican, which mjist of
course condemn all alliance with heresy, as criminal
and perilous and degrading.*
The East then, and not Italy, not the head of an
Italian Church, may claim the honor of giving Chris
tianity to those countries, which are now at the head
of all civilized nations. France and England have,
in consequence, little to thank Eome for. And had
the affinity which began in the East been assiduously
retained — were it the custom now for the Church of
France to correspond, as in the days of Irenasus at
Lyons, with the Churches of Asia Minor, rather than
with the Church of Eome — were it the custom now
for British bishops to follow, as they once did, Ori
ental and not Eoman customs, and to be present, as I
must show they were, in French and Oriental coun
cils — the union between the East and the West might
have been maintained, in despite of Eome ; and the
Christian world never have been riven asunder. It
was Eome which began the great schism that divided
the Bast from the West';" and Eome's Church there-
t It was once the fashion to abuse Frenchmen at Eome, and call them,
"as in way of disgrace, The Parliament Catholics." — Sandys's Europoi
Speculum, p. 259. While but for Frenchmen, the Pope might, this very
moment, be a fugitive and an exile ! Sandys says, the French lawyers
were then particularly dreaded at Eome. Such men as D'Aguesseau
might well be. There is no man a rogue dreads more than an honest
lawyer !
u See Milman's Gibbon, ch. 21, at notes 115 and 126, or vol. iii. 361,
307. Gibbon confirmed by Socrates, bk ii. ch. 22 ; and Sozomen, bk
iii. ch. 13. The stand taken iu favor of appeals to Eome at tbe Council
of Sardica, A. o. 347, began the great schism which has never been heal
ed. If Rome would abate her claims about absolute, imperial, world-

32 EARLY HISTORY OF
fore ought to be the last of all Churches to complain
of schism, and especially of schism on a smaller scale,
and as levelled against herself. She has stamped
schism, as a hideous and indelible fact on the Church's
history, for more than a thousand years ; and if schism
has damaged her irreparably (as it has done in her
own favorite West) she is rightfully recompensed, for
her reckless alienation from all who will not be her
abject vassals. So say the Oriental Patriarchs to the
present day, and so say we ; and if the time might
come, when the Protestant East could unite with the
Protestant West, and utter a harmonious voice. Pope
ry would be left to an insignificance, which none
would be poor enough to honor.®
wide sovereignty, the unity of Christendom might be restored. The
Papacy, therefore, is the grandest hindrance to unity under heaven.
" It is delightful," says Dr. Townsend, " to review the manner in which,
till the conduct of the Bishop of Rome began to produce alienation of
Church from Church, the universal, holy, apostolic Church of Christ
was composed of many Episcopal communions, which unitedly formed
the one Church." — Townsend's Ecclesiastical and Civil History Philosoph
ically Considered, i. 201. " They," said -'even Mr. Newman, when in his
right mind, "they [i. e. the Romanists] cut themselves off from the
rest of Christendom ; we cut ourselves off from no branch, not even
from themselves." — Newman's Lectures on Romanism and Popular Prot
estantism. London, 1838, p. 260. "This papal supremacy alone stands
in the way to oppose a glorious re- union of all the Christian Churches." —
Leslies Works, new ed. iii. 469, comp. p. 167.
V " There are few things Rome would more dread, than an intimate con
nexion between the Greek and Anglican Churches." — Masson's Apology
for the Greek Church. London, 1844, p. 90. " Since the separation of the
Eastern and Western communions, the efibrts of Rome have been un
remitted to accomplish the subjugation of the Oriental Church." — Ibid,
p. 86. Masson was a judge of the Court of Areopagus; and previously,
attorney-general for the Morea. In 1848, Pio None addressed a letter to
the Orientals, exhorting them to unity. The Greek Patriarchs published
a reply, in which they class Popery among the heresies. — Journal of the
Malta College Committee. London, 1854, p. 777.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. SB
0, come that day, big with the fate of Christianity's
dearest destinies ! Come that day, when the grand
disturber of Christian concord will be unmistakingly
known to the Christian world ! Come that day, when
the catholicity of primitive times shall be revived,
and the bastard catholicity of Italy shall no longer
be the watchword of hopeful but deluded nations !
God hasten it in His time ! Eome with its Trentine
Council, which not all even of Eoman Christendom
receives implicitly, is not, and cannot be, the repre
sentative of Christianity at large. ISTay, it is not the
representative of the Christianity which once inhabited
its own walls ; and I cannot do better, perhaps, than
by quoting, for the fortification of such a sentiment,
the language of a divine, who has long slept with his
fathers, bnt who, being dead, may yet speak authori
tatively in Christian pulpits. Why, he exclaims in
holy indignation, why should any one " call the Chris
tian Faith the Eoman Faith, rather than the Faith of
Jerusalem, or the Faith of Antioch ; seeing it issued
from the former, and was received and first named in
the latter city, before any spark of Christianity was
kindled at Eome?" And he adds, as a clincher to
the pertinency of his question, a Jesuit "may sooner
prove the modern Italian tongue, now spoken in
Eome, to be the self-same in propriety and purity
with the Latin language in TuUy's time, than that
the rehgion professed in that city at this day, with all
the errors and superstitions thereof, is the same, in
soundness of doctrine and sanctity of life, with that
2*

84 CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND.
faith which by St. Paul in the Eoman Church was
once so highly commended." — (Fuller's Church His
tory, i. 24.)™
w "Cujus ultima non correspondent primis," says Clemangis, in a
passage already quoted. "Let men say what tbey can," exclaims Fleu
ry, " it is evident that the first ages furnished a much greater number
of holy popes than the last ones ; and that the morals and discipline of
the Romish Church were then very much more pure." — Fleury's Histoire
Ecclesiastique, vol. xvi. p. xx. Had Fleury opened his mouth in this
style at Rome, he would have been entitled, like poor Barnes, to a thirty
years' retirement!

LECTURE IL
SKETCH OF THE 0HEI8TIAB" HTSTOEY OF BEITAIN, TO THE INVA
SION OF THE PAGAN SAXONS, AND THB EETBEAT OF THE
OHEISTIAN BEITONS INTO WALES AND OOKNWALL.
In the preceding lecture I endeavored to show, that
Christianity did not take its rise in Eome, but in the
East. That Eome had so little to do with the origina
tion and dissemination of earliest Christianity, that she
neither inaugurated the word Christian, nor the word
Catholic; both of which, and the meaning and spirit
of which, started and grew up in the East, when
Eome was in her religious infancy, and but one of
the many scattered colonies of Christendom.
I then entered, formally, upon an answer to two
questions, — viz. : What does Britain owe to Eome, on
account of her claim to nniversal dominion? and,
What, on account of the claim, that Christianity came
first to her shores, through Eomish instrumentality ?
The answers to these questions were, substantially, as
follows : — To the first, that Eome was but one of the
five Patriarchates, into which Christendom was primi
tively divided — that it had no headship among those
equals, but one of courtesy and of dignity— that its

36 EARLY HISTORY OF
headship of authority was disputed by them, from the
first, and is disputed still — and that England owes no
more deference to Eome, than its old and still protest
ing associates.
To the second, — That Eome had nothing to do with
planting Christianity in Britain ; but that this grand
accomplishment in British history is due to the Chris
tians of the East, who, probably, brought Christianity
into France — while from Lyons in France it spread
extensively into adjacent countries ; Lyons having
been made by the Eoman emperors a territorial
centre."^ The conclusion was, that Christianity, both in France
and in England, owes little or nothing to Eome ; which
received her Christianity, as they did theirs, through
the missions of Oriental Christians. Eome, conse
quently, has not so much title (if any) to the gratitude
of France and England, as has Asia Minor;* with
a To show the connexion between ancient France and Britain, scholars
sometimes appeal to the identity of their language. " The British tongue,
which, at this day, is in use among the Welsh in England, and the Britains
[inhabitants of Brittany] in France, is but the reliques of that tongue
which both the old Britains and Gauls used." — Gal^s Court of ihe Gen
tiles, vol. i. p. 57.
b Britain was known in the East long before it was known at Rome.
" But the most certain indication of the trade carried on by the Phoeni
cians in Britain, is the fact, that tin was an article in daily use among
the Greeks, even as early as the days of Homer." — Giles's Ancient Brit
ons, i. p. 12. This tin was obtained from Cornwall ; and a knowledge of
the trade by which it was obtained was carefully concealed from tbe Ro
mans. — Strabo's Geography, Bohn's edition, i. pp. 262, 263. The Greek
of Strabo may be found in the second volume of Dr. Giles's Ancient
Britons — a volume of great value, made up of Greek and Latin excerpts
from very many sources, illustrating ancient British history. The learned
Theophilus Gale confirms Strabo's opinion, that the Phoenicians visited
Cornwall for tin, and derives the word Britain, or, rather BrUtania, from

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 37
which, France (at least) in the days of her primitive
history, was in the habit of holding frequent and close
communication. We come now to the third and last question, pro
posed in the last lecture, bearing upon the affinities
supposed to exist between ancient Britain and the
popedom of Italy; and are, at present, to ascertain
what obligation Britain owes to this popedom, on the
pretence, that if the Church of Eome did not intro
duce Christianity into our father-land, at the first, it
nevertheless re-introduced it, when Christianity there
had relapsed into Paganism, and had actually disap
peared from British soil.
Eome is a wily strategist, with which to deal.
When quite beaten off from one post, she flies back
to a second behind it, and argues from that standpoint,
as coolly as if never defeated at any other. When
we prove that Eome had no vicegerency over ancient
Britain, by virtue of her Western Patriarchate, and
none by her pretended planting of Christianity origin
ally on British territory, then we begin to hear hsp-
ings about the connexion between Eome and Britain,
in the second century. The first century has fairly to
two Syriac words, signifying T%e Land of Tin. — Gale's Court of the Gen
tiles, book i. ch. 9; or, vol. i. p. 5.5. Some have inferred the connexion
of Britain with the East, not from the facts of trade, or philology, but
from points of analogy between Judaism and Druidism. " If the religion
of Britain had been invented, without any communication with the East
ern world, why did its inventors happen to have not only the same no
tions of the Deity, but likewise to adore Him under the same similitude ?"
— Identity between the Druidical and Hebrew Religions, London, 1829, p. 13.
It is a curious fact, that the oak should have been a religious tree, to the
Jew, as well as to the Briton. See Joshua, xxiv. 26 ; Judges, vi. 11 ;
Isa. i. 29.

88 EARLY HISTORY OF
be abandoned, as a forlorn hope ; but the second offers
something whereon " to hope again"- — and about that,
I niust now proceed to give you some sketch, of one
of Eome's ecclesiastical romances.
It is assumed, on the authority of the so-called
Venerable Bede, (another of the early British histo
rians) that, in the latter part of the second century, Lu
cius the King of Britain*^ applied to the Bishop of
Eome, in order to be made a Christian. Now the
very chapter of Bede's history which refers to this
event contains most serious chronological errors ; and
the whole affair, though it must have happened at a
period, when the Church had a season of favorable
rest, is utterly ignored by Eusebius, who well knew,
as his history shows, what happened at Eome in the
same period relative to the general interests of "Chris
tianity.'^ Moreover, it is always safer to trust to historical
documents (such particularly as letters,) than to the sur-

c Bede, book i. ch. 4. Comp. Fullwood's Roma Ruit. p. 31, note. Lu-
cius's whole story doubted by Tillemont, whom Gibbon praises so highly
for "his scrupulous minuteness." — Britons and Saxons not Converted to
Popery, London, 1748, pp. 276, 277. Dr. Burton treats the story of Lu
cius as a fable. — Lectures, ii. 206.
d Eusebius, bk v. ch. 21. Bower's Popes, i. 38. Bede is the chief
authority for the story of Lucius ; and he quoted from an old Liber Pon-
tificalis, which the author of "Britons and .Saxons, etc.," p. 276, calls a
" silly, ill-contrived book." Bishop Pesirson also traces Bede's authority,
as the Liber Pontificalis. — Minor Works, ii. 409. This Lib. Pontificalis,
according to Mr. Oxlee, so learned in ancient lore, "is replete with inac-
. curacy, as well in the dates of the episcopates, as in the names of the
first pontiff's." He speaks of portions of it as laboring "under the
foulest suspicion." — Oxlee's Sermons on the Hierarchy, sermon 3d, p. 9.
We now see the value of the ultimate auihrn-Uy about the story, or ro
mance, of Lucius.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 39
mises and comments of historians themselves. Now
it happens, that there is a letter on record, purporting
to have been written by the Bishop of Eome, to King
Lucius, which poorly accords with the Popish version
of that ancient monarch's application. According to
this letter, he does not ask for conversion, but for law,
(the Eoman laws and the emperor's laws*) that he
might use them in the administration of his kingdom.
The answer informed him, that, in respect to such laws,
he, the pastor of a Christian flock, had nothing to do,
or say ; while, in respect to religious laws, if he wanted
guidance, the same answer informed him that he pos
sessed the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments,
and that, in ihem, he would discover all the aid which
he needed. This cautious abstinence from interference
with temporal sovereignties, and this remission of King
Lucius to his Bible, shows that the Eoman bishop of
those days looked upon him as capable of supplying
all his political, and all his religious necessities, with
out any special tutelage on his part ; and is only com
patible with the supposition, that the king was an in
dependent monarch, and an independent Christian,
already^— at least, so far as respects any superintend
ence or guidance of the (so-called) Holy See. And
as to the epistle itself, if a pope ever wrote it, then it
is ten thousand pities that his mantle has not fallen
e T. Jones's British Church, p. 143. Archdeacon Williams very prop
erly suggests, that he wanted these laws, to see how they affected the
Church, and to use them as gaiies.— Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 67.
Such an idea, of course, implies that the Christian religion was no nov
elty to him. The Archdeacon defends (p. 68, note) the authenticity of
the letter of Eleutherius.

40 EARLY HISTORY OF
upon the shoulders of his numerous successors. If
the present inheritor of his three-fold crown would
imitate still (as at first perhaps he was inclined to do)
his truly apostolic example— would, like him, abstain
from laying a rude hand upon temporal authority, and
send religious inquirers to their Bibles, we would all
dub him the Prince of Protestants, and award him,
with joyful homage, what the creed of Pope Pius de
mands for the images of canonized saints, " due honor
and veneration."/
The story of King Lucius is evidently too lame a
one to beguile any souls, but unstable ones ; and so
we may quietly pass it by, and approach the next
most eminent period in British religious history, to
ascertain what connexion then subsisted between it
and the capital of Italy and the empire.
/ The strongest argument against the story of Lucius is, that Rome
established no jurisdiction under it, as under the mission of Augustine.
Had she inaugurated Christianity in Britain under him, she would have
done so, eagerly and carefully. Mosheim supplies us with another, that
if the Britons received their religion from Rome, they would have fol
lowed Roman ecclesiastical customs; which, most notoriously, thev did
not. — Commentaries by Murdock, i. 272. Godwin says the story of Lu
cius was a good deal doubted in bis A&j.—De Pratsulibus, p. 25. London,
1616. Carte rejects it entirely; and Carte is one of five, whom Mr.
Southey, in his Vindiciai, p. 243, has classed among "the most sagacious,
the most impartial, the most laborious, and the most accurate of our his
torians."— Card's England, i. 132, 3. Mr. Soames says, that if the mis
sionaries of the Pope did come, they found a church in Glastonbury,
more than a hundred years old I— Soames's Latin Church during Anglo-
Saxon Times, p. 39. Birkbeck says, that Lucius sent for preachers, to
help him in his work of Christianizing — which is the whole story, if
there is any truth in it. — Protestants' Evidence, p. 87. Such was the
opinion of Bp. Andrews. — Response to Bellarmine, new edition, p. 40.
The diploma of King Arthur, A. d. 531, says, that Lucius was converted
by doctors from Carahridge.—Ayliffe's State of the University of Oxford,
London, 1714. Appendix to vol. ii. pp. i. ii.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 41
Of the history of Christianity in Britain, from A. d.
200 to A. D. 800, no authentic records, whatever,
remain. We are assured by Gildas, that Christianity
lasted through {permansere)9 all vicissitudes, from the
reign of Tiberius, under whom Christ was crucified,
to the great persecution which commenced ' under
Diocletian, in A. D. 303, when Christianity itself was
well nigh crucified, or diiven away as a fugitive and
a vagabond from the haunts of men. But political
changes, persecutions, and civil wars, obliterated, in
Britain, all those historical documents and monu
ments, on which we might have placed stable depend
ence, for a knowledge of its internal condition.^ It
was something to outlive the troubles of such a period
of commotion and desolation, — ^to last it out, as the
modest historian has expressed himself, understat
ing, rather than overstating, his country's Christian
vigor. We can, however, glean from the reminiscences
of this period, the general conclusion, that Christianity
extended itself, and prevailed quite widely. One strong
encouragement to this conclusion arises from the fact,
that the superstition of the ancient Druids, (the ancient
pagans of our father-land,) disappeared entirely, after
the opening of the second century.* The inference is
g Giles's Gildas has the Latin accompanying the English ; and Gildas,
in Latin, may also be found in Giles's Ancient Britons, vol. ii. p. 231, etc.
h Giles's Gildas, pp. 8, 9.
i Chorion's Early English Ch. p. 4, new edition. Seldeni Opera, vol.
iv. col. 898. The Romans endeavored to destroy the Druidical supersti-
tion.— Tacitus Annals, bk xiv. 30. But, as Blumhardt well says, the
Britons hated " the new idolatry" which the Romans substituted. Es
tablishment du Christianisme, i. 416. So Christianity was its only
effectual substitute. Yet, Druidism had its strongest hold in Britain ;
the chief priest of it residing there. NoeV s Diet, de la Fable, vol. i. p. 48C.

42 EARLY HISTORY OF
a credible and a fair one, that so prevalent a supersti
tion could have been supplanted by nothing but the
religion which in the next century diffused itself so
generally : in other words, that in this now dark
period of history, Christianity struggled successfully
with a terrific and bloody form of paganism, and
triumphantly vanquished it. And, too, as we may
be comfortably assured, without any bolstering or
underpropping from Eome ; since, had Eome had
aught to do in compassing such a triumph, she would
not have failed of braggarts to develop it, in shapes as
numerous as the disguises of a Jesuit.
We must come, therefore, to the fourth century, for
our next stopping-place in this historic disquisition.
Early in this century, (say from A. D. 303, the date
of Diocletian's edict, which began the last and the
severest of the ten ancient persecutions of Christi
anity, to A. D. 311, the date of the edict of Galerius,
which first caused this persecution to abate,) the
Church of Britain suffered intensely and incessantly,
under an onslaught, which was supposed to have
exterminated all regular worship of Jesus Christ.^ It
was during this frightful persecution that Alban, once
a Eoman officer, became a convert to the Christian
faith, and heroically suffered martyrdom, at the Eoman
town of Verulam, which has since been called St. Al
bans^ in honor of his consecrated memory. Oppressed
and down-trodden, as the Christians of this period

j Jeremie's Hist, of the Christian Church, in the second and third cen
turies, p. 71.
k St. Albans is in Hertfordshire, some twenty miles N.N.W. of London

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 43
were, they were so numerous, and so devoted, that,
when peace returned, they erected a church of such
durability, over the scene of St. Alban's sufferings,^
that it was standing in Bede's time, four hundred
years afterwards, to commemorate the virtues of the
first well-known martyr of the Church of England.™
Christianity must have been conspicuous and general
in Britain, in those days, if such as Alban were
induced to die for it; and if, after the most fearful
baptism of blood and fire, which it experienced in
ancient times, it still, right away, grew strong enough
to erect almost imperishable cathedrals, over the ashes
of its votaries,^ it ought to have attracted Eome's
observation; and it would have done so, if Eome
could have thereby acquired any merit, or glory, or
strength, for herself — i. e., on the supposition that
Eome then was what she became afterwards. But,
though the Philippians, far away in the East, could
send Epaphroditus to Eome, for the aid of St. Paul,
in his hours of destitution and peril, (as we learn from
his own epistle to the generous Christians at Philippi,)
we do not find that Eome, though she could talk
I "Mirandi operis, et ejus martyrio condigna." — Bede, bk i. ch. 7,
near end.
m Churton, p. 7. Chronicles Anc. Brit. Ch. second edit. 1851, p. 183.
n Giles's Gildas, Hist. § 12. "In less than ten years, etc." The
British Church, and the French Church, too, of these days, were proba
bly self-supporting Churches. "But the bishops of Gaul and Britain did
not think it proper to be thus supported by the exchequer, and chose
rather to live upon their own pocket." — Collier's Ecc. Hist. 8vo. edit. i.
85. Compare Sulpitii Severi, Sac. Hist. lib. ii. ch. iv. p. 420. They
showed their high-minded and incorruptible independence, too, by such
conduct. They were attending a Council; and while others were main
tained " at the emperor's charge," they refused to accept the privilege.

44 EARLY HISTORY OF
loudly enough about excommunications," could send
any missionary to Britain, to pour in oil and wine,
while she lay, like the Samaritan by the way-side,
bleeding and exhausted.
No ; Eome had no tender recollections of Britain,
when she was likely to cost her nothing but toil and
treasure: when the pallium of. an archbishop, which
(as we shall see) she could send at an auspicious
period, would only bring swift destruction upon its
wearer. And as little anxious recollection had she of
her, in the latter part of this same century, when she
suffered from enemies worse, in some respects, than
vindictive anti-Christian emperors.
The British Church, having been cruelly afflicted
by enemies without, began, at this period, to be
troubled by enemies within. Arianism, which had
created such formidable disturbances in the East,

0 I allude here, of course, to such things as Victor's excommunication
of the Oriental Churches, because of the controversy about Easter, in
A. n. 196. This is usually called his excommunication of ihem; but,
really, it was his abscission of himself from the Church Catholic, and
the proving his Church to he anti-Catholic — a title which I believe to
be her proper one, according to a very ancient authority. Said Fir-
milian, metropolitan of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who, in A. n. 256, de
fended Cyprian, metropolitan of Carthage, and a Roman saint, against
the threats of Stephen, patriarch of Rome, " Whilst you [Stephen]
think it in your power to excommunicate all the world, you have only
separated yourself from the communion of the whole Catholic Church."
— Marshall's Cyprian, part ii. p. 263. By her violent and unmitigated
exclusiveness, Rome has put herself in a state of separation from the
Catholic body of Christ, and become a mere anti-Catholic separatist,
and nothing better. Mr. Newman understood this well enough, when
he was an independent thinker, and had not put on the strait-waistcoat
of Popery. "They [the Romanists, as he then habitually called them]
cut themselves off from the rest of Christendom." — Newman's Lectures
on Popular Protestantism, etc., second edition, London, 1838, p. 260.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 45
continued to disseminate itself, and reached the Brit
ish coast, probably about the close of the fourth
century, i. e., A. d. 400.P It had been formally con
demned, seventy-five years previously, at the great
Council of Nice ; but it found a refuge among the
uncultivated and ferocious Goths and Vandals, and
was, in their hands, a blasting scourge to Europe for
hundreds of years afterwards.? Some of its emissa
ries appear to have reached England ; but made no
great impression there in a direct way, though they
might have fomented a heresy, which soon broke out
in that country with portentous violence — I allude to
the heresy which has taken its name from Pelagius, a
native of ancient Wales.*" Pelagius was a recluse,
p Giles's Gildas, p. 12, § 12. Bede, bk i. 8. Bishop Stillingfleet, in
his Origines Britannicse, questions the correctness of the charge about
Arianism. Dr. Lingard passes it over in silence. Alban Butler believes
it. — Lives of the Saints, Dublin, 1833, i. 684. So does Archdeacon Wil
liams, who acutely says, that both Gildas and Bede have described Uni-
tarianism, by one of its legitimate effects, viz., disposing people to be
"always fond of hearing something new, and holding nothing with
firmness." If Britain was, at this time, filled with cravers after novel
ties, and theological whifflers, the Unitarians must certainly have found
their way into it. — Antiquities of the Cym/ry, p. 246.
J It is a fashion for deniers of the 'Trinity to esteem themselves, par
eminence. Christian. It would be well for them, occasionally, to remem
ber, that the Goths and Vandals belonged to their party. It is nothing
new for errorists to claim perfection. A sceptic will often tell us, he is
a better man than any member of a Church. " The Arian heretics, in
their day, would allow none but themselves to be Catholics." — Giison's
Preservative, vol. xii. p. 4. Compare Socrates, Ecc. Hist., bk ii. ch. 37, or
p. 139, Bohn's ed. The observing reader will here note the curious par
allel, between the old Arians and some pretty notorious people in mod
ern times, who keep the best names for themselves alone.
r For Pelagius, and for Pelagianism in Britain, see Bede, bk i. chaps.
10, 17, 21. For a fuller modern account, Thackeray's Researclies, Lon
don, 1843, ii. 124, etc. Cardinal Noris, Hist. Pdagianm, professes to give
an account derived from the sources which Bede copied, lib. ii. ch. v.—

46 EARLY HISTORY OF
who lived among his books, and fed on theological
reveries, till he began to fancy human nature all good
ness, and that it had never experienced such a catas
trophe as the Fall. His system was formally con
demned by the Church Catholic, about a century sub
sequently to the condemnation of Arianism ; but hav
ing originated, or been developed in England, it was
likely to do there an incredible amount of mischief.
The Church of England felt herself hardly compe
tent to encounter, single-handed, the perils by which
it was menaced. Pelagianism (like modern Unitari-
anism) teaching man that he is his own Eedeemer,
was of course peculiarly flattering to self-conceit and
vanity ; and British Christianity might have suc
cumbed before its plausibility and sophistic arts.
What was to be done, in the critical and agitating
exigency? Why, flee at once to Eome, a Papist
would eagerly exclaim ; she has a panacea for every
disease ecclesiastical. Yes, as much as she had, when
martyrs like St. Alban lay expiring on British soil ;
or when Churches like Alban's Abbey needed funds
for its erection. Eome was not the recourse of Brit-
tain, when the clouds of heresy were darkening in her
firmament, and threatening to extinguish her Christ-
given candlestick, or to remove it out of its place.«
The most elaborate history of Pelagianism was written by a Dutch di
vine, G. J. Vossius. This work was highly complimented by Archbishop
Laud. — Church Review, Jan. 1854, p. 541.
.- Dr. Lingard, in his Anglo-Saxons, would fain have us believe that a
pope did incite France to help England. Dr. Hales, in his Primitive
Church of the British Isles, (p. 132, etc.,) denies and disproves the sup
position. The Jesuit, Sirmond, says that the authority on which the
Pope's interference is grounded is an interpolation. — Britons and Saxons

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 47
No ; France came then to her rescue, as probably she
had done aforetime ; for, again and again, had Britain
applied to the highest Eoman authorities, and in
vain. I say, to Eoman authorities, meaning more
particularly Eoman civil (yet Christian) authori
ties; to which Britain could send an epistle which
she literally called her groans, and which, like the cry
of the helpless in the desert, or on the wide salt sea,
was wasted upon empty air.'^ And if political Eome
were thus deaf and blind, there is no evidence to show
that ecclesiastical Eome was any less so. Indeed, the
application to France may but indicate, that it was
requisite to try other means of help, than could be
given or promised by the chief bishop of the empire
and the putative father of Christendom.
But France came readily (did she not ?) to the res
cue. Aye, most cheerfully, and magnanimously. Not
a congregation, or city merely, of the country, but its
clergy generally, were thrown into commotion, for the
necessities of their brethren across the Straits of Do
ver. A council (" a great synod," as Bede styles it,)«
came together; and that synod deputed two of its
most considerable members, to hasten into England
not Con/verted to Popery, pp. 292, 29S. The old story, then, a Roman for
gery ! Prof Rees argues against the interposition of the Pope, because
he says the Pope and the Church of France were then at variance. — Es
say on the Welih Saints, p. 120. It is possible that the French remem
bered the obligations of their ancestors ; for the grand reason assigned
by Julius Caesar himself for his invasion of Britain, was, that theUrit-
ons helped the French in his wars in Gaul. " Quod omnibus fere Gal-
licis bellis, hostibus nostris inde subministrata auxilia intelligebat." —
Ccesar de Bello GalUco, lib. iv. ed. 1670, p 142.
t Fuller's Ch. Hist. i. 70. Bede, bk i. ch. 14.
u Bede, bk i. ch. 17. Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 77.

48 EARLY HISTORY OF
on an errand of conference and succor. This council
assembled at Troyes, some ninety miles south-east of
the present city of Paris; and the bishop of that
city, with the bishop of the neighboring city of Aux-
erre, immediately hied themselves away to England,
to fulfil their fraternal mission.
And they did not labor in that mission half-heart
edly, or in vain. With Gallic vivacity and suppleness,
they taught the slower Briton how to vanquish the
crafty Pelagian, in his most seducing arguments."
They challenged the champions of heresy to open
debate, at Verulam, where the ashes of St. Alban
were reposing ; and over those ashes obtained for
catholic truth a signal and crowning victory, w
And again, too, years subsequently, did bishops of
France bestir themselves for the British Church, and
visit England on a similar mission of fraternal affec
tion and devotion. Pelagianism, like the Lernean
hydra, raised fresh heads, when some of its former
ones had been shorn off. But French sympathy, and
learning, and zeal, and prowess, were again at hand,
to upgird the weak, and animate the timid ; and, a
second time, victory under Gallican auspices perched
upon English banners. The issue is thus stated by
Bede, and is well worthy mention, to show that the
worst which our British forefathers did with a heretic,
was to dismiss him quietly from their territory. Eng
land never learned the use of faggots and flames, till
V France celebrated then for its oratory. British students went there
to study law. — Juvenal, Satire xv. iii. Madan's ed. and note.
w Bede, bk i. ch. 21.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 49
Eomish tuition had seared her conscience, and petri
fied her temper. "By the judgment of all," says the
historian, "the originators of the heresy, who .had
been expelled the island, were brought before the
priests to be conveyed up into the continent, that the
country might be rid of them, and they corrected of
their errors."* That was the ancient British, unro-
manized, way of treating heretics. In military phrase,
they were merely drummed out of camp ; they were
not even incarcerated, or maimed — still less were they
turned into smoke and ashes at the stake.
These things happened about the middle of the 5th
century, (i. e. A. D. 450) and from this time onward, 150
years, there is little to be said, in any way, of the ec
clesiastical history of Britain. Evidently the British
Church was one of no inconsiderable strength, to
throw off and exterminate (if not alone) such heresies
as Arianism and Pelagianism — ^both of which tasked
the energies of ecumenical councils, and the first of.
which was not suppressed, in such a country as Spain,
till the sixth century had well nigh expired.^ It had
martyrs like St. Alban, who has given his name to a
dukedom, if not to a bishop's see.® It had confessors
like St. Keby,* who has given a name to Holy -Head,
his favorite residence — ^familiar to every voyager to
Liverpool. It had pilgrims* who could wend their
X Bede, bk i. ch. 21. — Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 93.
y Riddle's Chronology, a. d. 589.
z Churton, p. 7, note.
a Or Cybi, pronounced .SMSy.- Lives of the Cambro-British Saints.
Llandovery, 1853. pp. 495-501.
b Eccleston's English Antiquities, p. 12. " Their often journeying to
Palestine." — Twysden's Vindication, chap. ii.
3

50 EARLY HISTORY OF
way into far-off Syria, and into the capital of Pales
tine, the central home of Christianity. It had histo
rians, like Gildas, who could arraign the loftiest in
Church and State for their shortcomings. It had
Church dignitaries," a Bishop of York and a Bishop
of London, (not to mention others) to send to a French
council, in south France, in A. D. 314 : — it sent repre
sentatives, as is altogether probable, to the grand coun
cil of Nice, in A. D. 825 -.d — it sent the same to the
council of Sardica, in ancient Thrace, in A. D. 347 : —
the same to an Italian council, at Eimini, in A. d. 359.
It could, also, not only support itself,^ but send forth
missionaries to diffuse the faith which blessed itself;
for it is indisputable, that the Britons, even in the
midst of their troubles, sent St. Ninian to preach the
Gospel to the Picts, then inhabiting the southern parts
of Scotland/ It is quite as indisputable, that Patrick,
the patron saint of Ireland, was a Briton, and not an
c It had three provinces (York, London, and Caerleon) represented
by their Metropolitans. — Tattam's Defence of the Ch. of England, p. 69.
There were fifteen Archbishops of London, " before the irruption of the
Saxons." — T. Ridley's View of ilie Civile and Ecclesiastieale Law. London,
1634. 2d edition, p. 142.
d Inett's Origines, new edit., i. 21, note. Hales's Ch. of the British
Isles, p. 109. Britons and Saxons not Converted to Popery, p. 286. Col
lier's Ecc. Hist., Svo. edit., i. 65, etc. Thackeray's Researches, i. 296.
Selden says, it is "veri perquam simillimum" that Britain was repre
sented at the Council. — Opera, vol. iii., col. 602.
3 In A. D. 361, the British bishops refused Constantius's offers of sup
port, just as they had done before. — Hales's Oh., etc., p. 109. The British
Church had no less than eleven synods before Augustine's times. — Joyces
British Synods, p. 109. The independence of the Church is very strongly
stated by Archdeacon Williams. " The king, under the ancient system,
could alter nothing which respected learning and religion, of his own
arbitrary will." — Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 177.
/ Churton, p. 18, for both.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 51
Irishman? — nay, that he called himself a Briton — and
that he was sent into Ireland by the British Church,
at about the time when Ninian was sent to Scotland.
So that both Scotland and Ireland may alike be in
debted to Britain for their rehgion, at a period when
Eome knew her not, and she knew not Eome.
All of which goes unitedly and impressively to
show, that the Church of England was not merely a
Church estabhshed, in the very earliest centuries of
the Christian dispensation, but a Church in commu
nion with, and well known by, the whole of Christen
dom — consulted, too, by all Christendom — and its ac
tion known, and respected, and sought after, with a
world-wide deference, long, long (in fact, hundreds of
years) before that period, when Eome's direct inter
ference in English affairs becomes notorious and ac
knowledged. How completely impertinent, not to say
ridiculous, does it then seem, for an intelligent student
of history to ignore such a Church — to imagine it un-

g St. Patrick, in Knight's Encyc. Biog., a Briton. "He was a North
Briton by birth, born a. d., 372, near the village of Banaven, in Tabernia,
a district bordering on the Western, or Irish sea." — Hales's Ch. of ihe
BHtish Isles, p. 141. It was under his father's own roof, that he first con
ceived the project of his Irish mission. — Hales's, etc., p. 147. He preached
the Gospel in Cornwall and Wales, before he did so iu Ireland. — Thack
eray's Researches, ii. 167. A chapel was dedicated to him, near the spot
where he left Wales for Ireland. And, in Wales, the primitive practice
prevails of naming a church not after a patron saint, but after its
founder. It follows, that Patrick was the founder of this church. —
Reeis Essay on ihe Welsh Saints. London, 1836. pp. 11, 128, 129. Wil-
liami^s Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 182, and notes. It is quite possible,
that Patrick had determined to make Wales his permanent abode. " Then
Patrick came to the valley of Rosina, called Glyn Rosyn, and intended to
pass his life there." — Rees's Lives of the Cambro-British Saints. Llan
dovery, 1853. p. 403.

52 EARLY HISTORY OP
organized, unpublished, almost in fact unexisting,
simply because the Church of Eome either did not
know, or did not care to know, any thing of its for
tunes — a want of knowledge (as the sequel will show)
to be attributed to the characteristic fact, that it could
not render this Church subservient to its own special,
individual interests.* Eome (as we shall soon ascer
tain) could readily find England out, when, its Chris
tian establishment having become weakened, a better
opportunity offered to thrust upon it her own peculi
arities. Then Eome at length attempted to construct
upon British territory a Church and a religion after
the counsel of her own imperious will, and the pattern
of her own selfish heart.
The formal entrance made by Eome into England
did not take place till nearly six centuries had passed
away, and when England had been known at Eome,
politically, from the days of Julius Caesar, i. e., before
the Christian era.* If, during this protracted period,
Christianity had been wanted in Britain at Eome's
hands ; or if, having become known there, it was
wanted in greater purity, or by way of revival, or re-
animation, one would suppose that a little something
short of six plump centuries might be sufficient to
h Says the antagonist of Dr. Tattam, " All history proclaiims it was a
Roman Missionary, St. Augustine, who converted England to Christi
anity." This is the way in which Roman writers sometimes endeavor
to bluff one off, in the Capt. Bobadil style. Tbey would fain persuade
us, that such a thing as Christianity itself was not known in England,
till Augustine put Roman feet upon the soil, and opened there his Italian
budget. i Caesar invaded Britain 65 years before Christ. — Giles's Ancient Brit
ons, ch. ii.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 53
awaken Eome's interest in one of the destitute and
suffering provinces of its wonderfully compacted em
pire. Eome (if the spirit of Peter and Paul, and not
the overstretched authority of Peter and Paul, had
been in her) ought to have had ample footing in
England before the first century had completed its
cycle, and carried its report to judgment. The myr
midons of Csesar and his successors had opened a
Eoman highway, for her easy admission. But no;
Eome (as we have seen) could not Christianize even
her near neighbor, France. Asiatics had to furnish
bishops, and martyr bishops too, for Gallia's ancient
religious capital. Eome could not send her bishop
to the Council of Aries, or to the Council of Nice ;
though he lived twenty-one years after the first, and
eleven years after the second, of these most important
assemblies./ She could not assist Britain to heave off
the incubus of Arianism and Pelagianism — heresies
which, when dominant, will reduce Christianity to a
mere moral philosophy, or a fanciful speculation.
But when her own peculiar imprimatur could be put
upon England — her own image and superscription
stamped, so to say, on England's physiognomy—
then, Eome was ready, alert, with all sorts of instru
mentalities, to accomplish her apparently honest, but
(as ever) her ulterior, selfish, and interested aims.*
j Sylvester was Pope from 314 to 336. He was chosen the last of Jan
uary, 314, and died December 31, 335. The Council of Aries, in France,
met in August, 314, and the Council of Nice, in Bythinia, (according to
Tillemont,) on the 19th of June, 325. The Council of Aries was intended
to be general for, at least, all the West.
k This language will, of course, be considered illiberal. But how

54 EARLY HISTORY OF
This brings us to the period upon which Eome
pitched for making (one may not illiberally say) a
religious descent upon English soil. The period was
no doubt a singularly propitious one. After the ex
tirpation of Arianism and Pelagianism from England,
and when the English Church had a fair prospect for
a season of rest, and quiet, solid increase, Britain was
most unfortunately cursed with internal troubles, of a
purely political complexion.^ Her petty kingdoms
were involved in civil wars, and the King of South
Britain, like the Israelites, when beleaguered by the
Syrians, resolved in a luckless hour, to go, (as a Jewish
prophet would have described it,) to go down for aid
into Egypt — i. e., to call in the aid of neighbors, who
were pagans and idolaters.™ This British king invited
the wild and godless Saxons of the continent, to de-
much does it differ from Dr. Barrow's, whose treatise on the Supremacy
C. Butler, Esq., of Lincoln's Inn, quotes in his Book of the Roman Cath
olic Church, as a model, for its gentlemanly bearing, as well as its schol
arly learning. "Such was the humor of that See [the Roman] to allow
nothing which did not suit with the interests of its ambition." — Barrow
on the Supremacy, vol. vii. p. 351, of his works, Hughes's edition. After
this Romish sanction of Dr. Barrow, by one English lawyer, I may surely
say, in the language of another English lawyer, " Gregory would proba
bly never have planned, nor Augustine travelled, had conversion been the
onhf object at which they aimed." (The italicised word is my author's.)
— Muscutt on the History of Cliurch Laws in England. London, 1861, p.
5. I cannot think it illiberal to do no more than reiterate what such au
thors have said, and what Bp. Gregoire said, as he was winding up his
history of the Confessors of Monarchs. "The Popes have neglected
nothing, to obtain and preserve iheir ascendancy over Catholic govern
ments." — Hist., etc. Paris, 1824, p. 417. Or what Abp. De Pradt said
of the Jesuits, that their scheme was to obtain empire by means of re
ligion. — De Pradt's Jesuitism, 10th ed. ch. xv. The objection to Greg
oire and De Pradt will no doubt be, that they are a sort of state' s-evi-
dence. No question they are ; and such evidence is often all we can get
against rogues.
I Bede, bk i. ch. 22. m Giles's Gildas, § 23, Hist.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. ^5
fend him against the -encroachments of his neighbors.
Perhaps he was financially unable to subsidize French
soldiery, and so applied for those who might be had
at a lower price." If so, he discovered to his sorrow,
what many another bargainer has done, that the
cheapest article at first, proves full often, the dearest
in the end. The Saxons came; but, alas, their un
costly alliance terminated but too speedily in the most
taxing and rasping of disasters. From allies they
were soon converted into aliens, who flew with the
appetites of harpies upon the fair possessions of the
British, and, like parasites, fed upon the tree that
bore them. The melancholy issue was, that Christian
Britain, having sought help "from the godless, instead
of God himself, was forsaken of her Divine Patron,
(as the Jews of old full often were,) and given up as
a prey to those whom she should never have made
friends of. A quaint historian compares her resort to
such questionable auxiliaries, to the practice of phy
sicians in ancient days, who poured liquid quicksilver
down a patient's throat, till the mineral itself destroy
ed him. The Saxons, said he, corroded the bowels
of the state that entertained them."
Yet, let us sedulously remember, that this remark
applies not to Britain universally, but only to its east
ern portion, along the German Ocean..? The Saxons
landed on the isle of Thanet, at the mouth of the
n All the Saxons got was food and clothing. — Turner's Ang. Saxons,
Bandry's ed. i. 151. Turner quotes Gildas, § 13, and Nennius, § 28, 35.
In Giles's Gildas it is § 23, and in his Nennius, § 36.
0 Fuller, i. 92.
p " In that part, however, which was possessed by the Britons, the

56 EARLY HISTORY OF
river Thames — occupying subsequently, the territory
now styled after them, Essex, or the land of the East
Saxons ; Sussex, or the land of the South Saxons ; and
Middlesex, or the land of the Middle Saxons. They
never vanquished the western portion of the Island
of Great Britain, now known as the principality of
Wales ; where that old tongue, curiously resembling
the Hebrew, is still spoken, and which a competent
judge pronounces, at once, full, stately, and mascu
line, and free from that effeminacy of later tongues,
out of which, as he says, the bones have been taken,
in order to make them bend to modern expediencies.?
The Saxons never conquered Wales, and Wales still
preserves a species of independency ; since, a traveller
once informed me, the Welsh have been known to re
fuse sturdily to speak English, because the language
of the old inveterate enemies of their fatherland.''
In Wales, the ancient Britons found a safe and im
pregnable retreat ; so that when Eome at last set her
foot (her foot ecclesiastical) on English territory, " the
poor Christian Britons," in the language of the histo
rian Fuller, "living peaceably at home, there enjoyed
Christian faith yet flourished." — Roger of Wendover, Bohn's ed. i. 56.
" When Augustine came, he found in their province seven bishoprics
and an archbishopric, all filled with most devout prelates, and a great num
ber of abbeys ; by which the flock of Christ was still kept in good order." —
Six Chronicles, Geoffrey of Monmouth, bk xi. ch. 12, Bohn's ed. p. 276.
q Fuller, i. 162, 163. — " The English that is now spoken was once as
foreign to our country as it is at present to the East Indies." — Latham,
on the English Language, pt i. ch. i.
r Roger of Wendover, who died in 1237, speaks in strong terms of
the dislike of the Welsh, as lasting to his times. — Vol. i. p. 52, Bohn's ed.
The old British or Lleogrian tongue was a living dialect till half a century
ago. The old Celtic tongue is still spoken in the Isle of Man. — Luppen-
berg's Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p. 37.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 57
God, the Gospel, and their mountains."* There, shel
tered behind the massive ramparts of nature, Saxon
invasion and Eoman innovation could not reach
them. And so devoted were they to the faith which
they brought with them, and which has ever encour
aged and fostered sound learning and virtuous educa
tion, that they not only founded bishoprics, but an
ecclesiastical province — -created a metropolitan, and
made this metropolitan's residence the location for a
university. And in that now undreamed-of seat of
primitive British literature and science, as far back as
about the year 500, there were (to say nothing of
other pursuits) some two hundred, pursuing the study
of astronomy alone.*
Surely, such a country must have sought " the true
hght, which lighteth every man that cometh into the
world," with no common ardor; and, if Divine prom
ises are infinitely surer than heathen oracles, with no
insignificant success. Such a country was not one to
be regarded and treated, by believing men, as a de-
Christianized one, and still less as an anti-Christian
one. Oh no, by the sanctities of the Gospel, no ; by
the long-suffering of Christian charity, never. Yet
s Fuller, i. 144.
t Fuller, i. 113, 114. — Abp. Usher's chapter sixth of his Religion of the
Ancient Irish ; in which he shows that the monasteries of primitive
times were what we should now call religious colleges — self-supporting
ones, too, whose inmates did not demean themselves, like the " new
generation of men, that refuse to eat their own bread, and count it a
high point of sanctity, to live by begging of other men's bread." — An
swer to a Jesuit, etc., new ed. Cambridge, 1835, pp. 567, 570. Archdea
con Williams's Antiquities of the Cymry, chaps, xii. and xiii. — Ree^s Es
say on the Welsh Saints, chaps, i. and ii. — Bp. Lloyd's Historical Account,
p. 160, etc. 8*

58 EARLY HISTORY OF
upon Popish theories of the introduction of Christi
anity into England, we are expected to believe, that,
when the emissaries of Eome brought Christianity
into Kent, as the sixth century was counting its last
sands, it was as much of a novelty, and an exotic
there, as it would now be, if carried into those barba
rous regions of North Africa, where once flourished
the dioceses of Cyprian and Augustine, and where
they travelled confirming and ordaining, but where a
Christian would now be accounted a dog. Why, you
can witness for yourselves that Christianity in Wales
was, at the time alluded to, such a fully organized and
symmetrical commonwealth, that it enjoyed a complete
provincial hierarchy, with suffragans, with a metro
politan head, and a college for the education of its
clergy, and scientific men at large. The seat of this
metropolitan is well-known, and well identified, at
even this distant day. It is still an episcopal resi
dence, and formally a bishop's see. It has only lost
its archiepiscopal dignity; but it still rejoices in the
name of St. David, who lived thirteen hundred years
ago." It still boasts of memorials, which can carry
u The original seat of the archiepiscopate of Wales was at Caerleon,
upon the Usk. This was on the eastern or exposed side of the kingdom,
or principality, and was removed to St. David's, for safety's sake, in
troublous times. But the name of the arch-see remained for a long
period. — Compare Williams's Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 144, note. It
was so called in the speech of the Welsh bishops to Augustine, which
will come up by-and-by. This has been made an objection to the
authenticity of that speech ; but did the Popes cease to be Bishops of
Rome, because they resided, for the better part of a whole century, at
Avignon in France? A Romanist should beware of such objections:
they cut two ways. "Ubi Papa, ibi Roma," is the maxim of Italian
Christianity. — Mafhias's Pursuits of Literatwre, twelfth edition, p. 335.
It is a proverb, in Italy, even in the vernacular. — Bohn's Polyglot of

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 59
back one's recollections to times when, not the Holy
Catholic Church of the creed of the apostles — not the
one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the creed
of the Fathers of Nice — ^but the (so called) Holy
Eoman Church, of the creed of Pope Pius the Fourth —
was as utterly unknown there as it now is in the cen
tre of Siberia. You will see, I trust, in the next
lecture, ample authority for believing, that the ancient
Britons, even when driven back from eastern England
before the rough tide — the troublesome waves — of
Saxon invasion, were nevertheless excellent Catholic
Christians, if rather poor Eoman Catholic Christians,
and were familiar with the creeds in our Prayer
Book, if not with that papal creed just .now referred
to, which dates only from 1564," and is just as old —
just precisely as old — as that modern Eomanism
which Pope Pius IV.'s successors call upon us to
welcome and avow, on pain of immortal perdition.
And, I may add, in bringing the present lecture to
a (^inclusion, that Christianity, and Christianity of a
truly catholic stamp (of the ancient, and not the
modern catholic stamp of 1564, the real birth-time
of the present Church of Eome)'" existed, at the times
Foreign Proverbs, p. 94. Compare Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, ch. xv. note,
19, or vol. ii. p. 275.
V Ch. Butler, Esq. on Creeds, pp. 11, 12; or Works, vol. iv.
w "A question may be asked," says old Ephraim Pagitt in his Heresi-
ography, " why I rank the Papists among the late heretics ? To which
I answer, that there is a great difference between the ancient Papists
and the modern, since their Trent Conventicle; and therefore, I rank
them with the former sectaries, their doctrines being many of them
new."—Heresiography, fifth edition, 1654, p. 129. Compare Perceval's
Roman Schism, passim. Let us hear Mr. Newman, himself, about Roman
novelties. A stronger case could not be selected than that of the supre-

60 EARLY HISTORY OF
on which I have been making comments, in the
County of Cornwall, England's south-west extremity,
jutting out between the openings of the British Chan
nel and the Channel of Bristol. The Cornish and the
Welsh were neighbors in temper, as well as geogra
phy. Cornwall, for a long time, resisted the dominion
of the Saxons, and withstood the usurpations of Popery
down to the tenth century, when the supremacy of the
Pope, in Western Europe, had become almost univer
sal.^ I say Western, because in Eastern Europe it has
never found countenance ; though the Pope indulged
in bright hopes, during the late war with Eussia, and
no one rejoiced less than he did in the peace which
restored to the palladium of the Greek Church its
balance of power.3'
macy of the Pope. He held this language about its antiquity, in his
Lectures on Romanism and Popular Protestantism : — the second edition,
too; and, of course, his most solemnly reiterated thoughts! "But what
there is not the shadow of a reason for saying that they [the Fathers]
held, what has not the faintest pretensions of being a catholic truth, is
this : that St. Peter, or his successors, are universal bishops, etci(" p.
221. What once had not a shadow of a reason in its behalf— not the
faintest pretensions to a reality, to Mr. Newman's natural eyesight, now,
with a pair of Romish spectacles on, he sees transubstantiated into a
Colossus ! No wonder he believes in developments.
X Collins's Perranzabulce, fourth edition, 1839, pp. 18, 19.
y During the late war in the Crimea, an English correspondent in
England informed me that Romanists in England absolutely chuckled
over the French alliance, and the battles which Britons had to fight, in
connexion with the adherents of Rome, against the Pope's ancient ene
mies, the Greeks. They esteemed England as led blind-fold, to do the
Pope's behests — absolutely hoodwinked, to drag through bloody work
for him ! And all this, as judicial blindness and servitude, on the part
of England, for its infidelity to the Popedom for three hundred years !
"Ever since the separation of the Churches," is Mr. Butler's remarkable
testimony, " each of the two prelates, the Bishop of Rome, and the patri
arch of Constantinople, has been the centre of.different systems." — C.
Butler, Esq., on Creeds ; Works, second edition, vol. iv. p. 24. They who

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 61
I was saying that ancient Cornwall was no lackey
of the Popedom. This is a picture of it, from the
pen of Abp. IJsher, one of the profoundest of anti
quaries, and sincerest of Christians. " Though the
Saxon bishops pretended a right to direct and rule
the Cornish, in matters of religion ; yet, in reality,
the Cornish were as averse to receive orders from
them, as from the Saxon princes — with whom, being
almost constantly at war, they surrendered neither
their civil nor religious rights, (continuing Christians,
but on ihe first plan, independent though persecuted,)
and, esteeming the religion of the Saxons as nothing,
the Cornish would no more communicate with them,
than with Pagans — accounting that of the Welsh and
themselves, the only true Christianity. "«
A wonderful and transubstantial proof of this was
disclosed to modern eyes, when, in 1835, an ancient
Cornish church was dug from the sands of Perranza
bulce. This place lies on the' Bristol Channel, nearly
in' a north line from the City of Falmouch, which is
situated on the south coast of England, in the 5th degree
of west longitude. Its name signifies Peiran, i. e., the
seat of St. Peiran, in sabulo — sahulum being a Latin
term for gravel, ground to fine sand, till it can be
drifted by the wind, like that on the surfaces of orien-
inoonsiderately suppose the Greek and Latin Church pretty much the
same thing, would do well to ponder this suffrage of an uncommonly
well-informed Romish layman.
z Quoted in Collins's Perranzabulce ; or. The Lost Church Found. Lon
don, 1839, 4th ed. p. 18. — For reasons unnecessary to state, I cannot
quote Usher's Britan. Eccl. Primord., ov Stillingfleet' s Origines Britanni-
ccs, as I should like to do ; or a second volume on Perranzabulce, by the
Rev. William Haslam, Incumbent of Baldiu, near Truro, Cornwall.

62 EARLY HISTORY OF
tal deserts. St. Peiran is the patron and missionary
saint of Cornwall, as St. David is of Wales, and St.
Patrick of Ireland. He was born in A. D. 352, and
converted all Cornwall, about the year 400, when he
was in the prime and vigor of his days. Perranza
bulce was the seat of his Parish or home church ; and
was, of course, his domestic residence. There he fin
ished his days, and there his bones lie slumbering for
the morning of the resurrection. The church which
covered them, after having been buried in sand-drifts,
for possibly a 1000 years and more, was, in 1835, un
earthed to human view; and then a church of times
indisputably catholic was exhibited to curious eyes.
But, alas ! for Popery, it was a church whose severe
Christian simplicity no devotee of Vatican Christian
ity could ever tolerate. It had unmistakable signs
of exemption from " the modern accompaniments of
a Eoman Catholic place of worship. Here was no
rood-loft for the hanging up of the host, nor the vain
display of fabricated relics — no latticed confessional —
no sacring bell — no daubed and decorated images of
the Virgin Mary, or of saints, to sanction the idola
trous transgression of the second commandment.
Here was found nothing that indicated the unscrip-
tural adoration of the wafer, or the no less unscrip-
tural masses for the dead. The most diligent search
was made for beads and rosaries, pyxes and agnus
dei's, censers and crucifixes* — not one — not the rem-

a Crosses (simple crosses, not crucifixes,) were found sometimes
among ancient British relics; but, unfortunately for Romanism, they
were Greek crosses, showing the connection of Britain with the East. —

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 63
nant of one, could be discovered. Strange, that this
ancient church should so belie the Papist's constant
appeal to antiquity — to the faith of their forefathers —
to the old religion ! Strange, that it should, on the
contrary, so closely harmonize with that [so called]
novelty, which Cranmer and the Eeformers introduced
into the doctrine and ritual of the Church of Eng
land I"*
With such a picture of genuine, primitive Chris
tianity, identified and delineated to his actual eye
sight, a witness who saw it, was surely authorized to
exclaim, "it illustrates, in a manner most literally
and strikingly true, the actual condition of the long
lost Church of England, at the time of the Eeforma
tion, when it was not rebuilt, but restored, purged, and
cleansed from those monstrous errors and incrustations
which the Church of Eome, the great Western tyrant,
had spread over the walls, of our Zion, and, by her
repeated encroachments, had at last entombed in the
very dust and depths of her own abominations.""
Yes, Brethren, old and old-fashioned Christianity
in England, was once like the church of St. Peiran
in the sands. At the Eeformation it was simply dis
encumbered from the rubbish with which Eomanism
had overlaid it ; and to call the present form of it, in
the Church of England, a novelty or an imposition.

Chronicles of the Ancient British Church, 2d ed. p. 135. A small Greek
cross was found on St. Cuthbert's breast, when his oofSn was opened in
1827. The Dean and Chapter of Durham now possess it. — Chronicles,
etc., p. 138, note. Cuthbert died at Lindisfarne, A. n. 686.
i Perranzabulce, by Collins, pp. 27, 28.
c Perranzabulce, p. 30.

64 CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND.
would be like calling Lazarus a novelty or an imposi
tion, when he left his rags and his sores behind him,
and entering Paradise with the radiant habiliments
of an angel, cast himself upon Abraham's bosom.'^
d Comp. Jewel's Apology, pt 5, ch. 15, div. 4 ; Works, Parker ed. iii.
92. Bp. Jewel compares England's rescue to that of the three children
from the furnace, and of Daniel from the lions' den.

LECTURE III.
THE ITALIAN MISSION OF GEEGOHT THE FIKST TO EAST ENGI.A.NTD,
AT THE CLOSE OF THE SIXTH OENTUEY. — ITS MOTIVES AND
EAELIEE FOETUNES.
In two lectures I have endeavored to give a rapid
sketch of the introduction of Christianity into Britain,
and its progress there for about six centuries. My
object has been to show, that Christianity in Britain
is quite as old as Christianity in Eome — indeed, I
may now add, on the highest Papal authority. Cardi
nal Baronius himself — older than Christianity in
Eome'* — and that it was, in all human probability,
a "The Greeks, of whom they [i. e., the Romans] received the gospel,
of whom they received the faith, the true religion, and the Church." — •
Jewel's Works, Parker edition, iii. 92. — E'ulhoood's Roma Ruit, p. SO, note.
Bishop Andrews maintained this in his controversy with Bellarmine. —
Responsio, p. 40, edit. 1851. " If the case be rightly stated, the Church
of England's faith is the old religion, and not that of Rome." — Comber's
Advice to Roman Catholics, p. 9, fourth edition. Dr. J. H. Newman un
derstood this well, when, in his better and more trustworthy days, he
spoke of " a theology. Catholic, but not Roman ;" and showed, most ably,
how a man might be " Catholic, and Apostolic, yet not Roman." See
pp. 24, 25, of his Lectures on the Prophetical Office of ilie CImrch, second
edition, 1838. Dr. Newman may retract that book : he cannot answer
it. He had better have done as Grabe the Prussian did, and whom he
commends pp. 25, 26, than as he himself actually did, for his reputation's
sake, as well as for his soul's sake.

66 EARLY HISTORY OP
introduced to Britain as it was to Eome, by Chris
tians from the East. One thing seems triumphantly
certain, that early Christianity in Britain has no
thanks to bestow on Eome ; and owes Eome not so
much of tribute as the little coin paid by our Saviour
out of the fish's mouth, to the representative of
Tiberius Caesar. So it is no great effort to say, with
all confidence, what Blackstone in his Commentaries
has ruled as historic law, "The ancient British
Church, by whomsoever planted, was a stranger to
the Bishop of Eome, and all his pretended authority.^
Nevertheless, it is no doubt a fact that Eomish
divines, historians, critics, and controvertists, have
maintained, full strenuously, that their form of Chris
tianity was the only one Britannia primitively knew,"
and that their ecclesiastical foothold is, in consequence,
the only legitimate one in our father-land. And they
have maintained this, the more strenuously, perhaps,
in proportion to the weakness gf the evidence which
has supported their grasping claims. This is what
we might expect. We all know, that a lawyer at the
bar, and debaters in the forum, are apt to make up in
personal vaporing and vehemence, for any deficiency
in solid facts. The most famous of modern advocates
for the Popedom*^ is never so clamorously dogmatic as
b Blackstone's Com. bk iv. ch. 8. — The word all is not always quoted
in this sentence. I looked at Blackstone, under the eye of a learned law
yer, and he told me I might rely upon the text, as I have quoted it.
The word all, coming from Judge Blackstone, is exceedingly emphatic.
c " That vulgar error so often repeated, so sedulously propagated, and
so widely believed, that the Britons were not Christians before the arri
val of that missionary," i. e., Augustine. — Joyce's Brit. Synods, p. 125.
d Count Joseph De Maistre, in his volume Du Pope.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 67
when he af&rms ihat, which is a favorite point with
Eomish doctors, but is not to be found among Eome's
formal decrees (the Pope's infallibility) ;« — never so
bitter or sneering, as when he alludes to the two
strongest competitors against papal arrogance — the
Greek Church, and the Church of England.
Having reviewed six centuries, and discovered no
traces of Eoman Churchmanship in Britain, we do at
length reach a period when (as there is no doubt)
Eome and Great Britain came into formal ecclesiastical
contact ; and this is that juncture in history which — as
was remarked to you in the last lecture would form
the starting-point of the present.
The Saxons, who obtained their first permanent
residence in England about the middle of the fifth
century, were pagans and idolaters./ Christianity
declined in their presence, was maltreated and op
pressed, till many of its disciples and clergy sought
refuge in Cornwall, Cumberland, and Wales;? while
not a few crossed the British Channel, and obtained

e For the non-assertion of the Pope's infallibility, see Seymour's Morn
ings with ihe Jesuits, ch. 7, p. 220, English edition. — Waddington's Ch.
History, ch. 28, p. 674, English edition. Delahogue maintains that it is
not a mark of error or schism, to deny the Pope's infallibility, even when
he speaks ex cathedra. — Tractatus de Ecclesia, Dublin, 1809, p. 376. Dela
hogue even maintains, as he justly may, that the Council of Trent has
not dogmatized about papal infallibility. — p. 379. Andrew Duval, the
greiit Ultramontane, admitted that it was not an article of the faith. — ¦
Bossuet's Defensio, vol. i. p. 17. Prof Klee, of modern celebrity, admits
the same. — Klee's Treatise on the Church, London, 1847, p. 190.
/ The Heptarchy, in (say) from 455 to 585. The Heptarchy, however,
is " a phrase not very correctly applied to any one particular period." —
Eccleston's English Antiquities, p. 28.
g "Wales, Cornwall, and Cumberland, were the only places where
Christianity did not lose ground." — Musautt on Ohm ch Laws, p. 5.

68 EARLY HISTORY OF
an asylum in a portion of France, styled, from their
occupation of it, Brittany, or Little Britain. It was
in Brittany that Gildas, the old British historian
whom I have more than once mentioned, composed
the work to which commentators on early English
history perpetually appeal.''
This was about A. D. 564 ; and the first direct con
nection of Eome with East England was in 596 or
597, — two or three and thirty years later. In East
England, I say ; for in West England, and its vicinity,
the Saxons were still kept at bay by the sturdy Cor
nish, the supple valley-men,» and the indomitable
mountaineers of the old Cambrian principality. In
Ireland, and in Scotland, too, there were numerous
Christians who knew little of, and cared less for,
Eome and its peculiarities, and sympathized cordially
with the Welsh and with the Cornish. These are
indelible facts, which you should never forget ; since it
was not until Eome had vanquished Eastern England,
and long after that period, that she could do any
thing by way of humiliating the primitive proprietors
of British soil, and the early representatives of British
Christianity. Truth to say, the old time-honored
British spirit has always been an impracticable sub
ject for Eome's manipulation;.?' and this spirit simply
h Collier's Ecc. Hist. i. 144. He wrote his Epistle in Brittanj, and
his History in Glastonbury, after his return. — Rees's Welsh Saints, p. 226.
i The Valley-men means the inhabitants of Cumberland, which was
so called from its mountainous surface, diversified with most beautiful
vales and lakes. It is in Cumberland that Derwent-water, Clles-water,
etc., are found. Conib was the Anglo-Saxon for valley. — See Wright's
Provincial Dictionary, Bohn's edition, i. 381; HalKweU's Diet. i. 264.
J Speaking of the primitive British Church, Archdeacon Williams

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 69
revived, and broke out afresh, when, in the sixteenth
century, the yoke of Eome was indignantly thrown
from -Britain's neck, never, as we trust in heaven, to
be imposed upon it again.
The first direct official connexion between England
and Eome began (as was said) in the year 596 or 597.
This was during the pontificate of Gregory the Great,
so called; and who, from some singular mixtures in his
character and history, has also been called the last of
Eome's good bishops, and the first of its bad ones* —
the last, too, of saints among the popes, as even Mr.
Gibbon fancied. But he was mistaken — there is cer
tainly one later ; the Pope, who indulged his commu
nion in such exquisite and plenary satisfaction, when
he cursed Queen Elizabeth, and devoted heretical
England to calamities and horrors 1^ Gregory was
uses this language in his Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 146 : "In her low
estate, she was enabled successfully to maintain her ancient privileges,
in opposition to the encroachments, continually made upon her liberty
and independence, by the Italian missionaries."
k Field on the Church, new edition, i. 180; Bishop Andrews's Tortura
Toti, new edition, 1851, pp. 492, 493; Sueur, Hist, de I'Eglise et de
I'Empire, vol. v. 269. " With all his humility, he was a most zealous
asserter of the power and prerogatives which his predecessors had exer
cised, or at any time claimed." — Rose's Biog. Diet. viii. 103. The authors
of the Universal History depict him with the acuteness and keenness of
true scholars, when they say, that if we knew the tyrant Phocas, only
through the letters of Gregory, " we should rank him among the best
princes mentioned in history." — Vol. xvii. p. 13.
I Bower's Popes, ii. 541. Comp. Gibbon's Dec. and Fall, ch. 46 ; or
vol. viii. 174. No small praise to Mr. Bower, to be more accurate than
-Gibbon! However, this matter of saintship is sometimes a matter of
considerable dispute. Thus, Baronius denies that Eusebius, the Church
historian, has been accounted a saint in the martyrologies, and Du Pin
contradicts him flatly.— i?M Pin, Met Ecc. Writers, Dublin ed. i. pp. 157,
158. While alluding to Queen Elizabeth, I may as well add, that though
many Protestants called her a half-papist, Pius V., in his damnatory

70 EARLY HISTORY OF
patriarch of Eome from 590 to 604 ; and as it will be
hardly possible to comprehend why he took such pro
found interest in the extension of his Church (for, as
you will see, it was his own Church, rather than
Christianity, which he desired to establish and perpet
uate) in the island of Great Britain, without knowing
something of his previous history, and the position of
his see among its great sister sees in Christendom, I
must pause a little in my sketches, to give you a dis
tinct understanding of these preliminaries.
You have been told, that the Primitive Church was
divided into five chief provinces, principalities, or pa
triarchates, viz. : those of Eome, Constantinople, Alex
andria, Antioch, and Jerusalem ; which are named to
you in their ancient seniority of order — ^though all
equal in rank and independency, all supreme for con
cerns within their own jurisdiction — a General Council
being the final court of appeal when a subject of uni
versal interest (one which affected the Church Catho
lic) was to be investigated, and determined with gen
eral authority.™ But to go back to the very earliest
Bull, accused her of Calvinism. — Barlow's Brutwn Futmen, p. 3. Cerri,
Secretary to the Propaganda, calls her "a violent Calvinist." — U. Cerri's
State of ihe R. C. Religion, p. 7. De Maistre calls the Russians Calvin
ists ! — On the Pope, bk iv. ch. i. p. 302. If any reader wonders at my
use of the word " damnatory," let him know, that Pius gives his Bull
two titles : " The damnation and excommunication of Elizabeth." It
seems, that once the word " Calvinist" was about as bard a term of abuse,
for Greek and Anglican, as Rome could find. It is out of date now, when
we scarce ever hear even a Presbyterian boasting of his Calvinism !
m Bossuet talks like a most excellent ecclesiastical republican when
he comes to the touchy subject of Church power. The Church's source
of power, he says, is her own corporate self " Radix autem libertatis ec-
clesiasticaB eo maxime constat, ^juod in ipsa Catholioa Ecclesia vigeat
suprema ilia vis ct indeclinabilis, qua ipsa Catholica Ecclesia guberne-
tur." — Defensio Cleri Gallicani, vol. ii. 279, 280. This is most excellent

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 71
times, I may say, that three only of these patriarchates
were in existence, those of Eome, -Alexandria, and
Antioch ; and when they were first called up for con
sideration and adjustment, they were (each and all)
treated, not as was Episcopacy, or the sacraments, as
things of apostolical transmission, but merely as matters
of ecclesiastical custom." This was in A. d. 325, at
the Council of Nice, in Bythinia ; and Eome then sub
mitted with such grace as she could muster, or out of
sheer necessity ; as her bishop was not then potential
enough to be a successful dissenter. In the year 330,
Constantine the Great, transferred the Eastern imperial
residence, from Nicomedia in Bythinia, to Byzantium
on the Bosphorus, (named Constantinople in honor of
himself its patron) erected it into a capital of the em-
American doctrine. It is simply saying for us, that the United States is
a free government because political power springs from people. I need
scarcely add, that it is a part of Gallican doctrine, that the decrees of
popes, except as the expositions of the sentiments of a General Council,
are good for nothing. The Pope, according to that doctrine — not a bad
idea, as a political one merely — was, that the Pope was the grand pub
lisher and guardian of ecclesiastical law. For his will, as an autocrat,
they entertained no respect whatever. Thus, Cardinal Ailly held, that
the plenitude of ecci'esiastical power resides inseparably "in universitate
ecclesiae Catholicse." While James Almain held, that the power of a
General Council was greater than that of the Pope, " intensive, extensivfe,
et indeviabiliter." — See, for both, Gersoni Opera, vol. ii. col. 960, 1072.
Antwerp, Du Pin's edit. 1706. Vargas, the great Spanish lawyer and
embassador, held that councils had inviolable authority, and did not
want the Pope's confirmation. He was present at the Council of Trent.
— Mich. Geddes on the G. of Trent, p. 131 of Vargas's Letters, etc. Comp.
p. 56, Introd. Disc, for the French doctrine. See, particularly, a most
valuable manual, published by M. Du Pin, in Paris, 1847. Mens. Du Pin
is said to be a lineal descendant pf the celebrated Church historian, Louis
Ellies Du Pin ; the correspondent of Abp. Wake, on the subject of Church
union, in the years 1717, 1718, as detailed in the appendix of Maclaine's
Mosheim. The title of M. Du Pin's book is, Manuel du Droit Public Ec
clesiastique Franoais. A duodecimo of 572 pages.
n Sixth canon of Nice. " Let the ancient customs prevail."

72 EARLY HISTORY OF
pire, and himself honored it with the appellation of
New Eome. This New Eome was, not long after,
elevated' ecclesiastically, as much as the emperor had
elevated it politically." In the second General Council,
which sat at Constantinople in 381, it was advanced
from a suffragan episcopate into a patriarchate ; and
its bishop made the second of all bishops.^ This
single act was sufficiently formidable and ominous to
Eome's arrogated priority ; but a further development
made it ten times more so. The action of the Coun
cil was persisted in by one of its successors — the fourth
General Council, which sat at Chalcedon, in 451.?
Leo, the first, was then Bishop of Eome — a prelate,
who may be styled the father of that papal monarchy.

0 Antioch, according to Romanists, was the first see of St. Peter ; and
of course was, once, the Holy See. But Antioch was put down to the
third place in the patriarchates, and finally to the fourth place. And
why, then, might not Constantinople be exalted? Baronius, according
to Bp. Hacket, justified the early treatment of Antioch, and on the proper
ground; how then could he, consistently, quarrel with the elevation of
Constantinople ? " And in my slender opinion," says the bishop, allud
ing to the depression of Antioch, " Baronius is never more to be com
mended, than in rendering the true reason of it. Says he, in giving
honorable place to the Bishops of Alexandria and Antioch, regard was
had to follow the steps of the Roman Magistrate, and to settle ecclesias
tical precedency just as he did distribute his principal civil dignities." —
Hackeis Century of Sermons, London, 1676, p. 951. The ancient Brit
ish Church followed a similar rule. Caerleon and Llandaff disputed
about the Welsh primacy ; having each, at times, been a metropolis. —
Williams's Antiquities of the Cymry, p. 178.
p That is, the second in dignity : not that he was in higher than Epis
copal orders. It is one of the complaints of the Roman, or Latin Church,
against the Greek Church, that it was a tenet of the Greek Church, to
consider aU the apostles of equal authority. — Camisii Thesaurus Monu-
mentorum Ecchsiasticarum, vol. iv. p. 54.
q Chalcedon was two miles or more south of the modern Scutari ;
which is opposite to Constanttnople, and a suburb of it. — Smith's Diet.
Anc. Geog. i. 596, col. b.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 73
which Hildebrand erected into a would-be empire for
the terraqueous globe. The Council of Chalcedon
affirmed and extended the action of the Council of
Constantinople'' — made the Bishop of Constantinople
a patriarch in form ; and Leo, as we may readily im
agine, opposed such action, with all the influence he
could concentrate, and all the power he could array.*
The council heard him by his legates (for he was not
personally present ;) and though its members were re
buked by those legates, as wretched and worthless
Churchmen^ — as no doubt they were, for the purposes
of Eome — they reiterated their action, and set their
hands to a procedure, which Eome had finally to suc
cumb to ; and which, for all her writhing, remains un
altered to this far distant day." I beg particular
r Canon XXVIIIth. W. A. Hammond on the Councils. Eng. edit.,
1843, p. 108, etc. Rome's story about this canon is, that the Emperor
Theodosius compelled the Council to pass the canon, without the Pope's
knowledge. — Canisii Thesaurus, iv. 66.
s So did Gregory I. after him ; and tried, in his characteristic way, to
provoke the jealousy of the other patriarchs. But Du Pin says, they
took it very quietly, and his invidious efforts failed. — Du Pin's Ecc.
Writers. Dublin ed., i. 569. In A. n. 1215, as Vargas, the great Tren
tine lawyer, admitted, the Pope had to give in, after more than seven
hundred years grumbling. So if Rome takes plenty of time to make up
its mind, it ought to give us poor Protestants full leisure, and not be in
such a tremendous hurry to get us into Purgatory, or a worse place.
t Allies on Schism, 2d edit., pp. 292, 297.
u Rome tried to accomplish by a trick, what she could not by fair
means. She corrupted the next reiteration of Constantinople's superi
ority, made in tbe 36th canon of the Council in Trullo, A. d. 692; which
is often called the appendix of the Great Council of a. d. 680. — Bp. Bit-
son on Christian Subjection, edit. 1585, part i., pp. Ill, 112. This sort of
trick is one of Rome's habitual arts. When she cannot evade testimony,
she goes strait to corrupting witnesses. See, on Roman Forgeries, Cooke,
Crashaw, Traherne, James, Comber, Pope, Gibbings, Mendham, Gibson
in his Preservative, and even J. H. Newman, in his second lecture of the
memorable work on Romanism and Popular Protestantism. It is most
4

74 EARLY HISTORY OP
attention to this most significant fact, for I know of
no one like it, to show that the Church Catholic — the
true Church Catholic — represented in a catholic coun
cil, pays no respect whatever to Eome's fancied supre
macy ; and, though flouted by Eome's legates, calmly,
coolly, with quiet dignity, but unshaken resolution,
looks insult full in the face, and re-affirms its posi
tions.* Eome never had a more manly, a more Chris-
amusing (if I may turn aside a moment) to find in that book, a condem
nation of Rome for admitting developments! " The creed of Romanism
is ever subject to increase; ours is fixed once for all!" p. 260.
This subject is so important, that perhaps after general references, I
may be pardoned for a few particular ones; as I do not intend these
notes for the learned, but for my younger brethren, who may not have
access to many books, and may be glad of them. Dr. Field, who is the
parallel of Hooker in a different line of controversy, says, "We reve
rence and honor the Fathers, much more than the Romanists do, who
pervert, corrupt, and adulterate their writings, but dare not abide the
trial of their doctrines, by the indubitate writings of antiquity." — Field
on the Cliurch, new ed. vol. i. p. 307. Compare vol. ii. 407, note; and vol.
iv. p. 510. In John Rainold's Conference with Hart, the Papist, we meet
"with this running title, " Counterfeits bearing the name of Fathers,"
e. g., pp. 417, 433. In Reeves's Apologies, ii. 356, 2d ed., is a very im
portant note on the subject. Heylyn on the Reformation, ii. 283, new
ed., shows that Gregory the Great has been tampered with, among the
rest. So notorious has the garbling process been, that Zola, a professor
at Pavia, during the last century, had to publish a dissertation against
systematic fibbing, viz : De vitanda, in historia calamitatum ecclesise, dis-
simulatione." Referred to in Gregoire's Hist, of Confessors, Paris, 1824,
p. 4. I will only add, as a conclusion, that Mr. Palmer, in his British Epis
copacy vindicated against Cardinal Wiseman, detects His Eminence in
the habit of his illustrious predecessors. He even shows how Dr. W.
can put into the mouth of a General Council what it never uttered ! pp.
59, 60. In reference to the fact which began this note, Du Pin admits,
that the Patriarchate of Constantinople was acknowledged by the Church
Catholic ; while Dr. J. M. Neale shows, that, in a. n. 1215, thePope him
self admitted it at last ! — Du Pin, De Antiqua Disciplina, p. 46 ; Neal^s
Gen. Introduct. Hist. East. Cli. p. 29. This last momentous fact is also
put on record, by Prof. Palma, Pio None supervidente ! — Palma's Prce-
lectiones, 2d ed. Rome, 1848, vol. i. 290. This is the act to which Var
gas alluded. — Geddes on Councils, p. 131.
V "Notwithstanding his opposition," says DuPin, " the Bishops de-

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 75
tian, or a more solemn rebuke, to her despotic usurpa
tions — unless, perhaps, when Christ himself said to
the presumption of the apostle she most honors, ' Get
thee behind me, Satan I'
This was not a thing likely to be forgotten,"' or any
the less dreaded, when, in the time of the pope to
whom I would now particularly point you, a third
step was taken, in lifting Constantinople to' the pin
nacle of ecclesiastical pre-eminence. It was not very
long before Gregory's days,'" that the Bishops of Con
stantinople began to assume, and be acknowledged
by, a title which they still wear — that of ecumenical
or universal bishop. This was about the latest of
assumptions to be ventured, before Eome herself
would be distanced, and brought down from a prior
rank, as had been the patriarchates of Alexandria and
Antioch. Gregory was stirred to the very uttermost,
by its shocking premonitions. He argued, he protested,
clared that they would go on ; and the [royal] commissioners, without
any regard to what was said by the Pope's Legates, said that all the
Synod had given their approbation to their determination." — Du Pin's
Ecc. Writers, i. 679. Richer, or Richerius, begins his account of the af
fair on p. 221, vol. i. of the quarto edition of his history of Gener.il
Councils, and says, on p. 248, that the sum of the whole matter estab
lishes two points : — one, that a canonical decision of a General Council
is binding, in spite of tbe Pope ; which, he adds, has always been the
doctrine of the school of Paris : the other, that the Pope's vain endeavor
to set aside the canon, is an everlasting vindication of Church freedom,
against the power of an ecclesiastical monarchy. The popedom, as
Richer very properly understands the matter, makes the Pope, not first
among bishops ; but, an ecclesiastical emperor. 0, si sic omnes Romani !
w Constantinople was hated from this time forward, as " Romanaj ec-
clesiae rebellis" — a downright rebel against the Church of Rome \— Cani
sii Thesaurus, vol iv. p. x. ; out of Gunther, the Monk's History of Con
stantinople^ written before 1215, to wit, in 1210.
X Art de verifier les dates, p. 260. John IV. of Constantinople, A. n.
688.

76 EARLY HISTORY OP
he frowned, .he warned, he scolded, he threatened, -he
excommunicated, he carried out the tragi-comedy, by
playing the part of mock humility, and calling him
self the servant of the servants of God — an act of
seeming and unexpensive lowliness, which his succes
sors have generally followed.S' But all his resources
failed him — failed him utterly, and to heart-sickness —
almost to despair, it may be, and made him a chronic
invalid. The Bishop of Constantinople was now his
equal in grandeur, as he had long been in authority
and jurisdiction. He might soon be his superior;
and the degradation of Alexandria and Antioch be
come his own. Every thing seemed adverse to him,
and discouraging to hope. The East was prosperous ;
but in the West the Eoman empire had collapsed,
and the Lombards were threatening Italy with devas
tation. Gregory (as I showed you in my lectures on
the Litany) had seen his enemies under Eome's very
ramparts, and composed, in view of the irruptions
of ruthless invaders, those passionate supplications,
among which we find the following, "From our
enemies defend us, 0 Christ; with pity behold the
sorrows of our hearts. "«
What should he do, in such startling, harrowing,
excruciating exigencies ? He understood, as we are
told, the grand European problem of the balance of
power ; for he had favored Naples on one side of him,
as an offset to the Lombards on the other." Should
y Art de verifier des dates, p. 269, generally, not always.
z Wheatley on the Com. Prayer, ch. iv. § 4.
a Giannone's Naples, i. 225. London, 1729.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 77
he not then, in consonance with the same policy, em
brace any and every opportunity for spreading his
own peculiar dominion, as widely as might be in the
West, as an offset to the encroachments of his rival
in the East? Most assuredly, (any statesman would
exclaim,) such would be prudent and sagacious poli
cy ; and with every allowance for his saintship, I can
not refrain from thinking, as I read his chequered
story, that if Gregory, for his place, was a pretty fair
Christian, he was also, for the same place, a most de
voted politician. He had the comprehensive range,
and restless eye, and perpetually converging reference
to one grand plan, which mark a distinguished poli
tician. And he had the aim, the perpetually sleepless
aim, for an illustrious yet selfish end, which marks
such a politician. He had the unscrupulous conscience
of such a politician ; for, says even a Eomish author,
he could bestow the vilest flattery on a tyrant, a
usurper, an assassin, worthy all the inflictions of hu
man justice!*
b Llorente's Portrait les Papes, i. 166. Comp. Maimbourg, another
Romish author, quoted by Bruys, Hist, des Papes, i. 386. Gregory cool
ly advises Ethelbert to convert his subjects, among other means, by flat
tery Blandiendo is the word he himself uses in his enistle. — Bede, bk
i. ch. 82. He of course hesitated not to act on his own counsel. In the
same way, " he showed extreme complaisance towards Brunehaut, Queen
of France, who, according to many historians, was the most abandoned
woman upon earth." — Rose's Biog. Diet. 8, 104, col. a. Compare Cave's
Historia Literaria. Oxford, 1740. Vol. i. 544.
That Gibbon should lash Gregory for his conduct towards Phocas, was
doubtless to be expected ; but he sustains himself with pretty strong
facts. In the first place, he shows what a wretch Phocas was in himself—
" Ignorant of letters, of laws, and even of arms, he indulged in the su
preme rank a more ample privilege of lust and drunkenness ; and his
brutal pleasures were either injurious to his subjects, or disgraceful to
himself" Then he shows, how Chosroes IL, the Persian monarch, an

78 EARLY HISTORY OP
And to this man, there now came a message from
England, intimating that England was a fit field for
the indulgence of his impatient anxieties, about the
enlargement and glorification of his ecclesiastical au
thority and jurisdiction. Would he have received
such an intimation, with sacred and exclusive refer
ence to the necessities of perishing souls ? Or, would
he have construed it for the promotion of his own
Church interests ?
These are the questions, which are to determine the
character of Gregory's mission to England, in 596 or
7 : — a mission which terminated in the establishment
of Eomanism among the Saxons ; and finally brought
all England under a Popish ban, till the Eeformation
burst its fetters asunder, and she was emancipated and
independent.idolater, " turned with horror from the assassin, imprisoned the pretend
ed envoy, disclaimed the usurper, and declared himself the avenger of
his father and benefactor." Then, that the murdered emperor was a
man of such matchless integrity, that he would not dissemble to save
the life of his own child, when the life of a faithful nurse would be there
by endangered — a falsehood that Jesuitical morctlity would have glori
fied, had the child not been a heretic — and upon which the sternest mor
alist would have dropped a tear of pity. Yet, such a man, Gregory, the
Great, the Pontifical, the Sainted, could abandon to his fate, to honor not
the name only, but the very statue, of his murderer! — MUmun's Gib
bon, ch. 46, vol. viii. pp. 216, 17, 18, 23. And, now, for the motive of such,
may I not say, un-Christlike, if not anti-Christian conduct? Mr. Finlay
brings it out, iu his Greece under the Romans, volume first, of his val
uable historical productions. On p. 374, he tells us, that Phocas was an
opponent " of the Greek party in the Eastern Church." So .here conies
out the old party predilection and conduct, under the instinct of an old
party quarrel. I am surely justified, in view of such glaring facts, in
calling Gregory a mere political partizau ! And still, as Mr. Finlay tells
us, Phocas's column and eulogium exist at Rome; while Bergier, in his
Theological Dictionary, informs us, with the brazen audacity of a Jesuit,
that Gregory, in his heart, esteemed Phocas a monster, but had to give
him a laudatory anodyne to keep him quiet, and prevent him from mak
ing trouble in Italy I — Tlieol. Diet, new ed. Paris, 1829, Vol. iii. p. 422.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 79
I speak of a message from England, and I speak
thus on the authority of Gregory himself," in some of
his own epistles, and discard the story, often told,
about his seeing slaves from Britain for sale in the
Eoman market, and having his attention directed,
thereby, to the land from which they came, as a land
hitherto unknown.<^ The story is interlarded with
flat monkish puns — it reflects no credit upon Greg
ory's literary attainments, representing him as unac
quainted with a country well known at Eome before
the Christian era — and it disgraces Eome itself, more
than I care to do ; since it represents it as unable, after
three and sixty popes, had labored for its purification,
to banish the traffic in human flesh.«

0 Chronicles Anc. Brit. Ch. p. 151. ^
d The story comes,' of course, from Bede, bk ii. ch. 1 ; but he gives it
as a mere tradition. His Latin word is dicunt, they say ; and a Protest
ant story, upon su^h authority, would be condemned at Rome, in double-
quick time ! Mr. Muscutt, as a lawyer, sees the worth of such hearsay
testimony, and remarks, " The oft-repeated incident, respecting the An-
gli sed Angeli, bears, however, so much the appearance of an after ad
justment of phrases, as to induce some historians to attach little or no
credence to the story." — Muscutt on Church Laws, p. 6.
e Gregory was the 63d, the 64th, the 65th, or the 66th Pope. Bower
says, tbe 63d ; Llorente, the 64th ; Diet, des Papes, the 66th, and Bruys,
the 66th. A beautiful specimen of Papal consistency! De Maistre, on
the Pope, says, (p. 237, or bk 3, ch. 2,) that the popes " have unceasingly
combated" slavery. This slave market of 600 years standing, right
under their very eyes, looks like it, with a vengeance ! It was under a
Protestant government that England herself was declared no place for
slavery. " In the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth, a slave from Russia
was brought into England, and, his master insisting upon the power of
scourging him, it was held, that England was too pure an air for a slave to
breatlie id." — Eunomus, or. Dialogues concerning the Law and Constitution
of Engl(t,nd, 5th ed. 1822, p. 183, note. " To Wiokliff and his followers
is to be ascribed the merit of propagating the doctrine, that the Chris
tian Religion is repugnant to slavery." — Amos's ed. of Fortescue de laud-
ibus legum Anglice. Cambridge, Eng. 1825, p. 160.

80 EARLY HISTORY OP
So Gregory did not contemplate England as a mis
sionary field, till he was prompted to do so ; and now
comes the profoundly interesting and decisive ques
tion, from what quarter did this prompting issue ?
Eomish historians are, of course, concerned to rep
resent Britain, at the close of the 6th century, as im
mersed in the deepest midnight of barbarism and ig
norance. Their evident object is, to signalize the in
troduction of Eomish light, beneath the sable pall of
a heathen canopy. But the simple, unvarnished fact
is, that even the chief king of Saxon Britain (and
there were seven of them) at this very time, had a
Christian, and not a Pagan queen./ She was the
daughter of a French monarch, and had brought with
her, to her husband's court, a bishop with his ecclesi
astical retinue. She had* consented to marry a Saxon
sovereign, solely on the condition of the free and
unembarrassed exercise of her religion ; and her con
sort had readily assigned her, for her accommodation,
one of the oldest British churches. Doubtless, it was
not over pleasant to this distinguished religious lady,
to forsake a Christian land for an anti-Christian one ;
and, if any body is to have the honor of being the
first and most heroic missionary to the Saxons in
England, to her does that honor most rightfully be
long. Unquestionably, she labored, with all assidu
ousness, for her pagan spouse and his benighted
/ Bede, bk i. ch. 25. Bede expressly says of the Saxon king, " he had
before heard of the Christian Religion, having a Christian wife," etc.
" To this was added the very exemplary life of Bishop Luidhard, who
had come over with the queen ; by which, though silently, he allured the
king to the knowledge of Christ our Lord." — William of Mahnsbury,
Bohn's ed. 1847, p. 12.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 81
subjects.? She predisposed and attempered them for
the introduction of Christianity, upon a larger scale.
She 'applied for co-operation (it is possible) to the
British bishops of Cornwall and Wales — since, both
Gildas and Bede accuse them of neglecting the re
ligious welfare of the Saxons. A somewhat hard
accusation when one remembers that the Saxons had
driven them into virtual exile, and were trying to
reduce them and their country to abject vassalage,
while their friends and brethren were contending for
freedom at all earthly costs.^ Finding herself cut off
g Mrs. Hall's Queens before the Conquest. Article, Bertha, vol. i. pp.
338-360. " Gregory says. Next to God, England was indebted to hea- for
its conversion." — Cartas England, vol. i. p. 222.
A Rapin and Carte vindicate the British prelates. — Rapin, i. 226.—
Cartds England, i. 221. The Welsh accounts say, they asked, as a pre
liminary, that Pope Gregory should persuade the Saxons to surrender
the lands, usurped from them. If Augustine could not afford to ask the
Saxons to be just, ought he to have asked the British to be charitable ?
For the Welsh view of the matter, see Williatns's Antiquities of the Cym
ry, p. 240. It may be our duty to go and preach the Gospel to those who
have driven us from our homes, and squatted on our patrimony. But,
surely, ilwy are not the persons to ask this duty of us, who sustain our
persecutors in their usurpations. Mr. Newman's apology for Augustine's
and Gregory's refusal to induce the Saxons to restore their plundered
inheritance to the Britons, is, that "the Holy See" never commits itself
to " a system of gratuitous interference with national arrangements." —
Life of St. Augustine, p. 229, London, 1845. If this biography was not
written by Mr. Newman, he caused it to be written ; and I call it his,
because qui facit per alium, etc. Now, if he supposed such an excuse, as
the above could, in the face of all history, be admitted by non-Romanists,
he must have been in one of those hallucinations common to him in 1845,
and thereabouts, during which he called himself a Protestant, and lived
on Protestant money, but was all the while m his heart a devotee of
Rome. Under the influence of that hallucination, he must have supposed
himself writing horn-books for children, and not grave narrations of fact
for sober, grown people. If Mr. Newman had been half as honest as
William Ranchin, a Roman Catholic, he would, a thousand times sooner,
have written Ranchin's chapter "Of the Complaints and Oppositions
which have been made against the Pope's Dominion over Kingdoms
4*

82 EARLY HISTORY OF
from immediate auxiliaries, and disappointed by her
own countrymen, grown more supine, it may be, than
their ancestors who were wont, as you have seen, to
aid Britain in an extremity, she (as a last, and not
& first thing) acquainted the Bishop of Eome, with her
peculiar condition, and asked for assistance, to promote
the undertaking, which she had fall favorably begun.
She, and her chaplains, had not force enough to reap
the harvest which was evidently approaching, and she
asked for fellow-laborers — that was the length and
breadth of her simple and natural petition. Her let
ter, representing not ihe future, but the actual state of
things, viz., "the English nation [_nation, mark you,
and not a few individuals of a nation] is desirous to
turn Christian"^ — her letter reached Gregory, at a
juncture, when, as I have shown, he panted asthmat-
ically for the amplification of his see ; and, as I too
much fear, was hailed by him as an auspicious opening,
more than as a call to rugged and revolting duty.
The issue verifies my supposition ; for when his mis
sionaries halted in South France, and wished to aban
don the expedition, he would not listen to their
remonstrances. He started them afresh, and roused
the sympathies of the French in their behalf, with the
subtlety of an Itali-an politician. He knew that the
French were at war with the German Saxons, and
and Empires" — a chapter full of anti-piipal matter. — Langbaine's trans
lation of Ranchi?i's Review of the Council of Trent, Oxford, 1638, p. 123.
I the more readily quote this book, as it shows what books Oxford
encouraged in days when many thought it tending to Popery.
i A quotation no doubt from hei' letter incorporated into Gregory's
own. — Chron. Anc. Br. Ch. p. 151. — Thierry's Conq. of England, i. 80.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 83
talked to them of the Anglo-Saxons, as if they were
substantially the same people, and were to be con
verted to become French subjects!/ Having, by this
famous missionary argument, excited French sympa
thies, and secured French co-operation, he despatched
his (as I may now fairly denominate them) campaign
ers, for a second politico-religious expedition. After
their French reinforcement, they succeeded in effect
ing a landing on British soil, where, as we shall soon
see, their grand aim and effort was less to make
Catholic Christians, (i. e.. Catholic Christians, in the
proper sense of that most misappropriated term,) than
votaries and emissaries of the see of Eome.*
Finis coronal opus, the end is the coronation of the
work, says the old adage ; and it is a true one, where
by to judge of a series of acts leading to a predeter
mined issue. For, by the end aimed at, you can
j Thierry's Conquest, i. 29, 30. If Gregory had talked as a Christian,
and not as a politician, he would have reminded the French that they
would find in England a queen, a bishop, etc., their own country-people
and fellow-Christians.
k Gregory discovered that none but genuine Romans could accomplish
his work. He bought young Englishmen, sold for slaves, and tried to
make instruments of them; but they would not answer. "It would
seem," says Thierry, " that these missionaries, on compulsion, did not
answer the purpose of their masters ; for Pope Gregory, soon laying
aside this fantastic expedient, resolved to intrust the conversion of the
Anglo-Saxons to Romans, of tried faith and solid learning." — History of
the Conquest, i. 29. It is evident, Gregory could find no such supple and
reliable auxiliaries as out-and-out Romans. Indeed, Bede himself con
fesses as much, when, in his " Lives of the Holy Abbots," he incidentally
shows how important it was to have a bishop from among those " who
had been adequately instructed, by the Roman disciples of the blessed
Pope Gregory, in Kent, on every topic of Church discipline." — Giles's
Bede, vol. iv. p. 863. Incidental testimony is said to be sometimes the
most valuable of any testimony whatever. Here, according to the old
proverb, it lets the cat out of the bag most completely.

84 EARLY HISTORY OP
appreciate the labors which procured it. If the end
of the sainted, rather than the saintly Gregory, had
been to make Christians merely, he would have wel
comed with gladness any willing collaborators for such
an undertaking. But (as you perceive, perhaps, al
ready) he wanted to manufacture Eoman Christians,
above all others. You will soon find that he would
endure no others, renounced the communion of all
others, and left them the name, and the fate, of
perfidious and execrable heretics.^ He wanted no one
to dissent from the supremacy of his jurisdiction in
England, any more than he wanted a rival at Con
stantinople ; and his quarrel with some Christians in
England being, in its chief point, (that of his own
supremacy,) his exact quarrel with Christians in Con
stantinople, it is but reasonable to presume that he
was never forgetful of the pretended honors of his see
— ^never unready to vindicate, and to extend them,
"unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills.""*
At least, I prefer to make this explanation of Grego-
l Bede, lib. ii. ch. 2, uses the very words perfidus, and nefandus, of
the ancient orthodox Britons; and pronounces them, in addition, de-
spisers of salvation. Of course, he learned to abuse the ancient Chris
tians of his country in this horrid style, from a Romish school. He does
not use worse words, or as hard ones of the British Pelagians ; he indeed
calls their notions damnable, yet does not style them a heresy, but only
a perversity. His Latin is perversitate damndbili, book i. ch. 18. Anti-
Romanizers, then, are perfidious wretches, who despise salvation ; Pela
gians are only perverts I This is the doctrine of a Romish nomenclature !
J. H. Newman, in his Life of Augustine (p. 833) translates perfidi by
" traitors to the Church." He little dreamed, it may be, that when he
adopted Bede's hatred of the Britons, with his formidable language, he
was his own portrait painter 1
m " His successful inroads into the provinces of Greece, of Spain, and
of Gaul, might countenance the more lofty pretensions of succeeding
popes." — Giibon, Milman's ed. ch. 45, vol. viii. 173.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 85
ry's conduct, in most matters, as more creditable to
himself than one given by Sabinian, his immediate
successor in office, his personal acquaintance, and his
most trusted nuncio — his confidential representative,
for years, at the place most troublesome to him on
earth — Constantinople. Sabinian unblushingly ac
cuses Gregory of being instigated by a mere anxiety
for personal popularity, and seems to have found all
Eome ready to beheve him ; for Gregory was scarce
cold in his grave, ere the Eomans came near consign
ing his memory to infamy, by attempting to burn in
the forum every production of his penl I honor
Gregory, therefore, more than a Pope, m-ore than
Eome itself has done ;' — surely, I cannot be accused of
awarding him unwonted censure, or of looking at his
case through the spectacles of heretical perverseness.'*
Well, then, we at last reach the plain conclusion,
that invited, possibly importuned, by good Queen
Bertha — the wife of the Saxon monarch already al
luded to — Gregory the First, anxious to widen his
spiritual territory, commissioned Augustine (some
times called Augustine tlie lesser, to distinguish him
n Platina's Popes, Rycaut's ed. London, 1685, p. 101. Bower's
Popes, ii. 543, 44. Fleury hurries over Sabinian's case in as few words
as possible; and so does tbe Dictionnaire des Papes which follows in his
wake. Bayle tries to extenuate Platina ; but Bruys shows that he is un
successful. — Hist, des Popes, i. 408. Llorente is severe upon Sabinian ;
but it behoves the advocates of tbe Papacy to remember, that if he is
just in his criticisms upon Sabinian, he may be equally just in his casti-
gation of Gregory. Palma, in his Praelections, endeavors to show it is
impossible that Sabinian hated Gregory, or that he himself wanted vir
tue. Be it so, learned professor of the Ninth Pius. Then Sabinian's
caustic censure of Gregory was merited. — Palma's Preelections, i. 481,
32, 2d Roman edition.

86 EARLY HISTORY OP
from the great doctor, who was Bishop of Hippo)
with some thirty companions, to proceed to England
in 596 or 7, and do what might be done for the pro
motion of an enterprise, which, no doubt, he had very
nearly at heart. With his company, recruited to forty
in France, he landed on the Isle of Thanet, at the
mouth of the Thames. They were received distrust
fully by Ethelbert, the Saxon king; but at the in
stance, questionless, of his excellent queen, were soon
invited to Canterbury, his capital city, and allowed to
mingle freely with their fellow-Christians, and countiy-
men already there, and with the people at large. One
caution, one memorable caution only, did the Saxon
king impose upon them, and, as an observer might
say, with a sort of prophetical anticipation of the
quality of the individuals with whom he had to deal.
He had learned, he said, "from his instructors and
leaders to salvation, that the service of Christ ought
to be voluntary, not by compulsion." He, therefore,
would allow no compulsion of any sort, in the busi
ness of Christianizing his realms." Oh, had Eome,
had even Augustine implicitly followed this benignant
injunction — had not Popery made it afterwards a mat
ter of actual law, " that heretics, however unwilling,
are to be brought to salvation by force ; that the
Church is to persecute them; and that the enemies
of the Church are to be coerced by arms ;" what a

0 Bede, bk i. 26. A papist would say the king got this advice from
Augustine. If so (no strange thing) Augustine was a hypocrite, and
belied his own counsel. No, by leaders he means Bertha, and his first
instructors. Gentle Bertha, no doubt, told him so.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 87
different hue had overspread the lengthened annals
of Eomano-English history Ii* And how had many
a century been guiltless of testimony against Eome,
where now we can trace her characteristic passage,
amid excommunications, and anathemas, amid fetters
and dungeons, amid stains of blood and the smoke
of penal fires !
Of course, when Eomish writers detail the advent
of Augustine and his associates into Saxon England,
it is no part of their plan to let us understand, that
England (aye, Saxon England), had already a Chris
tian queen, with a bishop and a staff of clergy for her
guardians and instructors, and had regular Christian
services amidst, and around, the very court of a
Pagan monarch, for at least a quarter of a century.?
Even Bede himself can afford the noble, self-sacrific
ing Queen Bertha, but two short sentences in his his
tory, and Dr. Lingard, in his work on the Anglo-
Saxons, about as many lines, to show that she had
influenced her husband in favor of her own rehgious
opinions. But the moment a Eoman satellite steps
upon Enghsh shores, we find him heralded by mir
acles, and conversions by tens of thousands, as though
Christianity were as much of a novelty there, as it
was to the Indians of New England, two centuries
and a half ago! Why, the very rock u.pon which
Augustine first stepped in Thanet, is said to have re
ceived the imprint of his feet, as if it had been a cake
p Southey's Virdicia;, p. 29. Southey, in his notes, quotes the Latin
Decretals. q Bertha was married in 570.

88 EARLY HISTORY OP
of wax :'¦ — a prodigy which we might have been in
duced to accredit, had he only been but a Puritan
pilgrim, and stepped upon the rock of Plymouth!
The bishop already on Enghsh soil — the very queen
who was unquestionably the instrument of gaining an
access for more distant adventurers in the work of
Saxon conversions — such persons, and their fellow-
laborers, are quietly thrust aside — while (marvellous
to behold!) the curtain rises, a few play-actors from
Eome enter upon the scene — and, at once, like the he-
goat in the prophet's vision, they fill "the face of the
whole earth," and there is not a corner for history's
fame but it must be filled by them! Well does
honest and quaint, but, as Mr. Southey calls him, de
lightful old Fuller say, " Thus was Kent converted to
Christianity. For such as account this a conversion
of all England, to make their words good, do make
use of a long and strong synechdoche, a part for the
whole : far more than half of the land lying, some
years after, in the darkness of paganism; which others
[others, mark you, not Augustine and his corps]
afterward enlightened with the beams of the Gospel."
St. Paul was the principal founder of the Church
of Corinth, and took so deep an interest in its welfare,
as to write it two long epistles. Nevertheless, he
could say to his Corinthian converts, "I will not be
burdensome to you ; for I seek not yours, but you."*
But Augustine and his retainers had no sooner planted
themselves on British territory, than, in the old lan-
;• Fuller's Ch. Hist. i. 135, 136. s Fuller's Ch. Hist. i. 144.
t 2 Cor. xii. 14.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 89
guage of the law, they determined to be seized of as
much of that valuable commodity as they could get
within their clutches. When Augustine had pro
pitiated Ethelbert, then, though he saw a bishop by
the queen's elbow daily, he determined to undermine
him, by becoming not a bishop merely, but a bishop's
superior, a metropolitan. He informed Pope Gregory
of his success, (without a whisper about Christians al
ready in England, and already provided with a bishop)
of his own self-obtained success ; and Gregory takes
good care that he should enjoy the bishopric, nay,
the archbishopric, for which he schemed." He hied
him away for consecration, to one whom he could
trust imphcitly — near himself — in South France.
Surely, if Augustine wanted Episcopal ordination
merely, he might have had it in Paris, or its neigh
borhood, if not in Wales. But no, Gregory must be
his oracle in every thing. Indeed, the whole story
of Eomish intervention in England, has ever such a
Eome- wise tendency in its reputed facts, that it is as
impossible to mistake their dress, as it would be to
misjudge the tonsure and garb of a monk, in the
neighborhood of the Eternal City.

u Augustine was so grasping he wanted to be a sort of patriarch.
Gregory had to rebuke him. " But you, of your own authority, shall
not have power to judge the bishops of France." — Giles's Bede, vol. ii.
117, in the answer to Augustine's seventh question. Augustine had a
ready example before him to imitate, in his master; and he was in dan
ger of being too apt a scholar. Nevertheless, that mastfe was disposed
to be reasonably indulgent. He had no more legitimate jurisdiction over
the British Episcopate then, than his successor has now; yet he said with
all complaisance, " As for aU the Bishops of Britain, we commit them to
your care."— ifrW. Compare Rees's Essay on the Welsh Saints, pp. 291, 292.

90 EARLY HISTORY OF
Augustine, having become fairly inaugurated in
England, returns to it, no longer plain Father Augus
tine, a humble priest, but a most reverend lord high
archbishop. In due time he received his official
Eomish badge, the pall ;« and was bidden by Gregory
to parcel out England,"' as coolly as Pius IX. lately
reparceled it, when he put one of his own archbishops
cheek by jowl with the Archbishop of Canterbury —
a thing, which if England's queen were to parallel in
Italy, all the lava of Vesuvius would not be thought
too much to pour forth upon her infinite audacity I
Bishops, and archbishops, too, had been known, and
long known in England ; for the three archbishops of
Britain, those of London, of York, and of Wales,
were the prelates who represented (and properly)
the entire British Church, in the great Council of Ar
ies, summoned by Constantine, A. D. 314 — ^i. e., some
three whole centuries before. These three were, beyond
a doubt, the three natural primitive archbishoprics
of Britain ;^ but another spirit had started up, which
ignored the history of elder times. In the familiar
language of the Scriptures, another king had arisen
which knew not Joseph ; and Augustine was installed

V The pall, or pallium., is a pontifical ornament peculiar to bishops,
and marks, ordinarily, the rank of an archbishop. This is Bergier's defi
nition, from which it would seem that the pallium is not always the en
sign of an archbishop. — Dictionnaire Theologique, vol. vi. p. 184. Cora-
pare Chronicles Anc. Brit. Oh. 2d ed. p. 184 ; Carte's England, i. p. 223.
w Bede, bk i, 27. — Answer to Augustine's 7th question — at the end,
Gregory gave Augustine, (I now give the Latin, as the English is in tbe
note preceding,) " Britanniarum omnes episoopos" — every soul of them !
X The Welsh Triads put them in this order : Llandaff, York, and Lon
don. — Williams's Antiquities of tlie Cymry, p. 203.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 91
Archbishop of Canterbury ; which see, from his days
downward, has been the seat of the chief ecclesiastical
dignitary of British realms. We may regret this, when
we know that it is an honor conferred on Canterbury,
because that was the first English see which paid alle
giance to Eome ; but we cannot regret it long, when
we remember that Eome's first favorite in England is
Eome's greatest detestation in all Christendom. Verily,
I believe with full confidence, that if Eome had now
a choice between the overthrow of Constantinople,
one of her oldest enemies, or of Canterbury, one of her
later ones, Constantinople, with Eoman curses upon
her heavy enough to outweigh a mountain, would
now go scot i'cee.y For now the sun never sets where
y Any thing would have been granted to England, if she would have
acknowledged tbe supremacy of Rome. " Pope Pius IV. {anno 1560) of
fered to Queen Elizabeth, to allow our whole Book of Common Prayer,
if she would receive it as from him, and by his authority." — Cade's Jus
tification of the Church of England, London, 1630, p. 84. A statement
reiterated in Gee's edition of Rob. Parson's Jesuit's Memorial, published
in London, in 1690, and noticed b.y Mr. Mendham, in his Literary Policy,
pref. to 2d ed. p. xix. For Dr. Gee's statements, see pp. xxi. and xxxix.
of his Introduction. Romanists may squib at these as much as they
please. The dates of the quotations show what our forefathers believed ;
and the promise is in perfect keeping with Roman and Jesuitical policy.
It would be easy enough, too, to use a bad liturgy with the allowance of
the Jesuits. "It seems more probable that no attention at all, neither
internal, nor formal, nor virtual, is required in a man's repeating the
office." — Father Pierre Bayer's Parallel between the Jesuits and the Pagans,
trans, by S. Whateley, London, 1788, 2d ed. p. 56. Boyer quotes from
a Jesuit's Course of Divinity, and gives the Latin in a note. Perhaps, as
all turns with the Jesuits on technicalities, the indulgence is wrapped up
in the word required. Or, on the opus operatum principle, the repetition of
a prayer is enough, without mental attention. Either way, there is am
ple license. I should perhaps subjoin here, that Father Beyer's book,
as well as books like it, was published anonymously. This was not to
avoid authorship, but a dose of Jesuit poison ! — See Mendham's Litera
ry Policy, etc., 2d ed. p. 186, note.

92 EARLY HISTORY OP
the banner of England is not somewhere floating;
and wherever that banner floats, the archiepiscopal
authority of Canterbury is respected and honored.
In order, I suppose, to maintain the ecclesiastical in
tegrity of the world-wide British empire, an archbish
opric has never been created out of, what may be
called, the home kingdom.^
But to proceed. Archiepiscopal jurisdiction is not
a thing apt to be unestimated by Eoman appraisers ;
nor is archiepiscopal vigilance apt to take anodynes,
when Eomish Church-extension is a subject for its
forecast. Scarcely is Augustine mounted on his new
and pretentious throne, than we begin to hear of his
provincial functions, put into actual exercise. He
contrives to find out, now, that there is an old and a
full-formed Episcopal Church in the western portion
of the country which he had adopted as his own, and
which he designed to create as a theatre for his mani
fold triumphs. Why, (if he were a pacific, tolerant
Christian, who was anxious for the dissemination of
the truth as it is in Jesus) why should his first effort
be, not to see how he could help his fellows in the
faith, his colleagues in office — his elder colleagues —
the free-born and native-born occupants of the soil,
but to see how he could subject them to his sway, and
z Some of the ancient archiepiscopal dignity of London yet belongs to
it. The Bp of London is Primus Baro Regni, the first baron of the
realm ; and the Abp of Canterbury has no provincial right of visitation
in his diocese. — Allen's History of London, vol. ii. p. 306. It would be
more primitive, and more British, if England were to restore the ancient
ecclesiastical regime, and have an Abp of London, and an Abp of St.
David's. This might easily be done on the death of the present Abp
of Canterbury.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 93
treat them as his subordinates and suffragans? A
forbearing mind can sometimes say of a communion
which it pities,
" If the rude waste of human error bear
One flower of hope, oh pass, and leave it there ?"«
But Augustine, as soon as he feels a Eomish pallium's
quickening, forgets the counsel of the Saxon king
upon the subject of compulsion. He invites the Brit
ish bishops of the West to a conference ; or, as the
issue proved, summoned them to an audience, to listen
to his autocratical dictation. He, a foreigner and an
Italian, who had not so much as received Episcopal
consecration under the skies which had covered them
selves from birth-time, requires the old-established
prelates of the land to stand before him, as pupils be
fore a master.* He had inquired (as the issue showed)
into their faith in fundamental Christian verities, and
found it blameless. They were not Arians, they were
not Pelagians, they were not enemies of, or strangers
to. Episcopacy, or creeds, or liturgies. He could
not fault them about any thing essential in doctrine,
or in discipline ; for the Church of Eome did not
then vary materially from old and genuine catholic
truth, but in a single particular — the supremacy of
a Southey's Vindicise, p. 137.
i He here violated, most egregiously, the eighth canon of the Gen
eral Council of Ephesus.— See section fourth of Palmer's British Epis
copacy Vindicated against Dr. (now Cardinal) Wiseman. Also a canon
of the Council of Aries, (a. n. 314,) which was general for the West.—
Albaspincei Observationes, p. 390. According to Van Espen, he would
have had no right to trump as high as he did, even if a Papal legate.—
Jus Canonicfum, pars i. tit. 21, ch. 3, n. 1.

94 EARLY HISTORY OF
her bishop." This was the crux, to which Augus
tine must bow and bind them; and so prefacing it
with matters, (which may come up hereafter, to show
that the British Christians did not derive from Eome
even the minutiae of their system,) with matters of
comparatively trifling moment, in themselves consid
ered, he concluded his appeal with a demand of un
conditional surrender to himself, and the power he
represented, as their ecclesiastical superiors and sov
ereigns.'^ They were to place themselves and their
Church entirely at his disposal, and join him in a
crusade^ for the conversion of the heathen, who would,
c I am very sorry to say it, but I am afraid, that if Gregory talked
against the supremacy, he acted for it. A desire for the supremacy cer
tainly existed at that time; and Bp Overall even supposes, that one
reason why Sabinian wished to have Gregory's books burned, was, that,
he had made imprudent verbal concessions against pontifical power. —
Convocation Book, ed. 1690, p. 286. I am quite inclined to believe, that
if Sabinian had had his way, not a great many Ultramontanes would
have cried their eyes out. Febronius [Bp Hontheim] speaks of Greg
ory, debita reverentid, but admits that he stretched his power, ultra nati
ves fines. — See his treatise, De Statu Ecclesice, vol. ii. ch. 5, § 3, or p. 420.
Prof Palma even contends that Gregory was not ready only, but very
zealous, and deeply anxious, to defend the natural rights of the Prima
cy. Nay more, that those rights he was ready to exact, " accurate et
constanter." (Prselectiones, i. 417.) What a Romish conception of the
natii/ral rights of the Roman Pontiff are, any intelligent theologian
knows ; and wbat, too, a precise and persevering exaction of those
rights — especially with the Inqusition to back them ! So, Palma being
witness, Gregory, bow demiss soever in words, was in deeds a full-blown
Pope! d An old French authority, quoted by Collier from Spelman, " afBrms
expressly, that Augustine did demand subjection to him, as the Pope's
legate ; but Dinoth, in the name of those Churches, refused it." — CoUiet^s
Ecc. Hist. i. 179 ; Abp Parker's Correspondence, Parker, Soc. ed. pp. Ill,
112. e A crusade is not too strong a word; for Gregory advised Ethelbert
to spread Christianity by exhortation, terror, flattery, and correction. —
Bede, bk i. 82 ; or, vol. ii. 148.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 95
of course, become not their disciples but his own — his
spiritual wards, whom he might use for such ecclesi
astical taxation as he, and he alone, should determine
to be proper.
Augustine descanted like a lordling, and a genuine
satellite of the great central authority of the Eoman
system. His British auditors were as modest and
humble as little children ; and, with unsophisticated
simplicity, asked for a second audience, and time for
consultation, declaring that they could do nothing
" without the consent and leave of their people."/ In
these quoted words, (as I would remark in passing,)
the ancient British Christians showed abundant defer
ence for a feature in Church discipline, which has ever
been Eome's special detestation — ^the mixture of the
laity with the clergy, in the consideration and settle
ment of momentous ecclesiastical questions. And I
cheerfully add, may God forefend the day when "the
consent and leave of the people" be banished from the
discipline of any who profess and call themselves
Christians !?
/ Bede, bk ii. ch. 2.
g Mr. Palmer is high-church enough, I hope, for most people ; yet he
hesitates not to give the following testimony : " The Church has never
flourished more, nor has the Episcopate ever been held in truer reverence
than under the guidance of those apostolical prelates, who, like St. Cypri
an, resolved to do nothing without the consent of the Church, and who
have most sedulously avoided even the appearance of being 'lords over
God's heritage.' " — Treatise on the Cliurch, third edition, 1842, ii. pp. 308,
304. Even in the Gallican Church, (as Mezeray says, quoted by William
Watson, LL. D., in his treatise on Church law,) the practice of esteem
ing the voice of the people, in conferring Church benefices, as the voice
of God, prevailed down to the tenth century. — Watson's Clergyman's Law,
fourth edition, 1747, p. 4. Hospinian, de Origine Templorum, p. 426,
shows that the laity, in the Church's better days, could not give away

96 EARLY HISTORY OF
The old British Christians were, but too clearly, bad
Eoman Catholics ; yet, though simple-hearted, they
were prudent men, and before they would trust them
selves, a second time, with the magisterial Augustine,
tbey not only consulted generally with " the people,"
but sought special advice from an experienced and
venerated hermit. He gave them a plain and explicit
test, by which they might determine, whether Augus
tine meant to treat with them as brethren and equals ;
or show them that he would only accept of their sub
mission as a liege lord. The test failed ; and then at
last, penetrating the depths of his outrageous usurpa
tion, they answered with as flat, and positive, and
fixed a denial, as ever fell from British lips. I would
fain give you more details, did time allow ; but the
terms of this denial, relating to the stress of Augus
tine's requisitions, and showing that they gauged his
whole system from base to top-stone, I cannot forbear
from quoting.
"Be it known, and without doubt unto you," said
their property to the Church without the consent of government. Ac
cording to Hospinian, then, the laws lately passed in some of the United
States, forbidding the control of Church property to ecclesiastics, are
perfectly correct. While alluding to Hospinian, whose antiquarian lore
was profound, I venture to say, that in the treatise just quoted, p. 399,
he advances the opinion that weekly, instead of monthly, oblations, i. e.,
for the Communion, and poor communicants, were adopted by Fabian,
Bishop of Rome, not for a theological, but a prudential reason ; because
the number of Christians was so rapidly increasing. Fabian was bishop
from 236 to 250. Weekly communions, at their commencement, were
evidently not designed for all, but to accommodate increasing numbers.
A very probable and rational origin; and they who talk of them as
morally obligatory, transcend their commission. Caranza, Archbishop
of Toledo, in his Summa Conciliorum, sustains the reference of Hos
pinian. — See Summa, p. 20, Louvain, 1681.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 97
their mouth-piece, in the name of all his brethren,
" that we all are, and every one of us, obedient sub
jects to the Church of God, and to the Bishop of
Eome, and to every godly Christian, to love every
one in his degree, in perfect charity, and to help every
one of them, by word and deed, to be the children of
God. And other obedience than this we do not know
to be due to him, whom you name to be Pope, nor to be
father of fathers ; and this obedience we are ready to
give, and to pay, to him, and to every Christian con
tinually. Besides, we are under the government of the
Bishop of Caerleon-upon-IJsk, [the old Welsh arch
bishopric,]* who is, under God, appointed to superintend
us, and to cause us to continue in the spiritual way."*
I might comment long upon the forbearance, the
moderation, the equanimity, and the urbanity of this
ever-memorable manifesto of our far-gone forefathers.
I will only use respecting it, a word which, if not very
classic, will enable you longest to remember its char-
h Caerleon is in Monmouth County, twenty-six miles from Bristol, one
hundred and forty-eight from London ; once, the metropolis of all Wales.
Hence, an archbishop's see. Here King Arthur once flourished ; and
here inaugurated the Knights of the Round Table. Caerleon means The
Fort of the Legion: the Roman Legion stationed there. The Romans
found it so difficult to subjugate the Welsh, that two of the three legions
in all Britain were stationed near them, or among them. — Heylyn's Cos-
mographie, second edition, p. 323.
i Chronicles Anc. Brit. Ch. pp. 160, 161. Comp. Fuller, vol. i. 149.
Joyce's Brit. Synods, p. 119. Collier, i. 178. Williams's Antiquities of
the Cymry, pp. 143, 144. These notice the objections of Romanists to its
authenticity. If the speech had told for Rome, instead of against it, it
would have been accepted upon half the testimony which now sustains it.
Had the Pope for an endorser, too ! " It is condemnable in one what is
commendable in another," said old Fuller, in his quaintness, who under
stood the rules for the rise and fall of the thermometer ecclesiastical, at
Rome, uncommonly well. — Fuller, i. 342.
5

98 EARLY HISTORY OP
acter. It certainly has British spunk enough in it to
entitle it to any page in the annals of our modern
Eeformation./ It satisfied Augustine that he had to
deal with impracticable materials ; and he at once gave
way to violence. Language of fearful excitement rose
to his lips, so that even Bede is constrained to confess
he spake "in a threatening manner." If, said he, you
will not join in unity with me, on the terms proposed
to you, war shall come thundering to your doors. If
you will not, in the way demanded of you, preach to
the English nation, then you shall at their hands
experience the vengeance of death.*
There, my Brethren, there, in the first grand display
of its aims at power, and in the issue, you have an in
troduction to the Eomish Church history of England,
and an epitome of its genius, till the Eeformation
brought a change, which, may God grant it, shall con
tinue to the end of mortal time. You see how it be-
/ The Britons were infected with that spiritual malady which Dr. Lin
gard, in his own classic style, calls "pious obstinacy." The phrase
occurs in his Anglo-Saxon Church, second edition, p. 108. He may,
however, have caught the idea from Archbishop Wilfrid, who called
those that sided with some of his auditors, about an unorthodox, i. e.,
a non-Roman Easter, " accomplices in obstinacy." — See Giles's Bede,
ii. 367.
k The Latin words of Bede are uUionem and mortis. The vengeance
of death is, of course, a literal and exact translation of it. Nevertheless,
Mr. Jos. Reeve, while he talks of " Bede's unquestionable authority," sup
presses the speech of Augustine, altogether ; and Dr. Lingard and Mr.
Newman gloss over the language, with euphemisms. This is all consis
tent, no doubt, and all done permissu superiorum. But the impracticable
Latin, and the significant fact that an ItaUan was the. speaker, are awk
ward things, and not easy to forget. Dolcissimo Mortali e la Vendetta is
a consecration of the sweetness of revenge, worthy of an Italian poet,
and a monk, too ; and some of the blood, which thrills under such enjoy
ment, might have been flowing in Augustine's veins. — Frauds of Monks,
¦itc, fifth edition, London, 1725, i. 55.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 99
gins, with the faultmg of all opponents as enemies of
the Church Cathohc; as if Eome were herself the
Church, the whole Church, and all the Church^— the
Church in comprehension, and the Church in cen
tralization — the one, single, all-excluding representa
tive of Christianity below. You see its next step,
comply with my directions — hearken to my decisions
— submit to me implicitly."' And if the shghtest
symptom of a protestant spirit shows itself, then
comes the inevitable penalty: — threatenings, threat-
enings fierce and dire — enemies, and enemies who can
wield the murderous sword — at oUce are talked of;
and finally death, and death in any shape, which em
bittered enemies can devise.
Oh, how Eomish ! how intensely, and characteristi
cally, and pervadingly Eomish and Italian! Every
one is wrong but me — every one must submit to me
— every dissenter from my platform is a despiser of
eternal salvation,™ and may be treated as an outcast
from the pale of charity, and the forbearance of com
passion." I If anybody but a Romanist appropriates the title Catholic, say all the
Latin prelates of Ireland, he but exposes his own shame. — Mendham's
Literary Policy, pref p. xxxii.
m Obtemperare, is Bede's word in Augustine's speech. A psetty strong
one for compliance, conformity, submission. — Bede, bk ii. ch. 2. Yet,
says J. H. Newman, in his own, or his adopted life of Augustine, (p. 227,)
they must have had " sensitive ears" to quarrel with it. And then he
sneers at their "gratuitous manifestation of independence." If Con
stantinople bad been the talker, and Rome the talkee, the word would
have contained an indefinite amount of insolence and assumption ; and
an earthquake, like Lisbon's in 1755, been esteemed as little enough of
recompense for its huge audacity !
n Bede, bk ii. ch. 2, last Jine in the chapter.
0 " Nothing but universal supremacy, without the toleration of either

100 EARLY HISTORY, ETC.
That is the opening of genuine Eomish history in
England ; and most religiously was it adhered to, till
the temper, which erewhile rebelled against tyrannical
and inexorable supremacy, revived, after- a thousand
years' slumber, like a giant refreshed with wine, and
enacted the emancipation of the sixteenth century.
England is once more free, and the subalterns of Italy
no more her dictators. May the heart of her fathers
be given, henceforth and forever, to all her children ;
and the bondage of ecclesiastical servitude never again
be her bane and her curse.
actual resistance or mental inquiry, can satisfy a power which boasts it
self the representative of Deity, and the possessor of its sublimest attri
butes." — Townsend's Eccl. and Civil History Philosophically Considered,
ii. 502, 503. " This has uniformly been one part of tlie policy of Rome —
never to recede from a, claim, however unjust, or however resisted." —
Ibid, i. 475. I have quoted these sentences from Dr. Townsend, as from
a divine of a moderate school, and a most charitable disposition. But if
his authority, for a pretty strong sentiment, is not enough to back me,
let us see what Bp Butler has said, who was supposed, by some, to be so
favorably inclined to Rome, that he died a Papist in spirit, if not in form.
" Whoever will consider the popish claims to the disposal of the whole
earth, as of Divine right, to dispense with the most sacred engagements,
the claims to supreme, absolute authority iu religion ; in short, the gen
eral claims which the canonists express by the words plenitude of power
— Whoever, I say, will consider popery as it is professed at Rome, may
see that it is manifest, open usurpation of all human and Divine autho
rity."— 5p Butler's Works, Oxford, 1844, ii. 285. The Bishop adds,
that persecution is professed by the Romish Church, and absolutely en
joined upon it. Strong as his language may read to some, it seems not
unnatural, when we know that Archbishop Parker himself began with
languge full as strong, if not, in the estimation of many, much stronger.
This is the way in which he expostulated with the deprived Romish pre
lates — Heath and others. " Ye have made it sacrilege to dispute of his
fact, [the Pope's actions,] heresy to doubt of his power, paganism to dis
obey him, and blasphemy against the Holy Ghost to act or speak against
his decrees." — Parker's Correspondence. Parker, Soc. ed. p. 112.

LECTURE IV.

BKAKING OF THIS NEW RELIGION FEOM EOME TOWAEDB THE OLD
OHEISTIANITY WHICH IT ENOOTTNTBKED IN THB BEITISH ISLES.

The last, that is, my third lecture on the Early His
tory of Christianity in England, enabled me to com
plete a brief review of six centuries, and to commence
with an era, which Eomanists have been disposed to
consider as the foundation of the British Church un
der the auspices of Gregory the Great — the last but
one among the saints of the (so-called) successors of
St. Peter.
You saw something of the immediate and proxi
mate and more praiseworthy causes which prompted
Gregory to act in the premises ; and of the manner in
which his action was seconded and carried out. You
saw how that to call the era in question, the chrono
logical foundation of the Church of England, when
there were bishops scattered over the western and
north-western portions of Britain, in Cornwall, Wales,
and Cumberland, and a bishop with his clergy on the
very spot they first proposed to occupy, is so extrava
gant an assumption as to be altogether preposterous.

102 CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND.
You saw that the agent of Gregory was so far from
acting as an auxiliary to the ancient Christians whom
he found upon British territory, that he would have
nothing at all to do with them, unless, while they had
a long-established primate of their own, they would
abandon him for a new superior from Eome, whom
they were to welcome as an angel, and bow down to
as an absolute vicegerent : — an act of violent and im
pudent intrusion, of which I may, perhaps, give you
some idea, by saying, that its parallel in our times
would have been, for the first Eomish bishop who
came to these states, in 1790, to have commanded
Episcopahans in a body to desert Bishop White and
his colleagues, and to transfer all their allegiance to
him. Had he done so, Americans would have shut
him up in Bedlam, or hooted him from the land. Eor
our British forefathers to bid Augustine the lesser to
be gone about his business, when he made such a de
mand, and precisely such a demand of them, is in the
idea of the historian Bede himself — committed to Eo
mish dominion — to despise the offer of eternal salva
tion — ^i. e., to degrade one's self to the lowest of moral
levels, that of scoffing infidelity !"
The whole conduct of Gregory evinces, that he was
anxious, not so much to Christianize Britain, as to
Eomanize it* — to reduce it to spiritual subjection, to
himself and his successors." Why, he labored to
a Bede, bk ii. ch. 2, last sentence, p. 179.
b " He was the first Pope and leader of the Pontifical Companies, and
the last Bishop of Rome." — Birckbeck's Protestant Evidence, 2d ed. p. 238.
c " Under his subjection" was the exact understanding of the matter
by the British; as Bede gives it, (bk ii. ch. 2, p. 176,) from their own lips.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 103
thrust upon Britain, not a Eomish Episcopacy alone,
but Eomish canon law ¦.'^ — the very first provision of
which took care of the punishment of those who stole
any thing from the clergy ! He did not so much as
dream (good easy devotee of self-conceit) that it was
possible for him, or his clergy, to steal any thing from
others, though in the shape of some of human nature's
dearest rights ! His pioneer, Augustine the lesser,
would not receive Episcopal consecration from the
bishop at hand; nor from the bishops of Erance,
nearest and most accessible. Nay, from several an
swers which Gregory made to some of his queries for
instruction, it may not unfairly be inferred, that he,
Augustine (not one of the lesser saints in ecclesiastical
ambition) desired to have the French bishop, already
in Kent, at the court of Ethelbert, made completely
subordinate to his control. Gregory had to restrain a
little his zeal for exclusive jurisdiction ; but he surren
dered the British bishops, nay, all the British bishops
to his voracity, without a single qualm.^ This, too, in
the very teeth of a canon which Gregory had sworn
d Giles's Bede, ii. p. 189 ; bk ii. ch. 5. Muscutt's History of Ch. Laws,
p. 11. George Long's Discourses before the Middle Temple, 1847, p.
87. The preference of the Romish clergy for the Roman law is, of
course, easily explicable, in view of such an instance as is cited in the
text. Some of the English monarchs also favored the introduction of
Roman law ; and Fortescue gives us the secret of theii* preference.
" There is a noted sentence, a favorite maxim, or rule, in the Civil Law,
that ' That which pleases the Prince has the effect of a law.' " — Amos's
ed. of Fortescue de laudibus legum Angliai, p. 125. " The prince did his
utmost to elude the authority of the English laws ; and the nation, on
the other hand, labored hard to confirm it." — Irving's Introduction to the
Study of the Civil Law, 4th ed. 1837, p. 85.
e Giles's Bede, ii. 119 ; bk i. ch. 27. Answer to seventh question. At
the end. Lloyd's Brit. Ch. p. 80. "

104 EARLY HISTORY OP
to observe ¦,f- — it being once the fashion of popes, to
promise, on oath, to respect and execute the laws of
the Church — a somewhat embarrassing fashion how-
/ Council of Ephesus, Canon viii. Which canon, with a host of others,
he had sworn to observe, tola devotione. See his strong pledges, in Routh'a
Opuscula, Oxford, 1840, i. 363. Forbes's Historic Theology, vol. i. p. 237.
Maimbourg, Traite Historique, etc., p. 202.
The Pope's old oath to obey the canons is a matter of such consequence,
that perhaps some further reference ought to be made to it. It was well
known to the divines of France, as Maimbourg shows. De Marca also
insists on it, De Concordia, vol. i. pp. 152, 153. After the year 1000, he
says, France was as zealous for the majesty of the canons as ever, and as
opposed to Rome's extra-canonical or anti-canonical decrees, vol. i. p. 221.
One of the most remarkable testimonies upon the subject has been pre
served by Dr. Routh, in his Opuscula, vol. ii. p. 154. Comp. Launoii
Epistolffi, Cantabridgise, 1689, pp. 519, 716. There, from the Liber
Diurnus of the Pontiffs themselves, he shows that the ancient Popes sol
emnly declared, that all those persons, and all those articles of faith,
which the first six General Councils vouched for, they vouched for, as
rectce fidei consortes, as their ecclesiastical kindred ; and venerated them
in word, and in spirit, with the same affection as that which was bestowed
upon them by the same sacred synods. Now it is most remarkable, that
the English Synod of Calcuith, a. n. 785, whose canons were digested
and prepared beforehand by Papal legates, lays down, in its very first
canon, the saTn,e platform, " that the terms of communion may be regu
lated, and the people instructed accordingly." — Collier's Hist. i. 822.
Soames's Anglo-Saxon Church, 4th ed. p. 103. Of these six councils, Mr.
Palmer, sustained by our homilies, distinctly affirms — " These are the
only synods which the Church Universal has ever received and approved,
as ecumenical." — On ihe Church, vol. u. p. 141, Sd ed. The Homilies, 2d
¦ Part of the Homily on Idolatry, Oxford ed. p. 182, speaks of " those
six councils which were allowed and received of all men." Compare
Heathcote's Illustrations of the XXXIX Articles, Oxford, 1S41, p. 87.
Coleridge on the Scriptural Character of the Church of England, p. 467.
So, then, at last it appears, that all Christendom (the Pope and every
body else — Oriental, Roman, and Englishman,) was once contented with
what those synods defined ; and continued so, for at least eight hundred
years ! In the name of God, of reason, and of charit}', is not this a suffici
ent test ; and why should Christendom forsake this primitive foundation ?
The East and the West would, I believe, go back to it to-morrow, if they
could ; and Rome (after having once avowed it with the utmost solem
nity, as ample for " terms of communion") be the only dissenter ! Who,
then, is the changeling? who the defaulter in charity? in what commu
nion are now most abundant "men of good will?"

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 105
ever, which they have for many ^centuries conveniently
forgotten.? Indubitably Gregory was great, if being a great, a
GRAND Church politician entitled him to the distinc
tion of so honorable an appellation.'^ He labored
every way to widen, ramify, and consolidate papal
authority. He is the pope who first struck a fatal
blow at the independence of an apostolic episcopate,
by rendering various orders of monks free from epis
copal control, and directly dependent upon himself*
This virtuaUy constituted him the author of those fa
mous orders of the Church of Eome, such as the
Dominicans and Franciscans, and finally the Jesuits — •
which have sometimes been called the body-guard of
the pope ; whose interest it is to magnify and glorify
his authority to the utmost, and which (with the help
of the Council of Trent) have reduced the episcopacy
of the Church of Eome to such a degree of abject
g Richerius, Hist. Gen. Coun. vol. i. ch. 8, § 45; or, vol. i. p. 249.
Maimbourg's Trait6 Historique, etc., ch. xx. Fullwood's Roma Ruit, p.
61, note. De Maroa, de Concordia, etc., i. pp. 152, 153. Abp De Marca
and Abp De Dominis (de Repub. Ecoles. part i. p. 331,) say the Pope
cannot disobey the canons. De Dominis would, of course, be suspected
by a Papist ; but De Marca is lauded by Cardinal Wiseman. See High
Ch. Claims, p. 76, London, 1841.
h Sueur hits off his character well, when he says, he was supple and
adroit, and knew just how to accommodate himself to times and individ
uals. That is, he was a cunning politician. — Histoire de I'Eglise et de
f Empire, vol. vi. p. 6.
i Bower's Popes, ii. 522; Giannone's Naples, i. 233. 234; Townsend's
Hist. Chron. Considered, ii. 11 ; Hospinian de Monachis, nova ed. p. 233 ;
or, lib, iv. ch. 10. He also acquitted, at Rome, a priest condemned for
heresy at Constantinople. — Du Pin's Hist. Ecc. Writers, i. 569. And then
complained of Constantinople, for having a bigger name, while he as
sumed the bigger authority. This is true Gregorian consistency I

106 EARLY HISTORY OP
humiliation, as to destroy its ancient independence/
In the Eoman Church, a bishop is a mere creature of
papal construction or annihilation ;* and the Council
of Trent rendered this feature of Eoman economy a
fixture, by denying that there is any episcopal author
ity in the Catholic Church, save as concentrated in,
and emanating from, the pope, wholly and alone.' It
was this view of episcopacy (the monarchical or impe
rial one) which Luther and Calvin dissented from and
resisted — a repubhcan episcopacy (in which bishops
are, like the governors of our States, mostly the mere
executive officers of the Church) they favored ; and
the disciples of Luther still favor it, in form, if not in
name.™ j Palmer on the Church, 3d ed. ii. 438 ; Gee's ed. of Parson's Jesuits'
Memorial; Abp De Pradt du Jesuitism; DuUer's Jesuits as they were
and are ; Lathbury's State of Popery and Jesuitism in England ; Nicoli-
ni's History of the Jesuits ; Father Beyer's Parallel between the Jesuits
and the Pagans, trans, by S. Whateley, London, 1788 ; Leone's Jesuit
Conspiracy; Michelsen's Modern Jesuitism ; Poynder's History of the
Jesuits, with a Reply to Dallas's Defence, etc. ; Wordsworth's Letters to
Gondon ; Steinmetz's Jesuits; an article from the English Review, re
printed by Joseph Robinson Baltimore — one of the best tracts upon the
subject ever issued.
k reddes's Tracts, vol. ii. dedication, first paragraph ; Palmer on the
CI' ,n, 3d ed. ii. 439. " All Romanist prelates are what they are, not
1 /ivine Providence or permission, but by the grace of the Papal see !"
Wordsworth! s Letters to Gondon, vol. i. 800.
I Father Paul's Coun. Trent, ed. 1676, pp. 570, etc.
m My lecture on Exclusiveness, pp. 35, etc. 3d ed., with the references.
It was the monarchical episcopacy of Rome which the Abp Spalatro,
the Primate of Dalmatia, (Anthony de Dominis,) endeavored to write
down, in his famous Respublica Ecolesiastica . In the tenth section of that
introductory chapter, iu which he explains the grand design of his work
be distinctly says, that the Church under the Roman Pontiff, has ceased to
be a Church (i. e., an institution of the Lord,) and has become altogether
an institution of man, i. e., a mere temporal monarchy, of which the
pope is the emperor.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 107
Such an episcopacy as the pope's, (an imperial and
ecumenical pontificate,) when presented to the view of
the bishops of the ancient Church of Britain, was, as
you saw by their reply to Augustine in council, a
perfect novelty, and a completely inadmissible inno
vation. They protested against, and repudiated it,
with unbending, unconquerable aversion. They dis
owned it, amid anathemas and threats of the direst
vengeance." And this may satisfy you, that while the ancient
British Christians were as decided Episcopalians as
ourselves, they were just as decided opponents as our
selves of the monarchical, or rather imperial episco
pacy of the popedom, which makes all authority tend
to, and end in, a single point of concentration." You
could not have a more striking proof than this, that
they were what we now call Protestants ; for they
dissented and resisted and rebelled and confronted all
sorts of curses, the moment that this, which is the
very corner-stone of Popery, was presented openly to
n Bede, ii. 2. — " They answered, they would do n,one of those things,
nor receive him as their archbishop; for, they alleged among themselves,
that * if he would now rise up to us, how much more will he contemn
us, as of no worth, if we shall begin to be under his subjection.' " Si
ei subdi cseperimus. Subdi is a very strong word, and shows that the
British understood the mensuration of Romish heights and distances ex
tremely well !
0 " The name^a^a continued common to all the bishops for 850 years,
till Hildebrand, (Pope Gregory VII.,) in a council at Rome, a. o. 1073,
decreed that there should be but one pope (meaning himself) in the
whole world." — Bp Barlow's Brutum Fulmen, p. 144, quoting Baronius ;
Father Paul on Ecc. Benefices, 3d ed. 1736, p. 58 ; Art de verifier des
dates, p. 286. So the system kept developing itself, till it culminated
under a successor of Gregory I., who knew how to complete what the
first pretended ser-yM5 servorum had begun !

108 EARLY HISTORY OP
their inspection, and urged upon their allowance —
nay, forced upon their allegiance. ,, I say the corner
stone ; for although many, and the generality of un
informed persons, regard other points as far more con
sequential, a well-informed theologian knows, in a
moment, that the supremacy is the key-stone to the
papal archP — the bond of perfectness which unites the
various parts of popery into a symmetrical whole — the
nodule, from which can spring its interminable devel
opments. Our old controversialists were accustomed
to such a notion of it, and were not at 'all surprised
to find Bellarmine (the Coryphseus of genuine Eomish
doctors) declaring to them, that a belief in the pope's
supremacy is essential to salvation. It is essential to
Eomish salvation ; for it is essential, it is altogether
indispensable to the coherence and continuity of the
Eomish system.? I might believe all else of Eoman
ism, and believe it pretty much after the interpretation
of my own mind, and the control of my own will, if
there were no supreme authority to dictate and en
force its own views of Eomanism, as exclusive and
indispensable. How easy, for instance, to adopt one
article of Pope Pius IV.'s creed, and affirm that " due
p Paul's Hist. Coun. of Trent, ed. 1676, pp. 32, 33, 66 ; Geddes's
Tracts, vol. ii. Tract first; Palmer on the Ch., 3d ed. ii. 369; Browne
on the 39 Articles, vol ii. p. 607. Bellarmine said all Christianity de
pended on it. — Pref de Sum. Pont. ed. 1721,' vol. i. 494, opera. It is
Bellarmine's articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesice; De Maistre on the
Pope, preJim. disc, p. xvi., says there is no real Christianity without it.
Luther, in his characteristic way, said the Papists would hang St. Peter
himself, if he were to come to life, and preach all other truth, yet deny
the Supremacy.— Table Talk, No. 587, or, p. 234.
q Hussey on the Papal Power, pref p. iv. and p. 208 ; Andrew Sail's
True Catholic and Apostolic Faith, new ed. 1840, p. 198.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 109
honor and veneration" are to be given to all the ima
ges of the Saints, if we can put upon " due honor and
veneration" our own construction.
So, you perceive, the supremacy is the Alpha and
Omega of Popery, its all in all — its centre and its cir
cumference — its zenith and its nadir — its one single,
everywhere-penetrating, all-animating, all-absorbing,
all-controlling, never-bending principle. But this su
premacy our British forefathers resisted, as completely
and as energetically as their children of the days of
the Eeformation I''
And there, to a theologian, I might leave the sub
ject of the striking unlikeness of the ancient British
Church to Popery, and what Popery most loves, most
assiduously maintains, most inflexibly puts forward,
as a test, as a rule, of ecclesiastical fealty. But such
a treatment of the subject will not satisfy a promiscu
ous audience, and I must therefore go on to show that,
not only in the grandest point of all, but in subsidiary
ones also, our British forefathers by no means built
up their Church after the style of Eoman architecture.
Augustine brusquely accused them of going con
trary to ecclesiastical unity ; by which, of course, he

r Bp Lloyd says the British bishops comprehended Augustine as lay
ing all stress on the Supremacy, as the only real point to gain. — Brit. Ch.
pp. 80, 81 ; Inett's Orig.-Angl., new ed. vol. i. pp. 53, 54; Johnson' sVade
Mecum, 3d ed. 1709, pp. 3, 4. Neander comprehended Augustine's
aims ^ith philosophical precision. He says, he would " allow neither
any partner in the dignity of his primacy over the whole English Church,
nor any spiritual authority independent of his own." — Church Hist. Eng.
ed. vol. V. 19. Why, even Geoffrey of Monmouth, thus reads it: "Au
gustine required the subjection of the British bishops." — Old English
Chronicles, Bohn's ed. p. 275.

110 EARLY HISTORY OP
meant (what all Papists now mean) not the unity
of the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds — the unity of
the Church Catholic — but the unity of the Church
of Eome, which, in another place, he deliberate
ly called the Church catholic, or universal.*' He
accused them of doing thus, not as Bede's translators
make him say, in seven-al things besides ; but, as the
original Latin has it, in very many other things.^ Two
of these Augustine specified, with some precision;
and declared he was ready to let the others subside,
as, no doubt he might have done with consummate
safety, if he had gained his chief point, which leaks
out in a covert manner, but which our shrewd forefa
thers comprehended, and to which they answered with
pointed frankness, and unshrinking self-possession.
The two items, which Augustine specified, related
to the exact time for the observance of Easter ; and,
(as I have before said, meaning to explain myself when
the time came,) to the proper seasons for the adminis
tration of baptism. Unquestionably, (as the British
bishops foresaw,) these were mere foils for the chief
point, which came last in order, and which was
adroitly (and shall I not say Jesuitically ?) covered up
by, and garnished over with, the plausible idea of
joining him — and, of course, as his subordinates and
assistants, in a mission to the Saxons. JSTevertheless,
it is well for us that he propounded them ; for they
answer two important historical purposes. They show,
s Bede, bk ii. ch. 2; Giles's Bede's Works, vol. ii. p. 177.
t Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 172, alia plurima, unitati ecclesiasticae con-
traria.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. Ill
at one and the same time, how thoroughly the ancient
British Church (so to speak) disresembled the Eoman ;
and what a slavish subjection to itself the Eoman
Church insisted on, even at that comparatively early
period, in the progress of Christianity.
The festival of Easter,'' on which all the other vari
able festivals of the ecclesiastical year depend, is called,
in our Prayer Book, a movable feast. It corresponds,
in this particular, to the Passover of the Jews, for
which it is the parallel and substitute. That Passover
was made dependent on the full moon, which hap
pened on, or next after the vernal equinox. And, as
Palestine was a small, narrow country, the full moon
would be, astronomically, the full moon to all the
land, at nearly the same moment of time. But when
you would fix a festival, dependent on an astronomical
event, on the same day for the whole round world,
then, it is evident, that a basis, different from an exactly
astronomical one, must be resorted to. Hence the
language in our Prayer Book, under the table for
finding Easter day " from the year 1900 to the year
2199 inclusive," about " the ecclesiastical full moons,"
and " the real full moons," and the means whereby
they " may fall nearly on the same days." The Coun
cil of Nice, A. D. 325, found the Church Catholic at
variance with itself, about the observance of Easter,
and instituted a rule which might make its observance
u For an able paper on the computation for Easter, see the London
Quarterly Review, vol. xviii. p. 496. Chronicles of the Anc. Brit. Ch.
2d edit, note, p. 185. Inett's Origines Anglicanse. Griffith's edit. pt. i.
ch. V. § 2, note 1 ; or pp. 95, 96. Griffith's notes to Inett are very valu
able.

112 EARLY HISTORY OP
uniform throughout the globe. But" even the great
council (guided as it had to be by astronomers) was
practically wrong. It had adopted eighty-four years as
a cycle — a period of revolution — in which the ecclesi
astical full moons, and the real full moons, after many
variations, might be brought round to a common point
of union, and start together again as if they had never
differed. The astronomers of Alexandria subsequently
discovered, that a cycle of nineteen years would be more
correct, and less tedious ; and this cycle was adopted
at Eome about A. D. 530." This is the cycle adopted
in our Prayer Book, in the table (so called) " of the
days on which Easter will fall.". It is always printed
for thirty-eight years, or two cycles of the moon ;«< and
by running the eye across the table, the uniformity of
the two cycles will at once be discovered.s! Any two
Easters, which are nineteen years apart, alwaysS' occur
in the same month, and on nearly the same day of the
month. Now the ancient British Christians knew nothing of
the new cycle adopted at Eome, some seventy years
before Augustine came from Italy, and assumed the
V A. D. 525. — Britons and Saxons not converted to Popery, p. 306.
A. D. 527, according to Mr. Griffith. Even the cycle of nineteen years
does not answer to perfection, the solar cycle exceeding the lunar cycle
an hour and a half Hence, Easter can only be calculated for limited
periods. Art. de Verifier des Dates, p. xxii. Hale's Analysis of Chro
nology, i. 58.
w In our American books.
X Take the Standard, which has the cycles in parallel columns. Easter
day for 1798, 1799, and 1800, occurred on precisely the same days as for
1817, 1818, 1819.
y Perhaps generdWy would be safer. But the remark is true for the
two cycles now in our American Standard book.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 113
right to dictate to them, as if lord paramount of their
natal soil.s They adhered, accordingly, to what a Ca
tholic Council had prescribed, and rejected what a Pope
would prescribe,'* thereby proving themselves to be,
what no doubt they were. Catholics of a primitive type,
and not Catholics after the degenerate stamp of Eome.
They were astronomically wrong, as we ourselves now
admit, by adopting the cycle of nineteen years, instead
of the old one of eighty -four. But they were slow to
listen to a Pope, even with science on his side, (not
Eomanism's usual predicament, as cases like Galileo's
abundantly show,)* just as England was slow to listen
to him about the reformation of the calendar. The
New Style, which was adopted at Eome in 1582, was
not adopted by the Parliament of Great Britain till
z Some people say they were Quatuordecimans, or those who kept the
festival on the day of the moon's fulling ; i. e., the fourteenth day, or the
middle of a lunar month, come what day of the week it might. But
Bede admits that the British always kept Easter on a Sunday. It is true,
he appears to contradict himself; but the apparent contradiction (it must
be said at all hazards) is a Pope's blunder, and not Bede's ! I freely ex
onerate him from the charge brought in Brown's Fasciculus, vol. ii. 842.
Compare Giles's Bede, ii. 325, and vi. 324.
a Britons and Saxons, etc., p. 307.
b Galileo may be out of Purgatory at last. His name was " silently
and furtively withdrawn, in the year 1835," from the condemned list.
Copernicanism is nxno not more than a venial sin — perhaps not that. — ¦
Mendham on the Index of Gregory XVI., London, 1840, pp. 15-18. The
silent and furtive assent to Copernicanism is very characteristic. Rome
never acknowledges an error openly. The genuine reason for Galileo's
condemnation is rarely given. An astute scholar of the University of
Cambridge, Eng., has supplied it, in one of those curious volumes of
tracts, called The Phenix. " Galileo indeed fell under correction, for
holding the motion of the earth ; but the true crime was his abusing his
Holiness in his dialogues, under the name of Simplicius." — Phenix,
London, 1708, ii. p. 517.

114 EARLY HISTORY OP
1752," one hundred and seventy years afterwards;
and, until that time, the 25th of March continued to
be New Year's Day. The New Style is not yet
adopted in Eussia, so that, in some respects, the Greek
Church assumes towards Eome a Protestant attitude,
which we have thought proper to lay aside.'^
All this conspires to show, that, so far as the exam
ple and dictation of Eome is concerned, our early
British forefathers were more suspicious, and more
impracticable than their posterity .« They would not
reform their calendar, under any authority but what
they considered supreme and final — the legislation of
an ecumenical council — a body which we might call
a congress, or a parliament, for " the Holy Catholic
Church," of our baptismal creed.
The subject of Baptism, also, as understood by them,
will bring out, as I shall now proceed to show, a pre
cisely similar result.
Augustine did not explain his meaning to the Brit
ish, when he arraigned them for an anti-Eoman prac
tice about baptism ; at least, Bede has not given us
his explanation, and we are obliged to reach it by other
c Hale's Analysis of Chronology, 2d edit. i. 53.
d Every anti-Romanist is a Protestant, says De Maistre, Trans, p. 800.
e "Brittania vulgo male audit, quoties de [Romana] fide agitur." —
Quoted from Erasmus in Soames's Reformation, vol. i. p. 158. And the
secret is developed in a peculiarity, which Dr. Lingard ascribed to the
ancient British ; though rather reproachfully than otherwise. He says
" The independence of their Church was the chief object of their solicitude.
— Anglo-Saxons, p. 47. This trait, for which Dr. L. gives them any thing
but credit, we, of course, esteem their noblest commendation. Be it re
membered, that (Dr. L. attesting) Church-independence was a watchward
of our ancient British forefathers !— Compare Twysden's Vindication, ch.
iii. §79.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 115
sources. It is supposed by some, that the ancient Brit
ish Church baptized with a single affusion of water, and
not with three affusions, as the Eastern Churches did,
and as they still do./ But this is an undoubted error ;
for Gregory admitted that in his day, the Church of
Eome still adhered to the ancient practice of baptizing
with three affusions.^' It is a simple fact, that baptism
by a single affusion was introduced, and for very ob
vious reasons, by the Unitarians^ — whom the Church
of Eome, (for it is her policy to imitate Unitarians, or
any body else, when she can safely promote her own
popularity,) for her own sake certainly and not for
theirs, was complaisant enough to copy.
So the Church of England did not at this time vary
from the Church of Eome, about the number of affu
sions of water in baptism. It was, probably, about a
still smaller matter, that the difficulty prevailed. The
Church of Eome allowed baptisms only at Easter and
Pentecost ; while the Oriental Churches allowed it at
Epiphany also. Eor a reason, which now it is not
/ Joyce's Brit. Synods, p. 117, thinks Augustine wanted to enforce
trine baptism. Churton is wrong. Griffiths, m his ed. of Inett, vol. i. p.
53, thinks he himself has probably hit it. My own reasons for varying
from both are derived from Bingham.
g Bingham's Antiq. bk xi. ch. 11, § 8 ; or vol. iii. pp. 604, 605. The
2d canon of the Council of Calcuith settles the question. Shows what
Rome meant. Collier, i. 322. Sozomen, bk vi. ch. 26 ; but comp. the
Greek quoted in Bingham, iii. 603. Canisii Thesaurus, vol. iii. part i.
p. 400. Neander, Eng. ed. iii. 4S7. " The narrow spirit of the Roman
Church," says Neander, " was here again the fi/rst to lay a restraint on
Christian liberty."
h The reference above to Sozomen, with a correction from the Greek
in Bingham, shows that the Unitarians introduced the single affusion.
Riddle's Christian Antiquities, p. 508, shows how the single affusion
began in Spain, and how Gregory approved it.

116 EARLY HISTORY OP
very difficult for us to comprehend, Pope Leo I. (440-
461) who was as good a hater of Constantinople as
Gregory himself, prohibited baptisms at Epiphany, as
" an unreasonable novelty."* This "unreasonable nov
elty " the British Christians, from their predilections
for, and familiarities with Eastern religious practices,
had in all probability long indulged in. But as a
pope had denounced it, with the arrogation of plenary
authority, and levelled against it his shafts of Italian
lightning, it was of course to be esteemed a huge af
fair, and one to be dealt with on terms of a surrender
at discretion, and on no others whatsoever./ To us it
seems to be what would now be called " a matter of
moonshine," whether candidates for baptism should
receive that sacrament at two seasons annually, or at
three. The stress laid upon it by Augustine, indi
cated to the British Christians, that there would be no
possible chance of ecclesiastical liberty, in yielding to
i Bingham's Antiq. xi. 6, 7, or vol. iii. 514, 15. John Baptist Thiers,
a French doctor of theology, in an exceedingly learned work on super
stitions about sacraments and other ecclesiastical matters, shows from
ecclesiastical history and the Fathers, that it is no novelty and no super
stition, to baptize at other times than those ordained by Pope Leo. His
work is in four duodecimo volumes ; and it is to chapter sixth of the part
on Baptism, volume second, that I particularly allude. I quote, too,
from the fourth edition, and from one having the approbation, not
only the King, but of the Faculty of Theology in Paris. Nevertheless,
Thiers was too liberal a Romanist ; and so, as Mr. Mendham says in his
Literary Policy of Rome, he "has been conducted to the literary gibbet
of his Church." — Mendham, p. 338, note, 2d edition. — The fact brought
out by Mr. Mendham, strongly confirms what. I have elsewhere said
about the antipathies between French Romanism and Italian Romanism.
The fourth edition of Thiers's work .was printed at Paris in 1741.
j De Maistre says no man can sign, upon his honor, any creed but a Ro
man one. So we are not heretical only, but disgraced. Prelim. Disc p.
xvi. Compare the decree of the Popish Bishops of Ireland. — MeruBiam's
Literary Policy, pref p. xxxii.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 117
a party who carried conformity out to such remote and
minute particulars ; and they very wisely, as well as
firmly, refused compliance. If they were never to
bring a child or an adult to the font, to be dedicated
to the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, except
when the Bishop of Eome pleased to say they might
be permitted to do so — in Heaven's name, (one might
ask,) what Christian discretion could they ever be en
trusted with ? Here was an assumption of authority,
parallel only to that of God above, who called his
own people, not to say their own words, or think their
own thoughts on the day set apart" especially for
the honor of his peerless name.^ But for one man to
dictate to Christendom, to all Christendom, about the
days of the year, when, and when only a sacrament
is to be administered, is to carry supervision to an ex
tent, and to drive autocracy to an extremity, which
reduces all liberty to a chimera. I would renounce
the ministry, (if there were no other remedy,) sooner
than have a bishop presume to tell me, dogmatically,
when and when only, I should administer the sacra
ments of grace and mercy. The British Christians
renounced the authority which claimed jurisdiction to
enact and enforce by unearthly penalties, such out
rageous canon-law; and though the point involved
were inconsiderable, the spirit which knows how to
contend for principle — even though the matter embrac
ing the principle be in itself quite trivial — will know
how to respect and vindicate them. An unconstitu
tional tax of a penny would be resisted by England
k Isa. Iviii. 13.

118 EARLY HISTORY OP
and America, as strenuously as John Hampden fought
at great" expense and toil, and for twelve successive
days in the Court of Exchequer, against an unlawful
tax of thirty shillings — and for a reason as obvious as
it is cogent — the authority which may tax us uncon
stitutionally for a penny, may tax us with equal pro
priety for dollar after dollar, till it strips us of our
earthly all.^
Augustine, probably, was somewhat afraid of Brit
ish mettle, when he apparently condescended to forego
many other differences between the British Christians
and his Italian models ; or, as I have hinted, he cared
not to multiply his demands, so he could carry his
main point — the acknowledgment of himself as their
superior, including an unreserved submission to the
Pope's supremacy. The fact, however, which he
admitted, that there were many, very many differ
ences between themselves and him, is too important a
one to be overlooked ; and I must draw towards it all
possible attention.
You have remarked Gregory's aim in reference to
dominion in England, from the temper which his
instrument™ Augustine exhibited, and the demands he
vehemently insisted on. Now, if Eome, with the same
I See the effects of Romish demands for pennies, magnified into all
sorts of revenue, to astonishing enormities, in " Staveley's Romish Horse
leech ; or, an Impartial Account of the Intolerable Charge of Popery to
this Nation," &c. Staveley was an antiquarian and a lawyer. Died 1683.
See also Twysden's Vindication, chap. iv. " Of the payments to the Pa
pacy from England." Twysden's invaluable work is now accessible in
a new edition by Parker k Son, London.
«i " His creature," says John Johnson, that immaculate high-churchman
in his Vade Mecum, part i. p. 3.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 119
unchangeable aim, the same inflexible temper, had
known England sooner, would such more than many,
very many^ differences, between herself and England,
have existed ; or, if they existed, would they have re
ceived a momentary toleration ? Never, my Brethren,
never ; never, a hundred times repeated. If England,
in the six centuries preceding Augustine's, (shall I say
invasion ?) had been, in any wise, known to Eome as
a fief ecclesiastical — -in any wise been subject to Eome's
authority — these many, very many differences, these un
reasonable novelties, would all have been planed down
into smooth and level uniformity — would all have
melted away, like grim ghosts into the thinnest vapor
— ^and have been supplanted by the one invariable
pattern, minted at the Vatican. Then, when Augus
tine first trode on British territory, no miracle would
have been necessary for an unwonted Eoman sandal.
Then, he would have felt completely at home, as in
the city of the seven hills, and would have exclaimed,
' O happy land, where the true light shineth, and all
is unbroken symmetry!' He stood upon that land,
however, evidently an alien and a stranger. It was
unlike, almost utterly unlike, the land from which he
came. Again, and again, he encountered dissimilarity,
resistance, opposition, and repulsion, till at last (O cli
max of horrors !) the authority he deems most sacred
and puissant on earth, is set at nought, as coolly as this
congregation would set aside the decretals of the
Eomish metropolitan of the City of New York. The
n The Latin words are plurima and perplura. — Bede, bk ii. ch. 2; and
bk V. ch. 18. Giles's ed. vols. ii. 172, and iii. 234.

120 EARLY HISTORY OP
ghastly contrast overwhelms him. His surging pas
sions drown his reason. He breaks out into parox
ysms of rage. Threats come out from the foam of his
lips. Death is the watchword of his belligerent tongue,
and the predestination of his embittered heart."
All this goes to demonstrate {to demonstrate is my
phrase, because the proof is cumulative, and irresisti
ble, like that of a proposition in mathematics) that the
old Church of England was no child of Eome — ^no
possible bantling, or nursling, of Eome — ^had nothing
whatever to do with Eome's paternity, or relationship,
or wardship^-but wa,s as independent, and had been
as independent, as providential circumstances and un
trammelled Christian liberty could make her. Augus
tine offered no pretension, not the shadow — not the
shadow of a shade of a pretension, to any original
claim of Eome upon England's affiance and subordi
nation — a thing he would not have failed to do, had
he the remotest propriety on which to base an argu
ment, or even a rhetorical appeal. He charged Eng
land with no separation from Eome, at any time ; and
assigned not the flimsiest solution for such a frightful
schism — a thing which, could he have done it, he
would have cast into the very teeth of his curious
0 The events which this predestination foreshadowed are yet to be
noticed; meanwhile, I will quote, as a warrant for my language, the
commentary of the meek Thomas Morton, Bishop of Durham from 1632
to 1659, — " which speech, although some interpret as proceeding from
the spirit of prophecy, as though Austin had now been dead ; yet the
concurrence of the story, and their own Galfridus's report, doth rather
bewray that policy was the dame of thiffse events." — Morten's Catholike
Appeal for Protestants, out of the Confessions of the Romam, Doctors, Lon
don, 1610, lib. i. ch. 4, § 1 ; or, p. 60.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 121
listeners ; and which he would have wielded, as if he
had stolen one of the thunderbolts of Jupiter. But
we hear nothing of this — ^nothing at all like it — noth
ing bearing to it the most distant tie of consanguinity.
The inference is palpable and resistless, that the Church
of England, represented by the British bishops, at the
conference held with Augustine, the representative of
Gregory, was as utter a stranger to the Church of
Eome, as to the hierarchy of the Mexicans, before the
discovery of North America. The two Churches
looked each other in the face, at that conference, for
the first time, as parallel . communions. But they
found one another not so much as bare acquaintances.
They could not approximate, still less could they
associate, as equals; and the result was a parting
which, on one side, seemed like the parting of a court
of the Inquisition, when it consigns its outcasts to
arbiters of life and death.
I speak of the (so-called) Holy and Apostolic Court
of the Inquisition, and in this connexion, with express
design ; for, having now shown you the full signifi
cance of the council, called and conducted by Augus
tine — at least its full significance, as completely ex
onerating the ancient Church of England from all
connexion with, and aU knowledge of, the Church of
Eome, as an authority or a pattern — I may now go
forward with the history, and inform you how Augus
tine's threats to that Church eventuated.
The historian Bede indeed allows, that Augustine
threatened the British Bishops, who disowned alle
giance to his Italian master ; but, out of lenity for, or
6

122 EARLY HISTORY OP
affinity with, that master's successors, he does not rep
resent him as threatening like a man simply, but like
a prophet — i. e., not denouncing vengeance personally,
but as the august minister and vicar of Divinity.
"All which," is his language " through the dispensa
tion of the Divine judgment, fell out exactly as he
had predicted."^
Now, hereby hangs a curious tale. Some time after
wards (as Eomish writers generally pretend) there was
a battle between the Saxon king of Northumberland, 2
and the ancient British, under the walls of the modern
City of Chester, on the Eiver Dee — a little south-east
from Liverpool. When the battle was about to be
fought, the Saxon monarch espied in the neighbor
hood a large number of ecclesiastics, from the monas
tery of Bangor, overlooking the armies as they de
ployed for conflict. This Bangor, you will understand,
is not Bangor in Caernarvonshire, the seat of a Welsh
bishopric, but a place much more inconsiderable, on
the same river on which Chester itself is situated.''
It was then one of the most celebrated schools of the
prophets among the Welsh ; and it is even said, that
more than one thousand two hundred of its inmates
were contemplating the battle of Chester, and offering
up their prayers for the success of their companions
p Bede, ii. 2. Giles's Bede, ii. p. 177. The passage is susceptible of a
translation which would show, that the predicted end was obtained by
all sorts of instrumentalities. But the case is so bad, there is necessity
for giving the worst aspect of it.
q The king of Northumberland, stirred up by Ethelbert of Kent, says
Geoffry of Monmouth. — Lindsay's Mason, p. 88. Who stirred up Eth
elbert? Of course not the meek and forbearing Augustine !
r About ten miles south of Chester. — Joyce's British Synods, p. 114.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 123
in faith, and their brethren in home and blood. Bede
says, that their establishment was divided into seven
parts, with a rector for each, and not less than three
hundred inmates in each of these sections. He calls
them monks ; but the recluses of those days were as
diffl-rent from the ragged and rancid representatives
of the monastic system in our days, as cleanliness is
unlike filth, and labor for an honest livelihood is (Af
ferent from lazv mendicity. Bede adds, that large as
the establishment might be, all, all its occupants were
accustomed (not did so occasionally) accustomed to live
by the labor of their own hands.s These good, self-
supporting men,* who were the theological professors
and pupils of their country — ^its future catechists,
schoolmasters, pastors, and bishops, were spectators
of a scene on which their earthly destinies were hang
ing. They might have been bowing, or kneehng in
prayer : they were certainly praying in their hearts,
with anxieties amounting to agony. Who are these
satellites of the British, rudely inquired the Saxon
king, and what mean they by their presence ? Being
informed of their character and occupation, he ex
claimed, with the fierce impiety of a pagan, " If, then,
they cry to their god against us, in truth, though they
do not bear arms, yet they fight against us, because
they oppose us by their prayers." And immediately,
s Bede, bk ii. ch. 2. The Latin. Giles's Bede, ii. p. 178.
t The British clergy not a begging or grasping order. Tbey refused
the emperor's offer of support when attending a council, and maintained
themselves. This illustrates their independence ! Sulpit. Severus, ed.
1647, pp. 419, 20. They would not sell their votes even to a crowned
head!

124 EARLY HISTORY OF
before he assailed their countrymen, he sent a detach
ment to fall on them without mercy, and cut them to
pieces before his eyes. Completely unarmed, and al
together unready for such an onslaught, these hapless
ecclesiastics sunk like grass beneath the scythe of the
mower. Twelve hundred of them are said to have
been slain, and but fifty to have escaped, so effectually
was the order of the merciless infidel hastened to a
catastrophe I And Bede, brought up under Augus-
tinian tuition, tells the tale as coolly as if the vilest
sinners upon earth had been extinguished — calls the
victims perfidious and accursed, and despisers of sal
vation:" — when, behold, they are his Christian breth
ren, his brethren in the Christian ministry, and they
die like martyrs under the blows of downright pagans
— ^but die, (alas, for their luckless reputation !) die dis
senters from the sovereignty of Eome 1
The case is a horrid one, and has left horrid suspi
cions lingering about the memory of Augustine.
Could he, in any way, have sanctioned or promoted
this indiscriminate massacre of defenceless men — men
of his own sacred order ? No, say the Eoman histo
rians, confidently ;¦« for he was then asleep in his sep-
u The words nefardm and perfidi, and the close of § 2, on p. 178, vol.
ii. Giles's Bede, are the things alluded to. They warrant all I have said.
Evidently Bede sympathized with Augustine's furious displeasure against
the anti-papal British.— Comp. Mason's Vindication, Lindsay's ed. 1728,
pp. 88-90. Mason's language is none too strong. " This author [Bede]
seems to have been generally governed by his passions in favor of the
Saxons, and prejudice to the IBritons, beyond all reason."
V J. Reeves's Hist. Christian Ch. i. 354.— Tbe death of Augustine will
not exonerate him. The massacre of St. Bartholomew took place on
the 24th of August, 1572, when Pius V. was in his grave ; and yet Pius
V. was one of its chief promoters. His letters hurried on Charles IX.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 125
ulchre, and had been, for several years. It is not
possible, therefore, that the stain of such a ruthless
and detestable crime can cleave to his sainted name.
And I am quite willing to admit as much, so far as
the technicality of the case is concerned. Augustine
might have been in Paradise, or out of it, just as Eo
man annalists are pleased to have him — dead, if they
choose to have it so, for many a long year, when the
ecclesiastics of Bangor were baptized in their own
guiltless blood. Yet, we are entitled to remember,
the terms on which he parted with the old Church of
England, and the terrific fate which, so far as he him
self was concerned, was made ready for its insubmis-
sion. That fate was war-^war accompanied by all its
ensanguined horrors — bearing aloft as its ensign his
own implacable watchword, "the vengeance of death."""
And now, is it to be supposed, that having predict
ed, (if the term is insisted on,) predicted such a mass
of intolerable calamity, that he would never recur to
it again, unless in the hallucinations of midnight?
Would he have given it in his own mind, and, so far
as he might, in the minds of those around him, a
slumber as profound as that of the fabled seven sleep
ers ? Would he (gentle-hearted son of compassion,)
have done all in his power to avert it, by softening
to wage war against his Protestant subjects, " pium justissimumque hel
ium ;" while he called Admiral Coligny the biggest liar in the world,
and cursed his memory most heartily. — See Letters 41, 43, 44, of bk iii.
Goubau'sed. Antwerp, 1640.
w And yet, as Dr. Lingard euphemistically says, he spoke only "in
the anguish of disappointed zeal." Credat Judseus, etc., as say the Lat
ins; or, as the French say. He who believes that must drink water, i. e.,
to wash it down. — Anglo-Saxons, 2d ed. p. 148.

126 EARLY HISTORY OP
the acerbity of his half-converted adherents, and indoc
trinating them in the sweetness of that most forbear
ing charity, which hopeth and endureth all things?
Or would he, when he alluded to the Britons, do so
in those terms of mock commiseration,^ with which
the Inquisition was wont to hand over its victims to
the civil arm, for the infernal orgies of an Auto de
Ee, (an ax:t of faith, as that satanic tragedy was blas
phemously denominated,) when heretics were burnt
by the wholesale. It is an actual and simple fact,
that when the Inquisition transferred its victims to
the civil power, it did so with language upon its lips,
whose double-distilled hypocrisy ought to have blis
tered a tongue df iron. It did so, most earnestly be
seeching that power so to moderate its own sentence
as not to touch blood, or to put life in any?' — such is
the incredible word — -in any danger. Its words re
mind us of David, when he gave that significant
charge to his captains, "Deal gently, for my sake,
with the young man, even with Absolom ;"z but the
unvarnished truth is, that if the civil power had taken
the Inquisition literally, and had forborne to carry those
whom it discarded to the stake, it wOuld itself have been
forthwith subjected to the most abrading anathemas,
and become liable to the very doom from which it was
x It should particularly be noted that Augustine did not threaten the
Britons with the vengeance of Heaven, which he could not control ; but
with the vengeance of the Saxons, whom he might control — if he tried!
, y Gedde's Tracts, i. 412 ; Limboreh's Inquisition, bk 4, ch. 40 ; or, p.
458. This, too, when an Inquisitor-General (Valdez) demanded of the
pope a power to burn the Lutherans ! — Llorente's Inquisition, ch. xviii.
p. 64, Amer. ed.
z 2 Samuel, xviii. 5

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 127
exhorted to shrink ! And then Eomanism can turn
complacently round, and with a countenance as stolid
as brass, inform us that her Church never inflicts capi
tal punishments, and entertains a perfect horror of
blood-shedding ! Ecclesia abhorret a sanguine, as the
Jesuit smoothly phrases it, in his courteous Latin,
and presumes to glory in his communion, as an angel
of mercy ! Oh, my Brethren, Eome is an adept at a
species of falsification, which I sometimes deem the
basest and most malicious of any, because it proceeds
from a studied purpose to deceive- — an elaborate plan
to deceive — a resolute determination to deceive — and
because it achieves all the ends of deceit, far more
adroitly than they could possibly be reached by a
downright, and, in one respect, honest, because not
sneaking or self-excusing, lie. But it is Eome's chef
d'oeuvre — her absolute triumph it is, to give us tech
nical truth under a garb which will wheedle, and lull,
and bejuggle us, twenty times, where a barefaced false
hood might hardly succeed in a solitary instance. She
never rejoices in any emissary, so much as in one who
can deal in, what Lord Lyttleton has so graphically
called, " an embroidered lie" — a lie whose drapery
will hide its iniquity, as silk and jewels can some
times disguise a lack of feminine reputation.'*
a For a multitude of references here, it may be enough to cite two
works : one a Treatise on Equivocation, by the Jesuit Garnet, edited by
D. Jardine, Esq., and published by Longman & Co., 1851 ; the other,
Ligouri's Moral Theology, by Meyrick. This has been reprinted in the
United States. Garnet's Treatise was known to Hospinian, (Hist. Jes
uit, p. 372,) and to Foulis, the author of a work which D'Israeli, in his
Charles I., vol. i. 221, note, calls " an extraordinary folio." See Foulis's
Romish Treasons. London, 1671. p. 700, etc. Hospinian speaks of

128 EARLY HISTORY OP
Augustine had, perhaps, begun to practice this art,
under Gregorian tuition ; for, as you have seen, on
the authority of a distinguished author of his own
communion, Gregory could indulge in. language,
which ought to have dyed his face with double-hued
crimson, when his worldly advantage was to be pro
moted, and put such language upon record to influ
ence the examples of distant times.* So Augustine,
Gregory-like and Inquisition-like, might have talked
in honied terms to the Saxons, with any thing but
honied meanings lackered over with a sugary exterior.
He might have been such a man as the Psalmist
alluded to, among the notorieties, i. e., the ante-dated
Jesuits of his day — and the notorieties of any day, when
political, and not conscientious aims govern men's ac
tions, and they reach favorite objects by the plausible
and circuitous, but none the less criminal methods, of
the oily diplomatist, or the two-faced (perhaps I might
better say, the ten-faced) demagogue. The words of
his mouth might have been softer than butter, while
he had war in his heart ; his words might have been
smoother than oil, while they were drawn swords."
I cannot unpersuade myself, (as I read the marble-
Jesuitical equivocation as having become a science, when he wrote, in
1619, " Nostra autem memoria sequivocandi banc scientiam, ab»inferis
resuscitatam," etc., ut sup p. 372. Pascal, who died in 1662, had war
ranted quitp as strong language by his Provincial Letters, and Richerius
had called the Vatican a shop of lies. — Comber's Roman Forgeries, pt 2,
p. 67. If further testimony can be wanted, it may be found in the work
of Edward Baines, on "The Church of Rome ; her Present Moral The
ology, Scriptural Instruction, and Canon Law." London, 1852.
b Llorente, Portrait des Papes, i. 166. Com. Foulke's Manual, 220.
Robertson's Church History, vol. ii. p. 11, and note e.
c Psalm Iv. 21.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 129
hearted description of their fate, given by Bede, Au
gustine's pupil and admirer), that the blood of the
poor ecclesiastics of Bangor may one day be found in
the skirts of the first Eomish Archbishop of Canter
bury.'^ I would not stand the chance of that inquisi
tion for blood, which may be made against him, before
an inerrable tribunal, for all the palls and mitres, and
croziers, and rings, which have fallen to his lot and the
lot of all his Eomish successors. If his — ^if Gregory's
ecclesiastical ambition, slew a single unarmed and
praying soul, at the battle of Chester ; though Pagan
swords did the accursed deed, then, by our Saviour's
own decretal, it were better for them to have had mill
stones about their necks, and to have been drowned in
the depths of the sea.* I do not say this because it is .
any part of my pleasure, or my plan, to disparage
Augustine or his begilded patron./ I am cheer-fully
d Thierry says Augustine lived a year after the battle. Norman Con
quest, i. p. 40. And so says Florence of Worcester's Chronicle. Bohn's
edit. pp. 9 and 10. The Romish historians generally contrive to send
Augustine to Paradise, as quick as possible, in order to exonerate him
from any instrumentality in the massacre of the monks of Bangor. In the
newest edition of Bouillet's Dictionary of Geography and History, brought
out under the auspices of the Pope and the Archbishop of Paris, he is made
(p. 133) to live till 610. This, of course, increases the probability of his in
terference ; but if his Holiness and Monseigneur will have it so, I suppose
we must submit. There is the more reason to believe in Augustine's pro.
vocation of the deed, because, as Thierry shows, Rome treated the Saxons
iust so, when they resisted Rome in after days. (i. 50.) It is in conson
ance with Rome's universal policy to do so. How often has she given to
its enemies a kingdom rebellious against herself ! Bruys (a Papist by his
own confession — " Notre Communion," vol. i. 108, when he wrote his His
toire des Papes) says that Italian vengeance and the odium theologicum
concurred to produce the massacre. — Hist, des Papes, i. 372.
e Matthew, xviii. 6.
f Sueur has a very good notice of the arguments, which would white
wash the skirts of Augustine. Suppose, he says, he were dead when the
A*

130 EARLY HISTORY OP
willing that all who can, should honor them for any
indebtedness under which England may seem to lie to
them. To me, such indebtedness becomes smaller and
smaller, as I measure their motives by their manifest
plan, to make England, not an independent Christian
province, but a mere suburb of Papal Eome. Those
who have any partiality for such an approximation,
may accord Augustine and Gregory all the glory they
choose ; for myself, I feel more and more inclined to
stand with our old British forefathers in sturdy oppo
sition, and say, not with such auxiliaries — certainly
not with such auxiliaries, metamorphosed into tyrants
— do I feel as if we were called on to contend for the
faith once delivered to the saints. " Non tali auxilio,
.nee defensoribus istis."^ There is a help which only
brings one all the nearer trouble, all the faster into the
purlieus of peril and destruction. And destruction
must I call all the aid which Eome has given to Chris
tianity in England. Had British Christianity been
left alone, it might have accomplished all that Augus
tine and his compeers did, and much more ; for then,
Christianity would not have exhibited itself to the
Saxons as a house divided against itself — one of the
worst and most disheartening advantages it ever has
to encounter in the field of missionary labor. Queen
Bertha, and her corps of chaplains, had evidently pre
disposed Kent to embrace Christianity. There was
monks of Bangor were put to the sword, the forty monks who came with
him were not all gone, and they could have been accomplices in any of
his schemes. — Histoire de VEglise et de V Empire, vol. vi. pp. 9-11.
g Mueid, ii. 521.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 131
an Archbishop of York, and an Archbishop of Lon
don, down to 586, but some ten years previous to
Augustine's entrance into Canterbury. It seems to
have been easy for him to hold a conference with the
elder prelates of Britain, in one of the western English
counties, and outside of the principality of Wales.
Ireland had then prelates in it, and Scotland
had then prelates in it, in communion with the
Christians whom Augustine repudiated, and for
whom he invoked death with all its vengeance.
Ireland, and Scotland, and Wales, and Cumberland,
and Cornwall, had a part in the conversion of the Sax
ons, which Augustine and his successors could not ac
complish. Augustine's own mission failed, among the
very converts whom he had boasted of by thousands,*
and but for a wretched monkish trick, playing upon
the credulity and superstition of an ignoraiff Saxon
monarch,* scarce a vestige of all his panegyrized labors
would have survived a quarter of a century. " Thus,"
as I have already said, quoting the historian Fuller,
and as I say again, in his graphic words, that you may
the more remember them, " thus was Kent converted
to Christianity. Eor such as do account this a conver
sion of all England, to 'make their words good, do
make use of a long and strong synechdoche, a part for
the whole ; far more than half the land, lying some
years after, in the darkness of Paganism ; which others

A Giles's Bede, ii. 191, bk ii. ch. 5, shows, that hope of the king's fa
vor, or fear of the king's displeasure, had been the motives which con
verted multitudes.
i Southey's Vindiciae, for the trick, p. 103, etc.

132 EARLY HISTORY OP
[not Augustine and his comrades] — others — afterward
enlightened with the beams of the Gospel."i
Wherefore, I cannot call Augustine England's re
generator. He would regenerate it only at the price
of. unlimited subjection to a tyranny unknown to the
canons of a truly Cathohc council. He would have
made England, what Eome is now herself, not Catho
lic, but uncatholic, and I might add, anti-cathohc*
He would have eradicated its ancient Christianity, aa
an incumbrance and a heresy : — that very Christianity
which had fought with Paganism in all its shapes —
with persecution in its direst forms— with heresy under
its most seducing aspects — with desertion and aban
donment — till it was left as " a cottage in a vineyard, as
a lodge in a garden of cucumbers, as a besieged city.";
Such (|iiristianity he would have exterminated for
" another gospel," which England had finally, (I hope
the figure will not be criticised, for it is scriptural™)
to spue out of its mouth, as its sickening and canker
ing bane, and to protest against, with all its heart and
soul, and mind and strength.
• Let those to whom it is congenial, adulate Gregory
and his lieutenant the monk of Italy, who would have
executed any of Gregory's behests, however fatal to
British independence, peace, and safety. I cannot

j Fuller, bk ii. § 13 ; or vol. i. 144.
k " Anti-catholic" is no new word ; nor a word of Protestant excogi
tation. Mr. Joseph Reeve, who published his Church History in 1802,
used it of the Divines of the Church of England. Romanists ought not
to complain, if we imitate themselves. — See Reeve's Hist. i. 74.
I Isaiah, i. 8.
m Rev. iii. 16.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 133
praise any one, who, for Eomanism's sake, has made
the British name to bear curses, British liberty to
abate, and British blood to flow. I am free to say, I
consider Gregory's intervention, and Augustine's de
scent (so unlike, so utterly unlike the fraternal visita
tions of the Erench Church, in a previous century,"')
no blessing to our fatherland. If England could have
held her own, and she might have done so, as subse
quent history proved — ^if British Christians could
have made common cause with the Irish and the
Scotch, and converted the pagans, as they finally did,
through a more forbidding portion of Saxon England
than Augustine and his retainers succeeded in — only
think what a different, what an inexpressibly different
face had been put upon Enghsh history !" Then the
Pope would never have been known there, at least in
the attitudes and with the claims of imperial supre
macy. Then France, which has always been more or
n England has remembered French saints, and made them her own.
Witness Martin and Britius, or Brice — Bishops of Tours, 145 miles south-
south-west of Paris. Their names are in the English calendar for the
11th and 13th of November.
0 John Johnson was stiff churchman enough, for those who delight
most iu ecclesiastical buckram ; and yet he hesitates not to hold the fol
lowing very decided position. " It had been much better [not better
simply, the reader will perceive, but m,uch better] if the English had re
ceived Christianity from the Britons ; if it had not been below conquerors
to be taught by those whom they had subdued. For tbey would have
delivered this religion to us, without making us slaves to the Pope,
whose creature Austin was." — Vade Mecum, 3d ed. 1709, p. 3. There,
that is the language of the author of the Unbloody Sacrifice ! Strong
enough it is to warrant my strongest statements. And note — he refuses
to call Austin a saint, and flings him off with contempt as another's tool !
He justifies, too, what Churton, and churchmen like him, complain of,
viz., the apparent inactivity of the Britons in converting the Saxons.
How can you convert a man who is too proud to Hsten to you ?

134 ^ EARLY HISTORY OP
less actively jealous of Popery's taller pretensions,
might have followed in her fellowship. And if so,
then the Pope might never have been but the patri
arch which the Council of Nice allowed him to be, as
a matter of custom. Then he might never have gone
higher than when the Councils of Constantinople and
Chalcedon clipped his wings, and stopped those soar
ing flights by which he afterwards ascended to the
pinnacle of earthly glory, and claimed to be, with Sa
tan, a potentate for the absolute globe.
And, oh, what had been the Popedom, if Eng
land and France had never been its upholders! It
might have occupied the humble position which Co
rinth now does ; though Corinth boasts its own exalt
ed pedigree, from St. Peter and St. Pauli* And with
Eome, as modest and unpretending as Corinth, what a
change, indescribably for the better in the annals of
Europe ; to say nothing at all of oriental Christendom
beside! Why, what, more than Eome's insatiable
and ever-meddling will, has made Europe a scene of
boundless contentions? It could engender, and fight
out a thirty years' war, as in the times of Gustavus
Adolphus. It could curse England, and lay Venice?
under an interdict ; the freest governments which Eu
rope ever saw. It has made all Europe sweat blood at
every pore. And it still demands, that all of Europe's
power and wealth, and magnificence shall be her

p Eusebius, bk ii. ch. 25. — Blunt's Lectures on the Fathers, p. 29.
q Father Paul's History of the quarrels of Pope Paul V. with the State
of Venice. Translated, London, 1626. — Daunou's History of the Court
of Rome, p. 221.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 135
own, and without let or hindrance to the last jot and
tittie. Oh, I say, let those who would not have the history of
Europe under Eoman auspices unwritten, be numbered
among England's degenerate children. I would rather
have been one of the poor, but unintimidated bishops,
who endured the browbeating of Augustine ; I would
rather have been one of the monks of Bangor, who
felt the edge of Saxon steel ; than a Cardinal — a
Prince of the Holy Eoman Empire — who yet kisses
the latchet of an Italian shoe.

LECTURE V.
MEANS BY WHICH EOMANISM INTRUDED AND FASTENED ITSELF
UPON TIIE BEITISH ISLES. — PEOOF THAT IT WAS NOT THE
PEINOIPAL MEANS OF CONVEETING THE PAGANS THESE, AND
WAS NOT AT ALL NEOESSAEY FOE CONVEETING THEM.
In my last lecture on the history of the early
Church of England, T brought down the sketch of
events, to what may be regarded as the close of Au
gustine's connexion with that Church, in an hour of
one of its heaviest losses and most poignant sorrow.
I may regret, and I certainly do regret, the necessity
which seems to associate his memory and influence
with the battle of Chester and the massacre of the
monks of Bangor. But the terms on which he parted
from the ancient Britons — his distinct threat of
deadly vengeance — of vengeance, too, from the very
hands through which it was finally administered — the
cold-blooded satisfaction with which Bede, his pupil
and the inheritor of his spirit, mentioned the terrific
catastrophe"' — all point to but one conclusion, that
a I have shown how Bede calls the Christian Britons perfidious wretch
es, who despised salvation. Let us now see how he could speak of Ethel-
frid, who, as he gloatingly says, " ravaged the Britons more than all the
great men of the English." Oh, he is " a most worthy king, and ambi-

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 137
both alike approved and consented unto, what was
actually done. That Augustine would have said
Amen to that catastrophe, as Bede did, it was impos
sible for me to doubt.* Willingly, most willingly,
would I exonerate him and his disciple from a dark
and formidable responsibility ; but the page of history
should never be the page of complaisance. History
is dedicated to exact justice and unwavering imparti
ality ; and its sternest documents must be allowed to
give inflexible testimony. There is a frightful consist
ency between the catastrophe alluded to, and the aim
with which Augustine, in defiance of Catholic canons,
thrust himself upon England, as its exclusive primate,
i. e. in plain terms, with a purpose and an excogi-
tious of glory ;" the only peccadillo he can be charged with, is, " he was
ignorant of the true religion ! " — Bede, bk i. oh. xxxiv. Ethelfrid, the pa
gan, is a glorious character, because he ravages the Christian Britons !
They are impious wretches, because they would not accept the suprema
cy of the Bishop of Rome ! This is the impartiality of one well-instructed
in Italian appreciations ! Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, called the same
sort of people, at a later day, "obstinate fools." Examine the Latin of his
conference with Golman. — Giles's Bede, vol. ii. p. 866. It was one of Bel-
larmines' solemn doctrines, that true Papists never commended the opin
ions or the life of a heretic or a heathen. — De Controversiis, vol ii. 197, a.
He should have added — unless they have some Church-gain to acquire by
doing so. Bellarmine forgot Bede, or he never read him.
b Geoffrey of Monmouth says, that Ethelbert incited the King of North
umberland to act as he did. — Mason's Vindication by Lindsay, p. 88. This
reference, brought out by Archdeacon Mason, more than two hundred
years ago, shows that our ancestors understood this matter, much as I
have represented it. If any one wants to see Geofirey himself, he is now
easily accessible, in Bohn's Six Old English Chronicles, p. 270. Nothing
is clearer than that, as Geofirey understood the case, Augustine went back
to Ethelbert in a pet, and that his statements provoked Ethelbert to stir
up Ethelfrid the Northumbrian king. That is the plain English of the
business. Augustine was too astute a Romanist to show his own hand.
Rome knows how to pull the wires ; but the hand which pulls them— catch
it who can !

138 EARLY HISTORY OF
tated plan for its ecclesiastical subjugation.'' Had he
entered England, as the Bishops of France did, to
counsel and assist — ^had he been such a patron of Eng
land as St. Martin, Bishop of Tours, so distinguished
among the Gallican saints, whose church at Canter
bury was the one he was first permitted to preach in,
and whose name is still commemorated in the Enghsh
calendar, for the 11th of November — ^had he assisted
England as St. Athanasius once assisted " the interior
of India," without claiming jurisdiction over it, as
the reward of his patriarchal action'^ — had he taught
the Saxons, " that if they intended to embrace the
Christian faith in sincerity, and to any purpose, they
•
c " When the same Gregory sent Augustine, or Austin the abbot, on a
mission to England, to convert the Pagan Saxons to the Christian faith,
he gave him a, furtlur commission, to reduce the British Church to a
conformity with the Roman, in the time of celebrating Easter, and in*their
mode of tonsure, and to submit themselves to the Primacy of tbe Pope
of Rome." — Hales's Primitive Cliurch of the Bitish Isles, p. 211. The Rom
ish historians, when anxious to show how lenient Augustine was, sup
press the idea that he insisted on the Papal Supremacy. When anxious
to show how orthodox he was, and how his notions resembled present
Romish notions, then they even contend he taught it. — ATban Butlei's
Saints, new ed. i. 687, note. This is their usual consistency, and just
what we might expect.
d Socrates, bk i. ch. 19. — Sozomen, bk ii. ch. 24. — Theodoret, bk i. ch.
23. All three relate it ; yet not one gives us a hint of Athanasius's set
ting up a claim, more Gregorii, as he well might. Blondel quotes this
act of Athanasius, and a similiar one of Chrysostom and others, to the
same eifect. — De la Primaute, pp. 304, 305. This book is a perfect mine
of authorities, on questions about the Papal Supremacy. It is a folio of
nearly 1300 pages, and is often quoted by Tillemont. I can even remem
ber his arraying Petavius and Blondel against Baronius, in his Arians.
Note 55, p. 546, Deacon's ed. In 1641, when the Long Parliament and
the Westminster Assembly were trying to batter down the monarchy,
and the Church of England, he (Blondel) dedicated his book, in most
respectful and cordial terms to Charles I. Ob. that all Presbyterians
had been more like Blondel !

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 139
should restore the sceptre of Britain to the right lords
and owners, who had hired them for their service and
defence, from whom, on the contrary, they wrested it
by force and perjury, against the faith and honor of
soldiers"^ : had he behaved in this manner, then Eng
land might have hailed his coming as a blessing, and
a blessing only. Then Christianity — ^not appearing to
the Saxons. as a scheme for extending jurisdictions, or
upbuilding principalities, or as a house divided against
itself — might have majfe truer and surer progress than
it did under his boasted auspices. Then England —
down to this distant day — might never have had but
one Lord, one faith, one baptism ; and never have tol
erated or abetted any system, but that "once dehvered
to the Saints."
And in view of such a possibility, such a transcen-
dently blessed possibility, I could not help esteeming
Augustine's mission to England, which had counter
acted and prevented it forever, no benediction, no ac
quisition, but a let, a hindrance, and a detriment./ It
e Jones's British Church, p. 224. Jones's book is scarce, and not as
readable as it might be. But it contains weighty suggestions, as the
quotation shows. Would that some modern scholar would work it up
into a popular form. It was published in London in 1678 ; and is one
of that series of books produced in the grand controversy, then carried
on, with the Church of Rome.
/ " The greater unanimity, which would have resulted to the British
Christians, from the non-arrival of Augustine with the novelties of the
Roman worship, would probably have more speedily effected the conver
sion of the Saxons." — Townsend's Ecclesiastical and Civil History Philo
sophically Considered, vol. ii. p. 9. Dr. Lappenberg, with the forecast of
a religious philosopher, tells us, that the British Church " appeared, no
less liy its geographical position, than by its exalted spiritual endow
ments, fitted to become ttie foundation of a Northern Patriarchate," to
be a " counterpoise to Rome and the rest of the South," and to take a

140 EARLY HISTORY OF
will now be my business to carry out and further
illustrate this leading idea, by showing you that Au
gustine's own mission (as was hinted in the last lec
ture) became itself a failure — as revived and prolong
ed by means that any honest and candid mind ought
to have been thoroughly ashamed of — and that, when
perpetuated, it did not, after all, accomplish more,
towards the conversion of the Saxons, than did the
efforts of others — others, too, whom he had repudi
ated as " despisers of salvation,^ and given over (In
quisition-like) to " the vengeance of death," from the
hands of those who wielded the strong arm of mili
tary power.
Augustine may have died, when he had not
long enjoyed his coveted superiority over "all the
bishops of Britain."'' He is said to have died some
where between A. d. 604, and A. d. 611.* King Eth
elbert, (of course a Eomish saint,) his new patron, is
said to have survived till 616 ; and while he lived,
Christiauity was not only tolerated, but encouraged, at
the royal courts ; though, probably, not upon the four-
cornered platform of Gregory for church-extension,
viz. : exhortation, flattery, terror, and punishment.y
proper " guardianship over a Celtic and Germanic population." Even a
Pope, Urban II. , had a glimpse of this propriety, when he called Anselm,
papa alterius orbis, pope of the other world ;¦ and most happy might it
have been, had a patriarchate been erected in Britain, by Constantine
the Great. For the reference to Lappe^erg's Anglo-Saxon England, see
vol. i. p. 134.
g For other abusive epithets, bestowed on the impracticable Protest
antism, or anti-Romanism, of the old Britons, see Collin's Perranzabulce,
p. 16, 4th ed.
h Giles's Bede, ii. 19. i Mason's Vindication, p. 90.
j Giles's Bede, ii. 148.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 141
Ethelbert, under the mild persuasions of his good
Queen Bertha, had set his face like' a flint against
Eome's favorite resort to a system of compulsions;
and how far Augustine and his associates succeeded,
by employing gentler instrumentalities, remains now
to be seen.* Ethelbert died in 616 ; and though we
hear of Augustine's achievements, as so wondrous that
he baptized thousands in a day, all the eulogy which
Bede himself can bestow upon his " new Church," (as
Bede's translator improperly renders his words, ^) is, to
compare that Church to little tender shoots, just peep
ing above the soil, and beginning fairly to grow. He
did not convert Ethelbert's successor and son. On
the contrary, the moment his father was safely depos
ited in his sepulchre, the new king openly professed
the old idolatry ; and the thousands who had imitated
his father, (through the hollow motives of fear or favor,
as Bede distinctly admits,) fell away with him, and re
lapsed, as completely as if Christianity had never been
introduced among them."* Nay more, Augustine's la
bors among the East Saxons, (to whom he had dis
patched a bishop,) seem to have been no more perma
nently efficacious, than among the Saxons of Kent.
k Dr. Lingard would fain have it, that this mercy came from the Pope,
and not from Queen Bertha. — Anglo-Saxons, p. 13. But Gregory's let
ter is somewhat better testimony than Dr. Lingard's conjectures. Rome
is willing enough to begin with exhortation ; but the luckless wight who
will not listen implicitly, will always be sure to find punishment close
the scene. At least, if it does nojt, the.fault will not be in Rome's want
of disposition to infiict it, in the most smarting forms.
I Bede, bk ii. ch. 5; Giles's Bede, ii. 191.
m Bede, bk ii. ch. 6 ; Giles's Bede, ii. 191. Reeve, in his Ch. Hist. ii.
355, contrives to ignore all this ; while he glorifies Augustine's conver
sions, which terminated in (if one may say so) disconversion.

142 EARLY HISTORY OP
No sooner had the king of these Saxons died, than his
sons, too, relapsed, hke the son of King Ethelbert,
and absolutely drove away the prelate whom Augus
tine had planted by their sides, as his co-worker and
suffragan. This bishop, with a similar one, thrust by
him into the old British archbishopric of London, for
sook the country as lost to Christianity, and hurrying
across the Straits of Dover, took refuge in France as
their only possible religious shelter. Thither Augus
tine's successor was about to follow-— at least, had made
apparent preparation to do so ; but, knowing the spe
cies of monarch with whom he had to deal, contrived '
to keep his place, with all its revenues fortified by
that famous law of Eome, which made it such a fore
most of felonies to steal any thing from the clergy."
The unworthy means to which he resorted for this
much-wished-for end, it is now my duty to relate.o
He 'slept one night in his church, where no curious
sceptical eye could watch him ; and came the next
morning, with his back all lacerated with stripes, into
the presence of his royal master. With heroic grav
ity he deliberately informed him, that St. Peter had
stolen an hour from Paradise, to come and chastise
him in that shameful and horrible manner, for his
n Giles's Bede, vol. ii. 189.— The origin, probably, of mortmains. Rid-
lefs View of Ehclesiastical and CivU Lom, 2d ed. p. 182, etc.
0 Bede, bk ii. ch. 6, contains the story. But even William of Malms-
bury covers it with euphemisms. He says, Lawrence "was medita
ting his own departure ; but, having received chastisement from God,
he was induced to change his resolution." — Malmsbury's Chronicle,
Bohn's ed. p. 13. Lappenberg is so ashamed of the story, that he will
not repeat it. — Anglo-Sojxons, vol. i. p. 143. His translator has to pro
duce it in a note.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 143
cowardly and traitorous design of forsaking the flock,
(which he, i. e., Peter, had committed to him,) and
leaving the soul of his king uncared for. Shallow
indeed must have been the discernment of a crowned
head which could not fathom a trick so palpable ; yet
we know that Pagan superstition, like Eomish super
stition, is boundless in its credulity. The artifice,
sealed with blood, prevailed — as Dr. Lingard some
what pertinaciously maintains, though he takes a care,
somewhat amusing to a Protestant eye, noi to tell us
whether he himself accredited its miraculous preten
sions. The blunt Mr. Eeeve has not Dr. Lingard's
ingenuity ; and his safety consists in ignoring the story
altogether. P
Such a pitiful subterfuge as this — a transaction pro
fessedly dated at the dead of night, without one critical
eye to scrutinize it, without a witness to verify it be
side its own most deeply interested narrator — is made
the foundation of the Most Eeverend Augustine's
" new Church," and the permanent beginning of Eo
manism in England ! Mark it, and remember it well.
Eomanism perished in England when it was prohibited
from adopting and carrying out its darling system of
compulsion. Then, all the glory of its conversions —
hke the beauty of Jonah's gourd — vanished with fell
rapidity. But the moment it could give fair swing to
its inherent proclivities for superstition, and govern
others through a similar peculiarity, that moment it
began to revive and flourish in a style congenial to its
p Lingard's Anglo-Saxon Ch. 2d ed. p. 15 ; Reeve's Ch. Hist. i. 355;
Southey's Vindicise, p. 102, etc.

144

EARLY HISTORY OP

heart! The king who beheld the scars, (for scars
some call them? — and, perhaps, after all, the subject of
them had acquired said scars in other days, and not in
the most honorable manner,) of St. Peter's corded whip
upon the back of an Italian Archbishop of Canterbury
— that king, we are told, became a convert to Christi
anity more speedily, and with vastly less hesitation
than the one who first encountered Italian missionaries
on the island of Thanet, and gave them but a cautious
and indifferent welcome.'"
Wherefore, the genuine inauguration of Latin Chris
tianity in England must be dated from a sound flog- t
ging by St. Peter, inflicted at midnight, with no ir
reverent eye to scan the mysterious ministration.
Worthy origin of the system which it was presumed
to vindicate ; and let all who choose to bend the knee
to Eome, for her agency in t]je conversion of England,
never forget the crowning weapon of her longest and
best success." If her system ever flagellates them
selves, they will not think it unnatural that a resort
should, occasionally, be made to instrumentahties
which kept a recreant Archbishop of Canterbury
safely at home, and caused the system he represented
to settle down, hke an incubus, on the very bosom of
Britain.* g Lingard says, " marks." Giles's Bede and Bohn's Bede, " scars."
r This king, "who had been upon the point of driving them all away,
was complimented by the Sovereign Pontifl; upon the purity of his belief
and the perfection of his Christian y(OT)siS."~Thierry, i. 41. Henry of
Huntingdon's Chronixk, Bohn's edit. p. 86.
s " To assert a false miracle, is nothing less, according to St. Paul, than
to bear false witness against God ; as has been remarked by that exceed
ingly judicious saint, Peter Dimiau."— Fleury's Fed. Hist. vol. xiii. p. 3.
t And, notwithstanding, idolatry gave way latest, in the very scene

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 145
And here, perhaps, as I have alluded to the chief
commencement of that series of frauds, impostures and
untiring deceptions, by which Latin Christianity was
fastened upon England, and made to grapple to it like
barnacles to a vessel's planking, it may be as well for
me to turn aside and show (to some extent) how faith
fully the example of Augustine's successors was fol
lowed up and out, in accordance with a theory which
Eome has latterly endorsed with eagerness — the theory
(so called) of ecclesiastical development.
The example of Laurentius, the next Archbishop of
Canterbury after Augustine — if Augustine himself
was not the beginner of imposture" — was pursued into
almost every species of delusion which human inge
nuity could conceive of, and human audacity palm off.
The invisible world furnished, of course, a iftundless
fleld to range in ; and if our modern spiritualists de
sired a papal precedent for their wildest whimseys,
they could plead it from the instances which the cen
tury following Laurentius supplied, in plenary abun
dance.® Of these, I will quote a sample, by which you
can judge for yourselves, whether any fanatic of our
of Augustine's labors. "The Anglo-Saxons who latest retained their
ancient worship, were those of the southern coasts." — Thierry, vol. i.
p. 45.
u Augustine's Miracle, to astound the Britons, (opening a supposed
blind man's eyes,) was performed, as Bede incautiously tells us, upon an
Anglo-Saxon. No wonder the poor Britons could not work upon such
materials. — Giles's Bede, ii. 173, 175. Soa/me's Anglo-Saxon Church, 4th
edit. p. 57. Dr. Lingard, in guarded terms, merely says, " a miracle is
said to have subdued their obstinacy." — Anglo-Saxons, p. 47. The doctor
saw the leak in Bede's statement.
V " By setting forth opinions such as these, this austere and wild en
thusiast (Francis of Assisi) acquired many followers belonging to the
7

146 EARLY HISTORY OF
own age could desire a wider scope for his roving,
craving and teeming imagination. The personage
whom I am about to quote, was no common, vulgar,
uneducated stroller, who addressed the rabble in the
streets, or the half-drunk hsteners of an ale-house.
He was a sort of conscience-keeper to a king, and, of
course, is an instance to exhibit the coin which
popery passed current among the loftiest of any land,
which it called peculiarly its own.
" He related," after an excursion to the world of
souls, "that one of a shining countenance, and attired
in shining garments, guided him, when he was dead,
towards the quarter where the sun rises in midsummer.
They walked together, in silence, till they came to a
place where was, on the left, a valley of great width
and dej#h, and which seemed to be infinitely long.
On one side of this valley there were raging flames,
and on the other cold blasts, not less violent, driving
hail and snow before them ; and both the burning and
the frozen regions were full of human souls, who, as
if seeking relief which it was not possible to find,
rushed to and fro, from the fire into the frost, and
Franciscan tribe, who were afterwards called Spiritualists." — Grier's Epi
tome of the Councils, p. 207. So the very name of Spiritualism, as well
as the thing, turns out to be Romish. I have no desire to depreciate
Quakers, for their blood fiows in my veins, and I love and esteem many
of their fraternity, yet it is perhaps due to historical truth to say, that
the Jesuits have even boasted of having invented their views. It is clear
that their opposition to oaths, sacraments, etc., would enable the Jesuits
to avoid tests, and to work more comfortably under their cover. " A St.
Omer's Jesuit," says Mr. Ware, in a very curious work, " declared that
they were twenty years hammering out the sect of the Quakers." — Wards
Foxes and Firebrands, 2d edit. vol. i. part i. p. 7, Dublin, 1682. Compare
Clarke on fhe Royal amd Papal Siipremacy, London, 1809, p. 323.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 147
from the frost into the fire, either torment being alike
insupportable. They were so hideously deformed,
and their punishment visibly so dreadful, that he sup
posed these must be the places appointed for the
damned ; but his conductor, who saw his very
thoughts, answered him and said, 'No, this is not
Hell, as thou supposest.'
" They proceeded, till the region, growing more and
more obscure, became so utterly dark at last, that he
could distinguish nothing except the shape of the
lucid garments of his guide. Suddenly they came
upon a deep pit, from whence globes of fire arose
without intermission into the air, and fell again into
the abyss out of which they were exploded. There,
to his unutterable horror, his conductor disappeared,
leaving him, as it seemed, to his fate. And now he
could distinguish that these fiery globes were full of
human souls, which, like sparks carried up with the
smoke, were borne aloft, and then, as if caught in an
eddy of vapor, were resorbed into the pit ; and the
stench which issued with the vapor, an inexpressible,
incomparable, uuimaginable stench .... filled that
whole place of darkness. The poor Northumbrian's
soul stood trembling, at all this, as well it might :
afraid to remain where it was, and yet more afraid to
move, and not knowing what would be the end.
Presently, he heard behind him a sound, as of persons
piteously lamenting their miserable fate, mingled with
loud shouts of brutal mocking, like the uproar of a
rabble rejoicing over their captured enemies. Among
these souls, who were thus being hurried to the^place

148 EARLY HISTORY OP
of bale, he perceived one that was shaven and shorn,
a layman's and a woman's. He saw them plunged
into the pit, their conductor plunging with them ; and
he heard their cries, and the laughter of the fiends,
growing fainter and fainter as they sunk, till the
sounds were lost in the confused and promiscuous
roar which ascended."** — I could quote pages of such
matter, by the score ; probably this specimen will suf
fice, and so I will only subjoin, that there are no par
allels to such stuff but in Virgil's account of the visit
of his hero to Erebus and Elysium ; or, in the pre
tended flights of our modern spiritualists, into those
shadowy realms which lie beyond time's horizon.
As to pretended Eomish miracles, wrought not upon
such coarse materials as this world supplies, I could
not perhaps select a more striking, or a more famfliar
instance, than Dunstan's seizure of Satan with a pair
of red-hot pinchers. This is so outrageously ridicu
lous that modern Eomish writers are fain to let it slip,
as a mere chimera of old monkish brains, befogging
themselves, as well as befogging others. They would
gladly bury it in dusty death, amid the forlorn rub
bish of profound oblivion. But the simple fact is,
that the most intellectual of the Eomish orders — even
that of the Jesuits — adopted it, wreathed it into poetry,
and employed that poetry, as our forefathers employed
the dialogue of the New England primer, between
Christ, a youth, and the devil, for the edification of
w Southey's accounts of St. Drithelm, and Alfred the Wise, King of
Northumberland. — Vindicice, p. 176, etc.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 149
the rising generation, and that, down to times quite
recent.^ The Jesuits, with all their sagacity, and all their
uncalculating devotion to the Eomish Supremacy, can
have but a poor opinion of even Eomanized human
nature. Their works of piety (I mean of that descrip
tion which comes, with us, under the denomination of
works of practical piety — those which compare with
"Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Dying," and
"Doddridge's Else and Progress,") abound, to reple
tion, with matters not more creditable, or credible by
others, than Virgil's romance of a journey to the
Stygian Shades. A celebrated member of the tribe
composed a work, not so old as Taylor's Living and
Dying, (which were published in 1650 and 1651,) and
which he styled the " Itinerary to Heaven." This work
is pronounced by Mr. Southey, who was familiar with
the tongue in which it is composed, as "filled with
fables, some of them as absurd and grotesque, as others
are revolting for their grossness and monstrosity. "2'
And, lest we should imagine that a mere private judg
ment was responsible for such a production, and that
the Latin Church might repudiate it with that adroit
ness with which it sometimes staves off uncomfortable
testimony, Mr. Southey takes a laudable pains to in
form us, that it was solemnly licensed as "well worthy
to be published for the general good" — that its author
held a high ofSce in the Supreme Council of the In
quisition — and that to have expressed a disbelief in
X Southey's Vindioiie, p. 264. y Vindicise, p. 273.

150 EARLY HISTORY OP
its thousand and one tales, might have cost an adven
turous doubter his very life !
Such, then, appears to have been a large, a sanc
tioned, and a most gainful portion of the agency^ em
ployed by the Latin Church during the middle ages,
when it was acquiring its highest influence, and most po
tential sway in our paternal land — sustaining Saxon in
terlopers in their expulsion of the Britons — eradicating
ancient, independent British Christianity ; and substitut
ing something of its own, fresh from Italy, and bearing
the fond impress of an Italian pontiff. The stories of
Latin Christianity in Anglo-Saxon England, remind a
scholar inevitably of the stories in Livy, respecting
the priesthood of Pagan Eome. They almost seem
Livy's worn-out tales, re-edited and re-echoed under a
new nomenclature. Chemically, (as a phflosopher
might say, and in more senses than one,) they are sin
gular parallels. Thesfrequent speaking of an ox, e. g.,
tallies strangely with Dunstan's (I cannot say St. Dun
stan ;'» nor can the Church of England, though she
gives him an inferior place in her calendar),* speaking
z And these pretended miracles have not ceased. They were attempted,
but with equivocal success, when the French Republicans were troub
ling Italy, towards the close of the eighteenth century. " It is remarka
ble, that it was always before the entrance, or after the departure of the
French troops, that the miracles took place. While Tuscany was in the
possession of the Republicans, the laws of nature were carefully re
spected by the saints, and by the souls of the other world." — Memoirs of
Scvpio de Ricci, Roscoe's ed. vol. ii. p. 154.
a Alluding to Dunstan, Bp. Cosin says, pretty expressively, "After
his death he was sainted, but God knows why." — Cosin's Works, new ed.
V. p. 31.
b May 19. On Monday, 26 and 27, she commemorates Augustine and
Bede ; but does not call either of them a saint. She commemorates Alban
June 17, and him she does, as she well may, call a saint.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 151
crucifix ; and the speech was accomplished doubtless,
in both cases, by the gifts and arts of ventriloquism."
The machinery by which Latin Christianity ascended
in reputation and magnified its power in England,
need not longer detain us. I will now return to Lau
rentius (Augustine's successor in the Archbishopric of
Canterbury), and let you know he was a devoted pupil
of his master, in his endeavors to vanquish the oppo
sition of the British bishops to the papal supremacy.
When he had fortified himself with a couple of suf
fragans, he, with those suffragans, addressed an epistle to
all the prelates of Scotia (as Ireland was called at that
time, and for a long period subsequently),*^ to induce
them to yield him that deference which had been
vainly solicited from the Bishops of Wales and its
neighborhood ; and for their obstinacy about which
their brother ecclesiastics paid the tremendous penalty
of an ante-dated death. He failed; nay, he more
than failed.* He was, as we might now say, snubbed
with a curtness at which we may express profound
astonishment. The prelates in question not improb
ably sent representatives to Canterbury, to confer with
him ; one of whom was a bishop, whose example was,
of course, worthy special observation. This bishop
c Southey's Vindicise, p. 258. Fuller, i. 349. "As he advanced in
years, a harp which hung on u. peg, without any human touch, played
the sweet melody of the antiphone, Gaudent in cseMs." — Roger of Wend
over, Bohn's ed. i. p. 270.
d Bede admits this. " The Scots who inhabit the island of Ireland,
which is next to Britain." — Giles's Bede, ii. 183. " From the fourth cen
tury to the eleventh, [three hundred to one thousand] the names Scotia
and Scati belong solely to Ireland and the Irish." — Pinkerton's Scotland,
new ed. 1814, ii. 58. e Giles's Bede, ii. 185.

152 EARLY HISTORY OP
not only refused point-blank to acknowledge Lauren
tius as his superior : he would not treat him as a bare
equal. He would not eat with him at the same table,
or under the same roof; but conferred with him as an
alien and a stranger — as an intruder, ¦ not to say a
downright usurper. Now this bishop was a descend
ant from, and an inheritor of, the episcopate of St.
Patrick in Ireland. He was, of course, acting as a
representative of the ancient Irish Church ; and here,
then, comes out the singular, incidental issue, that the
primitive Irish Church and the primitive English
Church sympathized most cordially and affectionately,
and were alike ignorant of, and opposed to, all dicta
tion from the see of Eome./
/ I cannot have a better authority for these statements than in Mr.
Newman's life (by authorship or adoption) of Wilfrid, Abp of York, a. n.
709. The then temper of Mr. Newman towards the Church of England,
whose bread he was eating, is very obvious ; since, in this very Ufe, he
styles Cardinal Pole the last Catholic primate of England. He could not
have offered his mother Church a more studied insult. Nevertheless, in
Wilfred's life we have this ample testimony to the condition of the Irish
Church at the times of which I was speaking. " In fact, Ireland was a
great centre of civilization, and its temper was vehemently opposed to
that of Rome. In many little ways we may trace the Celtic spirit
growing and pushing forward, disclosing itself more and more, getting
consistency through an increasing consciousness of its own strength,
until a schism seemed actually threatening. It pleased God, of his mercy,
to interpose. The Roman mission of St. Gregory to the Saxons appears,
in this point of view, like an inspiration." And, again, in language of
still more decisive tenor. " It is not too much to say, that througli the
influence of the Scottish Church, and of the Celtic civilization, of which
Ireland was the centre, Christendom approached to the very verge of a
tremendous schism ; almost reaching, in extent, to the unhappy sacrilege
of the sixteenth century." Here, then, we have the frank confession of
J. H. Newman, et ejus contubernales, that if Augustine had not landed in
Thanet, in the sixth century, the Reformation might have come a thou
sand years sooner ! I do not envy the mental or moral condition of that
Protestant, who, in view of such a confession, can be Augustine's pane
gyrist or admirer. For the passages quoted, see Life of Wilfrid, pp. 24,
25. London, 1844.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 153
Observe this carefully, and remember it for all time
to come, of your mortal lives. The primitive Church
of Ireland was Protestant, as well as the primitive
Church of England — and, what is profoundly cu
rious, continued so longer and more pertinaciously
than its sister — ^be the issue now never so dissimilar.
The ancient Church of Ireland believed in its own
ecclesiastical independence with an exclusiveness
which is more than Protestant — understanding Prot
estantism as now exemplified. Eor who, now, would
refuse to eat under the same roof, or at the same table,
with a Papist, or even refuse to pray with him?
though that is a concession he has been known to re
fuse, utterly, to ourselves — even so far as to refuse to
say with us the short prayer of our Eedeemer's own
self.S' I need scarcely add, that this consummate intol
erance reaches, so far as it can be made to do so,
beyond the grave, since the very bones of a Papist
may not be permitted to lie with ours in the same sep-
g Such is Dr. Townsend's testimony, in his Journal of a Tour in Italy,
in 1850, p. 241. Dr. Townsend well observes, that this was the answer
of Mary Queen of Scots, to the offer of prayer at her execution. So s.iid
Priest Jarvis at his. " I want not the prayers of heretics." — Challoner's
Missionary Priests, part ii. p. 16. How difierent from such conduct that
of Prof. Tamburini, of Pavia, who would not call any man a heretic that
would not receive Rome's decrees, because he did not esteem them a
judgment of the Church iu its entirety ; its Catholicity in its genuine
sense, and not in its restricted sense, as employed by divines of an ultra-
Roman school. — Tamburini's PrceUctiones, vol. iii. p. 209. Archbishop
Parker's profession of faith, in his last will, was as follows : " I profess,
that I do certainly believe and hold, whatsoever the Holy Catholic Church
believeth and receiveth in any articles whatsoever, pertaining to faith, hope
and charity, in the whole Sacred Scripture." — From HardmAck on ilie Ar
ticles, p. 117, Eng. ed. The man who can pronounce him a heretic, who
could hold to such a declaration, must have graduated in the hardening
school of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and been senior wrangler, too.

154 EARLY HISTORY OP
ulchre or cemetery. Yet the ancient Protestantism
of .Ireland — the Protestantism of the disciples of St.
Patrick — was, at the time I speak of, quite as extreme
and unenduring towards Italian Christianity and its
satellites. It prolonged that opposition with Hiber
nian zeal. The ancient Church of Ireland never
allowed an archbishop to receive a pall from Eome
till A. D. 1151, while England had been subjugated,
ecclesiastically, long before.* History brings out mar
velous developments ; and few are more singular than
the fact, that Ireland, how devoted soever at present
to Popery, was once its opponent, over, and beyond,
and above England, be England never so anti-Papal
now.^ Laurentius, having failed with Ireland, tried Augus
tine's experiment a second time in England ;i but a
second time met with Augustine's merited rebuff. No
resource remained for him but the experiments of
h Wordsworth's Sermons, 4th series, p. 94. Inett's Origines, new
edit. vol. ii. pt i. pp. 293-294. Abp Usher tells us, that it was about
this time, that the Pope got his first penny of tribute out of the Irish.
They called it Smoke-silver, as it was a penny for each domestic hearth. 
Religion of the Anc. Irish, chap. xi. We here see what Rome paid in re
turn for solid coin.
i And, yet, this is the character of Ireland, when anti-papal. " From
the fifth to the eighth century, Ireland became the teacher of Europe,
and sent forth those illustrious sages, whose names illuminate the dark
night of ignorance and barbarism." — Celtic Records of Ireland, Dublin
1852, p. 19. Ireland was thiis glorious and useful, when she had no
communion with Rome. Under Romish subjection, she has become
morally and ecclesiastically, like one of her own bogs. And when she
has sometimes proved a troublesome pupil, even for Rome, then Rome
has been as ready to curse her, as any one else. Who can forget the
Spaniard's bitter taunt—" Christ did not die for the Irish."  Phelan's
Church of Borne in Ireland, p. 249.
j Giles's Bede, ii. 185 ; or, bk ii. ch. 4.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 155
superstition ; and they (alas for human nature 1) they
amply availed him. His pretended stripes from St.
Peter were sharp arguments with a mind besotted by
superstition — they awoke its most haunting apprehen
sions — and the King of the Saxons yielded, when all
the arrogancy of Papal impertinence passed, with the
old British, and the old Irish, for mere vaporing,
which they regarded not more than the whistling of
the wind, or the roaring of their iron-bound shores.
These things took place, according to Bede, in, say
A. D. 610 ; and, about a hundred years later, as he is
constrained to admit, " a notable book" had to be
written,* echoing the strain of Augustine and Law
rence, who would have had all England, and all Ire
land, too, prostrate at their feet. Even that met with
but partial success; and the historian acknowledges,
that the differences between the ancient Britains and
the novelties of Eome, had, if any thing, become multi
plied and magnified. Augustine told the British
bishops, at the opening of his conference with them,
that there were many differences between them and
himself. Bede, who understood the case more fully,
or was less complaisant, said those differences were
very many} The writer of 705 calls them perplura ;
k Aldhelm about Easter. — Bede, bk v. ch. 18 ; Giles's ed. vol. iii. 235 ;
GUes's Aldhelm, pp. xx. 83. Bede's " notable book" is a letter of some
half a dozen pages. But then it defends a peculiarity of Rome, and so it
is egregium. Had it questioned such apeculiarity, it would have been per-
fidum, nefandum, obstinationis stultus labor ! These are the abusive ep
ithets which Bede and Wilfrid resorted to, against dissenters from ilieir
notions. — Giles's Bede, ii. pp. 178, 366.
I Multis is Augustine's word ; Plurima is Bede's word. Giles's Bede,
ii. p. 176, and p. 172.

156 EARLY HISTORY OP
that is, as we might express it now, more than a few.
It is quite likely, that his unusual double comparative is
an abbreviation for the more common double superla
tive, perplurima ; or, very m,any m.ore than a few.'^
Now, this ecclesiastical diversity and antagonism
was no bad state of things, if France had only held
out as sturdfly, and the political power of the Pope
had not enabled him to give augmented energy to his
spiritual mandates. But the sovereigns of France,
and the Saxon sovereigns of England, all found it ex
pedient, if not necessary, to propitiate the (so called)
servant of servants — as European monarchs now do,
who sit uneasily upon doubtful thrones. The Popes,
imitating Gregory in mock humility and grasping
ambition, generally contrived to gain more than they
imparted ; and the day, in due time, came, when prim
itive Protestantism, in its loneliness and poverty,
could not withstand the united puissance of the purse,
the crosier, and the sword. Scanty treasuries and
rich oppression ; want, war, and worldly temptations ;
were too mighty for the comparatively few and feeble
representatives of ancient Christianity in Britain
to contend- against. Yet they did contend, almost
against hope ; nor was it till the eleventh century that
the Church of Llandaff yielded to the tide of merciless
invasion, and became the see of a Eoman bishop.''
TO Faber, in his Thesaurus, ii. col. 259, quotes perpliures from Pliny ;
but says it is a reading objected to by very many.
n Archdeacon Williams's invaluable little book, " The Church of Eng
land independent of the Church of Rome, in all Ages," London, W. E.
Painter's edition, without date, p. 50. " No acknowledgment of the Eng
lish Primate on the part of the Welsh took place previously to the con-

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 157
This was the first Church, as we are assured, of any
note in Wales, which fell into Eomish hands — it
bowed to its fate, as we are also assured, only after
a tedious struggle with carnage and desolation." So
you may perceive it was not till 500 years after its
first demand for submission, that the Papal Supre
macy achieved a long-coveted triumph, and old genu
inely Catholic Cambria began to succumb to its dicta
tions. Much, much do I fear, my Brethren, that we of
this generation and our descendants, (if they, like us,
are to be governed by expediency, and not by con
science; by policy, and not by old-fashioned law),
might not have held out half the time. Let us think
no scorn of them, but rather pray that more of their
spirit may revive among, and animate, their children
of this distant age.P Popery may be a hard opponent,
quest of the country by the English, under the Norman dynasty." — Lap-
penherg's Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p. 194. " The first legate that
ever appeared in Scotand, was John of Crema, in the year 1125, before
which time there is no trace to be met with of any Papal authority in
this country." — C. J. Lyon, Histoi-y of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1828, p. 16.
0 His Welsh neighbors were thus nobly characterized by Henry II. —
" The Welsh nation is so adventurous, that they dare encounter naked
with armed men, ready to spend their blood for their country, and pawn
their life for praise." — Heylyn's Cosmographie, 2d edition, p. 329. It was
not strange that such a people should resolve, that they would never be
subjugated. " Never," exclaim their old poets, " no, never shall the
Kymri [the Cambrians] pay tribute; they will fight till death for the
possession of the lands bathed by the Wye." — Thierry, i. 51. This was
the spirit of our forefathers in 1776 ; and Great Britain ought to have
remembered its origin, and respected it.
p A maxim of the ancient Welsh was, " Truth against the world ;"
which represents the spirit contained in the ecclesiastical adage, " Atha
nasius contra mundum." The ancient Britons had the spirit of Athana
sius, and, as themselves said, nothing but treachery could vanquish them.
Indeed, when downtrodden, this was their confident tone to an op
pressor, " Do thy worst : thou canst not destroy our name or our lan-

158 EARLY HISTORY OP
but the temper of ancient England, and ancient Ire
land, too, inspiring those who do it battle, will shatter
its puissance, and lay its honors in the dust.
Before this lecture closes, another topic remains to
be noticed, though in a somewhat cursory manner.
You have seen how the mission of Augustine was
likely to die out, and the character of the instrumen
talities which saved it from annihilation, and rendered
it ultimately, (though at long and tedious cost,) what
the Latin Church denominates, a triumph.? It would
not be difficult to prove that England was nev^er more
than half converted to modern Popery, as well as
France — where, to this day, the Council of Trent has
never been recognized in all its fulness. But that is
not my object. I have more than once hinted, that
enough of Christianity, and of Christian organization,
and Christian temper, remained in Britain and its de
pendencies, to have converted the Saxons, if Augus
tine and his immediate associates had departed — as
they all but did do — and, moreover, one and all of
them.* guage."— For all these statements, see Williams's Antiquities of tlie
Cymry, p. 16 ; Proberffs Welsh Laws, p. 885 ; Thierry's Conquest, vol. 1. 58.
q The Saxons rebelled, just like the Britons. — Thierry, i. 60.
r Ch. Butler, Esq., on Creeds, p. 11 ; Du Pin's Study of Theology, p.
317, ed. 1720 ; Hales's Prim. Ch. of the British Isles ; his Analysis from
Government Documents of checks upon the Romish Church in Europe.
France, pp. 303-313.
s "The Romanists boast of the great success of Austin in convertin o-
the Pagan Saxons to Christianity, for which he was rewarded with the
see of Canterbury ; but the principal merit of their conversion is due to
the zealous labors of Irish missionaries." — Hahs'a Prim. Ch. of ilie Brit
ish Isles, p. 221. Bede confessed as much. — Soames's Anglo-Saxon Ch.
4th ed. p. 92. We have already seen that, at this time, the Irish, as Mr.
Newman was forced to admit, were not opposed merely to Rome, but

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 159
I brought up, but a short time since, the fact that
(at the time of Augustine's arrival in England) Ire
land had an abundance of Christians, and of Chris
tian ministers within it, who sympathized entirely
with the ancient British Church- — repudiated the new
Church of Eome — and would gladly have united
with their brethren, in establishing and promoting
missions for the conversion of unbelievers. "It is
surprisingly strange," says Mr. Eapin, in his reflec
tions on the primitive state of the English Church, at
the close of the third book of his history, " that the
conversion of the English should be ascribed to Aus
tin,* rather than to Aidan," to Einan, to Colman, to
Cedd, to Diuma, and the other Scotch monks, who
undoubtedly labored much more abundantly than he.
But here lies the case. These last had not their or-

" vehemently opposed" to her. Nevertheless, this is the style in which
the entire labors of the British, and Irish too, are as sturdily ignored,
as if Britons and Hibernians were all Pagans together. " From Kent,
where it was first planted, that Divine symbol [the cross — unknown there,
of course, l^eforel] continued to advance from kingdom to kingdom, until
the entire of the English, princes and people, were converted after the
innumerable hardships, labors, and trying sacrifices of ninety years." —
Miley's Rome under Paganism and the Popes, vol. ii. p. 235. This is a
tolerable specimen of an lo triumphe upon a Romish trumpet.
t Austin for Augustine, sometimes, to distinguish him from the re
nowned Bp of Hippo — a genuine saint.
u Aidan. — " Immense numbers of Anglo-Saxons were instructed in
the doctrines of Christianity, by this Irish saint ; under whose direction
was founded the famous Abbey of Melrose, whose ' ruins grey' form the
theme of The Lay of the LastMinstrel." — Celtic Records of Ireland, Dublin,
1852, p. 20. " Germany was especially indebted to British ecclesiastics,
whether of kindred or of Celtic race, both for its Christianity and its
early mental fovma,\,ion."— Lappenberg' s Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p.
184. "Few are aware how much, under God, our country [Scotland] is
indebted to the pious labors of these men."— C. /. Lyon's History of St.
Andrews, Edinburgh, 1828, p. 17, note.

160 EARLY HISTORY OP
ders from Eome, and therefore must not be allowed
any share in the glory of their work."'' Mr, Eapin
has touched the core of the matter, and dissected it
out with anatomical precision. ' ' Piety towards Eome, ' '
as an historian has aptly characterized it^ — that it is
which brings " distinguished consideration" upon such
emperors as Phocas, such empresses as Irene, such
monastics as Egbert, such an order as the Jesuits,
such a court as the Inquisition, such plots as Guy
Fawkes's, such assassinations as Eavillac's, such massa
cres as those of Bangor and St. Bartholomew ; and,
finally, upon such intrusive and subjugating missions
as those of the first Latin Archbishop of Canterbury.
But hope must not quite desert us ; though, as De
Maistre puts it, no man of honor can be other than a
Papist, and we consign ourselves to infamy by detract
ing from Eoman fame. A well-known controversialist,
one who entered the lists fearlessly with such a cham
pion as Dr. Lingard, does not hesitate to affirm that
no denial can be attempted of the fact, " that native
missionaries, and not Eoman ones, converted most of
our Saxon forefathers to Christianity."^
I will now show you something of the missionary
instrumentalities with which the ancient British
Church, and its sisters in Scotland and Ireland,
might have worked, and did work ; and how it never
fell to tlieir lot to despair of .their charge as hopeless,
¦» Tindal's Rapin, 4th ed. i. 279.
w Foulke's Manual, pp. 265, 220. For Egbert, Rapin, i. 2S2, 283.
X Soames's Latin Ch. p. 45 ; so Inett, Origines, i. 72, new ed. ; Hales's
Anc. Ch. of the British Isles, p. 221 ; Abp Usher's Religion of the An
cient Irish, ch. .\.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 161
as it did to the contemporaries of Augustine — -and
that it was never considered by them a permission, if
not a duty, to resort, in moments of failure, to the
machinations of fraud, imposture, and systematized
deception. The ancient Welsh Church had a theological insti
tute at Bangor, in Flintshire, of prodigious size and
capabilities, as hints already given have exhibited. It
could afford to lose one thousand two hundred of its
inmates in a day, by the sword of ruthless war ; yet
it survived, and flourished, and wrought on, unintimi
dated, scattering far and wide the seeds of charity and
mercy for many a long year to come. St. Bernard,
who lived in the twelfth century, and is sometimes
styled the last of the Fathers,*' did not hesitate to be
stow upon it lavish panegyric. Five long centuries
had passed away, and Bernard could sometimes speak
in tones to which popes and emperors were constrained
to listen. So he declared, without quailing, that " It
was a most famous foundation, which had bred many
thousands of monks, [and monks, be it remembered,
were the missionaries of those days] and was the
chief place of many monasteries [i. e., was a theologi
cal university]. A place truly holy, and furnished
y Bernard, the ever-famous abbot of Clairvaulx. Bellarmine glories
in the fact, that even Calvin acknowledged Bernard's piety. — De Contro
versiis, vol. ii. 198, a. Either the printer, or the Cardinal himself, has
made a blind reference to Calvin ; for I cannot find the passage he refers
to. However, I can easily admit it, as Calvin often quotes Bernard, and
with great respect. So, then, with Bellarmine on one side of him, and
Calvin on the other, Bernard ought to be a virtual pope, and give in,fal-
lible testimony. His testimony about Bangor, therefore, admits neither
question nor appeal.

162 EARLY HISTORY OP
with many pious men, producing much fi'uit unto
God ; insomuch, that one of them, Luanus by name,
is said alone to have been the founder of an hundred
monasteries. Thus, its branches overspread Ireland
and Scotland, so as that versicle of the Psalmist might
seem to have forespoken of these times, ' Thou visitest
the earth and blessest it ; thou makest it very plen
teous.' (Ps. 65, 9.) Neither was it into the nations
before-named only, but into other countries abroad,
that those shoals of holy men poured themselves like
an inundation."^ He then particularly instances his
own native country, France, as highly indebted to
their benevolent labors. Now, surely, if Bangor
could flood Ireland, Scotland, Erance, and " other
countries abroad," with religious instructors and
heralds of salvation, then assuredly, then most as
suredly, Bangor alone might have sufficed to rescue
England from Pagan thraldom, and the Italian Au
gustine might safely have staid at home, and died in
his appropriate nest.
The ancient Irish Church, as you have seen, was in
full communion with the ancient British Church, while
it would not break the bread, nor darken the doors of
z Quoted in Lindsay's Mason, p. 89. Bernard lived 1090-1153. Comp.
Hospinian de TempHs, editio secunda, p. 421 ; edit, nova, p. 354. De
Monachis, 199. In the editio nova of 1669. The head of these Mission
ary Colleges was often, or habitually, a bishop, so as to ordain his pupils.
Thus, lona and Lindisfarne became episcopal sees. Thorndike instances
lona; and the case of Lindisfarne is indisputable. — Thorndike, de Ra
tione ac Jure Finiendi Controversias, p. 376. Thorndike's Latin works
will not be found in the Anglo-Catholic Library. St. Cuthbert died in 686
and was believed to be the tutelary Bishop of Lindisfarne ever after  to
have, for example, driven the Danes away in 794. — Pontoppidan's Gesta
~ tigia Danorum, vol. ii. p. 63.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 163
a Eomish Archbishop of Canterbury.'' This Church,
under St. Columba, founded, about A. D. 565, another
most useful and renowned theological institute, on the
island of lona, or Icolmkfll, an islet among the west-'
ern islands of Scotland, about two miles west of the
south end of the island of Mull. Of this seminary
of theology, says Archdeacon Churton, "There is
scarcely any other institution which Englishmen have
reason to remember with feelings of equal gratitude ;
for, from this retreat of piety came forth those heralds
of the Gospel, who taught the greater part of our
r-ude forefathers."*
A disciple, (or, as we should now say, a graduate)
of this ever-memorable institute, founded a third
school of the prophets, on the island of Lindisfarne —
now called Holy Island — an island in the German Sea,
near the east coast of England, about eight miles
south-east from the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed.
The island of Lindisfarne was converted, in A. D. 635,
into an episcopal see, by the King of Northumberland ;
and that see became, ultimately, the foundation of the
present well-known bishopric of Durham. It was the
a Mr. Soames fully confirms this. — Latin Ch. p. 51.
b Churton's Early Eng. Ch. new ed. p. 20. This is the island about
which Dr. Johnson wrote the often-quoted sentence of his journey to
the Hebrides. " That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would
not gain force upon the plain of Marathon ; or whose piety would not
grow warmer among the ruins of lona." — Jolmson's Works, viii. 392.
I-Colm-Kill means The Isle of the Church; or. The Cell of Columba.
Columba labored among the Picts and others thirty-two years. — Lappen-
berg's Anglo-Saxon England, vol. i. p. 132. " The abbot of lona appears
to have exercised » sort of primacy over the Christians of a great part
of Scotland, and even Ireland, till so late a period as the ninth century."
—C. J. Lyons's History of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, 1828, p. 15.

164 EARLY HISTORY OP
religious centre of Northumberland, one of the most
important of the kingdoms of ancient Britain ; and
its missionary influence and effectiveness were signal
and most momentous."
These three great seminaries of Christian theology
formed, if one may say so, a complete religious cordon
sanitaire around North England; and were enough
to have prevented ' the contagion of heresy, or pagan
ism, from spreading and polluting the land, for a
thousand years. They were all supplied (as we may
argue from the case of Bangor) with an immense
number of pupils, who were in no way a burden to
the public, being all taught the art (which we moderns
have boasted of, as an invention for our schools only)
of supporting themselves, and of living upon the min
imum of amount necessary for human sustenance.<z
c Churton's Early Eng. Ch. p. 61. Smith's Life of St. Columba, p. .".5.
The British monks were travelling missionaries ; the Roman monks were
recluses ; and, as Bede admits, troubled with segnitia, i. e., Anglice, lazi
ness. The authority will be quoted directly. Meanwhile, let the great
lawyer. Sir Thomas Ridley, speak. " Before his time [Benedict's] the
monks of the West Church served God freely abroad, without being shut
up in a cloister." — View of the Civile and Ecclesiastical Law, 2d ed. p.
1S7. These sort of Romans (the cloistered ones) were, doubtless, the
descendants of some ecclesiastical parasites whom St. Paul found hang
ing about the banks of the Tiber, in' his day. See his Epistle to the Ro
mans, xvi. 18.
d Such monks as these, even John Knox and John Calvin would not
have objected to. — Gorham's Reformation Gleanings, pp. 411^14. Sel
den compliments these monks, and castigates the Benedictines. Yet
he must not be censured for ill-temper ; he could castigate the Puritaus
also, though himself often called a Puritan. He calls the Puritans »
" wayward sect." He was a great jurist, and a profound antiquarian ;
and we may accept his judgment as eminently impartial. — See for the
monks, Seldeni Opera, vol. vi. column 1828; and for the Puritans, vol.
vi. column 1406. — Compare Hart's Eccl. Records, ch. iii. sect. 4.
The self-supporting character of the schools, and Church system gen-

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 165
As such, they were inexpressibly better fitted for mis
sionary labor, than the monks of Italian origin, whose
object it was to erect monastic seminaries, where in
mates might be supported in lazy and luxurious inde
pendence. Eapin faithfully characterizes the two
classes, when he says — "Before the Benedictines [the
Italian monks^ — Augustine himself having been prior
of the Benedictine monastery at Eome, an institution
founded by Gregory, his patron] were spread over the
island, the monks of St. Colomba, [lona], less given
to gain and worldly views, attended wholly to the ser
vice of God, in the places where they lived in com
mon. But the Benedictines never rested, till they
procured great numbers of monasteries with large
revenues, and caused the papal authority [which ac-
erally, of the ancient British Christians, is unquestionable, and should
carefully be remembered. According to Selden and Watson, the system
of tythes did not formally begin in England till the close of the eighth
century. — Seldeni Opera, vol. vi. col. 1179. — Watson's Clergyman's Law,
p. 4. — Harts Eccl. Reco?'ds, ch. iii. sect. 2. — Ridley on Civil and Eccl.
Law, p. 138, <Scc.
e " These Benedictines, with their several branches, were so numerous,
and so richly endowed, that, in their revenues, they did match all the
orders in England." — Geev^s CImrch History of Great Britain, p. 431.
"We may almost say," writes Archdeacon Williams, " that the intro
duction of Popery was the extinction of British monasteries —at least in
their primitive form." — Antiquities of the Cymry, pref p. xvi. In his
thirteenth chapter, he gives us some account of twenty-five Welsh sem
inaries, and says, "Such were some of the primitive monasteries of
Cymru, which the [old British] Church made use of to advance her in
terest in the land." Why, even Beda cannot help contrasting the monks
of lona with the lounging Benedictines of his day. Speaking of Aidan
from lona, he says, " His course of life was so difi'erent from the sloth-
fulness of our times." — Bede, bk iii. ch. v. or p. 277. Bede subjoins
something, which incidentally illustrates how primitive and un-Romish
Aidan was in his practices. He made every body who went about with
him (laymen and all) read his Bible ! How many of Rome's clergy set
such an example to their flocks in these days?

166 EARLY HISTORY OP
corded them independence and other immunities] to
be recognized throughout the seven kingdoms."/ It
was such institutions, whose property was confiscated
by Henry VIII. ; and when Eome is tempted to mur
mur at his rapacity, she had better remember that her
own rapacity furnished the temptation, and smother
her anathemas.? Henry would have found no plun
der at a Bangor, an lona, or a Lindisfarne ; and so,
if Augustine had not entered England, a reformation
of monasteries would not have been necessary, and no
wail would have been poured forth over their (so-
called) wanton demolition.
Eapin, you perceive, adds to his testimony about
the anxious zeal of the Benedictines^ for accumulation
of property, an observation about their equally anxious
/ Tindal's Rapin, 4th ed. i. -281.
g Reforms of monks and nuns always bring odium ou their advocates.
See the Memoirs of De Ricci, whom the nuns sometimes opposed aa
bitterly as the monks. Dumouriez, who pictures Portugal in 1766, says
that then one-half of the female convents were suppressed. — Dumourie^s
Account, etc., p. 174. Since then, Portugal has confiscated all the prop
erty of the Church, while Spain has done a good deal in the same direc
tion, and may do more. A Romish Archbishop once accused Philip
II. of butchering 2,000 priests, and members of religious orders, to
secure his usurpation of Portugal, and getting absolution at Rome, into
the bargain ! — Vertot's Revolutions of Portugal, p. 25. After such exhi
bitions, Romanists may as well be quiet about the conduct of Henry
VIII. The English king might have eaten up all his monasteries in
welcome, if, at the same time, he could have taken down and digested
the Pope's supremacy.
Least of all should Rome blame him, when it is to be remembered
that she has copied his example ! Will it be believed ? Pope Innocent
X., 1644-55, actually established at Rome a congregation for the sup
pression of monasteries ! Picart gives an account of it, in his Relir
gious Ceremonies, vol. ii. 192, London, 1734.
h The Benedictines, the only order of monks in England, before the
Conquest by William of Normandy. — Eccleston's English Antiquities,
p. 95, note.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 167
zeal for the sway of the papal authority. The solu
tion of the latter half of their devotion, is not as puz
zling as that of an affected quadratic equation in al
gebra. Gregory, with all his array of meekness, was
the first of the popes who granted monks exemption
from the authority of bishops, and constituted them the
body-guards, or retainers, of his own peculiar see.
Hence, the papal throne has never had, and never
win have, to the last day of its mortal history, such
loyal servitors and vassals, as those orders, of which
it is the solitary head, the direct point of intercourse,
and the always self-interested guardianj'
The principle with which the papal monks started
in England, was the one which Augustine inaugu
rated, and which his successors followed with sleepless
industry, viz. : Eoman conversions, rather than cath
olic ones — ^Italian conversions, rather than English
ones — conversions gainful to their own pockets, rather
than conversions to the common cause of Christianity.
i Bruy's Hist, des Papes, i. 383. Van Espen says he did not go all
lengths. — (Jus Canonicum, pars iii. tit. 12, oh. 2, n. 20.) Who ever sup
posed he did ? Others, by and by, developed the thing sufficiently. — ¦
Father Paul on Eccl. Benefices, 3d edit. 1736, p. 34. Subsequent popes
sold similar exemptions to universities. In a controversy between the
University of Oxford and an Abp of Canterbury, about his right of vis
itation, a British king was forced to exclaim, " The Pope doth as much
to bear down bishops as any Puritan in England." — Aylifi'e's Ancient
and Present State of tbe University of Oxford, edit. 1714, vol. ii. p. 259.
j During the temporary suppression of the Jesuits, a Papal nuncio
was found one of the best defenders of ex-Jesuits, " whom bis court
also supported, because it saw that, if it would continue to be a court, it
must not allow these vigorous satellites of its despotism to be crushed."
¦ — De Riccis Memoirs, i. p. 123. — Great Britain thought she had pro
vided against them, in the Emancipation Bill. But Miohelsen shows
how easily all the exceptions of that bill against the Jesuits have been,
and are still evaded. — Modern Jesuitism, pp. 122-25.

168 EARLY HISTORY OF
But the missionaries from the North were disposed
to allow their converts full liberty, in both ecclesias
tical and civil rights and interests, i. e., all the legiti
mate liberty reasonable or possible. Well does Arch
deacon Churton perceive this, and explicitly does he
say — after telling his readers that the Italian mission
aries rarely ordained a native Saxon to the ministry,
and the popes took special care to send all the early
archbishops of Canterbury from Italy* — " The Scot
tish churchmen, on the contrary, being less anxious to
prolong their own mission, than to make Christians of
the Saxons, began very soon to associate natives of
the country with them in their labors; and did not
maJce ii a point of turning iheir converts into Scotchmen."^
It is easy to see from this, which set of missionaries
endeavored to promote the genuine catholicity of the
Christian religion, and which the (so called) catholi
city of the Church of Eome !
Missionaries from Bangor, and lona, and Lindis
farne, are well known to the impartial, in the history
of the conversion of the Saxons to Christianity ; and,
without them, it is not too much to say, that the Latin
Church might have done its uttermost in Britain, and
struggled in vain.™ It is criminal, it is atrocious to

k " Eight Roman monks were successively Archbishops of Canterbury,
before that dignity, instituted for the Saxons, was attained by a man of
Saxon race." — Thierry's Norman Conquest, i. 45.
I Churton's Early Eng. Ch. new ed. pp. 65, 66.
m Comp. the note from Thierry, p. 5, this lecture. " The Scottish,
that professed no subjection to the Church of Rome, were they that sent
preachers for the conversion of these countries, and ordained bishops
to govern them." — Abp Usher's Religion of the Ancient Irish, ch. x. near
the end. The countries alluded to were North, Bast, and Middle Bug-

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 169
pass over their instrumentality in the conversion of
the Saxons, simply because they were dissenters from
Latin Christianity. Nevertheless, what they under
went, and what they accomplished, as a part of an
ancient, independent British, Scotch, and Irish Chris
tianity, is little known ; and, so far as Eoman histori
ans are concerned, might go down to posterity, " un
wept, unnoted, and for ever dead."" While Eomish
missionaries are surrounded, as it were, 'with all the
aids of the world of spirits, and achieve miracles, be
side which those of the apostles themselves look mea
gre and dim ! One miracle, however, be it formally
noted — ^the gift of tongues — ^the power to speak un
taught, the rough Saxon, and, as Fuller calls it, " the
more manly if less melodious," British" — seems, on
no occasion, to have been granted them. There was
none which soft- voiced Italians wanted more ; and it
was a gift which came, to genuine missionaries of
Heaven, unbidden and unexpected.? To iheir wishes,
however, it never was imparted — almost the only mir
acle, perhaps, which, in some shape or other, they could
not counterfeit !
And here my lecture must have an end. It has
exhibited to you (as is hoped) a still further and
land, or "the large kingdom of Mercia." How characteristic of Rome
to ignore such men, and to say coolly, with Pastorini, " The Saxons in
Britain received the Christian doctrine from St. Austin, and his com
panions ;" as if they, and they alone, had brought the knowledge of
Christianity to that people ! — Pastorini's Gen. History of the Chni/rch, p.
106. n Pope's Odyssey, v, 402.
0 Fuller, i. 163.— From his noble eulogy of the old British tongue.
p Britons and Saxons not converted to Popery, London, 1748, p. 316.
8

170 EARLY HISTORY OP
stronger proof of the unlikeness of the ancient Chris
tianity of England, of Wales, of Scotland, and of Ire
land, to the new Christianity which was imported from
Italy, and abetted by every possible Italian device,
and effort, and pains-taking, till Great Britain was
Eomanized to an extent, which rendered necessary
an ecclesiastical revolution. That revolution was the
Eeformation ;<! and when a revolution merely ejects,
and wipes off, and blots out a foreign intrusion and
usurpation, the most conservative mind on earth ought
not to summon it to an arbitrament. England never
submitted tamely or graciously, to the papal suprem
acy ;'¦ but always fretted and chafed under it, and won
back its independence, piece by piece, till with one
mighty, convulsive effort — ^like a man springing up
erect from a fit of the nightmare — it hurled the sov
ereignty of popery from its bosom. It has sent that
sovereignty on a long exile, of three hundred years ;
and its hopes of restoration seem few and faint indeed.
True, it has nominally appropriated England, a second
time ; but if the appropriation were worth the paper,
q Bp Gauden is certainly moderate enough ; yet he defends it fear
lessly. — Hieraspistes, p. 234, etc. ; Puller's Moderation of the Church of
England, ch. xvi. It was a great blessing to the Welsh ; for in the
reign of Henry VIII. they ceased to be aliens, and becarae entitled to
all tbe privileges of British subjects, "by act of Parliament." In
Queen Elizabeth's reign they had the Bible and the Liturgy, translated
for them into their native tongue. This is the way in which Protestant
ism treated them ! — Heylyn's Cosmography, 2d ed. pp. 323, 329.
r " It is to be observed that, as under the temporal monarchy of Rome,
Britain was one of the last provinces that was subdued, and one of the
first that was lost again ; so, under the spiritual monarchy of the pope,
England was one of the last countries in Christendom that received his
yoke, and one of the first that cast it ofi'." — Essays of Sir B. WhiMocke,
1706, p. 160.

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 171
or parchment, on which it is written, England's mighti
ness would be felt a second time, like the renovated
energies of Sampson. The most which popery can
now do, is to style Queen Elizabeth (as it does) the
mere Princess Elizabeth ;» and to intimate that all her
successors are usurpers, reigning without the allowance
of the see of Eome. It remains for England to re
quite this action by its parallels ; to send a bishop of
her own, with a fleet to back him, to the mouth of the
Tiber, and to treat the so-styled pontiff of Christen
dom as the Most Eev. Dr. Eerretti, a simple metropo
litan.* That would bring matters to a proper issue ;
and England would be acting in her proper character
• — and not, as she has sometimes done, for political
s Migne's Eucyclopedie Theologique ; Dictionnaire des Papes, 1857,
column 1137, art. Pius V. — Pius V. is the pontiff who first excommu
nicated Elizabeth and comviaiided his followers to dethrone her. Greg
ory XIII. had to issue a bull of suspension, to give papists temporary
exemption from Pius's mandates. But even he admitted that Pius's bull
was still binding on heretics. So Protestant England is as much under
its ban as ever ; and at the proper moment it will have full force given
it. — Phelan's Cliurch of Rome in Ireland, p. 181, etc. The abuse of Eng
land and of Elizabeth still continues. Some Romish writers grossly in
sult her memory, calling her " une femme a la fois reine, et papesse." —
Wordsworth's Letters to Gondon, vol. i. p. 295. This is the Jesuitically
artistic way of retorting for the story of Pope Joan.
t As to titles, the Council of Nice, and the ancient ecclesiastical histo
rians, call the pope simply. The Bishop of Rome. The Council of Chal
cedon call him archbishop ; and so they call the Bishop of Constantino
ple. Titles do not amount to much on an ancient page, as Blondel on
the Primacy shows, ex abundanti. On eight folio pages, (33-41,) bespat
tered all over with references, he proves that others have been as much
belauded with names of dignity, sanctity, and grandeur as the Bishop of
Rome. The oath exacted by Henry VIII. of Gardiner and Bonner, and
which they took, requires them to abate the former titles of the pope, and
to call him Bishop of Rome, or fellow brother only, " as the old manner
of the most ancient bishops hath been."— Hart's Ecclesiastical Records,
2d ed. p. 61.

172 EARLY HISTORY OP
ends, most grievously out of character — as, e.g., when
she fought the battles of Spain, and virtually restored
the Inquisition— the battles of Pius VIL, and virtu
ally restored the Jesuits.'' England has suffered some
what, of late years, at the hands of Eome ; and if so
— I am most sorry to say it, but must declare my can
did conviction — it is a recompense which she might
easily have forefended, and now richly deserves. It
may be hoped she will by and by bring on the right
issue with her quondam invader, and still insolent
and implacable foe. It wiU then be developed, un
mistakably, whether there is such a thing as undivid
ed loyalty to one's native country ; or whether such
loyalty, even if nominally sworn to, is an empty name.»
u The Inquisition at Goa was suppressed " at the recommendation of
the British government." Why, then, did it allow Ferdinand VII. of
Spain, whom it had restored to his throne, to establish a tribunal, whom
one of Britain's favored sons compared to " hell plucked up by the
roots ?" — See TAeut. Burton's Goa, etc., 1851, pp. 45, 46. Southey, in his
VindiciEO, p. 423, used the quoted language. He may have been reading,
when he wrote it, Rome's condemnation of Trautmansdorf on Tolera
tion, which was represented as "sprung from the bottom of hell." — Er-
skin^'s Ecclesiastical Sketches, 1790, p. 229. Or, an account of such treat
ment as Protestant Bibles have experienced in Ireland, where they have
been picked up with a pair of tongs, and buried in a dung-heap ! — Or-
pen's Refections, London, 1825, p. 40.
V Rome's hostility to a free government, and to oaths of allegiance to
any anti-Romish government, are things which ought to be better un
derstood than they are. Dr. Erskine shows, in a few words, that it
would be considered less of an offence to violate an oath to a non-Romish
government, than to keep it. Of course, s.uch an oath would not be
worth the ink it took to write it. — Ersldne's Sketches, pp. 133, 128. Com
pare Rosetti's Dissertations, vol. i. p. 50, and note c. J. Blanco White's
Evidence against Catholicism, Letter ii.
Well did Prof Tamburini exclaim, "There is nothing which more
needs explanation, for the young especially, than the object and limits of
ecclesiastical power." — Prcelectiones, vol. v. p. 8. As a specimen, in his
tenth prelection, he shows that the Roman Index was not a law in his

CHRISTIANITY IN ENGLAND. 173
Henry VIII. was accustomed to say — and want what
he might, he did not want for shrewdness — that there
was no such thing possible as genuine loyalty under
a foreign pontifical supremacy ; that, e. g., when fidel
ity to himself and fidelity to the pope conflicted,*" the
latter ever had the ascendancy in the breast of a Eo
man Catholic.*
country. Well might he be nervous, for De Ricci plainly said, that the
Court of Rome required bishops to resist governments, when they
trenched on the pope's rights, and dictated answers for them. — Memoirs,
vol. ii. pp. 8, 22. In a bull to the King of the Romans, in 1712, the pope
cancelled the oaths prejudicial to the rights of his Church. — Neve's Ani
madversions on Cardinal Pole's Life, p. 501. Paul the Third forgave any
one's sins, who died fighting for the Holy See ; and commanded the an
gels to take his soul straight to Paradise. — Foxes and Firebrands, part ii.
p. 24. Comp. Clarke on the King's and Pop^s Supremacy, ch. ii. Indeed,
as appears by the examination of Roger Holland, in the days of the Re
formation, it was then notorious, that neither Papist nor Anabaptist
would support any government not sworn to observe tliei/r tenets. —
Maitland on the Reformation, p. 569. In view of such, and similar things,
the able author of Hints on Toleration, London, 1810, comes to this con
clusion, " So long as either the inferior or dignified orders of the Papal
Hierarchy pretend to exercise the power of absolution, it will continue
essential to the peace of a Protestant State to forbid the inculcation of
their principles," p. 66. This same astute author explains, why the rule
of the Council of Constance, that faith is not to be kept with heretics to
the prejudice of the Church, does not appear in the council's printed acts,
and is so often denied and evaded. That was retained in manuscript ! —
Hints, etc., pp. 66, 841. Clarke on the Supremacy of ihe King and Pope,
p. 19. How can people, who will thus abuse the confidence of others,
expect any confidence in return ? Suspicion is the inevitable and undy
ing recompense of a deceiver.
w Compare Wordsworth's remarks on a Romish bishop's oath to the
Pope. — Letters to Gondon, vol. i. 282, etc. ; also, vol. ii. p. 55, etc. Even
the Spanish Church has objected to the phrase of that oath, " the royal
ties of St. Peter;" and commanded a clause to be inserted, to signify
that the oath was taken " without prejudice to the regal rights."— .Hafcs's
Pi-wnHive Church of the British Isles, pp. 316, 317.
X Queen Mary could not be queen of Ireland till the Pope made her
such. Paul IV. " afiirmed that it belonged to him alone, as he saw
proper, either to erect new kingdoms, or to abolish the old : however, he
condescended to erect Ireland into a kingdom, and then admitted the

174 EARLY HISTORY, ETC.
Let the great issue of loyalty to one's country be
then tried ; and come, if need be, at no distant day.
Protestantism will not shrink from the experiment
however bloody. It has lasted to Eome's daily and
hourly confusion, hundreds of years ; and if Eome
thinks it can be extinguished, the sooner it undertakes
that work by violence the better. Eome has lost and
is losing countries, while Protestantism is losing hand-
fuls ; and if Protestantism is to be annihilated for the
world's salvation, Eome has not a moment to lose in
undertaking the most formidable battle the world's
history will ever have on record.
I invoke no such issue. Brethren ; but my prayer is,
that God may prepare us, or our children, for its early
or tardy coming. Christ himself died for the victory
of the truth ; and if we so die, our death will be better
than a life of selfish enjoyment, prolonged beyond all
the lives of the antediluvian patriarchs consolidated
into one.

Queen's title to be assumed, from his own concession.'' — Clarke's Me
moirs of the King's Supremaey, amd of tlie Supremacy of the Pope, London,
1809, p. 80.

SERMONS
PEEACHED ON SEVERAL OCCASIONS.

SERMON I.
THE QUESTIONER OF FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES.
" And the serpent said unto the woman. Ye aliall not surtly die.
For Ood doth Tcnow that in the day ye eat thereof, then your
eyes shall ie opened ; and ye shall he cts gods, knowing good
and evil." — Genesis, iii. 4, 5.
It is supposed to be one of the peculiarities of this
age, that it calls in question, and boldly denies, prin
ciples which former ages esteemed impregnable, and
beyond all dispute. But it seems to me, my Brethren,
to be a great misconception, that it is either a very
new thing or a very strange thing to have the most
fundamental verities in mora'ls and religion exposed
to all sorts of attacks whatever. Is there, for instance,
any more material or irrefutable fact, in the history
of human nature, than its frailty and mortality ? any
fact which we ourselves should less sooner think of
denying, or gainsaying ? And yet, here is that fact,
denounced as incredible, and almdst farcical, at the
commencement nearly of our race's history — at the
period of its infancy — ^beyond all contradiction. In
8*

178 THE QUESTIONER OP
that period, we hear one saying of us, in language too
plain to be evaded. Ye shall not surely die. Saying
this too, you perceive, in terms of the most imperative
and unmistakable character — not hinting sceptically,
ye may not perhaps die; or maintaining, with the
self-persuasion of a rationalist, ye ought not surely to
die ; but affirming, with a right down positiveness, ye
shall not surely die.
And, moreover, in this example, you see with whom
this practice, of confronting and disputing fundamental
verities, commenced — with that first and most implac
able enemy of our race, who has been styled its mur
derer from the beginning — one who has never been con
tented with dislike of us, or alienation from us, but
has ever been contriving mischief, of the most deadly
character, for our present happiness and future hopes
— one who is not inaptly represented in Scripture, as
prowling with the remorseless appetite of a hungry
lion, seeking whom he may devour.
It is a practice, then, of satanic origin, of diabolical
temper and pertinacity, to withstand verities which
lie at the foundation of human history and destiny,
and the denial and disregard of which unsettles every
thing, and introduces lawlessness of opinion, untam-
ableness of will, and anarchy in action. Yet, bad as
the practice is, when contemplated from a stand-point,
which shows us how, and when, and by whom, it was
introduced into the world, mankind seem in nowise
to have given it up, or eschewed it, in any portion of
the chequered story of their degenerate race. This

FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 179
point I shall now endeavor to illustrate by examples ;
and then proceed another step, and illustrate its ef
fect upon ourselves, in making our faith too often a
perversion, and not a blessing.
I. — Efrst, then, let u^attend to some examples, from
various classes and conditions, which go unitedly to
show, that it is the characteristic of errorists, and par
ticularly of errorists in religion, to deny the most pal
pable verities, with the most confident and unyielding
dogmatism. I am sometimes gravely asked, how it is possible
for a man, who must have some doubts respecting the
position he assumes, in combating a known (at least
a widely acknowledged) truth, how it is possible for
such a man to assert, so frequently and so roundly as
he does, that the truth which he opposes is an evident
and flagrant error. And the philosophical answer I
suppose to be, that when a man has a feebler response
than usual, in behalf of some favorite opinion, from
his inward convictions, or from his conscience, that
then he endeavors to sustain himself, by the wordi
ness, or the persistiveness, or plausible sophistry of his
tongue. He seeks and provokes controversy, in order
to bolster himself up by false arguments ; fancying,
that if he can vanquish an antagonist without, he can
also allay his own qualms and disturbances wiihin.
And if we could see such a man, in his retirements,
even after he has acquitted himself famously, by false
logic and glossy rhetoric, in the presence of others, we
should find him as little satisfied with himself as ever,
and craving more than ever that solid certainty for

180 THE QUESTIONER OP
his positions, which he arrogated with pride in the
hour of fierce contention.''
Who can suppose, for an instant, that Satan, with
the ken of an archangel, was unawarerof the mortality
threatened to man for disobedience, and of the infalli-
bihty of its infliction, if man should venture to do
wrong ? Yet see how he outbraves his own inward
persuasions, and abashes his sensitive auditor by
brazen assurance. " Ye shall not surely die," is his
dogged premise ; and then he goes straight onward,
to clinch the matter, by an appeal which, it seems,
was too mighty for unfallen human nature, and has
always proved all but omnipotent with human nature
in its degeneracy — an appeal to pride and curiosity.
" Eor God doth know, that in the day ye eat thereof,
then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil." What consummate
shamelessness, what infernal art ! No wonder that
they achieved a triumph then, when they have been
achieving such triumphs for six long thousand years,
from the first doleful day when their career of reck
lessness began.
And now for some historic parallels to this attempt
to dispossess us of genuine faith, by openly impugning
established and fundamental verities.
a. — I find the first in the early history of schism.
Schismatics in the Church have often manifested the
u, Abusers of others in public suffer keenly enough in their retire
ments. I can never forget the description of Tacitus, referring to the
case of Tiberius : " Si recludantur tyrannorum mentes, posse adspici
laniatus et ictus ; quando, ut corpora verberibus, ita s sevitii, libidine,
mails consultis, animus dilaceretur." — Annals, lib. vi. 6.

FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 181
same self-confidence which the grand enemy of human
nature exhibited, without a resort to his peculiar arts,
and often, therefore, without his marvellous success.
The confessed schismatics who attended the Council
of Nice, A. D. 325, were invited there with unasked,
and, probably, with unexpected courtesy. Their chief
point of difference with their neighbors was, not mat
ters of doctrine, or matters of discipline, but a matter
of feeling — they, for instance, feeling themselves to be
spiritually purer and better than those neighbors, so
that they looked upon their pretensions to piety with
absolute disallowance, if not disdain.
And now were these men (called the Cathari, or the
Puritans of those days) at all squeamish about their
ecclesiastical separation, or any more to be reasoned
with than their successors of modern times, who have
looked upon themselves as the genuine elect of Hea
ven, and upon others as doubtfully, if at all hopefully,
converted. By no means — -by no manner of means,
whatever. Even the condescension of the illustrious
Constantine, the first great Christian emperor, could
not move them one iota from their anchorage of un-
charitableness towards others, and settled satisfaction
with themselves. He held a parley with their chief
bishop — since the Puritans of those days did be
heve in bishops, when they had the office and the
power of it in their own keeping. He inquired, and
he argued, and he remonstrated, and he appealed.
But he fljight as well have held a conference with the
winds, and attempted to wheel them in their devious
circuits. He abandoned the case in utter despondency.

182 THE QUESTIONER OP
and with this ever- memorable warning. Plant a ladder,
said he, by yourself, and climb alone into heaven.*
Such an example has schism followed a thousand
times, instead of once, and pursued its separation and
its intolerance with a steadiness which, in a better
cause, might entitle it to the glories of martyrdom.
And heresy has done as famously, if not more so, in
some of its bruited chieftains. Socinus, the founder of
modern Socinianism, was certainly one of these ; and
he was a man, too, who had had contentions enough
with some of his own disciples to render him some
what diffident about the impregnability of his theolo
gical position. Not improbably he had as frequent
qualms in private, as many like him have had, when
they found themselves warring with the common sen
timent of the Church, and the general current of its
history. Yet in public, while in the attitude of controversy,
when he had a bad eminence to keep, and a wrong
self-consistency to maintain, no one could be bolder — ¦
bolder to rashness, and even folly. Why, exclaimed
he to an antagonist, I am as certain of the truth of my
opinions, as that I hold this hat in my hand." An
allegation in which he took the ground, that his opi
nions were as demonstrable as facts open to the senses,
or present to one's consciousness. But this is more,
perhaps, than can be asserted for the being itself of
God. The existence of a God is not an object of
knowledge, but an object of belief — not an object of
b Socrates, Ecc. Hist, bk i. ch. x.
c Bibliotheca Fratrum, Pol. ii. 768.

FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 183
consciousness, but of firm persuasion. Whence, it ap
pears, that Socinus claimed for his opinions a degree
of certainty which no metaphysician can claim for the
foundation-truth of all religion whatever — the exist
ence of a Supreme Being.
c. — Still (to go on to another case), Socinus was not
more positive of his theological correctness than the
infidel Eousseau was of his moral correctness. Eous-
seau published confessions to the world which held
up to public view his own shame, and the shame of
manifold contemporaries. But with what species of
moral air and bearing, think you ? Why, with a sort
of defiant heroism upon which apostles have not ven
tured, when giving to the world, not their own lives,
but that of Jesus Christ. " These," said John, epitom
izing the object of his Gospel in a single sentence,
" These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus
is the Christ, the Son of God ; and that, believing, ye
might have life through his name."''^ But when
Eousseau issued pages reeking with scepticism and
hbertinism, this was his fool-hardy bravado. " Let the
last trumpet sound when it will, I will come with this
book in my hand, and present myself before the So
vereign Judge. I "will boldly proclaim, thus have I
acted, thus, have I thought, such was I,  and
then let a single one tell thee, if he dare, I was better
than that man."
d. — Eousseau outstripped apostles, who published
nothing for their own glorification, and was unques-
d John, XX. 31.

184 THE QUESTIONER OF
tionably a peer in self-confidence to the schismatic
and heretic ; 'but the idolaters of ancient Ephesus
were, possibly, more than peers for both, and all.
Hear their unequalled professions of assurance, as
given us in the Acts of the Apostles. They averred
that all Asia, and the world beside, had the same
object of devotion with themselves. They declared
that there was not a man upon earth who did not
know Ephesus — their religious home — and the great
goddess, Diana, before whose shrine they offered
homage. Nay, to crown the climax of assumptions,
they vehemently maintained that these were things
not only undenied, but undeniable — things which
could not be spoken against."
Every human being, you perceive, was challenged
by them, to attest and dignify the religion of avowed
idolatry. They describe such a religion as one spread
ing far and wide, till it has attained unrivalled univer
sality. Nay, more, they depict it not only as a religion
commanding universal homage and admiration, but as
a system which had not only never been excepted to,
but which could not be excepted to. It was not to be
pronounced against, by mortal tongue ; for its doctrines
were as obvious as axioms, and as safe from contra
diction as the laws of matter.
Such, then, are the manifestations of self-confi
dence, and of a disposition to arraign, question, and
contradict any opinions, not accordant with its indivi
dual preferences, which have been developed in such
e Acts, xix. 27-86.

FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 185
characters as Satan, as schismatics, as heretics, as in
fidels, as idolaters. And am I now asked, whether it
is at all new, or strange, for persons in grievous error
to array themselves against the most incontestable,
and most generally accepted truths whatever ; my an
swer is, that familiarity with such deplorable histories
as those of Satan himself, as those of the ringleaders
in our world's moral mischiefs (the schismatic, the
heretic, the infidel, and the idolater,) can satisfy any
inquirer, that the habit of disputing the most sacred
and fundamental verities, is one which has infected the
ranks of the enemies of true religion, like the virus
of pestflence. It has maddened them into a delirium
of impiety. They have struck at such truths, with as
httle modesty, and as little evidence of remorse or
hesitation, as Satan exhibited, when he uttered before
High Heaven the palpable and damnable falsehood.
Ye shall not surely die.
Of course, then, the same habit is to be anticipated,
and encountered, and provided against, still. It must
never surprise us, therefore, to encounter it, or to en
counter it in an apparently aggravated form. Error
(like Satan himself, the grandest errorist we know of,)
will assume any form, in which it can maintain its
favorite sentiments. If necessary, it can come in the
beaming and winning garb of an angel of light. But
if it may be less complaisant, if it may be dashy, brow
beating, imperiously dogmatical, it will assume a port,
not one whit less overbearing than Satan's, when he
pronounced the seductive lie, which first shook human

186 THE QUESTIONER OF
confidence in the truth of God — the lie which our
text has engraved upon an everlasting record.
Oh, my Brethren, be not abashed, or disheartened,
by the sturdy, inflexible impudence of error. It
spares not (as you have seen) the declarations of God's
own lips — not the most solemn, the most mandatory,
the most pregnant, or the most far-reaching of them.
Be not thrown from your balance, then, when it
strives to overturn your faith in them, or in any one
of them, by arraying itself in the panoply of an assur
ance, in which Satan himself has been its great exem
plar, tempter and persuader. Let not such patterns
make your hearts grow cold with apprehension, and
your fortitude give way. Fly to the shelter of such
encouragement, as Christ gave his wavering apostles,
"Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God,
believe also in me." Believe you in Jesus, though his
worst foe, and your own worst antagonist tells you to
believe rather in your own hearts' wishes, and your
reason's brave conjectures. Let the voice of eternal
wisdom ring in your ears, when the lies of vanity,
and self-confidence, and pride, and prying curiosity,
tempt you to listen to their insinuations— I say, rather
than listen to such things, let the voice of eternal wis
dom ring in your ears, the testimony which Solomon
verified by bitter experience, " He that trusteth in
his own heart is a fool."/
II. — And now, in the next place, to help on this
admonition, let me show you some of the disastrous
/ Prov. xxviii. 26. The heart, with the Hebrews, was the seat of in
tellect, as well of moral sentiment and affection.

FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 187
effects produced in men, by listening not to the truest,
but the boldest, asserter of moral and religious opin
ions. The chief mischief which results from it is, that it
inclines us at last to reverse entirely the declaration
of Scripture, "It is better to trust in the Lord, than
to put confidence in man."^
How singular, my Brethren, considered from a just
and proper point of view, how profoundly singular,
that it should -be necessary for the highest authority
and wisdom in the universe, to utter such a declara
tion ! Why, one would suppose, that a child, fresh
from its leading strings, would hardly need an inspired
warrant for the proposition, that it is better to trust
Omnipotence, than the most incessant and incurable
frailty — Omniscience, than a sagacity which cannot
penetrate the secrets of one to-morrow, and provide
against its disasters. But there the record lies, penned,
as it were, by the Lord's own hand, that it is better to
trust the Lord, than to put confidence in the poor
creatures of his power. And if such a record has had
to be blazoned before us, it must so have been made
conspicuous, because it states a fact, or result, contrary
to all usual human experience — one, as it were, of
Mr. Hume's miracles — ^because, as a habit, man es
teems it better to trust one like himself, than One like
the God who made him, and who may rightfully claim
his unbounded and perpetual homage.
But whence, oh whence, and why, this sad defalca-
g Psalm cxviii. 8 — "Any confidence." Psalter translation.

188 THE QUESTIONER OP
tion from rectitude, this contradiction of (one might
well say) the simplest axiom of salvation, that we
should go to an original source for help in an ex
tremity, and never rely in preference on those which
are secondary and far inferior? Why should man
stop short -with his fellow, and demonstrate it to be so
easy to put faith in him, and so difficult, so habitually
difficult, so arduously difficult, to take a few steps
further onward, and put not a different faith, or less
faith, but the same faith, in God himself, all-knowing
and almighty ? The secret (at least one good part of
it) is, human impressibility under dogmatisrn and self-
assurance, and human insusceptibility before quiet,
modest, self commending truth. Propositions which
have the readiest and the loudest oracle to endorse
them, are heard with open ears; while those which
speak but to our consciences, to our wayward earthly
wills, are heard with suspicion, reluctance, or aversion.
We find it easier to put confidence in man, when man
tells us with an audacity resembling Satan's — what
our degenerate nature tikes — than to trust in the Lord,
when lie tells us, with an Amen which neither earth
nor heaven can shake one atom, what our degenerate
nature liketh not.
And we shall ever do so, if we wfll allow schism,
or heresy, or any form of pestflential error to attract
and bend us, by its noisy, dogmatical, persistive decla
rations. It is easier for a perverted mind to defend
and to propagate error, than we imagine. Such a
mind rejoices in the destruction of our mental equi
poise, or innocence. It revels in the unholy gratifioa-

FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 189
tion of producing in another mind the disturbances
which harrass and vex its own. Satan's soul was
like the troubled ocean, "chafing with its shores,"
and he would fain have put the minds of our first pa
rents into a similar turbulent condition. He knew, as
surely as he knew his own existence — ^he knew ly and
in the pangs of a never-wasting misery, that God not
only would not, but that he could not lie. And yet
he maintained, with outward unquailing pertinacity,
that God had uttered a palpable and a conscious fal
sity: "Ye shall not surely die; for- God doth know,
that in the day ye eat thereof, your eyes shall be
opened, and ye shall be as gods, kno-wing good and
evil." And he pronounced this with a tongue as un
faltering and ofly, as that of an advocate who tells
a jury his client is absolutely innocent, when he
knows, in his secret soul, that if legally and techni
cally innocent, he is morally a villain of crimson dye.
And a jury accredit such statements just as our first
parents accredited Satan ; because they would a little
rather believe so, than be constrained to believe other-
¦wise, and exercise an uncomfortable responsibility.
My Brethren, if we are going upon the principle of
pleasing ourselves rather than of profiting ourselves
by the faith we adopt — and especially of pleasing our
selves in time, rather than of profiting ourselves in
eternity — of pleasing what St. Paul calls the corrupt
law in our members, rather than the high and holy
law of a sanctified mind — then we shall perpetually
put confidence in ourselves, rather than in something
above ourselves, and better than ourselves ; creatures.

190 THE QUESTIONER OP
the architecture of whose beiijg is Divine, but who
have defaced and abused that architecture, till it has
become ruinous and unrehable.^ Then we shaU go
on reversing the maxim of heavenly prudence, as our
race has been reversing it for thousands of years, and
shall find it easier and better to put confidence in man,
than to trust the Lord that made man, and that bought
him off' from ruin, when man had unmade himself.
Settle it, therefore, beforehand, whether you wfll have
an agreeable faith, or a saving faith — a faith for the
self-sufficiency of reason, or a faith for the necessities
of the soul — a faith for this world, or a faith for the
world to come. If you want a faith adapted to this
life merely, then listen to such perverters as assured
Eve, that God's sorest threatenings are empty -wind,
and 'will never be fulfilled — that God's supremest de
clarations, even about himself, are not to be taken as
original and infallible law, but must be tested under a
higher law, must be brought to trial before the court
of your own petty judgment, and be accepted or dis
allowed accordingly.
Doubtless you can have your way about these
things, as well as about concerns of inferior impor
tance. It is the awful prerogative of free agency, to
believe a lie, when a lie is asserted with the roundness
and steadfastness of truth. And when a free agent
has long perverted this sacred liberty, from the high
and holy function to which God at first consigned it,
then God judicially gives him the reins, and helps
h Ezekiel, vii. 20.

FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES. 191
him onward in the terrible work of moral declension.
He allows strong delusions to enter and prepossess his
self dishonored soul, so that it learns to believe lies,
rather than truth ; precisely as a corrupted sensual ap
petite,  "though to a radiant angel Unked,
WiU sate itself in a celestial bed,
And prey on garbage."i
" Hear," says a poet, not of sesthetics, but of high
morality, "Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies,
He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies ;
And he who will be cheated to the last,
Delusions strong as hell shall bind him fast'V
Behold your fate then, ye who are ready to be se
duced by the bold mien, the loud voice, and the so
phistic tongue of error, questioning truth in its most
fundamental forms. Error shall become your down-
bearing, iron-handed taskmaster, if you listen to its
daring insinuations. You may be deluded, hood
winked, rendered bat-blind, and doubt your own self-
evident mortality. But, ah, what will this beguiling
hallucination av.ail you, when God taketh away the
soul ? Since inevitable truth and you must, sooner or
later, come in direct and fateful contact, why blink it,
and shun it, now ? It will pierce your soul, at length,
like a sword, if you will not now give its gentler ad
dresses welcome. It will only acquire fresh weight,
i Hamlet, i. 5. j Cowper's Progress of Error.

^^^ THE QUESTIONER, ETC.
by your futfle rebeflion against its claims ; and in vin
dicating those claims finally it wiU grind you to pow
der. Oh, believe in the doctrines of Christ your
Eedeemer, now ; or the repulse of Christ your Judge
win thrust you into the depths of hell.

SERMON II.
THE BURNING BUSH : ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS.
" And the angel of the Lord appca/red unto him, out of the
midst of a hush ; and he looJced, and, hehold, the hush hurned <
with fire, and the hush was not consumed.'" — Exodus, iii. 3.
There is so much of the curious and the beautiful
in the Divine manifestation here brought to view, that
it were to be wished its moral significance might be
approached without delay. But it is not the destiny
of the most important texts, to be always the mo.st
accessible. When the courtier of Queen Candace was
meditating upon one of the profoundest of the pro
phecies of Isaiah, he had to pause and rest upon the
question, " Of whom speaketh the prophet this T\
And, thus here, my Brethren, such and so numerous
have been the theories indulged respecting this sym
bolic representation of Divinity, that we must turn
aside from the more interesting and more momentous
question, about its moral pertinency, to enquire con
cerning its bare signification. Our first business,
then, with the text, is the somewhat unattractive one
a Acts, viii. 34.

194 THE BURNING BUSH:
of determining its proper interpretation. But as the
step is absolutely necessary for progress, it is hoped
you will follow it without aversion.
The text, as you are informed, has been the subject
of conjecture, and an illustration of the versatility of
criticism. I must take my choice, therefore, among
authorities, and offer you the suggestions which have
prevailed in my own mind, with the reasons which
have governed my conclusions.
The most prevalent theories of the text have made
the bush, with its envelope of fire, a symbol of the
Mother of our Lord* — a type, e. g., of her perpetual
virginity — ^or a symbol of our Lord's incarnation in
the likeness of sinful flesh — or a symbol of the Church
amid the onsets of persecution. Thus, some even of
the Fathers suppose a bush, which was burning, yet
not consumed, an emblem of a virgin mother who re
mained a virgin still. While, with others, a lowly
bush, a bramble, perhaps, which was inhabited and
illuminated with an unkindled, unwasting flame,
seemed an apt prototype of God manifest in the flesh
— a problem which was unfolded and demonstrated in
the person of Jesus Christ. With most, however, the
bush, surrounded and interpenetrated with fire, yet
unharmed, and, most especially, unconsumed for a
long time, appears to be an exact and striking picture
of the Church, amid the assaults and furies of persecu
tion, none of which can prevail against her, though
they emanate from the gates of hell.
b Limborch on the Inquisit. p. 465.

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS, 195
Now, from each and all of these theories I am con
strained, not rashly, I trust, nor superciliously, but with
modest firmness, to dissent. And I do so, my Breth
ren, on the ground of that great and invariable rule of
interpretation which bids us look, not to our own fan
cies, but to a writer himself, for his meaning ; and, if
any passage in his pages be doubtful, to have regard
to his general scope or drift, and to study his context
thoroughly. Under such a rule, the idea that our
text has reference to the Virgin Mary, or to our Sa
viour's incarnation, may be at once dismissed ; for
how easy, soever, to .conceive of the fitness of the bush
and the fire to represent such things, the great Law
giver does not throw out the remotest hints to us, to
suppose them intended or adapted for such a purpose.
The only theory of consequence which remains,
then, is the one which supposes the bush and the fire
to symbolize the Church in the midst of affliction and
persecution, with her capability and certainty of final
triumph. It will be more difficult to prove that this
is not the idea — to say the very least, the leading and
primary idea — designed to be conveyed by these ex
pressive emblems ; and, accordingly —
I. My first effort will be, to show what (if the text
is not designed to impart a lively conviction respecting
such points,) it is the rather designed to mean.
The rule, the great rule of interpretation, to seek for
what an author actually means in his own words,
rather than for what we ourselves might have meant by
similar words ; and to seek for that out of himself, out
of his scope, drift and context, rather than out of our

196 THE BURNING BUSH:
own fancies, has been distinctly mentioned. Now,
then, with the narrative before us, respecting the
burning bush, the true question is, What is the promi
nent subject of the portion of the Sacred Narrative
where we find it, and what was its significance in the
view of God, and of Moses, the high minister of God's
will ? What were the circumstances under which the
manifestation of God in the bush was made ? I say
the manifestation of God himself ; for I wfll not
trouble you with the impertinent distinctions which
critics have tried to make here, between God and his
angel. An angel might have been the forerunner, or
herald of Jehovah, on this occasion, as on a hundred
others ; yet nothing is more certain than that the
speaker was God, addressing Moses in his own name,
and in a style of complete supremacy and majesty.
The circumstances which called forth this peculiar
demonstration of the Almighty were, unquestionably,
the calamities which were hovering over, and har
assing, his peculiar people. We have his own ex
press testimony for this. " And the Lord said, I
have surely seen the aflfiiction of my people which are
in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their
taskmasters ; for I know their sorrows. "« And his
design in making himself visibly known was, unques
tionably, also to give them assurance that he would
manifest himself in their behalf, and accomplish their
speedy and effectual deliverance.
But now comes a question of the greatest point and
c Exod. iii. 7.

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 197
moment. How should this be done? Here were a
people notoriously testy and incredulous, (as even the
temper and answers of Moses himself demonstrated,) '
and if no token of higher significance were given, than
had been given already, they, would fall back into
their old querulousness, and murmur as bitterly, and
doubt as distrustfully, as ever. It need scarcely be
said, that God himself was fully aware of this. He is
prepared for the captiousness- of Moses, when he
shrinks from the commission of approaching Pharaoh
with a warning from above. " And Moses said unto
God, who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and
that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of
Egypt ?"'^ And God's answer was immediately ready,
" Certainly I will be with thee ; and this shall be a
token unto thee : When thou hast brought forth the
people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this moun
tain." Nay, and when Moses persists, a further answer
was ready, which carried the argument to the utmost
— appealing to the very loftiest of all prerogatives in
the Godhead — its Self-existence — that attribute of Di
vinity which the incommunicable, and, to a Jew, the
unpronounceable name, Jehovah, is intended to mark
and honor.« " And God said unto Moses, I am that
I AM : and He said, thus shalt thou say unto the chil-
dren of Israel, I am hath sent me unto you."/
The meaning of " I am" is, I am by myself, and of

d Ex. vii. 11.
e Wisdom, xiv. 21. Josephus, Antiq. ii. 12. 4. Moses uses Exod.
xxxiv. 9.
/ Ex. iii. 14.

198 THE BURNING BUSH:
myself, i. e., independent and underived — perfectly
self-existent, and as such, of course, the source of all
life, power, and action. The word "Jehovah" cor
responds, in Hebrew, to "I am" in Enghsh; and as
has been said, is deemed so awfully sacred by a Jew,
that he never -will utter it, but always substitutes fox
it, in his reading of the Old Testament, some other
title of Divinity; generally that one which means
"The Lord." And this pecuhar deference for the
loftiest of the Divine appellations has been followed,
too, by the translators of our Bible ; who almost inva
riably abstain from using the word Jehovah, although
it is said to occur in the Old Testament more than six
thousand times.
So, then, it appears, that when God addressed him
self to his faint-hearted and distrustful people, he con
descended to use with them the last and loftiest of
arguments to subdue their fears and re-animate their
hopes. And as his main object in his interview with
Moses, was to accomplish this gracious purpose, the
simple and ob'vious question follows, whether the em
blems under which he made himself manifest, relate
to himself personally, or to them? Many, and per
haps most readers, consider these emblems as relative
to the Jews, i. e., to the Church of which they then
constituted the -visible embodiment. But there seems
to me an evident and regnant propriety in view of the
context, in regarding them as bearing a closer relation
to God himself; for himself was the subject of dis
cussion, and his great object was to make such a rep
resentation of himself, and produce such impressions

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 199
respecting himself, as would inspire Israel with cou
rageous and sustaining expectations. Accordingly, I
feel constrained to look, not so much at the bush, as
at the fire in the bush, and to consider that fire as an
emblem of those high and inapproachable preroga
tives to which God had appealed to show forth his
capacities as a guardian and defender of his people.
I look at the fire as an emblem of self-existence, as a
symbol of the I AM, the uncaused, self-supporting
power from which all things proceed, and by which
all things consist. There is nothing above, or beyond
such power ; there is nothing by the side of it, or
parallel to it ; every thing else is infinitely beneath it
— ^is at its very footstool ; and by thus reveahng him
self to Israel, under that character by which he stands
at the summit of the universe, and waves his sceptre
over all things in heaven and earth, and hell, God
gave the highest possible of sanctions- to all his ut
terances, and encouraged a faith which no changes or
chances, fates, fortunes, or vicissitudes could possibly
disturb. And now, do you ask hnw could the fire symbohze
such infinite supremacy ? a supremacy for our aspira
tion's most soaring reach, and for our faith's most
stable confidence ? Why, in this simple way. It was
a fire which nothing occasioned, which nothing fed,
which nothing kept ahve. Its being in a bush, and,
according to Josephus, in a thorn-bush, shooting out
into the tenderest twigs, covered all over with leaves
and flowers-j-the likeliest of all things to be withered
by fire's slightest touch — and yet, whfle such, not

200 THE BURNING BUSH:
crisped, or wflted even, in the least degree — proved,
to the most consummate demonstiation, that the fire
was one of which it could be said no earthly fuel — no
such elements as we are conversant with — ^had kindled
it, or cherished it, or prolonged its burning. And, as
such, it was prodigy indeed — a prodigy which might
confound Atheism itself; and enforce its belief in its
greatest stumbling-block, an uncaused cause.
But it is singular, and worthy particular attention,
that this is the very aspect of the matter which pre
sented itself to Moses. Moses was no mean philoso
pher, as wefl as a great prophet. He " was learned
in all (it is the express testimony of inspiration) in all
the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in
words and in deeds."? He had, doubtless, seen the
tricks of Egyptian magic a thousand times, and was
an apt subject, not for an illustration barely, but for a
philosophical fllu.stration of an attribute of God which
no art could copy or invalidate. So God presented such
an illustration to his experienced eye ; and, as the re
sult proved, Moses was dra^wn towards it instantly,
with all the curiosity of a philosopher, and smitten
¦with just that wonder which philosophy confesses to,
when her conjectures are dashed and silenced by stub-
bom and indisputable facts. " I will now turn aside,"
he exclaimed, " and see this great sight, %vhy the bush
is not burnt;" or, more literally and precisely, "why
the bush "wiU not burn."* Moses, you perceive, enters
into the spirit of whys and wherefores, almost like a
g Deut. xxxiv. 10; Acts, vii. 22. h Ex. iii. 3.

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 201
skeptical and prying unbeliever. Hume ought to
have praised him for his philosophical temper, as
much as Longinus did for his rhetorical sublimity.
There are other considerations, also, which induce
me to think that the fire, rather than the bush, is
the prominent emblem in this notable representation.
The ground on which the emblem was exhibited be
came holy ground. God repelled the presumptuous
curiosity of his servant, who would, perhaps, have
thrust his hand into the blaze, to ascertain if it were
a reality, or an optical delusion, like the mirage of the
desert. " Draw not nigh hither," was his warning ;
" put off thy shoes from off thy feet ; for the place
whereon thou standest is holy ground."* This indi
cated the personal presence of- the Almighty, rather
than a mere unrolling of a picture of his Church's des
tiny. The same peculiarity attended the place, where
the flame shot up to mid-heaven from the heights of
Sinai -,1 and here, as well as there, a voice is heard out
of "the midst of the fire," betokening a speaker
whose words are a fiat of life or death ; who is " the
head of all principality and power.";!;
But the personal presence of God, in this most
curious scene, and its design to symbolize himself,
rather than the Church — his power, rather than the
Church's perils — ¦ seems to be rendered incontest
able, by the allusion of Moses himself, afterwards,
to " Him that dwelt in the bush,"^ and by our Sa
viour's appeal to it, as a demonstration of God's su-
Ex. iii. 5. / Deut. iv. 11, 12.' k Col. ii. 10. I Deut. xxxiii. 16
9* •

202 THE BURNING BUSH:
premacy over life' — which is, beyond question, the
highest of gifts, and which, unoriginated, is the loftiest
of endowments. " And as touching the dead," said
Christ to the skeptical Sadducees, " that they rise ,
have ye not read in the Book of Moses, how, in the
bush, God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of
Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob ?""* " For he is not a God of the dead, but of
the living ; for all live unto him."'«' With Christ,
therefore (the surest of all interpreters), the approach
of God to man under the emblem of an unkindled,
unfed fire, was a demonstration of himself, as One
who hath immortality, in the strict sense of the term ;
or, as St. Paul afterwards expressed it, " who only
hath immortality," i. e. who only hath it in himself;
and who, only and alone can give it or withhold it
— can inspire life, or can extinguish it — can make
a creature an inmate of that Paradise, where the river
of water of life flows perennially and forever,o or can
lay the axe to the root of the tree, and destroy both
soul and body in hell.
And now. Brethren, to sum up what has been ad
vanced, under this branch of our subject, can you
conceive of any emblem. so significant of a Power,
which enjoys life underived, and can impart it at will,
as a fire which ijothing has kindled, and which burns,
vigorously and luminously, without fuel for its flame
to feed on ? Fire unoriginated, is, to our apprehen
sion, not only an impossibility, but an impossibility of
m Mark, xii. 26. n Luke, xx: 38. o Rev. xvii. 1, 2.

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 203
the most impracticable nature. We can scarce con
ceive of it. It is fire, not ideally alone, but actually in
the abstract ; and that is an affair which puts even
imagination at defiance. What an emblem is such fire,
then, of an unoriginated,-self existent God — of an I am,
who was from eternity, and will live onward to eter
nity, the same unwearied, unwasting, independent one 1
Still, while fire cannot enkindle itself, what imparts
and multiplies itself more easily ? And, here again,
how perfect and exquisite the emblem, to illustrate
God's power to impart and diffuse life, when it is his
pleasure to communicate it. A touch enables a blaze
to light up its counterpart. An impulse of the Divine
will, an inspiration of the breath of the Almightv
makes life mount upward from a heap of dust ; ana
the clay which was a little while before an impassive
statue, becomes man in the similitude of his self-
moving Maker.
And such, then, was the matchless flre, which he
that dwelt in the bush employed, as a symbol of his
uncreated, unaided power and glory. The bush helped
not that mysterious flame : not a twig, not a leaf, not
a petal of its flowers, assisted to sustain its blazing
brightness. Of course, such a flame might have
burned perpetually, without reference to time. One
day would have been with it like a thousand years,
and a thousand years as one day. And of a truth,
self-existence knows neither beginning, nor ending,
nor diminution. It is yesterday, and to-day, the same ;
and forever.* It is an unsupplied, yet an un waning
fire. It is the miracle of miracles ; it is the secret of

204 THE BURNING BUSH :
all secrets; it is the deepest of the deep things of
God. II. — And now, having reached the meaning of the
sacred and awful symbol, under which God represent
ed himself to Moses, in Mt. Horeb, we come naturally
to its argument — its practical bearing and importance :
primarily, of course, to the Israelites ; and, seconda
rily, for our own selves.
Let it be granted, then, that it is the fire chiefly,
and not the bush, which is emblematical, and that the
unfed fire is a most impressive emblem of the Divine
self-existence, the question presents itself. How could
a revelation of this attribute of the Almighty have
any peculiar pertinency to Israel, bowed down with
affliction to the very dust ?
It is indisputably evident, that God himself thought
it had such pertinency, and expected Israel to remark
it, and to dwell upon it; for he said to Moses, just
after the revelation in question, and when Moses had
entered upon the commission of duty which it author
ized, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and
unto Jacob, by the Name of God Almighty ; but, by
my Name Jehovah, was I not known to them."?
With God, then, with God himself, so that there
can be no possible mistake or doubt on this point, a
revelation of his Self-existence is a higher revelation
than one of his Almightiness : — whence it follows,
that to appeal to his self-existence, is to appeal to
something loftier than Omnipotence, and to rely upon
' p Ex. vi. 3.

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 205
it is to rely upon the strongest possible assurance
which even Divinity itself can give.
We might not so have construed and measured
Divine capacities. We should have seized, perhaps,
upon an argument drawn from the Divine Omnipo
tence, as the most potential and upbearing of all
others. If Omnipotence were on our side, we should
have said that all was on our side which the universe
could possibly supply, and that we raight rest con
tented and secure.
But there is something further back, in the immen
sity of the Godhead, than even boundless power.
There is that which is the basis, or substratum, or
whatever metaphysicians are pleased to call it — es
sence, if the term suits them any better — there is that,
I say, upon which every element of Deity falls back,
and in which it may be said to find subsistence and
support. And this is self-existence, an attribute
which looks to no outward cause for origin, or suste
nance, or continuity. One can conceive, certainly, of
Omnipotence, or a power seemingly Omnipotent, which
may be communicated; which can accordingly be
withheld, or terminated, or which will cease by its own
inherent limitations. And so of Omniscience, or of
a power apparently Omniscient. And still more so of
wisdom, of holiness, of justice, and of mercy. Who,
however, can conceive of communicated self-existence
— an existence independent of God Ii or who can con
ceive of any such existence, as subject to any superi-
^'
q The Son has the same self existence as the Father. — John, v. 26.
Hence they are one in divinity.

206 THE BURNING BUSH :
ority, subjugation, or control ? When, then, we reach
self-existence, we reach what may be called the fun
damental and profoundest element of the Godhead —
the very sublimest, remotest, and mightiest of Divine
capacities — the highest of things high, the greatest of
things great throughout the universe, whether of mat
ter or of mind.'"
Now, if so, then what higher sanction is there, than
an appeal to God's self-existence? What stronger
assurance, than one which rests upon this attribute for
its foundation ? There is nothing beyond the I AM —
there is nothing even in Divinity itself — more majestic,
or more supreme, than is conveyed to us under this
Divinest of" Godlike appellations. And, if so, did
not God reason logically, as well as graciously, when
he intimated his expectations that a disclosure of his
self-existence would produce an impression which a
disclosure of his omnipotence had not done, and
would strengthen and comfort the descendants of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as these patriarchs had
never been strengthened and comforted by lower
manifestations of his capacities to bless ? Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob knew God only as one Almighty ;
by his Name, Jehovah — his Name of Self-exist
ence — was he not known to them.« Their posterity,
however, were about to know him as One in whom
Almightiness resided at its utmost height, and by the
securest tenure ; for they were about to know him as
the I AM, the self-existent Being, who was like none
r Bergier's Diet. art. As6it6, i. 233. ; Ex. vi. 3.'

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 207
other, and to whom no other could be likened by any
effort of imagination whatever. Oh, what a basis
such knowledge for a confidence as unshaken as the
rocks; as immovable as the great mountains; as
steady as the pole I The bush, as an emblem of the
Church's capacity for endurance, could not inspire
such adamantine confidence as this. But with a
lively emblem of God's self-existent guardianship and
friendship, in full relief before her, to what loftiness of
trust and fearlessness might not Israel rise ! Thence
forward, might one say, she can give her terrors to the
"winds; for here is something which man has never
enjoyed before, something which Divinity itself can
not surpass, which comes from the source of every
other cause or capacity in the unbounded universe.
Faith can have nothing more stable whereon to lean.
If it cannot rest here, it can find a resting-place no
where ; and must be hopelessly and foolishly impor
tunate. Let it hang, then, upon a self-existent God ;
and say "with the Psalmist, while such a God is its re-
hance, " God is our refuge and strength, a very pres
ent help in trouble : therefore wfll we not fear,
though the earth be removed, and though the moun
tains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the
waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the
mountains shake "with the swellrug thereof"^
" There is a river," continues the same inspired be-
hever, and in a strain not less literally than beautifully
true, "the streams whereof shall, make glad the city
t Ps. xlvi. 1-4.

208 THE BURNING BUSH:
of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most
High." This river is the river 'of water of life,
which flows clear as crystal, along the streets of the
Celestial city, "proceeding," as St. John said, "out
of the throne of God and of the Lamb."™ And this
river of life has its fountain in the hidden depths of
the Divine Self-existence ; since it is as a self-existent
life that God is the originator and controller of all
other life whatever. For life, as has been said to you
already, is the highest of aU gifts; and, when un
caused, the loftiest of endowments.
And, as such a Master and Lawgiver of hfe, how.
ought God, if Israel's friend, to have been her largest
and sweetest consolation ! Is there any thing which
touches us more nearly, than that which touches life ?
any thing which ought to do so ? Most unquestion
ably not. But if he who has our life in his keeping,
and all other life in his keeping, be our friend, then
what need we be anxious about, or alarmed for ? Can
any thing harm us essentially ? Can even death, which .
seems to come nearer to robbing us of life than any
thing beside, and which is denominated our king of
terrors, and is accounted our last and bitterest foe?
Let Christ be here our counsellor. See how he
strives to fortify his disciples, in view of such a
spofler's worst and direst desolation. " Fear not them
which kill the body, but are not able to kfll the soul ;
but rather fear him, which is able to destroy both soul
and body in hell."" .
« Rev. xxii. 1. v Matt. x. 28.

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 209
But if we do fear him — if we do fear him with that
confidence which is made up of reverence and grati
tude, and hope, and fihal love, then whom else, or
what else need we fear, with that chilling apprehen
sion which so often shakes man's frame, and spreads
ashen shadows on his countenance ? Suppose Israel
to have so feared God as to have looked up to his
self-existence (as it is) as the surest possible of all
resting-places for our anxious aspfrations in the hour
of sorrow — need Israel have quailed or quaked one
moment before the autocrat of Egypt, though he
threatened her with all the combined mischiefs of
earthly might and malice ? Israel might have laughed
Pharaoh to very scorn, if her life had been hid in
God's bosom — ^put into the safe and inaccessible keep
ing of the self-existent Jehovah. To such a Being,
life and death, in the ordinary acceptation of the
terms, are the veriest accidents. They are no inter
ruption to his plans. They hide no one from his
sight. They deprive no one of his guardianship. All
live unto him. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the de
parted patriarchs of Israel, whose very dust could not
have been found, perhaps, when Moses was sent to tell
his countrymen that God was speaking to them by a
new name, and by his highest one — all these patriarchs
were as much before God, and as safe with him as
when they walked the earth with none of their eyes
dim, none of their natural force abated.""
This very truth, and this great truth, it was one of
w Deut. xxxiv. 7.

210 THE BURNING BUSH:
the chief and blessed purposes of God's manifestation
in the bush, to symbolize and to communicate. That
the dead, even, are not dead to the everliving God, is,
as our Lord assures us, one, at least, of the lessons to
be read in the ethereal flame.
Now, it is hardly necessary to say that the same
thing might have been realized, and the same thing
would have been realized in the case of those who,
with that faith with which the patriarch leaned upon
the revelation of God's omnipotence, now leaned upon
the grander revelation of his self existence. And, if
so, what more, or better, could Israel have asked in
Egypt, than to know that "the good will of him
that dwelt in the bush"'^ — the good will of him to
whom all his true children live, and never die — the
good will of a self-existent God, was hers ? With that
wall of fire round about her, she ought to have bid
defiance to her oppressor, and to all his engines of
woe and death, and looked serenely to the heavens.
Slay me if you will, she might have said to him,
with an unblenching firmness — slay me if you will,
you can do no more. You did not give me life, and
of life you never can deprive me. The true and only
Author of life is my friend ; and your enmity cannot
separate me from his protection, or his love. Your
utmost power is bounded by the grave ; and from the
grave to which you send me, I shall rise on angels'
wings, to honor, to glory, and to immortahty. Thither
you and your minions of spite and torment can never
X Dent, xxxiii. 16.

ITS MEANING AND APPLICATIONS. 211
follow. I can therefore treat your angriest menaces
with pity and disdain.
And now, my Brethren, in concluding, let me say,
that if we have not our Pharaoh to discipline us, and
overtask us, we have the same vale of tears to travel
through, which bruised the feet and saddened the
heart of Israel ; and we, therefore, may well fix our
eyes upon the same source of consolation which was
commended to her, in the holy, unfed flame that burn
ed at the base of Horeb. Most certainly, that final end
of all earthly calamities which dismayed and para
lyzed Israel — an untimely death — may be not less
dreaded by ourselves than it was by her, in her days
of weariness and pain. I bid you, therefore, look to
the emblem which brought before her, in wondrous
vividness, the Source of all life, and the power which
has all life in its keeping, now and for evermore.
Make a self-existent God the object of your contem
plations, your worship, your affections, and your
hopes. In his hands your life will be like the un
fed fire, come what will, and come when it may.
Nothing can extinguish you, or despoil you, or scat
ter your very dust, if your life is hid with Christ in
God. What are all common or conceivable calami
ties to him, who is above all causes, and the hidings
of whose power no finite comprehension can ap
proach ? He holds the winds in his fist — what tem
pest can blow which will wreck you on the quick
sands of perdition ? He ruleth the seas, and the noise
of their waves, and the tumults of the people — what
surges of distress, what uproar of thronging foes, can

212 THE BURNING BUSH.
drown your cries for help, or dash in pieces the barque
of your soul's fortunes ? The Prince of the power of
the air trembles at his nod ; even the Devil himself
cannot touch a hair of your Divinely guarded head.
0 trust in God, then, who exists from, and of him
self, and not in any human and perishable arm.
Every other dependence will fail you. Every other
expectation will disappoint you. Every other prop
will sink beneath you. But they who trust in
the self-living, ever-living God, shall ride triumph
ant over every obstacle. They shall mount up on
wings as eagles ; they shall run, and not be weary ;
they shall walk, and not faint. The universe in arms
against them would be powerless. They would reach
the bosom of God in safety, through the chambers of
death and the gates of hell. "For I am persuaded,"
said one, who knew the range of the power to which
his soul was clinging, " For I am persuaded, that
neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities nor
powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor
height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able
to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ
Jesus our Lord."?'
Oh, who would turn from such a hold as this, to
totter about without a staff to lean on, till he tumbles
into a hopeless grave !
y Rom. viii. 38, 9.

SERMON III.
HISTORY OP THE SOUL : ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND
DESTINT.
" And the Lord Ood formed man of the dust of the ground,
and hreathed into his nostrils the hreath of life ; and man
hecame a living soul." — Genesis, ii. 7.
It is a notorious fact, and one which has been often
adverted to by scholars, that the greatest critic of an
tiquity applauded Moses, for his description of the
creation of light. But if he had thought more of
moral sentiment, than of rhetoric, he would sooner
have applauded him for this text ; in which he intro
duces the most marvellous of all the known creations
of God — -the creation of the human soul. Why, the
nature of the human soul is a subject upon which the
philosophers of antiquity (the philosophers of Egypt,
Persia, India, Greece, and Eome) have expended
their utmost efforts in vain •,a so that when we read
their fullest speculations, in the pages of Plato or
Cicero, we are sometimes seized with amazement at
their crudeness, or with absolute pity for their folly.
a Cicero's Tusc. Disp. i. 9, 10. — Pliny (bk vii. ch. 55) speaks of theo
ries of immortality as " childish ravings."

214 HISTORY OP THE SOUL :
Particularly they seem dumb and blind respecting
any adequate conceptions of an answer to the grand
est of all questions. What was the soul made for ?
I say the grandest of all questions ; for evidently the
soul, the sublimest of God's works in our world, must
have been made for some supreme and God-like pur
pose. For example, one might ask. Was the soul
made for itself alone ? And the answer seems easy,
that, considering its Maker, this were utterly impos
sible. But, again, one might ask. Was the soul made
for mere selfish enjoyment ? And such an idea would
seem, in "view of the same Maker, to be a solemn ab
surdity. Yet we know that the practice of millions,
and of the intelligent, too, as well as the unlearned,
has been, to regard the soul as if something wholly
independent, which is to live and act for itself entirely.
And we also know, that it has been the practice of as
many millions more, to regard the soul as something
which had no business to transact, but the pursuit of
its own whims, and research for its own private enjoy
ment. Now, while the wisdom of antiquity and the prac
tice of later times demonstrate the fact, that the soul
is a thing which it takes thousands of years to under
stand, here is a writer far away in the distant past-
bordering on the flood (for Shem, the son of Noah,
was alive during the long life of Moses, and died but
some 20 years before him,) — here, I say, is a writer,
who talks to us of the origin, nature, and destiny of
the human soul, as if it were a thing much easier to
describe than the great Ark, for he wraps up all he

ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 215
has to say in a single sentence. And in that sen
tence, however brief, he tells us, with curious felicity,
how the soul sprang into existence, what its character
is, as an object of creation, and what the destiny it is
designed to illustrate. 0, if Moses spake not by in
spiration, then philosophers and worldlings ought
quite to worship him ; for, after dealing with the soul,
till this late day, they cannot tell us so much to pur
pose, in all their lucubrations, as he does in this one
text. Here we have the soul's creation distinctly and
graphically delineated — the body has nothing to do
with animating it ; it proceeds from God himself In
that act of creation, we learn, inevitably, the entire
dependence of the soul upon God for life : — yes, that
even the soul (self- existent as we fancy it*) has no life
but from God's own lips. And, finally, we learn
here, that the soul was not created asleep, stupid,
earthbound, and insensate towards its Maker, but liv
ing — and, of course, instinct with just such life as it
had emanated from — instinct with life Divine, and
therefore destined and adapted to act out the purposes
of suCh a life, in reflecting back the image in which
it started upon the great career of being.
These are three momentous points, my Brethren,
in the history of the human soul ; and I can think of
no page or text, since this of Moses, where so rauch
of condensed and vivid truth will be found respecting
them. May the Spirit, which taught him to suggest
such topics, enable me to speak about them for your
edification. b Taylor's Plato, 4, 324, note.

216 HISTORY OP THE SOUL:
I. — And, first, respecting the origin of the human
soul. It was observed to you, that the body had nothing
whatever to do with originating the soul's animation.
Now, it has been one of the nicest, and, apparently,
most recondite of all points, which philosophers have
sought to establish, respecting the soul and body,
whether they are inherently distinct, and whether they
can exist separately. You have heard, doubtless, of
those who are called Materialists. These people
believe that the soul is nothing but organized matter,
exceedingly subtle and refined; something, indeed,
like electric fire, or magnetic influence, or solar light ;
but still, after all, nothing but organized matter. A
natural and inevitable result of such a theory is, that
the soul, being matter, may be disorganized, as the
body is, by death, and with the body be scattered and
lost, if not annihilated. When Christians adopt this
theory, (as some who profess and call themselves
Christians do,) the result is, that they believe death to
be an unbroken sleep, till the day of judgment; deny
altogether an intermediate state, and look upoti the
promise respecting Paradise, made to the thief upon the
cross, as one which the apostle Paul, though he might
have experienced its blessedness before martyrdom,
could not experience afterwards : Paul being at pre
sent, in their view, as if he had never been. The Socin-
ian, (Dr. Priestly,) like many of his sect, was a theorist
of this kind ; and upon his death-bed informed his
friends, that he expected to have no more conscious
ness until the morning of the resurrection.

AND DESTINY. 217
But how completely is such speculation as this set
at naught by the plain testimony of the great ex
pounder of truth to ancient Israel ! Can any thing be
clearer, in his metaphysics, than that the soul and the
body are two altogether distinct and independent
things? God, as he informs us, makes the body be
fore so much as a soul is known, or spoken of. " And
God formed man of the dust of the ground." That is,
he formed man's material part complete ; or, to use
Scriptural language, "perfect and entire, wanting
nothing," so far as his material part only was con
cerned. There lay man upon his "lap of earth," as
fully man, so far as his body only is concerned, as if
he had been smothered in vigorous health, and
nothing but breath were wanting to enable him to
start up with his wonted self-command. But there he
lay, too, as motionless, as prostrate, as powerless, as if
death, his future enemy, had struck him down before
hand. There was no lustre in his eye, there was no
thought brooding upon his brow, there was not so
much of sound within his lips as the murmur of
summer's lightest breeze in the whispering pines. All
was as still and silent as the corpse made ready for its
burial. And if nothing had been done further, all
would have been stillness and silence, prolonged and
deepened, till the exquisite conformation had crumbled
back into its original confusion, and dust had been
dust again.
This is clear and undeniable. But now, when this
portion of his handiwork had been completed ab
solutely, lo ! God returns to his task a second time.
10

218 HISTORY OP THE SOUL :
The sacred writer represents him, majestic, infinite
though he be, as contemplating his works, when
finished ; as smiling on and blessing them. " And
God saw every thing that he had made, and behold
it was VERY good."*^ Is it, then, presumptuous or
irreverent, to suppose the Father of All leaning, as it
were, from his high heavens, to survey the beauteous,
the inimitable, but the impassive statue which had
sprung forth, at his bidding, out of the loose and
shapeless dust — that his countenance beamed ineffable
complacency as he studied the matchless wonder —
that he resolved to make it worthier and nobler stfll
— that he kissed its cold and lifeless lips, and raised it
up in glory, a similitude of his own celestial self?
And did he not do this, when he breathed upon man's
insensate clay, and endowed it with his own immortal
inspiration — sent the vitality and activity of heaven
warming and kindling through his frame, till man
stood upon his feet, and looked up towards the coun
tenance which beamed upon him, to answer light and
smiles with their own reflection.s — looked up, and
with his .conscious, joyous, high-born soul, acknowl
edged and worshipped his father, God ?
Oh, could we have stood by and beheld such a
scene of marvels, when should we have ever doubted
that the body and the soul are as distinct as the two
worlds from which they spring — the world we tread
upon, and the world above our heads, towards which
we turn our faces when we worship the Source of all
c Gen. i. 31.

ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 219
things! And feeling thus, how could we tolerate
that philosophy which tells us that the grave is a
long, or a changeless home, for all of mortal man I
But should you tolerate such philosophy aught the
more, when the positive testimony of the great in
spired recorder of man's earliest history enables you
to realize such a scene as has been fancied — enables
you to trace man's soul and body to two entirely sep
arate sources and periods of creation ? Then lay con
jectures by, and take assurance from such a witness.
Give up the dreams of speculation, and adopt the
substantialities of faith. Faith has substance whereon
to lean. It is not built, like an air-castle, upon sha
dows. It is things which may be hoped 'for, not
guessed at merely, or imagined, which it anticipates.
It can bear one up as buoyantly as any principle of
human nature. Believe in God, believe in the breath
of God, as the inspiration of human life ;'^ and you can
conceive of the soul as an object quite as separate,
distinct, and real, as the body itself is to your out
ward senses. And with that faith, you will honor
the sbul as the workmanship of the Almighty ; and
"will never listen for one moment to that absurd and
self-degrading philosophy, which would teach you to
compare yourself to a poor brute, and to expect no
more hopeful grave than that in which a poor brute
moulders into nothingness.
d Bichat's definition of life is, that it is an assemblage of functions
which resist death. This, as Rennell says truly, is no definition at all.
But it shows the lameness of philosophy. It can give us but negations.
— Rennell on Scepticism, 6th edit. pp. 69, 70.

220 HISTORY OF THE SOUL:
With that faith you can understand, in a moment,
how the soul, which was created independently of the
body, may exist without it, as well as with it. Then
you will see how consistent it was for Christ, to pro
mise the penitent upon the cross a refuge in Paradise,
when his last sun was going down — ^how for Paul, to
desire to depart and to be with Christ, after death, where
he had been before with him ; and, in fine, how it is
no contradiction to speak of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob, as living still, since all (as our Saviour asserted
to the unbelieving Sadducees, who would have death
an everlasting sleep,) all live unto God. All ? Then,
our pious dead, at least, are not unconscious dead;
and they who have departed in the true faith of God's
holy Name must be our fellows still in life. '
Such ftiends, when dead, are but removed from sight,
Hid in the lustre of eternal light.
Perhaps they now are hovering around us, and are
our protecting angels. Angels carried Lazarus to the
bosom of Abraham; and I see no impropriety in
supposing, that those angels were such as had known
and loved him best on earth, who could sympathize
most deeply with his humility, and enter most largely
into his triumphant joy.
II. — Our next topic, in view of the text, was to be
the fact, that this description of the soul's creation re
presents it as dependent on God for the commence
ment, and, by natural implication, for the continu
ance of its being.
The soul is brought out into existence, according to

ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 221
our text, by an immediate act of God. The body has
nothing whatever to do in this high transaction. Nei
ther does the soul suggest or fancy, much less accom
plish, its own pro-creation. It is God, and God alone,
who devises and achieves its introduction into life.
So that this text most completely opposes and over
throws the imagination of those who are inclined to
think that the soul is something which has existed
from eternity, and, therefore, may exist to eternity, by
a sort of inherent or self-sustaining energy.
There is no such doctrine in our text ; there is no
approach to it. The soul, as we are here taught, has
a definite origin, as well as a distinct one. We can
trace its beginning, as well as we can trace the begin
ning of the body. We can show how God's mind
contrived and his will effected the one, as well, and as
entirely, as the other.
So we ascribe the soul to his workmanship, as ex
clusively as we do the body. Both are his. Both
are his, equally and completely. And if so, both are
his, unceasingly and inalienably, for evermore.
Now, this is an important point, far more so than you
may now be prepared to admit — far more so than even
many theologians are wont to allow. For if it be true,
that the soul is not only as equally and completely
God's as the body, as unceasingly and inalienably,
too, and that for ever, then it follows, that the very life
of the soul is as dependent upon God as the life of
the body ; and that its actual immortality is no inde
pendent, or inherent immortality, but is as much
under God's control, as what we call mortal life.

222 HISTORY OP THE SOUL:
This is not the -view which many take of the soul's
immortality. They seem to regard that as something
apart from Deity, as something stricken off from it,
like a spark from steel — as a species of self-existence
— as something, therefore, of which the soul may
glory against God, with pride, or with defiance.
0, what an unfortunate apprehension of that great
est of Divine endowments^ — ^the endowment of ex
istence ! My Brethren, there is but one self-existence
in the wide universe. There is but one fire, which,
like the fire in the unconsumed bush, burns without
any thing to feed it ; and that springs up from the feet
of him, who sitteth on Heaven's " great white throne"
of perfect holiness. There is but one "I AM," above,
below, or all abroad. And there can be but one such
Being; for this prerogative of self-existence is the
loftiest prerogative of the Godhead, and transcends aU
finite capabilities whatever. If shared, it makes its
partaker an assessor upon God's own sovereign seat,
and a portion of his own mysterious unity. Hence,
when Christ said. Before Abraham was, ^I am, he
claimed community with the Eternal One.* And
thus did the Jews, who were no inexpert theolo
gians, understand him ; for they took up stones to
slay him, on the spot, for the audacity of blasphemy.
All this is sustained and enforced by a striking text
of the Apostle Paul, which many appear to find it
difficult to comprehend. " Who only hath immortal
ity,'!/' is one of the ascriptions with which he dignifies
e John, viii. 58, 59. / 1 Tim. vi. 16.

ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 223
the Blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and
Lord of lords. Yet, to this there is a seeming con
trariety ; for angels are immortal, and so are men, and
so, finally, are devils. How, then, can God only have
immortality ? Why, in this simple, perspicuous way.
He only has immortality, as an endowment, indepen
dent, underived, and indestructible. Or, as the great
metaphysician Abelard expressed it, " God, who,
viewed by the light of carnal reason, is nothing, is
only, in the true sense of the word."i' All other
beings have .an immortality which began at a precise
moment of time, and which can be terminated at any
other precise moment of time, by the Power which
permitted it once to be. All other beings, therefore,
have a dependent, a derived, and destructible immor
tality. In a most essential and emphatical sense, then,
God is the only immortal One. None can stay, or
suspend, or hinder the current of his Being. His life
flows onward, as it has flowed from eternity, without
cause, without interruption,, without end.
And it is this supremest of all prerogatives, by
which he enjoys life without origination, and without
support, that he controls all other life — controls its
existence; and, of course, any element of that exist
ence, as, for instance, its happiness. Hence, he is to
us, under this aspect, the most dread and potential ob
ject of our fears. Accordingly, our Saviour appeals
to this prerogative over life, when he would have us
fear him by the most imperative sanction. "Fear
g Bernard's Life, p. 132.

224 HISTORY OP THE SOUL :
him," said he, " which is able to destroy both soul
and body in hell."* Mark his phraseology; for a
sect, called destructionists, sometimes refer to such
language, to prove that God will actually destroy, i. e.
annihilate, the souls, as well as bodies of the impeni
tent. Our Saviour speaks with logical precision.
He does not say " who wUl destroy," but " which is
able to destroy." His object evidently is, to illustrate,
by the possibilities to which God's power may reach,
that all possibilities, on this side of the most extremei
one, are especially within the compass of feasibility.
And it is, as if he had said, " I caU upon you to fear
One, who can actually destroy your soul ; and who,
therefore, can much more easily do a lesser work,
make your soul languish in hopelessness and pain."
And to the same sort of conclusion, my Brethren,
should our dependence upon God, for the soul's very
life, bring our individual selves. I teach you that
dependence, to make you apprehend more vividly,
feel more sensibly, and be influenced by more ener
getically, the possibilities of final retribution. 0, con
sider how helpless a thing the soul will be, under the
scourges of that retribution, if he, who inflicts it, has
your all, your absolute and universal all, your body
and your soul, within an almighty grasp. Eeflect,
how boundless his capabilities to afflict either, who
knows so wefl the most intimate secrets of the exist
ence of both, that he can put both out of actual being
— extinguish them in the impenetrable gloom of
h Matt. X. 28 ; Luke, xii. 5.

ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 22,5
eternal annihflation. Men wonder, sometimes, how
God can adjust his recompenses to the infinite variety
of cases, which wfll be exhibited at the bar of final
judgment. He knows how to use the body and the
soul, as the potter does his lumps of plastic clay. He
can assign millions to grades of honor, and millions to
grades of dishonor ; while each shall see the connexion
between conduct and reward, as clearly as we can see
shapes and adaptations in the potter's vessels.*
Ah, there will no mistakes be made by him who
can raise human nature, as the incarnation of Christ
demonstrates, to a partnership with himself, or sink it
to the humiliation and chains of apostate spirits. Oh,
hope, then, for every thing that is exalted, ye who
would be what God delights in. Oh, dread, then,
every thing that is abasing, ye who would be what
he abhors. Heaven and hell, in such hands as his,
are capable of every blessing, and of every woe.
There is a hfe in the one, to whose sublimities no
angel yet has soared. There is a death in the other,
to whose depths no devil yet has sunk. O, tremen
dous Being, who canst thus mete out immortal desti
nies, have compassion upon the souls that thou hast
made. III. — I said that there was a third point of instruc
tion, in our text, relating to the soul — one respecting
i Hume could not comprehend how all oases could be definitely set
tled, there are so many doubtful ones — so many persons half-virtuous
and half-wicked. Such a case as Solomon settled, would doubtless have
puzzled the whimsical philosopher. — 1 Kings, iii. 16-28. Yet, Solomon
decided instamter. So God will decide, instanter, the far greater per
plexities of the final judgment.
10*

226 HISTORY OP THE SOUL:
the objects for which it was created. It was thus pro
posed to you. The soul was not created asleep, stu
pid, earth-bound, and insensate towards its Maker ;
but li-ving — and, of course, instinct with such a life as
it had emanated from — instinct with life Di-yine, and,
therefore, destined and adapted to act out the purpose
of such a life, in reflecting the image in which it
started upon the great career of being.
" And man," says our text, " became a hvLng soul."
0, in this short, but glowing description of the soul's
destination, in view of him from whom it emanated,
how much and what profound instruction ! For if
man could have the making of his o"wn soul, how cer
tain were he to have made it, as he now makes pic
tures or statues, as an object to be gazed at for its
beauty, and to bring applause upon the genius which
devised it. Or, if not so only, how equally certain
were he to make it as something to seek selfishly its
o"wn advancement, and to forget its author — or, as
something to be bhnd to all concerns but its own en
joyment, and to put duty, obligation, and loyalty
quite aside, as affairs of no importance. But God
creates not the soul, magnificent though the object
be, to be looked at "with empty admiration. He cre
ates not the soul, amazing as its powers are, for inde
pendent, self-centering aims and ends. He creates it
for acti"vity beyond the sphere of selfish thought.
He creates it for use, for high and holy performances,
agreeable to his own promptmgs and demands. He
creates it hving — all alive — and he creates it for a hv-

ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 227
ing God — for himself, the only true and living Divin
ity of the unbounded universe.
And the context supplies us with ample authority
for all this statement. No sooner is man created with
this living soul, than he is summoned to a life of
positive and active labor. God prepares a garden,
where, amid trees and shrubbery of endless variety
and multitude, he shall find incessant occupation.
He calls man into his presence, and informs him of
his o-wn expectations, 'with this scene in "view ; or, in
the simple language of the sacred narrative, "The
Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden
of Eden, to dress it and to keep it."./' He placed be
side him the tree of life, by which, in some mysterious
sacramental way, the hving soul should be sustained,
refreshed, and invigorated, in the life with which it
started upon its career of Divinely appointed indus
try. And he placed also by the side of him the tree
of the knowledge of good and e"vfl; that, with his
duty blended "with temptation, he should be put upon
the great trial for which life was given him, to know
whether that life should be confirmed to him, as
when first impartecl, for an unmingled blessing, or
whether it should degenerate into one long-drawn
woe. For such living, then, was the soul created, for the
destinies designated by its Maker, for the ends at
which its Maker* was aiming, for the purposes which
its Maker expected to achieve by it. But, alas, we
j Gen. ii. 15.

228 HISTORY OP THE SOUL :
know that this exquisite and gracious plan has been
overturned and thrown prostrate. Man disappointed
the expectations of his blessed Creator, and fell — ^fell
from the high estate of living for his Creator's designs,
and his Creator's glory, to the low and abject state of
one who forgets, nay, thwarts and outrages, a Maker
and a Benefactor. Man is no longer a living soul, in
the sense of a soul living for its God — ^living for the
Source of all life, hving for such dignity and blessed
ness as he can impart and sustain. He is now a soul
living for itself; living for this short life alone ; liv
ing for its vanities, its gayeties, its gains, its exalt
ations, and its pride. So true is this,' that it is related
as one of the memorable things in the history of an
ancient man of God (St. Bernard) that he put to him
self, daily, the home question, " Bernard, Bernard,
wherefore art thou here on earth ?"* But go now to
man, as you ordinarily find him, and ask him in ten
¦thousand instances for what he lives ; and in ten thou
sand instances will he surely tell you, that he lives
for any thing but God, and God's holy will. Look
at him, and you will see him trying to run, if it may
be, out of God's sight ; and congratulating himself
when he may do that, of which he thinks God takes
no special cognizance. Behold him living without
hope, and without God, in the world. Mark him,
amid deeds that he delights in, but which God de
tests, hugging, as precious and consolatory, the unna
tural thought, that God has forgotten, that he hideth
k Life, pref p. viii.

229
his face, that he will never see it. Follow him, and
observe how he loves darkness rather than light, be
cause his deeds are evil ; and comes not to the light,
lest his deeds should be reproved. Search his heart,
as you may to some extent, by the fruits which it
produces, and see if the issues of life well up from its
recesses. Oh, how deadly the procession which it
engenders. " For, from within, out of the heart of
men proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications,
murders, thefts, covetousness, knaveries, deceit, lasci-
"viousness, envy, blasphemy, pride, foolishness"^ — i. e.
foolishness as to spiritual things — in other words, in-
sensibihty or infidelity.
And is this living? Is this a life which becomes
that li-ving soul, which God's own life-giving spirit
breathed into man's impassive frame? This the life
which the Lord and giver of our highest endowment
expects, and will be contented with ? — expects and
wfll be contented with ! Oh, my Brethren, would to
God I could convey to your minds something of the
aversion, the loathing, the fiery indignation, with
which he who made souls to live for himself alone,
beholds them blighting the whole plan for which he
formed them, and converting into degradation and
shame what he designed for honor, for glory, and
for immortality. Could I do it, could I give you the
faintest transcript of the abhorrence with which God
must behold the spoilers and defilers of his hand's
most precious workmanship below, you would not
I Mark, vii. 21. The Greek.

230 HISTORY OP THB SOUL:
wonder, for one moment, that he should talk of eter
nal death as the retribution of such ministries of ruin.
What, but death, can be the just recompense of him
who has destroyed a life ? What, but endless death,
the recompense of him who has destroyed such a life
beyond all remedy ? Who deserves to hve, that has
made life one perpetual defeat of all life's true objects ?
Give such a being a second life, and he "will but re
peat, over again, with direr steadiness, the lesson he
has already practiced. And thence it is, that God
holds out no prospect for a repetition of the trial.
" For if we sin wflfuUy, after that we have received
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more
sacrifice for sin ; but a certain fearful looking for of
judgment, and fiery indignation, which shaU devour
the adversaries."™
0 ye, who have turned your lives into any and all
shapes and destinations, but the one grand one for
which God gave life to the human soul — the shape
and destination of living for himself, and the duties
which he has revealed as his peculiar pleasure — ^behold
your doom ! You are never to be living souls beyond
the grave. There you shall be known as dying souls,
i. e., not annihilated souls, but literally souls of death
— souls in which character, happiness, peace, patience,
and finally hope, shall all be dead ; and where nothing
shall sur"vive but what will minister to the soul's igno
miny, horror, perturbation and remorse. It seems a
mystery to multitudes, that death can be chosen rather
m Heb. x. 26-27.

ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND DESTINY. 231
than hfe, on this side of the grave. Yet, we know it
is a dreadful possibility." There is a possibility more
dreadful still — the most dreadful of all possibilities to a
conscious spirit — ^the choosing death rather than life for
eternity, rather than be thrown headlong into that bot
tomless abyss, where the lost soul takes its final plunge.
That possibility is before you, right before you all,
who are living to defeat the end for which God made
you. O, be startled by its unutterable, indescribable
calamities! 0, despise not, wonder not, perish not.
Perdition is intolerable, dream about it as you will.
Who can dwell with its devouring fire ? who can in
habit its everlasting burnings ?
7» Rev. ix. 6

. SERMON IV.
PROVIDENCES OF GOD IN THE HISTORY OP NAAMAN.
" Now Naaman, captain of the host of the King of Syria, was a
great man with his master, and honorable, heaause hy him
the Lord had given deliverance unto Syria: he was also a
' man in valor, hut h,e was a leper." — 2 Kings, v. 1.

TSE spiritual truths, illustrated by God's provi
dence, are not less really and not less powerfully fllus-
trated in low stations, than in high ones ; but they are
not so to ordinary human discernment. We are im
pressed by station, as wefl as by the truth enforced by
station ; and truth which comes from a lofty source,
in our view, seems to come with superadded weight.
A truth illustrated in the experience of those who
stand near thrones, and possess the ear of majesty, is
one of the greatest consequence and influence to us,
who are "of the earth, earthy." This is the reason
why the Bible gives us such a case to assist its holy
lessons, as we find recorded in the chapter opened by
our text. Naaman, the leader of Syria's hosts, the
great, the honorable, the valorous deliverer of his
country, is an almost infinitely higher subject to fllus-

PROVIDENCES OP GOD. 233
trate the lessons of God's discriminating and disciplin
ing providence, than a beggar Lazarus, whom the
dogs were left to pity ; though such a beggar might
be, as Lazarus was, a candidate for Abraham's bosom,
and the other, in close peril of perdition. Therefore,
we have the subject presented in a way suited to our
preferences and prejudices; and let us not forget it.
Brethren, when appealed to by a case which, with us,
is among the foremost. I am to call your attention to
the action of God's pro-vidence, in the history of one
of this world's most elevated characters; one who,
whether we consider his office, his influence, his dig
nity, or his power — every thing nearly which we ven
erate — ^which makes a saint in the calendar of earthly
glory, was hardly with a superior in his eventful times.
Receive it, then, with the reverence due to it, on*your
own worldly principles and prepossessions. It comes
to you with all the sanctions which all that you think
great can surround it. And now, having appealed to
you by so much below, which can make my subject
influential, I have only to add, may a blessing from
above give it access, not to your understandings only,
but your hearts.
I. This subject illustrates God's power in reducing,
or allaying, the highest worldly prosperity.
Naaman embraced in his fortune about as many
elements of earthly prosperity, as the human heart
could well desire. He occupied the foremost military
station, in an age when military distinctions surpassed
all others, as well in their emoluments and preroga
tives, as in their glitter. He that wielded the sword

234 PROVIDENCES OP GOD
in Naaman's day, virtually wielded the sceptre too ;
for we find that Naaman's was the hand on which
royalty leaned, even when it bowed before an idol.
Much more, then, did it lean upon him to fight its
batties abroad, and administer its empire at home.
And the text fully authorizes this supposition. He
was a great man with his master ; nor so only, but
honorable. That is, even royalty revered his capabi
lities, and decorated him with dignity, rank, and their
natural accompaniments, wealth and splendor. He
was looked upon as his country's very prop and stay,
" because by him the Lord had given deliverance unto
Syria." So, doubtless, the flattery of the throne was
echoed by the people ; and whithersoever he went, the
shout of acclamation and the song of eulogy followed
his steps. To complete the whole, ample testi
mony is borne to his dauntless courage, "he was also
a mighty man of valor." From which we may readfly
infer, that his personal strength and bearing fully cor
responded to his elevation ; and in an age when such
things were prodigiously accounted of,* made his very
eye and voice subjects for popular awe. We may
gather something of the effects of his personal pre
sence, from the manner in which his servants addressed
him, when he bounded away in a rage from." the
door of the house of Elisha." They did not say as
Gehazi, My master. They speak to him with the
trembling diffidence of little children, and called him
"father." Now, from such representations, it is easy to ima-
a .Sneid, iv. 10-11.

IN THE HISTORY OP NAAMAN. 235
gine, that in respect to every thing which earth could
give him, Naaman was on one of the loftiest pinnacles
of human existence. Did he want rank ? the noblest
of earthly dignities was all but his ; and, virtually, it
was his entirely. Did he want distinction? he was
smiled upon, alike by the monarch and the crowd.
Did he want wealth ? he could roll in it, if he had the
propensities of a miser, for his bare equipments for a
journey were " ten talents of silver, and six thousand
pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment." Did he
want fame? he was applauded, far and wide, as the
dehverer of his country. Did he want his very per
son commanding? his valor made aU hearts quail,
when they saw the arm which could brandish a resist
less sword.
But all would not do — all was no more to him than
vanity and vexation of spirit. Rank, and distinction,
and wealth, and fame, and the fawning terror of his
associates and servitors, could neither satiate nor ap
pease his craving soul. He was a leper ! Defilement
and corruption clothed him as with a garment ; and
whithersoever he went, he felt as if the curse of de
gradation hovered over him with its contagious hor
rors. So his life of outward glory was one of acute
and corroding inward misery. Yet with how slight an
interposition, on the part of the Almighty, was this
effected ! God hideth his face, and we are troubled.
He but looked away from Naaman, while all the earth
was looking towards him, and that pestilence, which
walks unseen, touched him with its attainting fingers,
and covered him with foul pollution. A miracle only

236 PROVIDENCES OP GOD
could then heal him ; and he saw nothing before him
but a grave, into which he should hasten down so
loathsome a wretch, that his very kindred would
shrink from the contamination of his coffin. No won
der that his days and nights were but one dreary
round of woe — the more intolerable from the very
splendors which seemed to mock his agony.
And should not this convince us, how fully and
thoroughly all which this world can bestow upon us,
is in the hands of God to convert it into a blessing or
a curse ; and how carefully and reluctantly we should
allow ourselves to place strong affection on things
which can so easily be transmuted into elements of
"wretchedness? We toil and grasp after the posses
sions, the honors, the emoluments, the immunities,
which earth can yield us, with an eagerness which
never sleeps nor tires. We rise up early, and we sit
up late, and we eat the bread of sorrows for them.*
We pawn life and salvation for them ; when, though
we miss not our aim, as thousands do, and succeed, as
one in thousands do, like Naaman, God's power is
above us still, and can reach us as effectually as ever,
though we get so high as, in the imagery of the pro
phet, to exalt ourselves like the eagle, and bufld our
nest among the stars." One inevitable regret, one
carking care, one hopeless loss, one gnawing disap
pointment, one blight of our persons like Naaman's,
one thorn in the flesh like St. Paul's, can spoil our
every acquisition, and render us, in feeling and in joy,
b Psalm cxxvii. 3. c Obediah, i.

IN THE HISTORY OP NAAMAN. 237
as poor and pitiable as the veriest abject whom the
proud would spurn or spit upon. See, Brethren, see
how God can mar and ruin the world for us, though we
acquire heaps of its longed-for gains, without hasten
ing us into scenes of retribution — yea, on this side of
an untimely grave. And, I believe, he does so, in
ten thousand cases which mankind call fortunate ;
since never yet saw I a contented worldling.'^ World
lings are reaching forward and clutching after some
thing future, as greedily as ever, though you place
them on the towers of glory and pile millions beneath
their feet. The curse of insatiable appetite clings to
them, and persecutes them, till they die ; and they die
at last like drowning men, catching at very straws.
Oh ! why not moderate our eagerness for things
which, though honey to the taste, have all the bitter
ness of death in the digestion. Why not remember
the only wise council, and the only sure promise in
respect to any temporal acquisition, " Seek ye first the
kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all things
shall be added unto you."" " Lay up for yourselves
treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth
corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor
steal."/ The world, if you seek tJiat first — the world,
if you treasure up what that alone can bless you with,
may be a curse to you even before you die ; and rob
you, beside, of eternal blessedness. O, then, give
your faith and love to a God who will never prove
untrue — to a heaven that never will deceive.
d Horace, Sat. lib. i. 1, 38-40. e Matt. vi. 33. ./ Matt. vi. 20.

238 PROVIDENCES OP GOD
II. Our subject illustrates the fact, that what we
consider our heaviest misfortunes, often turn out to be
essential mercies.
Naaman chafed under his contaminating disease,
and might have fretted himself with double haste into
a leper's shunned and dreaded grave. But that which
was like death to his worldly pleasures and worldly
hopes, was ultimately the life of his immortal soul.
His soldiers bring crowds of captives to his stately
halls, and from one of the most insignificant among them
he hears of a distant minister of religion, who could
bless him with that which neither gold can buy, nor
skill command. He hies him away to that minister's
abode. But when there, though- neither misinformed
respecting the man of God, nor his unearthly gifts, his
pride came near sending him back, no less a leper,
and no less a pagan, than before. Naaman was as
haughty as his station, his acquisitions, and his per
sonal prowess might naturally render him. And
the prophet, as the messenger of a King of kings
and Lord of lords, treated him as a haughty worldling
— who thinks God's servants are his servants, too —
might be lawfully treated. He acted the part of a su
perior — would not so much as accost him, personally,
but dispatched a menial to tell him he might wash
seven times in the Jordan, and be clean. The lordly
and imperious courtier was stung to the quick, to find
himself, who had been accustomed to the cringing of
a nation, addressed with^such scanty ceremony ; and
he was turning from the door of the man of God,
with one of those ebullitions of fury which the chag-

IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN. 239
rined and vexed of this world's great ones so fre
quently, and with such utter sacrifice of dignity, give
way to. And had he not had wiser and kinder
attendants than such persons are usually blessed with,
he would have stormed and blasphemed to his own
everlasti'hg detriment. But Heaven had marked him
for its own; for, impulsive though he might be, he
seems to have possessed a placability to which the
great are generally strangers. He could be appeased
and reasoned with, after a moment's paroxysms ; and
his attendants were, doubtless, famfliar with this point
in his character, or they would not have wasted on
him their wise and most respectful expostulations.
Naaman paused, relented, submitted, obeyed the man
date of his Maker's messenger, and obtained the re
ward so often and so freely bestowed upon the humble,
of finding even the Highest Being in the universe
considerate of wishes indulged with lowliness. And,
with the soundness of his body, there came, too, some
thing infinitely better — soundness of mind and sus
ceptibility of heart. The dipping in the Jordan was a
baptism of his soul, as well as body — was a baptism
of grace, as well as of consecrated water. The Spirit
hovered over Jordan's wave, as when, on a later and
more memorable occasion, "all righteousness," i. e.,
all duty, was scrupulously, and submissively, fulfilled
there ; and he went up from the water, not with the
flesh only, but with the temper — the soft and pliant
temper of a little child. And then, as he departed on
his way, rejoicing, how did a new light dawn upon his
mind, respecting the dispensation which had made

240 PROVIDENCES OP GOD
him, apparently, a wretched and a hopeless sufferer!
He then saw, that but for his once execrated leprosy, he
had never gone to the only right source on earth, for a
blessing to his body or his soul, and might have died,
not in the corruption of disease only, but in the
deeper corruption of an unsanctified heart — and died,
therefore, without hope for an hereafter, as wefl as
without comfort here. And, finally, I doubt not, he
blessed his leprosy far more than he had ever blessed
his fortune ; and thanked God for it as a benefit,
beyond rank, or wealth, or fame, or peerless valor.
And so, my Brethren, may it be with us. The
grievous misfortunes, as we consider them, which
overtakes us and annoy us, in the midst of coveted
prosperity, are not intended by God as deprivations
merely, or as downright punishments. Probably, we
are thinking too much and too highly of what this
world may enrich us with ; and God gives some
times a sharp and sudden turn to our reflections, to
direct them to himself and to eternity. 0, how easy
to forget him, to forget accountability and destiny,
and all that is immortal, while the senses are entranced
in this world's intoxicating dreams ! And if he turn
this world into a comfortless home, to induce us to
seek an everlasting and ever-joyful one — shall we
charge him with severity? Rather let us bless his
corrections, though they cut ties which make our
hearts bleed. The loss of all the world, if we pos
sessed it, were a trifle, if our souls went not to wreck
in the disaster. A lost world could be replaced, like a
drowned one emerging from the vasty deep ; but the

IN THE HISTORY OF NAAMAN. 241
redemption of the soul is precious beyond all price,
for, if once it slip from us, it ceaseth absolutely for
ever. Mourn not, then, for any thing, which con
strains you to look away from earth to heaven — from
man to God — ^from time to that changeless state where
time shall be no longer. The last glance you ever
bestow on earthly things, will be bright and beaming,
if it assures us that your losses here have taught you
to lay treasure up on high, and that though maimed,
or halt, or blind, or poor in man's eye, you are going
with a heart sound in faith, and full of holy love, into
the presence of the Judge of quick and dead. 0
mortal, who canst so die, your death will be an un
speakable blessing ; while he who dies otherwise in a
palace, may go from a couch of gold and purple to
lay down in flames.
III. — Our subject fllustrates the fact, that as a soli
tary outward defect may render us degraded in the
eye of man, so a solitary inward one may render us
degraded in the eye of God.
Nothing oftener perplexes and provokes worldly-
minded men, than to discover the Bible so positive, so
extremely and unbendingly positive, in saying, that
there are but two sorts of people in the world, God's
friends and his enemies, his children and aliens from
him. And when it speaks of the crisis of death, and
the decisions *of the final judgment, the same positive
ness continues, and continues to encounter their op
position, and even denunciation. So strenuously hos
tile are multitudes to this peremptory exactness of
the Bible, that even a Church gives way to it, like
11

242 PROVIDENCES OP GOD
the Church of Rome ; admits that men often occupy
a sort of middle ground, die in a sort of middle char
acter, neither decidedly holy nor decidedly impious,
and so provides a lurid purgatory to burn this in
equality away, and bring all the doubtful safely to
heaven at last. And this difficulty or obliquity in
our moral vision, is well known to the Searcher of
hearts ; for we find hiin forewarning mankind by his
prophet Malachi, that a period at length shall come
when dim eyes shall see straitly and truly. " Then
shafl ye return, and discern between the righteous and
the wicked; between him that serveth God, and him
that serveth him not.''^'
But there is many a hint in the Bible, which ought
to enable us to pierce through all the perplexities of
this subject, long before a day of retribution. Our
text is one of them. We here perceive how easy it is
for us, notwithstanding a multitude of circumstances
(for v,s, I say, short-sighted as we sometimes admit
ourselves to be, when moral questions are examined),
to comprehend how, amid much that might induce us
to regard one as outwardly stainless, even to human
eyes, he can be as attainted and abhorrent as the low
est and most squalid victim of poverty. And, now,
why should it not be as easy for God to see that true,
respecting an inward state, which we ourselves can
see true in an outward one ? Naaman's rank, and
splendor, and lofty bearing, could not hide his leprosy
from the eye of man. Our show of virtue cannot hide
g Malachi, iii. 18.

IN THE HISTORY OP NAAMAN. 243
from God the leprosy of the soul. Man looketh on
the outward appearance, but God looketh on the
heart. Think not, then, self-deceiver, by the encour
agement of an apparent doubtfulness, or middleness
of character among men, to escape God's all-discern
ing eye and God's all-enduring retribution. By the
precise state of your heart, and not by the plausible
array of your life, will he judge you, by the motives,
and not by the gloss of your actions. He knows
whether, or not, you have ever been born again.
He knows whether you love him, or yourself and the
world best — he knows whither your secret, most
secret preferences tend ; and by the condition of your
innermost soul will he put you on trial at his awful
bar. You may be — you may have been, fair enough
to keep the world at bay, but you shall not prevent
his entering the darkest corners of your mind, and
bringing every absconding thought into transparent
detection ; and not by the bare words your lips have
uttered, but by the meanings of those words, after the
prompting of your thoughts, shall you be justified or
condemned. O, trust not what you are to man, who
cannot penetrate your bosom to see whether your
heart be leprous — ^trust not your own breast, for there
is a deceiver there, matchless among his tribe — trust
not to flattery. or self-justification, for your support in
the day which shall try your hidden .and lurking
spirit. For " there is nothing hid which shall not be
manifested, neither was any thing kept secret but that
it should come abroad."^ When that time comes, the
h Mark, iv. 22.

244 PROVIDENCES OP GOD
universe shall see a disease of the soul as plainly as
you can now that worst of all diseases, which defiles
the surface of the body; and by the melancholy
sight, will justify, willingly or unwillingly, the awards
of that tribunal which will fix your immortal doom.
lY. — ^Lastly, our subject illustrates the fact, that a
single cause of helpless misery is enough to produce
consummate wretchedness.
Had Naaman been expelled from office — ^had his
master turned from him in coldness, to other candi
dates for his favor — had he been stripped of his
wealth and honors, accused or suspected of cowardice,
and upbraided as the bane of his country, we might
easily conceive how, under such a complication of
mischiefs, he should pine, give himself up to despair,
and sullenly die. But, behold him wasting with re
gret, though not one of these calamities assafls him,
or hangs over him ! There is deep significance in the
place, to which the sacred historian assigns the testi
mony to his bodily pollution. He puts it last, as though
to show that all which preceded was a very nothing,
while this terminated the account — as if a cup full of
sweets was not worth the drinking, while such a dreg
of bitterness lay at its bottom. And, questionless,
his disease was such an alloy to all Naaman's glories,
distinctions, and gains, that, as a crown upon the brow
of an enslaved monarch, it was coals of fire upon his
head. He was persecuted by it night and day, in
camp and in court, in public and in solitude. He
could not fly from it, unless he could fly from him
self; and often, probably, would have exchanged all

IN THE HISTORY OP NAAMAN. 245
his acquisitions for the blooming health of peasants,
whom he encountered in such lonely wanderings, as a
mind, fretted as his was, is apt to covet, like banished
spirits roaming through dry places. " Naaman," said
he to himself a thousand times, " thou art the captain
of Syria's host, thou art great and honorable, thou art
the deliverer of thy country, thou art a mighty man
of valor — but — but — thou art a leper ! Oh, that thou
mightest be the humblest of thy menials, to be free
from the corruption under which thou art rotting
away into a hideous grave !" But his repining wishes
would have been as fruitless. Brethren, as if whispered
to the winds, save for the gracious interposition 'of an
unasked Providence.
And can one single source of helpless misery thus
waste and blast the soul's enjoyment, on this side of
the grave, amid all which this world can supply, to
alleviate and lessen it ? 0, then, beyond that grave,
where all this world's resources will be clean shorn
off, and where every element of misery will be a
gnawing worm and a consuming fire, how terrible, how
unutterably terrible, the condition of a lost transgres
sor ! Misery will be without him and within him, and
above him and around him; his own self, his own
chief woe, his memory full of burning recollections,
his conscience of inflaming accusations, his very mind
and soul on fire with the furies of remorse. 0 God,
what a fate awaits thine enemies ! And who, then,
can rise up against thee, and thy anointed Son, say
ing (that they may wear the livery of this world)
"Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away

246 PROVIDENCES OP GOD.
their cords from us."' Madness, yea, madness which
the cells of the lunatic can not equal, is in their
hearts, who are allowing those hearts to contend
against thy law and against thy love. Well, well
does a prophet exclaim to them in thy name, like one
screaming to those .about to rush down an unseen
precipice, " Turn ye, turn ye, for why will ye die?"
i Fealm ii. 3.

SERMON V.
GOD'S USES OF EVIL BEINGS.
FROU THE PSALTER.
" Slay them not, lest my people forget it ; hut scatter them
abroad a/mong the people, and put them down, 0 Lord, our
defence." — Psalm lix. 11.
Although the Psalmist here prays, that the sword
of retribution may not be drawn against some who
were hostile to himself, or to the cause he represented ;
yet it is clear, from the latter half of the verse, that he
thought they deserved its blows, and presumed Hea
ven might think so, too. He implores Heaven to
spare them ; yet not on their own account but that,
as monuments of discipline, they might quicken and
refresh those easy memories of ours, which are so apt
to forget any thing in the shape of chastisement, and
let us run on in sin, as if God never could avenge.
And, in one respect, when we look at many of the
worthless— or the truth-hating and opposing of man
kind — we seem to resemble him. We look at such
persons — ^in themselves considered — and we wonder

248 god's USES OF EVIL BEINGS.
that they are spared to cumber the ground, while
those who are most valuable, and most endeared
to their friends, and to society, are cut down and
hurried away. We are astonished, often, that such
are not slain by the hand which parts the thread of
life, while those rather are taken, of whom we are
ready to say, with all possible fervency, " Oh, slay them
not!" But, herein, we differ from the Psalmist, who was
what might be called, not a political, but a religious
economist. He contemplated evil men, not so much
with a reference to their personal deserts, as to the
possible good ends they might, indirectly, subserve ;
and so he supplicated Heaven not to destroy them
suddenly and irreparably, but to preserve them as
warning beacons to the half-good, or the halting and
wavering, that with such lively remembrancers be
fore their very faces, they can be kept nearer the
strait line, more securely within the narrow path of
duty to the soul and God. He would not have them
swept off like chaff from the threshing-floor, lest the
memory of their fate go with them. He would have
them restrained, yet so as to render them li"ving and
monitory testimonies, that there is a God who can
avenge his servants and his cause ; and who will bring
into judgment all who dare follow their sad example.
" Slay them not, lest my people forget it."
To some, my Brethren, this may be a singular, not
to say, startling picture. A good nian praying for the
wicked, that they may be warnings to keep those in
the right way who have begun to walk in it, or to de-

god's USES OF EVIL BEINGS. 249
ter wanderers who may be thinking it not unsafe to
let that right way be long disregarded. Yet it must
be a picture acceptable to God, or he would not allow
it to stand upon the records of inspiration. And, if
so, it ought to be a vindicable one ; and it becomes
my duty to prove it such, or, at least, to make the
attempt, God giving me the ability. I propose, there
fore, to point out to you some subjects, with which
such a picture is more or less obviously connected, and
to show you, in their illustration, how such a senti
ment as the text puts forward lies at the bottom of
some of the profoundest principles of a broad and ma
jestic religious economy. We must look at such a
text, my Brethren, with no narrow, personal views,
but in the spirit of a candid and comprehensive phi
losophy ; and then we can enter into something of its
width and reach. If we look at it in a contracted way,
"it wfll only serve (as the preaching of profound senti
ments in religion often serves, with the ignorant and
the envious) to set us a carping.
With these remarks as a guide, I beg you to notice,
in the first place, how this text bears upon one of the
most difficult topics in all the Psalter, and one of the
frequent vexations of theologians themselves.
I. That topic is the subject of religious impreca
tions. Too many, by far too many, who read the Psalter,
and profess to be shocked by the spectacle of a good
man imprecating the judgments of the Almighty on
the heads of the wicked, presume he does this as a
private individual, and querulously ask, how the in-
11*

250 god's uses op evil beings.
dulgence of such terrible feelings is consistent with the
amenity, compassion, and charity, which true religion,
beyond question, inculcates. They forget when they
do so, that it is one of the simplest and commonest of
facts in civil society, for a man to bear two characters
— a private and an official one ; and that he may be
called upon in the latter, to say and to do things, which
are quite incompatible with his station as a simple in
dividual, and not a little painful to his feelings. If
an attorney for the commonwealth, and a judge upon
the bench, were to assafl a fellow creature in language
of frightful emphasis — the one exerting his utmost to
show he was worthy of the gallows, and the other for
mally devoting him to this tremendous death, and
were to do all this in their bare capacity as men, we
should say, forthwith, that this was a most noisome,
not to say appalling, exhibition of malignity. They
do this, as official individuals do it, with intense zeal
and solemnity, and we believe their hearts no whit
less tender for their awful ministries ; nay, give them
full credit for the performance of their acts, as if
prompted by no iU feeling towards the wretched cul
prit before them, but by a most patriotic anxiety for
the welfare of the community at large.
The press, which is, of course, a fiction for indivi
dual men, putting their opinions do"wn in black and
white, for the information of multitudes, sometimes
lashes public characters and public assemblies, with a
perfect whip of scorpions; and when we are per
suaded its sting is well deserved, and not instigated
by secret malice, we absolutely thank Heaven, that

god's uses op evil beings. 251
there is a tribunal before which we can arraign gam
bling financiers, tricky politicians, or a selfish govern
ment, and administer a chastisement scarcely inferior
to the old custom of scourging a felon at the public
post. And so far are we from pitying such sufferers,
that we can see their brazen audacity writhe under
torture, and begin its first works of justice and rec
titude in an agony of repentance ; and can do it with
a complacency, which the pleasures of a banquet can
not rival.
Well, my Brethren, if we thus acknowledge (as we
most indubitably do) that men in civfl office, or as
censors of the public morals, may say and do things in
their pubhc capacity, which, if they were to say and
do in their capacity as indi"viduals, we should pro
nounce unjustifiable, cruel, or malicious, why can we
not as easfly make the same distinction, in respect to
what may be done by men in religious office, or as
censors of the highest and most dread assumptions,
censors not of overt conduct only, but of the thoughts
and intents of the heart? Nay, do we not tacitly
make this distinction, by coming into this house of
God, and listening to your preacher, while he says to
you officially, things which, if he were to say to you
unofficially, you would, perhaps, account insufferable ?
He says to you, for instance, that human nature is
dismally corrup"t^ — is smitten with a moral disease, as
attainting as leprosy to the body — that it is in danger
of death, of death everlasting and irreparable ; and
you endure the formidable message, because you es
teem it the dictate of imperious duty, and no-t of hos-

252 god's uses op evil beings.
tflity to you as indi"viduals. He could not, in some
respects, say worse things of you than he does ; and
if he said them, as some are inhuman enough to fancy
he does say them, out of his heart as a man, he would
merit, and he would not shrink from, your severest
reprobation. But he says those things under a solemn
sense of duty to God, and not because it is pleasant to
say them (may the Lord have mercy upon the hard
hearted fault-flnder, who can ever suppose it is pleasant
to tell people how bad they are, instead of how good
they are) ; and those who know what duty is what
responsibihty, what the dread reckoning of a future
day, do him (I will not say the kindness) the fiis-
tice to believe, that what is said, is uttered under
strong constraint, and indicates no lack of consider
ation, or of sensibihty, or charity.
And now, why cannot the same distinctions, with
which we are familiar in society and in the Church,
be carried into the Scriptures, and explain such osten
sible harshness and proscription, as is often thought
to be exhibited in what are styled ihe imprecations ?
David was a man, but he was also a public man — a
public man in the widest sense, in state and Church ;
for, while the Old Testament caUs him, over and over
again, a king, the New Testament caUs him a patri
arch." As chief governor in the Church, and in the
state also, he might and he did utter, and pray for,
things, which, if he had uttered them and prayed for
them, as a mere man, might well have deserved cen
sure, and censure without abatement.
a Acts, ii. 29.

god's uses of evil beings. 253
Sometimes (as we might think unfortunately) his
action as a public character, the most public character
of his times, is left to be inferred ; and we hastily at
tribute his language to him as an indi"vidual, and show
him no mercy. Sometimes, this action is interpret-
able by his words, as in our text. Here, his reference
to the community demonstrates, that he was swayed
by his regard to the pubhc weal, and not by his pri
vate interests, or personal feelings. " Slay them not,
lest my people forget it." My people, i. e., the welfare
of his people, is, you perceive, the governing motive
of his appeal to Heaven. If he had been actuated by
personal malignity, he would not have desired that
his enemies might be longer left alive upon the earth,
to be his annoyances and persecutions. Oh, no ! He
would rather have had them swallowed, as Pharaoh
was, by the billows, or Korah by the gaping earth.
But for himself he cares not. He is willing, nay,
anxious, so that God permit them not to trample
upon truth and righteousness, to let them remain for
the admonition of the heedless ; and to assure them
that their quarrel with Heaven is as bootless as it is
perilous. David was not, was never, vindictive as a simple
individual. His repeated mercy towards his most
sanguinary foe, establishes this beyond a contradic
tion. And when he does utter his feelings in ¦ the
Psalms, as an individual, mark how almost the ten
derness of St. Stephen for his murderers breathes
through his pathetic lines. " They rewarded me evil
for my good, to the- great discomfort of my soul.

254 god's uses op evil beings.
Nevertheless, when they were sick, I put on sack
cloth, and humbled my soul with fasting, and my
prayer shall turn into mine own bosom. I behaved
myself as though it had been my friend, or my brother:
I went heavily, as one that mourneth for his mother."*
Oh, when a man of such a frame as this denounces,
let us never believe he does so, because of private
preferences ; but because the inevitable constraint of
duty exacts the language of solemn or stern author
ity. Thus, my Brethren, I hope may be vindicated those
formidable imprecations of judgment, which, not in
frequently, appear in the Psalter, and even elsewhere
in the holy Scriptures. Nevertheless, if the language
of such addresses to a righteous and avenging God
may thus be justified, some, perhaps, will say the ob
ject of them may be questionable, and esteem it
hardly right to employ the "wicked for such ends, as
those addresses may contemplate. For example, they
may say, in reference to the case cited in the text,
Would it not be better to slay the wicked outright,
rather than harass and oppress them by visible pun
ishments, for the benefit of lesser offenders, or of those
who are in danger of tripping in the paths of pro
priety ? This brings us to a second topic, suggested
by the text, viz.. The lawful uses of punishment.
II.. — What, then, can make retribution justifiable?
It is a principle of human economy, that punishment
should be administered, not for the sake of vengeance,
but of reformation, if possible, to the actually guflty ;'
b Ps. xxxv. 12, 14.

god's uses of evil beings. 255
certainly of reformation to the yet unconvicted, and of
prevention to those who are tempted, and in peril of
falling. The whole machinery of the administration
of law towards offenders, goes upon such a principle ;
for our courts are open, our prisons are conspicuous,
and executions, till they became hazardous, were as
notorious as newspapers, and hand-bills, and broad
daylight, could anywise make them. To criminals
themselves, all this is martyrdom or purgatory, a
heavy and a terrible addition to sufferings, which one
might suppose sufficient to satiate the vengeance of
the law (if it were vindictive) to the very uttermost.
But the grand argument, nevertheless, has been and
still continues to be urged, that the effects of a viola
tion of law cannot be made too palpable, that others
may hear or see, and thus fear, like catastrophes, if as
"wilful or presuming.
And what is this, my Brethren, but enacting, and
countenancing, and maintaining the same thing in one
shape, which we find God doing in another. God de
sires not to punish for his own satisfaction's sake ; as
tyrants have done, for offences coming under the old
title of lese-majesty." When the punishment of the
wicked, in that point of view, is brought up before
him, he (if one may say so) shudders, and turns away
from the spectacle, as if almost as abhorrent to him as
the loathsomeness of sin. " As I live, saith the Lord
God," he swears it, you see, with the solemnity of an
oath, by his eternity, "As I live, saith the Lord
God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked ;
e Kriegel's Corpus .luris Civilis. Dig. 48, 4 ; or, vol. i. 894, 895.

256 god's uses op evil beings.
but that the wicked turn from his way and live.
Turn ye, turn ye, from your e"vfl ways ; for "why "will
ye die, 0 house of Israel ?"'^
And, in consistency with such a representation, God
here prompts David to pray that the wicked may be
half-slain, if so he that the issue shall be a benefit, not
to themselves alone, but to such as their fate may ad
monish and restrain. Putting them down from the
high places of pride and temporal success, of immunity
and honor, might fill their minds with anguish, their
bodies with the aflments and pangs which mental an
guish can engender. But this deposition might save the
very souls to which it was a scourge, while it saved
others, also, who witnessed its lessons, from the curses
of fortunate ambition. If Pharaoh had not hardened
his own heart directly, while the discipline of God—
which was intended to soften — ^indirectly hardened it
also, (a result which a misused mercy always produces,)
who can say, that the plagues of his people had not
been blessings, rather than maledictions? Would
they not have been accounted blessings by the thou
sands who followed the mad victim of infuriate pass-
sion, and who perished hopelessly beneath the angry
billows of the returning sea ? Oh, as that thronging
host sank like lead in the mighty waters, would they
not have accounted those plagues the very richest
mercies, could they have averted from them a fate so
direful to themselves, to their homes, to their whole
nation ? Pharaoh was not slain for many a day of
wearisome forbearance, that he and his people might
d Ezek. xxxiii. 11.

god's uses of evil beings. 257
not forget a clearly-predicted issue.^ They were put
down, but not annihilated, that they might not forget
One, who held the elements in his grasp, and could
muster all nature, if he chose, in array against his in
fatuated enemies. The lesson, as in ten thousand other
instances, and as now, in instances fresh in recollection,
was an inefficacious and a lost one. But what then ?
Would we have God more summary ? would we have
him slay without hesitation at the outset ? Yes, such
is our perverse misconstruction of the economy of
moral government — ^its forbearance, and endurance,
and fruitless hopes. That government graciously hesi
tates to punish, and we exclaim. How tardy ! It pun
ishes at last, with reserved and outraged justice, and
we exclaim. How unforgiving !
My Brethren, you may thus perceive that the gov
ernment of God, like the very governments which we
ourselves constitute, and profess so much to admire and
reverence, as the production of our highest skill and
wisdom, would always, rather than avenge itself, con
strain the evil to do better, and the, as yet, mostly
tempted to be e"vil to abstain from yielding to seduc
tions. May I be allowed to hope, that the remarks
now made will, possibly, give you a fairer view, and
a better understanding of its punitive administration
than you have sometimes been inclined to entertain ?
If so, then you may be not unready to go a step fur
ther, and contemplate, with serious wisdom and untimi-
dated candor, the last thought which I now feel it to
be my duty to impress upon you — the uses of punish-
e Compare Exod. xiv. 1-4; ix. 16.

258 god's uses op evil beings.
ment, in its most formidable aspect, in the retribu
tions of a world of woe.
What, it is said, can be the possible utility of such
an abode of unmitigated misery as hell? If punish
ment be not for vengeance, but for the prevention of
crime, why not slay the wicked with a sentence of utter
annihilation, and cast them out, not from heaven only,
but out of being, amid the rubbish of chaos ?
My Brethren, singular as it may seem to some among
you who have not studied the nature of mind, a mo
ment's careful consideration to one who has studied
the nature of mind, will satisfy him that moral beings
cannot be governed by physical coercion, but must be
governed by moral inducements. The power of God
himself over the wfll is exerted through motives pre
sented to that will, and not by direct efficiency ; for
a free will even God himself cannot control by a vio
lation of its freedom. Hence, Milton, if a poet, spake
like a philosopher when he represented Satan " in ada
mantine chains and penal fire," as nevertheless boast
ing of his unconquerable wfll, and courage never to
submit or yield..''
Now, the obedient angels, like all other intelligent
creatures, are moral beings, and governed, of course,
by moral inducements ; or their virtue would be no
more praiseworthy, than the harmonious combination
and marvellous achievements of wood, and brass, and
iron, in some singular machine. One of those induce
ments, constituting unquestionably a vital and ener
getic motive, is a manifest, and a visible, a perpe-
/ Paradise Lost, i. 48, 106.

god's uses of evil beings. 259
tual, and a realized manifestation, of the consequences
of disobedience, in the miseries of their fallen asso
ciates. And that manifestation is made before them
in the world which we inhabit. We mistake prodi
giously, if we suppose this world was made for our
selves alone ; and has not spiritual, as well as physical
connexions, with the worlds around it. It is a moral
theatre, not for itself simply. It is so in the grandest
exhibition of its whole amazing history, the work of
redemption. For what were "all things" here cre
ated, according to the philosophy of a Saint Paul, how
httle soever thought of by unsaintly politicians and
votaries of human science ? " To the intent," he an
swers, " that now, unto the principalities and powers
in heavenly places, might be known by ihe Church the
manifold wisdom of God."? And if, in this way, the
world we live in was designed to be an exhibition,
and a study, and a memento, for the inhabitants of
other worlds, then, why not for the demonstrations of
justice as well as mercy? It is destined to be the
scene of the devfl's most crushing defeat, as well as
his repeated victories. " For this purpose," says a text
which perplexes many, because it points to an unseen
consummation, "For this purpose was the Son of
God manifested, that he might destroy the works of
the devil."^ This world, very possibly, in a period
of its history of which we have no record, was all his
own ; for he is called, over and over again by an
evangelist, the Prince of this world ; and in his inter
view with Christ, he claimed what Christ did not re-
g Eph. iii. 10. h 1 John, iii. 8.

260 god's uses op evil beings.
buke him for, its absolute and entire fee-simple. But,
alas ! the crown of empires crumbled from his brow.
He fell ; and the world, new-born, was given to a
new race, upon which, as supplanters of himself, he
has ever looked with implacable envy, hatred, and
detestation. And this world even now, no doubt, is a
purgatory to himself and his fellow-apostates ; where
they are unceasingly seeking rest, but finding none.
To us they are invisible, except in the forms of deceit
and "witchcraft ; making frequent show of " great signs
and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they
shall deceive the very elect," and make them partners
in their fate, the proselytes of hell. But to spirits like
themselves, and who sinned not "with them, they are
spectacles of unmingled degradation and "wretchedness.
To such beings, this perhaps doubly -fallen world is no
congenial home; but we are assured they "visit, at
God's bidding, (not at ours,) these earthly shores, fa
miliar to them in ages past, to be ministering spirits
to us on the spot, and amid the warfare in which they
came off' conquerors.
Because their former associates are put down merely,
and not slain, are permitted to hve, but doomed to
suffer, they, when they come hither and behold their
ruin, are all the better fortified against those impulses
to disobedience which once pervaded their loyal ranks,
and threw unnumbered sons of the morning into an
endless eclipse of shame and woe. They see what we
could see, if our eyes were opened, devfls entering into
swine, or into men "with swinish appetites, and trying
for a while to conceal their own misery beneath the

god's uses op evil beings. 261
debasement or the destruction of their victims. They
start with holy horror from the ghastly apparition,
and fly back to their abodes of bliss, happier than ever
in their true allegiance, readier than ever to fly to cre
ation's utmost verge, to do God's slightest bidding,
rather than harbor one rebellious thought, and to be
exfles from his presence and the glory of his power.
Wlierefore, my Brethren, this sorry world may be
no unimpressive or unuseful lesson to the still obedient
angels. And if so, a stfll sorrier one may not be with
out its uses for ourselves, should we ever become like
them in exaltation and proximity to God, and be sent
forth, as they are, to them who are strugghng for sal
vation. And respecting such a possibility. Scripture
is not altogether so silent as may be fancied. In his
wondrous descriptions of unseen realities, and of mar
vels imagination could not compass, St. John speaks not
impertinently for the object I have in "view. He thus
portrays the sufferings of some of God's worst enemies
as a spectacle to heaven itself " The same shall drink
of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out
"without mixture, into the cup of his indignation ; and
he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone, in the
presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of
the Lamb ; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth
up for ever and ever."'
Who can tell, but that such a spectacle, and its im
mortal flames, may be a necessity as indispensable as
it is terrific, that God's people may be everlastingly
unforgetful of the issues of rebellion against supreme
i Rev. xiv. 10, 11.

262 god's uses op evil beings.
authority, boundless wisdom, perfect love? If the
prince of this great globe — one who possessed intelh-
gence and virtue sufficient to preside over its noblesJ"
destinies, and who still has sagacity enough to carry
sorrow to all its corners— if Ae could fall, why may not
other and inferior angels fall, as well ? If Adam, in
the state of his perfection, in the former Paradise, could
fall, why may not his children copy his example, in
Paradise regained ? I see no strict or unnatural im
possibility in such things, if we are always and in
variably to be moral beings, governed by moral
suasion, and not by physical constraints. The impos-
sibflity must arise from God's presentation to us of
motives, overwhelmingly invincible. To a moral being
of unsoiled purity, and unworn sensitiveness, a spec
tacle of consummate ruin may be such a motive. The
penalty of death, if conceived in all its fulness, might
have deterred Eve and Adam from their awful ven
ture. So the whole significance of such a penalty may
be the moral constraint, one day to be exhibited, and
made indelible. And if so, the immortality of hell
may be one grand demonstration, which God brings in
review before his obedient subjects, to confirm them
in their allegiance — their unfailing allegiance — to his
sovereign throne.
Hell, my Brethren, may be a spectacle not for us
alone, but for the whole illimitable universe of God.
It may be the grand centre of evil, the great gulf of
mischief and wretchedness, towards which the inhabi
tants of a hundred worlds, or a million, may be di
rected, as the consummation of sin, in its deepest, pro-

god's USES OP EVIL BEINGS. 263
foundest degradation and misery. Countless myriads,
therefore — nay, the universe itself — may be the safer
for its apalling, yet resistless, demonstrations. As the
kings of the earth shall one day stand afar off from
mj'stic Babylon, lest they partake her destiny, so may
the ransomed hereafter stand aloof from the abyss
where all the sin, and all the woe, of a universe shall
be entombed, and rise to a higher strain than ever, in
praise of that mighty Power which can purge the
widest empire of every traitor to its peace. And
then will be the time to imitate the proclamation of
the angel, " Fear God, and give glory to him ; for the
hour of his judgment is come : and worship him that
made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains
of waters."./ j Rev. xiv. 7.

SERMON VI.
THE RAINBOW.
'^ And God said. This is the token of the covenant which I
make hetween me and you, and every living creature that is
with you for perpetual generations : I do set my how in the
cloud, and it shall he for a token of a covenant hetween me
and ihe earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a
cloud over the earth, that the bow shall he seen in the cloud :
and I will remember my covenant which is hetween me and
you, and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall
no more become a flood to destroy ail flesh. And the how shall
be in the cloud; and L will look upon it, that I may remember
the everlasting covenant hetween Ood and every living crea
ture of all flesh that is upon the earth. ' And Ood said unto
Noah, This is the token of the covenant which I have estab
lished between me and ail flesh that is upon the earth." — •
Genesis, ix. 12-17.
The first idea which seemed to present itself to the
patriarch Noah, as he stepped forth from the ark, the
sur"vivor of a world, was, that the Being who had
punished man so awfully must be propitiated as soon
as possible. Accordingly, his first act was to bufld
an altar, and offer a rich sacrifice. The feeling and
the act were perfectly natural. For who can describe
the awe and embarrassment of his feelings, who was
entering a world over which death had long reigned

the RAINBOW. 265
supreme ? Not a living creature remained of all that
once had existed : the very creeping things had all
gone. Amid the dreadfully barren solitude, the patri
arch felt the nearness of death intensely, and hastened,
"with blood and incense and prayer, to appease the
wrath which might be hovering around him still.
The Almighty appreciates the trouble and terror of
his mind. He not only accepts his humble endeavors
to propitiate him, but he solemnly assures him that he
does so. He encourages him to believe, that though
he is walking over a world of graves, he may do so
with security. 'Never again,' he declares, 'shall the
human race be swept away, and the toils of genera
tions come to nought. While the earth remaineth,
seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer
and winter, and day and night shall not cease.'
And such an explicit assurance, we might have
thought quite enough ; for what is truer or greater
than God's own word ? Nothing, it may be replied,
most justly. And yet, with that word before charac
ters of such sincere faith as Moses, God's law-giver —
Gideon, the captain of his host — and Mary, the
mother of " God manifest in the flesh"'' — doubts have
been felt, and confirmations for faith asked for. Now,
Noah surpassed all these virtuous personages, in that
he asked for no such confirmation. And yet, it need
not be doubted, that as he looked upon the ruins of
1600 years, (for so old was the world when the deluge
came,) his eye filled with tears of apprehension, and
a Abraham, too. — Gen. 15. 8.
12

266 THE RAINBO"W".
rottenness entered into his bones. The world had
thousands upon thousands in it, beyond all question,
when the waters of the deluge overwhelmed it. Our
Saviour himself says, that it was full of luxury and
merriments ; and these things are found where multi
tudes are gathered, where wealth bas supplied the
means and art the skill, to make all around man as
tasteful and gratifying as possible. " In the days that
were before the flood, they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that
Noah entered into the ark."*
So Noah, as he surveyed the devastations of the
deluge, must have seen such outspread waste and ruin,
as no eye may again behold, till " the heavens being
on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shafl melt
with fervent heat."'' And doing so, he must have been
made of "sterner stuff" than mortals usually are, to
have looked with a dry eye, or an unfaltering heart ;
though the voice of mercy was meanwhile pouring
promises of hope into his ear. This, he who pities
like a father them who fear him, saw ; and he added
to his promises a sign, to make those promises sure
" while the earth remaineth." He pointed to the
heavens, now gilded by the rays of the sinking sun,
(for the day probably was taken up iiffemptying the
ark, and Noah employed the first leisure of evening
to offer his sacrifices,) he pointed, I say, to the heav
ens, gilded by the setting sun, and yet dark with the
clouds of a whole year of tempests, and at the mo
ft Matt. 24. 38. c 2 Peter, 3. 12.

THE RAINBOW. 267
ment there came forth that arch of beauty and glory,
which no eye was ever tired to see.*^
All this seems to me, my Brethren, as appropriate
and natural, as any tale of forbearance and mercy
could in any wise be. It seems self-evident and self-
commendatory ; worthy of the occasion — worthy of
God- — worthy of record by the Holy Ghost — worthy
of our faith and veneration. And yet, in an attempt
to teach you its practical lessons, I am arrested as
often, at the very outset, by the doubts and carpings
of the Infidel, ' How can these things be ? The rain
bow is but the natural effect of a natural cause — it
must have been a familiar thing in the course of fif
teen centuries — -and how could the Almighty say, after
such a lapse of time, " I do set my bow in the cloud ?"
How could the patriarch receive a thing noi new, as a
token that another deluge should never come?'
Before, therefore, I proceed to the direct use of my
subject, it is incumbent on me to remove any obstruc
tions, which may prevent its free access to your minds.
There are three answers which may be given to this
ca"vil. i. — That the rainbow was never seen before.
ii. — That, if seen, it had never been appropriated as
a Divine token.
iii. — That, if seen, it had been an object of super
stitious terror or wonder, rather than of religious hope
and joy.
Let us consider these answers in their order.
d The text repeated.

268 THE RAINBOW.
i. — That the rainbow was, actually, never seen
before. This is by no means impossible. There are por
tions of the globe, now, where it seldom or never
rains ; and of course the bow is never visible there.
And even where it does rain often, as we well know,
it is comparatively a rare spectacle. It can never
exist, but where the sun is in or near the horizon, and
when it shines upon falling rain ; for I presume you
understand the bow is occasioned by the passage of
the light through the drops, and not by its reflection
from them, as was supposed in ancient times. The
rays of light are refracted, as philosophers say, i. e.,
bent in passing through the drops ; and being bent,
some more, some less, are separated from each other,
and appear in the various colors of which each ray
is made up , no less than seven colors making up one
ray, viz. : the violet, the indigo, the blue, the green,
the yellow, the orange,- and the red. Of course here
are circumstances, necessary to form a rainbow, which
must perpetually render it an object somewhat rare ;
and so we find it. It is always so remarkable to see
a perfect and a bright one, that a person of the slight
est taste for beauty, is glad to be called to view one
of such a character.
Such being the philosophical nature of the rainbow,
it would have required no exertion of miraculous
power, on the part of God, to have prevented the sight
of a rainbow till he called Noah to behold one. And
the allusions made to the history of the world's cli
mates, before the deluge, encourage the idea, that

THE RAINBOW. 269
storms were by no means so common then, as since.
Thus we find, for example, that there was no rain in
the garden of Eden ; " but there went up a mist from
the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."*
If this state of things continued long, (as it continues
now in some parts of the globe,) no rainbow could
have made its appearance ; for such mists or dews
gathered during the night.
It is. by no means impossible, then, or improbable,
on the principles of natural philosophy, that the rain
bow should never have been seen till the days of
Noah. ii. — The second answer was, that, even if seen, it
had never before been appropriated as a Divine token.
It is no argument against Baptism or the Eucharist,
that their outward and visible signs (water, bread,
and wine) had existed, and were familiar things, long
before those sacraments were instituted./ So it would
be no argument against the employment of the rain
bow, as the outward and visible sign of God's cove
nant not again to overwhelm the world. The sym
bols of the sacraments are fitting symbols, as we all
can see for ourselves ; and no one objects, therefore,
to their Divine consecration to sacred purposes. The
rainbow, as it indicates the departure of a storm, is a
fitting symbol to seal the covenant, that storms, which
would drown the world, had departed forever; and
why then should its symbolical character be objected
to, whether it were a novelty, or not, to Noah ?
e Gen. 2. 5. / Adams on 2 Peter, 651, a.

270 ' THE RAINBOW.
iii. — The third answer was, that if seen before the
deluge, the rainbow had been an object of supersti
tious terror or wonder, rather than of religious hope
and joy.
We look upon it with delight ; but forget how de
pendent we are for our impressions, upon the charac
ter which revelation has affixed to it. Now, it is a
notorious fact, that almost all the striking appearances
in the heavens occasion alarm. I myself have known
the ignorant convert the Northern Lights into an
omen of the Day of Judgment. And it is a fact, that
the Romans considered the rainbow a pathway from
the heavens, up and down which that fatal messenger
travelled, who came to release a departing soul.
It is quite natural, then, to suppose, that if seen be
fore the deluge, it had been regarded "with dread.
And if it had, and the Almighty, for the first time,
taught man, through Noah, no more to look upon it
with apprehension, then his selection of it as a token
of a merciful covenant, only proves his condescension
and grace to be all the greater. Instead of cavilling
at his word, for the religious character which it as
cribes to it, far more becoming would it be, to bow
with wonder and adoration, saying, "As the heavens
are higher than the earth, so are thy ways than our
ways, and thy thoughts than our thoughts."^
The infidel objection to the religious history of the
rainbow has had as much, or more, notice than it de
serves. Brethren : let us now turn to reflections more
directly practical. g Isaiah, Iv. 9.

THE R.VINBOW. 271
I. — And first, let us notice the propriety and beauty
of that token, which is an emblem of man's delive
rance from a deluge " while the earth remaineth."
It is a perpetual token. It is not like Absalom's
pillar, or the sculptured marbles, to which the vanity
or ambition of man has resorted to perpetuate his
memory. The pyramids themselves must crsmble
down beneath the decay of centuries. Their history
is even now buried forever in the rubbish of the past.
And so will it be with all man's symbols, to create an
earthly immortality. Not thus is it with God's sym
bols. They are as lasting as the world's elements.
His bow will span the heavens, to proclaim his mercy,
as long as the heavens themselves shall cover us.
Time, too, wfll never sully its splendor. We may
still say to one another, what the author of the Book
of Ecclesiasticus said centuries upon centuries ago,
" Look upon the rainbow, and praise him who made it!
Very beautiful it is in the brightness thereof
It compasseth the heaven about with a glorious circle,
And the hands of the Most High have bended it."'*
Again it is an apposite token. There was something
awfully apposite, in God's writing on the palace walls
of Belshazzar — those walls which had witnessed to
his highest earthly glee and glory — the prediction of
his utter downfall. There was something pathetically
apposite, in his -writing upon the retiring clouds,
which had rained destruction on the world, the signa
ture of that covenant, which was to pledge the world
h Ecclus. xliii. 11, 12.

272 THE RAINBOW.
freedom from such destruction to its latest day. It
was making those tremendous elements, which had
combined to send whole generations to their graves,
speak the language of hope to all generations, which
should hereafter walk the earth, that they would
never again be ministers of universal death. They
formdfi, so to speak, the tablet ; and the hand of the
Almighty wrote upon them, with a pen of glory, his
signature to the covenant of the world's salvation.
Who could have wished, or dreamed of, a place so
fitting ? Who, as he reads it there, does not feel as
if the pledge of "reasonable religious and holy hope,"
were inscribed where the eye would most love to see
it ? As the glory which shone around the tomb of
Jesus, at the moment of his resurrection, showed his
power over the darkness of death, so does the emblem
of his mercy, which God sometimes hangs out upon
the clouds, show his power over the waters of the fir
mament. Jesus illuminates the gloomy sepulchre :
God brightens the gloomy sky : hope springs afresh
in man's foreboding heart.
Again it is a conspicuous token. It is not like the
glories forbidden to the multitude, which Moses saw
upon the Mount, or those of which we have but a
description, however "vivid, such as Daniel or St. John
have painted, as well as the written page could paint
them. It is for all, and for all to see, with their own
eyes. And it is as easily seen, by hundreds and by
thousands, as by one. We consider it a grand achieve
ment, to exhibit the emblem of oath-taking, in a mon
arch or a president, to as great a multitude as possible.

THE RAINBOW. 273
But as many miUions as could see within one horizon
^-nay, perhaps every li"ving mortal on the face of the
earth, if gathered within such an horizon — might look
on, when the Almighty hangs out the emblem of that
oath, which gives the world fresh life.* There, in his
own broad heavens, he might unfurl it ; and an assem
bly such as worships him above, ten thousand times
ten thousand, and thousands of thousands might look
on and say, ' Blessing and honor and glory and power
be unto the mercy of which it is the token !' There
is something divinely sublime in an emblem which
might be honored by a host like this.
But I may dwell too long on such reflections as
these ; and with an allusion to the other topic named,
viz. : the beauty of the rainbow, I will pass on to an
other division of the subject.
And, in relation to its beauty, I am of course to
speak of it, not as a poet or a painter, but as a
preacher. It may do for Milton to speak of it, as
"those colored streaks in Heaven,
Distended as the brow of God appeased ;"
or for Guido to represent the Virgin and the Infant
Saviour, with his highest art, by enthroning them on
its glorious arch. It is for the Minister of God to tell
you, that the rainbow is a reflection of more than
earthly beauty. It is an element of the beauties of
heaven itself; it glows in that firmament where the
sunshine is not needed, but the Lord God and the
i God regarded the act as an oath. — Isaiah, liv; 9.
12*

274 THE RAINBOW.
Lamb beam, forth everlasting glory. "As the ap
pearance of the bow," says the prophet Ezekiel, dis
closing to us a glimpse of the world above — " As the
appearance of the bow, that is in the cloud in the day
of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round
about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the
glory of the Lord. And when I saw it," adds he, "I
fell upon my face."/
When a door in heaven, as he expresses it, was
opened for St. John, to go up and look in upon its
glories, he says that "behold a throne was set in heav
en, and One sat on the throne 1 And He that sat was
to look upon like a jasper and a sardine-stone, and
there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight
like unto an emerald."* And so he afterwards describes
the mighty angel, whose face was like the sun, and
his feet like pillars of fire, as clothed with a cloud,
and a rainbow upon his head ;^ a picture which, per
haps, taught Milton his sublime idea of calling the
rainbow " the brow of God ;" for to the Bible are the
greatest poets and orators indebted for their grandest
imagery.™ Now, the use which I would make of the idea that,
in its beauty, the rainbow is a derivation from, and a
reflection of, the beauties of the upper heaven, is this.
Let it convince you that, as we never tire of gazing
upon what is a mere similitude of celestial glory, still
less shall we tire of gazing upon the unsurpassed, un
surpassable originals. Men sometimes wonder that
.;¦ Ezek. i. 28. k Rev. iv. 2-3. I Rev. i. i.
m Tucker's Light of Nat. ch. xxix., § 20 ; or vol. ii., 407-8.

THE RAINBOW. 2 ro
we can describe one of the employments of heaven as
an enraptured contemplation of God's majesty, and as
saying, day and night, unwearied, " Holy, holy, holy,
is the Lord of Hosts ; the whole earth is full of his
glory !"" But they are never wearied, they say,
with the beauties of Nature, or the wonders of
Science. And yet, whose are these beauties ? whose
these wonders, but God's? — and after all, perhaps,
God's " childish things ;"» such as he thinks fitted to
this infancy of our eternal existence. These " child
ish things" can occupy all our time, and fill our facul
ties to the full ; and then we can stare with learned
curiosity, and ask how God himself could give us
sleepless employment, night and day. Ah ! Brethren,
so the world, by self-conceited wisdom, often knows
not God.
But I shall consume too much time ; let me hurry,
then, to the last topic.
II. Of what is the rainbow designed to remind us ?
Directly of one, and indirectly of another very im
portant fact. Directly, that the seasons, with all their
attendant blessings, are the covenanted gifts of God.
Indirectly, that momentous truths can be embodied
and set forth in emblems.
1. — That the seasons, with all their attendant bless
ings, are the covenanted gifts of God.
There was a year, in our poor world's history, when
" seed time and harvest, and cold and heat, and sum
mer and winter, and day and night, "i" did cease, in a
» Isa. vi. 3. 0 Chateaubriand's Beauties, i. 243.
p The Deluge lasted three hundred and seventy-seven days.

276 THE RAINBOW.
manner supremely awful. It was a year whose
changeless horrors could have been second only to
those of chaos ; " when the earth was without form and
void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."
And what secures this same abode of guilty mortals
from its return ? Nothing, nothing but the covenant
of God's mercy. But for that covenant, every storm
would seem the harbinger of utter ruin, and man,
in despair, might rush into deeper wickedness,
hke those Jews who, in the madness of misfortune,
exclaimed, " There is no hope ; but we will every
one walk after his own devices, and we will every one
do the imagination of his evil heart."? Even now,
there are few things gloomier or more saddening than
a protracted storm — ^the heavens lowering and pouring
day after day, for a single week, make man feel chilly
and damp to his very bones, and his heart begins to
fail. * How soon Paul's feflow voyagers gave over, and
were ready to sink in apathy into a watery grave !
" And when neither sun nor stars, in many days, ap
peared, and no small tempest lay on us ; afl hope that
we should be saved was then taken away."'"
Such was the natural feeling of mariners, in an
almost shipwrecked vessel. And how much better
might ours be, did we suppose we were living in an
almost shipwrecked world. True, we might laugh at
calamity, as thousands did, " when once the long-
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah ;"« but it
is harder to laugh at prophecy fulfilled, than at pro-
q Jer. xviii. 12. r Acts, xxvii. 20. s 1 Pet. iii. 20.

THE RAINBOW. 277
phecy merely preached. The awe of the deluge would
have left its indelible traces upon the stony heart of
man, as it has upon the solid globe ; and every clap
of thunder would have sounded as the bursting of
those awful floodgates, when the fountains of the great
deep were broken up. But that portentous voice in
the heavens, we now know, is not that of deep calling
unto deep, to drown the world ; and when the bow is
set in the cloud, we also know, that a remembering
God is looking on, with whom a thousand years are
as one day, and repeating, as to the patriarch of old,
his sacred promise, " seed time and harvest, and cold
and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night,
shall not cease." And well for us will it be, if we can
recall the connection of these things with God's pro
mise, so as to associate all their blessings more nearly
with that promise, and refer our enjoyment of every
one of them to God's mercy and to that alone. The
Church does her part to make us do so ; for she
teaches us to pray, at all seasons, as in the Litany, that
God would give, and preserve to our use, the kindly
fruits of the earth, so that in due time we may enjoy
them. It is not Nature that gives us these things. Breth
ren, but it is the God of nature ; for nature, as we often
speak of it, is a mere fiction, and an atheistical fiction of
the brain. God sends you every season's mercies. He
remembers his covenant, and he writes his remem
brance of it brightly on the clouds of heaven, as he
pledged himself to do 4,000 years ago. Is the remem
brance of it unwritten upon your heart ? Do you see
his bow in the sky, and not call upon your soul, and

278 THE RAINBOW.
all within you, to bless his holy name ? Wonder not,
if all tokens of hope in heaven be one day denied to
that same atheist soul of yours, and the blackness of
darkness forever be its destiny.
2. — Finally, I said that the indirect lesson taught us
by the rainbow is, that momentous truths can be em
bodied and set forth in emblems.
Sacraments are not objected to for their moral sig
nificance, but their outward and -visible signs. What
virtue can there be, is the worldly, utilitarian ques
tion ; what virtue can there be in signs ? The thing
signified is all we want.
What virtue, then, in such a sign as God's rainbow,
and why can we not have the blessing of his covenant
with Noah, as well without it as with it ? And so we
might. Though God, in language condescending to
our infirmities, says he will look upon it, and remem
ber his covenant, (for the expression in our version,
thai he might remember it, is too low, and the Hebrew
does not require it) — although he says he will look
upon it, and remember his covenant, yet we well know
he could and would have remembered it, without it,
and as easily and surely, without it, as with it. Why,
then, the sign ?
0, Brethren ! the sign is not for God, it is for us. We
need signs, for we are creatures of sense — not pure
spirit as he is ; and something to help us, through the
senses, is a real assistance, a genuine blessing. And
this is the whole philosophy of sacraments, and of all
external religion. God wants no such things, but we
do ; and he gives them to us, not as penances, but as

THE RAINBOW. 279
privileges. We, in the exercise of that proud, self-
conceited wisdom, to which I have already alluded,
presume to think ourselves like God, and venture to
unagine that we want outward and visible signs no
more than the Great Spirit. We mistake, most lament
ably ; we prove ourselves ignorant of " the first prin
ciples of the oracles of God;" and by those oracles
such perverse minds as ours never can be born again.
Brethren, faith sees a meaning and a glory in symbols,
which fiUs her with joy unspeakable. She finds her
way, through them, up to the Father of Lights;
though unbehef stumbles over them into deeper and
darker errors. Noah looked upon the sacramental
emblem of God's covenant ; and, I doubt not, his
faith was brighter and steadier. Many a Christian
has looked upon the sacramental emblems of God's
covenant in the Gospel; and his faith, like Noah's,
has been refreshed and strengthened. Others have
trusted to their own hearts, and God has written them
fools,* and thus has he rebuked them : " Behold, all ye
that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with
sparks ; walk in the light of your fire, and in the
sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of
mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow."'"
And now let us say, with heaven's blessed host :
" Great and marvellous are thy works. Lord God Al
mighty ; just and true are thy ways, thou King of
Saints."© t Prov. xxviii. 26. u Isa. 1. 11. « Rev. xv. 3.

SERMON VII.
SUBMISSION OP THE WILL, A PREREQUISITE FOR
KNOWLEDGE.
TWBNTT-FIEST SUNDAY AFTBK TEINITT.
" If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it he of Ood, or whether I speak of myself." — John,
vii. 17.
When a religious teacher asks our faith for doc
trines which are not self-evident, and not self-com
mending, men frequently desire some experimental
proof, by which they may put such doctrines to the
test. Now, such a posture of affairs, and such a de
sire, are any thing but novelties in human history.
We see them illustrated by the Jews, when our Sa
viour came before them, with a system quite novel
and unacceptable. Immediately they assailed him as
an innovator, and an innovator whose ignorance, or
rather, whose utter want of scholastic tuition, was suf
ficient to rule out his most sacred theories, as mere
enthusiastic whims. " How," exclaimed they, "know
eth this man letters, having never learned."'*
a Is. vii. 15.

SUBMISSION OP THE WILL. 281
It jDchoved him, perhaps, at this crisis, to offer them
some criterion by which they might decide, whether
his doctrines were as credible as they were assuming.
He calmly set aside their feeble sneer at his imagined
ignorance, by avowing that his doctrine was not his
own, as the mere human excogitator which they
esteemed him. " My doctrine is not mine, but his
that sent me." And then he proceeded to enlarge, in
answer to their secret thoughts, as he often did ; evinc
ing his perfect knowledge of the human heart. " If
now," we may imagine him saying — "if now you de
sire a practical test, which is within your own reach,
and by which you may judge of the virtues of raj
declarations, I will present you one perfectly feasible,
and readily accessible. If any man will do the will
(or, as it might be rendered, is wflling to do the will)
of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine
commended to him, whether it be of God, or whether
I speak of myself."
He did not appeal to miracles, as he might have
have done, and as, in fact, he did do, on other occa
sions. He was dealing with the more cultivated, spec
ulative and philosophical portion of the Jewish peo
ple ; as I infer from what immediately preceded, and
from their objection to himself, as deficient in letters
or scholastic education. He would show such persons
that there is something which they may lay hold of,
to promote and fasten their convictions, beside evi
dence offered to the senses, and which strikes the un
cultivated, perhaps, more forcibly than those who look
at the essences more than at the appearances of things,

282 SUBMISSION OP THE WILL,
and at metaphysical reasons more than at outward de
monstrations. To such persons he seems to say: It
is in your power to put my doctrines to rational and
experimental proof, if you desire something besides
external testimony, by which to verify their Divinity
and Divine efficiency.
And that test is, the submission of your wfll, before
hand, and a reception, upon trial, of those doctrines
in their assumed character, as able to satisfy your un
derstandings and to sanctify your hearts. Admit
them for what they claim to be worth, and try them
thoroughly ; and if, after fair trial, they prove fllusory
and unsubstantial, then throw them away as rubbish.
This antecedent submission of the "will, this consent to
take these doctrines upon trial, wifl secure, ultimately,
what you further want, to render you complete and
staid believers ; a submission of the understanding
and of the affections also. Be assiduous and patient,
and the latter submission will succeed the former, in
due order and in due time. Your preference for a
commencement would, no doubt, be, to have every
thing square, beforehand, with your understanding
and your affections, and then to leave the submission
of the will to follow afterwards. This is not God's
economy, nor is it truly Divine philosophy. Let your
wills bend, first, to him whose will is sovereign and in
errable, and he will recompense you afterwards for
the surrender. But unless this surrender is yielded
at the outset, no future step can be taken with certain
safety, and none, of course, with solid satisfaction.
Our Saviour (as I trust you will perceive, my

A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 283
Brethren,) is more complaisant to such a predicament,
as the text presupposes, than the Church of Rome,
which assumes, if possible, a more than Divine supre
macy, and demands your unconditional surrender — in
will, in understanding, and in affections — in your en
tire frame and feelings as rational and self-governing
creatures, and will not allow one to hold any opinion
of importance, or utter any word of weight, but as
she puts them into his mind, and applies them, like
the Eucharistic wafer, to his lips, by sacerdotal guid
ance. This is her anti-Catholic austerity. Christ,
with a generosity truly Catholic, asks the pre"vious
submission of your wills alone, with the assurance
that such submission shall not be costly, though in
appearance arbitrary, for thereby you shall know of
his doctrine, whether or not it be of God.
Of course, such submission implies your acquaint
ance with, and youf studious examination of, the
Scriptures. This the Church of Rome practically dis
courages, whatever may be her theory respecting the
Scripture's value ; and, accordingly, we find, that in a
practical point of view, the Bible, in her communion,
may as well be laid upon the shelf It is there an un
necessary book ; and her priests can get along as well,
nay, better without it. It is a hindrance, and not a
help, to them.
It is my juster and happier commission to ask you
to open that blessed book, and put its doctrines to the
test which our Saviour hunself proposes. All /
would ask, is all which he asks ; and all I would ask
of the most intelligent and inquisitive, is all which he

284 SUBMISSION OF THE WILL,
asked of such a class among the Jews — that they sub
mit their wills to- the will of the Almighty, or, at the
very least, (and this modification the text itself sanc
tions,) be anxious, solicitous, and resolved to do so,
when the happy result of a concord between them
selves and him will consecutively follow. This prim
ary- submission will secure the resultant submission of
their understanding and affections ; and they wfll
ultimately be enabled to say with an apostle, " Truly
our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son
Jesus Christ."
And now, my Brethren, having opened and ex
plained our subject, let me ask your attention to some
arguments which vindicate the propriety of the stand
taken by our Saviour, and which may possibly con
vince you, that this is the most appropriate and auspi
cious beginning which any enquirer after truth may
make, when exhorted to believft
I. Then, let us consider the propriety of the requi
sition, which asks the submission of our wflls to God,
when we seek an assurance for the verity of God's
doctrines. .We, most unhappily, most singularly, and I cannot
but say most perversely, when we approach God's
Revelation to learn how we may exercise faith in its
apparent contents, come with the implied, if not
avowed supposition, that God and ourselves are
equals. We expect him to condescend, and never
entertain one idea of meeting his condescension with
cordial homage. We put ourselves into the seat of

A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 285
an arbitrator, and regard him as approaching in the
character of an advocate, to reason and persuade.
This is reversing the order of nature and decorum
as thoroug|ily as possible — is turning it absolutely up
side down. God's Word cannot (in the very nature of
things, cannot) accost us as if upon an equality with
its own transcendant elevation. Though spoken by
men, it is the language not of an equal, but of a supe
rior — of an infinite and inapproachable superior. It
is the language, too, not of unreason, (as some, in a
sort of infatuation dream,) but of a reason which com
prehends all that is rational, from its beginning to its
end; and which, therefore, is reasonable in the only
true sense in which any thing can be reasonable, essen
tially, and permanently, and unmistakably. That
which seems reasonable to us, amid the circumscribed
boundaries of time, of limited research and of mortal
conjecture, and which: seems to be very reasonable
too, may all be exploded as irrationality and folly by
a few generations in advance. Human philosophers
are as changeable as human history ; and it is idle for
us to talk of a standard of rationality which our own
minds, or the impressions of any school or class of
mankind, shall at any period cfitablish.
What God pleases to say, however, comes from the
highest, the most reliable, and the most unchangeable
of all sources ; and ihat, therefore, (how diverse soever
from our present acceptation of things,) must be infal
lible and immortal truth. This ought to be an axiom
with us ; and, of course, our first enquiry should be,
not, why has God said one thing, and left another un-

286 SUBMISSION OP THE WILL,
said ? not, how can he exhibit a thing thus, rather than
disclose it so ? But our simpler and shorter enquiry
should ever be, what has he said ? That, and that by
itself, and of itself, should be enough, and^ompletely
enough, for creatures such as we .
And it would be, my Brethren, if we would but
realize what we undertake, when we bring a divine
declaration before the tribun-al of human reason, and
attempt to mete out the infinite, by the measures of
the finite. For this is not desperately irreligious only,
it is outrageously unphilosophical ; and one of the
greatest fathers of the Church discovered as much, to
his wholesome mortification, when he was laboring to
do piously what we so often do presumptuously, viz.,
make our understandings a measure for the declar
ations of a mind which discerns the end from the be
ginning, more easily than we the beginning from the
end ; the effect from the cause, more accurately than
we the cause from the effect — which knows, in a word,
the essences, the elements, and the remotest influence
of any thing and all things.
*" We are told of St. Augustine, that on one occa
sion, when his mind was much engaged in the con
templation of the doctrine of the Trinity, he was walk
ing by the sea, and saw a child filling a shell with
the water, which it then carried and poured into a
hollow in the sand. ' What are you doing, my boy,
with that water ?' said the saint. ' I am,' replied the
boy, ' going to put all the sea into this hole.' The fa-
b Jukes on the Gospels, p. 9.

A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 287
ther smiled and passed on; when a voice seemed to
say to him, 'and thou, too, art doing the like, in
thinking to comprehend the depths of God, in the
narrow limits of thy finite mind.' "
Probably, this greatest and most renowned of ancient
theologians never forgot this salutary lesson; and it
disposed him to treat the doctrines of religion, ever
after, with the submission of a lowly disciple, rather
than with a temper befitting his days of scepticism and
heresy — the disdainful pride of a philosopher. And,
my Brethren, if we would learn as effectual a lesson
from the child upon the sea-shore, as did the pro
foundly astute, but the also profoundly pious Augus
tine, the issue might be as happy in our case, as in his.
But the deplorable fact too often is, that we strive,
with childish self-confidence, to put the boundless
infinite into the little Hbllow, where our ounces of
brain lie folded up. We make gods of ourselves, and
umpires of our wills, when we ought most reverently
to remember that it is Jehovah who is in heaven,
and not we ; and that he is the Dictator and Revealer,
while we are but to listen and to learn.
But God alleges what I cannot comprehend, says
my unfortunate fellow-sinner, who fancies that God's
words must be attenuated to the dimensions of his
mind, rather than his restive will bowed into the sub
jection of devout humility. No doubt he does; and
so do you tell your little children a hundred things
they cannot comprehend, but must take your word
for — things which stagger and perplex them, just as
the Bible often staggers and perplexes you. Yet, you

288 SUBMISSION OP THE WILL,
give their incredulity no quarter ; you will not endure
a moment's parley. Take a father's word for it, and
wait till you are wiser, is your imperious ultimatum.
And may not your Father in the heavens exact as
much of you? Remember, and consider, God is in
credibly, immeasurably, more your paternal superior
than you are such to a lisping infant. And if your
claim to submission is irrepealable, and irresistible,
what shall be said of his ? Oh, let not your 'wfll rise
in rebellion against a source so overawing. I say
your will — for the secret, the core of the difficulty,
a;fter all, lies there, niore than in that reason, which
you are apparently so solicitous to satisfy. Once
make up your determination to bend your wfll to
that of Heaven ; — once be ready, or desirous, without
regard of consequences, to do what Heaven requires,
and the obstacles" in your path will melt away and
disappear. Our Saviour did not preach mental illu
mination, but mental subjugation, to the Jews, when
he proposed to them to put his doctrine to the search
ing test of practical experiment. And this is the
grand embarrassment to multitudes of enquirers now.
They are not ready to say, beforehand, ' I will take
God at His word. He is the Instruclier, and I am but
the pupil. He is the Judge, and I am but the recipi
ent of His supreme award. He is to dictate, and I
am to obey.'
Once let us realize these relative positions — once let
us exert the temper of mind which those positions
strongly enjoin, that we be fain to accept God's wishes
from His own lips, and not from the whispers of our

¦ A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 289
own conjectures ; and the chief impediment, the stone
of stumbling and rock of offence to our progress in
divine knowledge, crumbles into fragments, and the
road before us is straight and obvious. The moun
tains of doubt and hesitation, which before clogged
our passage, are cast into the sea, and we verify the
paradox of the prophet, " the crooked shall be made
straight, and the rough places plain."" "When I
became a Christian," says Chateaubriand, "I did not
yield, I allow, to great supernatural flluminations ;
but my conviction of the truth of Christianity sprung
from the heart. I wept, and I believed."'^
Yes, my Brethren, let the will become flexible, and
the heart a little tender ; let the sigh of regret be
heaved, and the tear of penitence begin to flow, for
the grievous mistake you have all along made, that
you are to manufacture a religion for yourselves, and
not take it ready-made at the hands of Heaven ; and
if he has half done, who has well begun, then one-half
of the work of your salvation is accomplished. The
rest will be comparatively free from labor. They who
have started aright in the journey to a better world
will follow on to know the Lord. Light will break in
upon them, fresher and clearer from every hfll-top, in
their ascent to Paradise, till, in the cheering climax of
the promise, "they shall mount up with, wings as
eagles ; they shafl run and not be weary ; they shall
walk onward, and shall not faint. "«
c Isaiah, xl. 4. d Beauty of Christianity, i. pp. 16, 17.
s Isaiah, xl. 31.— Lowth.
13

290 SUBMISSION OP THE WILL,
II. I have laid the stress of argument, my Brethren,
where it should be, upon the difficulty which lies in
the very opening of that process, by which we may
learn how to prove, to our own satisfaction, the truth
of doctrines claiming a divine origin ; and there may
be, and will be, less necessity, perhaps, for dwelling so
long on others which contribute to the same end.
Yet, such others may not be passed by ; and so I pro
ceed to show, further, why the submission of the will
is a prerequisite to obtain that satisfaction, respecting
the truth of Christian doctrines, which so many enquire
after, and seem to long for. And a second argument
which I would urge is, that Christian doctrines were
not given as a discipline for our intellects, but as a
remedy for corrupted hearts.
If those doctrines had been published as the tenets
of philosophical academies, to sharpen our powers of
reasoning, to teach us critical acumen and dialectic
skill, to provoke us to scholastic attainments, and
equip us for learned disputations, then we might well
argue about them, as we full often do. Then we
might consistently treat them, as theologians them
selves have sometimes inconsistently treated them, in
the chairs of professional science, as if they were mere
affairs of metaphysics, to be debated of, and wrangled
with, as were law questions in the halls of Gamaliel,
or philosophical questions in the halls of the Epicure
ans and Stoics, who encountered St. Paul at Athens.
Legal questions were disputed under Gamaliel's eye,
with such astuteness, and by St. Paul himself, among
other pupils of that famous doctor, that no doubt

A PREREQUISITE POR KNOWLEDGE. 291
many who experienced his tuition esteemed them
selves proficients in Jewish jurisprudence, so that they
could safely boast, as Paul himself did, "that they
were taught it perfectly."-^ Philosophical questions
were debated with so much zest and freedom in the
assemblies of the Epicureans, and the Stoics, that they
were as curious to hear Paul speak of Christ, as of
Socrates or Plato ; and of the Resurrection, as of their
own grand query about the chief constituent of human
happiness. ¦ Btit with all his erudition about the law, and with
his superadded exemplification of its precepts, as he
once had understood it, it is quite evident that St.
Paul comprehended not a particle of the grand spirit
ual purpose, for which the law had been communicated.
Accordingly, he afterwards acknowledged that he was
alive without the law once, but that when the command
ment came, i. e., came up before him in all its latitude
and bearings,? sin revived, and he absolutely died, i. e.,
died to every self-flattering hope which before he had
entertained. And this arose from the fact that he had
looked at the law as a scientific system, addressed
merely to his intellect, and to be regarded and treated
like any other scholastic subject, and not as a part in
the sublime economy of Redemption, where it would
be a savor of life unto life, or of death unto death.
And the Epicureans and the Stoics blundered about
"Jesus and the Resurrection," for a reason not dissim
ilar. They contemplated them but as new adventures
/ Acts, xxii. 3. g Rom. vii. 9.

292 SUBMISSION OP THE WILL,
in philosophy, and styled the preacher a babbler, or
asked impertinently the meaning of his most solemn
sermon, as if Christianity were a novel speculation,
and nothing more.
My Brethren, the great object, the gloriously bene
volent object of Christianity, must be before you, when
you reflect upon its claims; and especially upon its
claim for a submission of the wfll, as a prerequisite for
a just appreciation of its doctrines. Christianity does
not come to you as a theory, but as a remedy; it
comes to you, not to be disputed of, but to save ^u. _
It is a medicine for the soul, and not a play-thing for
the mind. And as you may not arraign the physician
of your body, and hold a parley with him about the
character and quality, and composition of the ingre
dients which he prescribes, but must take them or
die ; so is it with the prescriptions of the sagest of all
physicians, the physician of your sin-sick soul. You
must take his medicines, and put them to the test of
practical efficiency. You must be wflling to abide by
his directions, and look to him implicitly, and not
to your own understandings for far-reaching conse
quences. And, then, you may not be disappointed,
as you now are, when you stop to query, to compare,
to conjecture, to argue, and to ponder ; and the dis
ease, meanwhile, shall get a headway that nothing can
resist, and you descend with fatal rapidity to a hope
less grave.
Had St. Paul but begun with the law, in its mo
mentous moral aim, as a schoolmaster, to bring him to
Jesus Christ ; had the Epicureans and Stoics conceived

A PREREQUISITE POR KNOWLEDGE. 293
of Christ, not as a schemer for earth, but a Redeemer for
heaven ; and of the resurrection not as a romantic hal
lucination, but an awful reality of bliss or woe ; oh !
how much sooner had the first found his Saviour,
without becoming what he proclaimed himself, "the
chief of sinners;" and how had the sneers and mock
ery of the others, been turned into those drops of
penitence which made Chateaubriand a quick believer,
come though he did out of a school worse than any
which ever bred doubting and carping Grecians — the
school of French ribaldry and atheism.
Accept the doctrines of Christianity, then, not as
problems for your intellects, but as remedies for the
diseases of your souls, and you will find it inexpres
sibly easier than you now do, to attempt that perform
ance of God's will which can lead you, ultimately, to
a triumph over every perplexity.
m. I have but one argument more, though the
subject, would justify multitudes. It is this. The
very promise with which the text encourages our sub
mission, cannot be fulfilled without a practical subor
dination of our wills to the will of Heaven, as a pre
requisite. Who can successfully teach any one that for which
he has no proclivity, no previous attempering solici
tude ? How notorious is the remark, even in the in
culcation of human sciences, that there must be some
concord between them and our minds — some taste,
some fitness for, some pre"vious adaptation, or our ac
quirements in them are slow, arduous, or impossible.
This person, we say, makes no proficiency in the

294 SUBMISSION OP THE WILL,
classics, for he has no fancy for languages. That per
son, we again say, makes no proficiency in mathemar
tics, for he has no fancy for the science of magnitudes
and numbers. We find no difficulty in unravelling
such cases ; and why should we find any more in un
ravelling a case where the soul makes no progress in
religion, because it is moved by none of those anxieties
or inclinations which render religion a necessity for its
ease, a resting-place for its longings, a solace and a
justification for its hopes.
The religion whose theme is redemption, ought
surely to presuppose, on our part, some consciousness
of the indispensable necessity of the redemption which
it fervently commends. The religion whose theme is
sanctification, ought surely to anticipate, on our part,
some sensitive appreciation of the sanctification on
which it earnestly insists. But, ordinarily, we have
no troublesome, no weighty convictions about the
peril of the sins for which religion provides an atone
ment ; no such convictions about the corruption and
degeneracy of the nature for which religion holds
forth pledges of new-creating grace. And how, then,
when religion does talk to us, though with seven-fold
emphasis, can it talk about any thing but riddles or
mysteries; and how natural that, appraising not its
beneficent aim, and the terrible cost which attends its
rejection, we turn away from its counsels, and say of
them what Israel of old said concerning her liturgy,
(God's ordinances, respecting which she could not
penetrate the design of,) Oh, what a weariness \h
h Mai. i. 13.

A PREREQUISITE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 295
Yes, Brethren, this is a plain case, and a very im
perious one. You expect religion to be understood
by you, and to be a blessing to you ; but you do not
realize the preparation, not to be dispensed with,
which can render it consistently intelligible, consist
ently a blessing. The legitimate preparation, on your
part, must go before your enjoyment of its benedic
tions. You see this affirmed in the text as a principle,
and I have striven to show you its reasonableness as a
rule. Make the preparation contemplated, if you
would secure the promised boon which is to follow.
Be willing, be prompt to do God's wfll, unhesitatingly,
uncomplainingly, and without reserve. God urges no
exactions which are purely arbitrary. If it did seem
a little arbitrary to require submission beforehand,
you now have the reason in the strongest of all shapes
possible, because his very desire to bless you, cannot
be fulfilled on any other condition.
He cannot give you a Redeemer till you feel your
need of one. He cannot give you a new heart till you
appreciate the curse of a corrupt one. But be willing
to be redeemed, be anxious to be redeemed, be ter
ribly afraid lest you should not be, and the doctrine
of the New Testament about a Mediator will be to you
like a fountain gushing out of the sands of the desert,
as the eye of the fainting, panting traveller, first
catches a glimpse of its sparkling waters. So will it
be with its doctrine of sanctification, when the heart
which now beats unconcernedly in your bosoms, is
felt to be diseased, and you long for one that clings
to th6 world less eagerly, and is less an alien to its

296 SUBMISSION OP THE WILL.
God. So will it be with the doctrines of a Church
and of sacraments, when you become aware that your
wayward, straying nature, needs all the outward helps,
as well as inward graces, which the institutions of re
ligion can supply, to keep Divine truth fresh and vivid
in our recollections, and to mix it up with our active
habits as a part of life's routine. And so will it be
with the whole of religion, both outward and inward,
in its various departments of faith, discipline and wor
ship. You will then realize how that, from its be
ginning to its end, it is but a series of remedies to de
liver you from the corruptions of sin, from the "vic
tories of temptation, and the catastrophe of a godless
death ; and to fit you, more and more, faster and faster,
for another and a better country, tfll made meet for
the inheritance of the saints, your departure from this
world shall be an exaltation and not an overthrow, a
gain and not a loss.
0, come then to the Bible, with the preparation
which it anticipates^that universal wfllingness' to
accept its remedies which its very character presup
poses, and your knowledge of it shall be worth, to
you, a thousand times over, a knowledge which might
make you the envy of this world, but the pity of hea
ven and the victim of perdition.

SEEMON VIII.
THE REPENTANCE OF THE WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER.
FOB SEXAGESIMA S"DKDAT.
" And, behold, a woman in the city, which was a sinner, when
she knew that Jesus sat at meat in the Pharisee^s house,
Irought an alabaster boa; of ointment ; and stood at his feet
behind him weeping, and began to wa^sh his feet with tears,
and did wipe them wiih the hairs of her head, and kissed
his feet, and anointed them with the ointment" — ^Luke, vii.
37-38.
The story of the sinful woman, which one of the
lessons of" the day commends to our attention, is a sub
ject. Brethren, that has too many points of deep and
pathetic interest to be considered, fully, in a single dis
course. It is like the picture of a great master, which
requires the powers of such a master for its full de
scription. Accordingly, I shall not so much as attempt
a general view of it, but, confining myself to a single
train of thought, endeavor to present that, definitely
and clearly. I wfll consider it in this single hght, as
an example of repentance, and the feelings with which
repentance is viewed by One, who is able to forgive the
saddest sins. And if I leave more and better things
13*

298 THE REPENTANCE OP THE
unsaid, than wiU be presented, may He, who can even
make a spark of truth kindle a flame of piety, bless
all of his truth which I do utter, to your minds and
hearts. I. In the first place, then, repentance may be
thorough, without being noisy.a
Too often, repentance is measured by the loudness
or wordiness of its manifestations. The man who can
tell the most clamorous tale of his inward griefs, and
give the longest and most particular account of what
is called his experience, is generally esteemed the most
penitent man. By far too frequently, has the power
of personal religion been measured by the extravagant
language of a diary.
Yes, it is man's fashion, to hear his fellow-man for
his much speaking; especially if that speaking be
sonorous and emphatic. But God's fashions are not
ours : his ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts
as our thoughts. And we see this, in regard to pro
fessions of repentance, in the case before us. It is re
markable — most memorable — that throughout the en
tire scene, in which our penitent acted such a con
spicuous part, she uttered not a solitary word. The
scene must have lasted no inconsiderable time. It
was a Pharisee who had invited our Lord to partake
his hospitality ; and a Pharisee had always no little
preparation to make, ere he could sit down to meat.
Yet, during the meal, the penitent was bathing, and
wiping, and anointing our Saviour's feet ; nor so
a Much may be done in religion, as in the building of Solomon's
Temple, without axes and hammers. — Ch. Disc. iii. 357.

WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 299
only, but he added, that she had not ceased to do so,
since he came in. Notwithstanding, we cannot find
so much as a single exclamation recorded as escaping
her lips. Nay, it is not so much as said, that the com
pany were disturbed by a solitary sigh, heaving up
from her anguished breast. She wept profusely ; but
though you might almost have heard the tears, as,
amid the profound stillness of the scene, they rain
ed upon the Sa"viour's feet, yet her lips murmured
nothing. She kissed those sacred feet, which had
walked many a weary round on ministries of love, and
were, by-and-by, to be torn with the irons of the cross.
She wiped them with her hair, she anointed them
with her precious ointment; but she did the whole
"with a quietness as hushed and reverent, as if embalm
ing his body for his burial.
It is idle, then, my Brethren, to suppose that re
ligious emotion, more than any other, to be genuine,
must be talkative or noisy. We do not generally
trust human emotion, on other subjects, when fullest
of speech, most profuse in outward demonstrations.
The case before us teaches us that we not only may,
but ought to do so, in reference to religion. No one
can doubt the earnestness or depth of that repentance
which has been approved by our heart-searching Re
deemer. But he approved such repentance when
entirely and perseveringly silent. Is not such repent
ance, then, (so that the heart be as fully in it, as was
the penitent woman's,) the rather his choice ?
Before I leave this topic, let me say that it furnishes

topic, le
o:^Hft

an ample vindication o:^Hit is sometimes complained

300 THE REPENTANCE OF THE
of in our ser-vice — the brevity of our general confes
sion of sins.*
You see that He, who looks upon the heart, wants
not many words — nay, requires not so much as one.
If our hearts are in that confession. Brethren, it will
be long enough for heaven. If they are not in it, we
could not make it long enough, though we spun it
out with amplifications which would occupy the live
long day.'^
II. In the second place, our theme teaches us that
true repentance is perfectly ingenuous.
Nicodemus, a master in Israel, and a man no doubt
of upright deportment and outward blamelessness,
came to our Saviour by night, and professed himself
half his disciple. And I never wondered that our Sa
viour opened on him, immediately, with the indispenable
necessity of baptism by water and the Holy Ghost —
baptism by water, to make him visibly, and not by
stealth, a member of the Church below^ — and baptism
by the Holy Ghost, to make him really, and not seem
ingly, a member of the Church above — the Church of
the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.
To one like Nicodemus, our Sa"viour seemed to do
nothing but throw obstacles in his way, and hedge up
the path to the better world, on high.
It was because the repentance of Nicodemus was
not sufficiently ingenuous, that he thus, as it were,
repelled him.
b Bingham's Antiq., vol. ix. 142. Bennet on the Com. Prayer, p. 25.
Pierce's Vindication of Dissenters, PBa.557, 558.
c In Baxter's Reformed LiturMJJKe is a direction by which " sin
may be named and aggravated, whe^jJRs convenient." — pp. 64, 67.

WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 301
But see how di'fferent sincere and thorough repent
ance is, and how different its welcome. Our penitent
was a woman — her crime that which humbles woman
almost beyond human pity. But she comes forth
before the world, in open day, to acknowledge her
transgressions. She comes into the presence of those
on whose scornful lips so often hung the bitter taunt,
' Stand by, for I am holier than thou.' She expected
to be denounced as a sinner, and she was so. She
had, perhaps, but a trembling hope, that Jesus, who
had denounced the highest in the land as hypocrites,
would spare her miserable self Yet, on such a hope,
she went, and proclaimed herself the sad transgressor
which the scornful mercilessly decreed her. Not a
word had she to reply to their cutting denunciation.
She did not say, what she might have said with per
fect truth, ' He that is without sin, let him hurl the
first reproach at me.' She meekly^dmitted-the worst
that they could say, by her unbroken silence.
And her perfect openness, her virtual refusal of all
extenuation, her bowing, though with almost a break
ing heart, to appellations sharper than a two-edged
sword, obtained her the friend she wanted. Jesus
poured the oil of joy into her mourning soul. He
bound up her wounded spirit, and bade her depart
with that peace which passeth understanding.
And here is the example for us, my Brethren.
There is no use, it is most assuredly true, in attempt
ing to hide our sins from One, before whom hell itself
is naked. Yet we are too prone to act as if there
were; and to encourage ourselves with the atheist

302 THE REPENTANCE OP THE
plea, ' God hath forgotten. He hideth His facfe. He will
never see it.' A total reform in the feelings of human
nature is indispensable to true repentance. We must
lay our hearts bare, before Him whom we have
offended. There must be no shrinking, no faltering,
no evasion. We must acknowledge ourselves to be
what our Church calls us — miserable offenders, with
out health in us, i. e., in our souls, and, by ourselves
considered, sick unto death by sin. We must not halt
before such an intense confession as that in the Com
munion Service ; or from saying, as in one of the col
lects for Ash- Wednesday, that " we are vile earth and
miserable sinners." It is entire candor, uncomplain
ing acquiescence, which Heaven asks, and on which
only it will smile propitiously. "He that covereth
his sins shafl not prosper" — no, not in this world, or
in the world which is to come.
But only let us l^urn the current of our feelings and
actions the other way, and all is well; "Whoso con-
fesseth and forsaketh them shall find mercy." "No
sooner," says that sweet psalm for the penitent —
" No sooner I my wound disclosed.
The guilt that tortured me within.
Than Thy forgiveness interposed.
And mercy's healing balm poured in."
The woman which was a sinner could have heard
this sung upon her death-bed, and wept again, as
when in the house of the Pharisee who upbraided
her; but her tears would have been tears of joy
unspeakable, and full of glory. God grant, my Breth
ren, that when our hearts are fluttering, ere they stand

WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 303
StiU forever, their last pulses may be quickened by
such joy as that.
III. Our theme teaches us that true repentance is
profoundly humble.
It is, by no means, improbable, considering the his
tory of the age in which she lived, that the penitent
woman was familiar with luxury and splendor. Sin
ners greater, beyond gomparison, perhaps, than she,
figured in the history of Greece and Rome, and had
orators, statesmen and philosophers in their train.
Wealth, and all it could command, surrounded them,
and ministered to their celebrity and pride. And the
general opinion respecting our penitent seems to have
been, that though she filled a humbler sphere than
some who have sent down dishonored names to dis
tant times, she enjoyed all which a corrupt age and
debased society allowed her.
For such an one to descend to her just level, forego
every thing with which the world had gifted her, and
be not poor in spirit only, but poor in every thing
beside, to which she had before resorted for enjoy
ment, was humility indeed. But see how true and
prostrating this humility, in her effort to mortify
every element of former pride. The eyes, once so
bright with baleful lustre, she dims and blinds with
tears.'^ The lips, on whose slightest word many had
d Did pour down snohabundance of tears, out of those wanton eyes of
hers, wherewith she had allured many unto folly, that she did with them
wash his feet — wiping them with the hairs of her hea4, which she was
wont most gloriously to set out, making of them a net of the devil. — Hom
ilies, xxxii. part 2, or p. 511, Eng. edition.

304 THE REPENTANCE OP THE
hung enchanted, she applies to feet shod but with
sandals, and, as the narrative assures us, unwashed
from dust, through a host's inhospitality or forgetful-
ness. Those tresses, on which she had wasted hours
upon hours, in decking for unhallowed merriment,
now dishevelled and neglected, perform the menial
office of a napkin. That ointment, which the spices
of Arabia had scented, and which had weighed down
in value glittering gold, she now freely apphes to feet
bruised or wearied with the restless labor of going
about and doing good. All these circumstances, how
inconsiderable soever in themselves, and in another,
yet, in her, evince an entire abandonment of all former
pride, and a prostration of the soul to the very utter
most of self-abasement.
And it is then, my Brethren, that repentance shows
itself most true, in its relation to humihty, when it
most humbles our former selves — humbles us in rela
tion to the sins which do most easily beset us — our
favorite sins, our darling self-indulgences. Wholesale
acknowledgments of our unworthiness will not answer.
The rich man who has made money his idol, and
grasped and ground without mercy to accumulate it,
may profess to be penitent for the past ; but, unless
he mortifies and crucifies his covetousness, he has no
repentance which will be accepted. He has not pro
foundly humbled that very sin which has made him
guiltier before God than any he has committed. And
so the poor man, whose en-vious soul is perpetually
fretting under that prosperity which blesses his wealth
ier neighbor, may confess his sins also. But he, too.

WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 305
wfll confess in vain, unless his envious discontentment
has been absolutely slain, and offered up as a free-will
sacrifice to God.
See to it, my Brethren, when you would avow your
penitence before God, and hope for a favorable hear
ing ; see to it, that you humble your former selves. It
needs not an apostle to tell us that we have besetting
sins. Every man knoweth the plague of his own
heart, and must be aware in what quarter he is most
accessible. It is for that particular plague we are to
bow lowest, and make our most self-condemning con
fessions. And then only can we be in the right way,
when we manifest such holy wisdom. It would be
idle for a- man, in a dropsy, to congratulate himself
that he had not the consumption ; or for a drunkard
to rejoice that he was not a glutton. It is not the sins
from which we are free, that will constitute a sort of
merit and save us ; but it is the sins of which we are
actually guilty, which will prove our demerit, and, pos
sibly, our ultimate ruin. It is for such sins, genuine
repentance is profoundly and resolutely humble. Such
repentance has a sort of holy discernment about it, and
lays the axe at the root of the tree; as the self-disci
pline of our penitent teaches us, most pointedly and
emphatically. Let us see to it, that its aptness be not
forgotten. IV. True repentance is never a solitary virtue. ^
e Repentance is not, strictly and dogmatically speaking. Christian
virtue ; it is rather a preparation for it. The ploughing and triturating
of soil will not, of itself, make the seed grow. Yet, without it, the plant
ing of seed would be of little use. My language is popular, not profes
sional.

306 THE REPENTANCE OP THE
In books and sermons, we are obliged to speak sep
arately of the different elements of Christian character.
The necessity is an obvious one, and would be a harm
less one, but for the unfortunate inference which some
draw, that what is spoken of separately, can exist sep
arately. Such an inference, however, is drawn, if not
in form, at least, in fact ; and readers and hearers are
accustomed to think and speak of the Christian virtues
as if having a separate and independent existence.
What should we say of him who, hearing an anatom
ist describe, abstractly, the brain or the lungs, should
infer that the one could think, and the other breathe,
apart from the rest of the human body ? And yet,
because repentance, and faith, and works, and hope,
and charity, are spoken of separately and distinctly,
many rashly, or thoughtlessly, adopt the habit of sup
posing they may exist as independently as they happen
to be described.
Behold the corrective and the rebuke of such an
error, in the case now under review. The repentance
of the sinful woman is her first virtue, as that case rises '
before our thoughts; nay, and as a careless reader
would suppose, the only virtue which is the subject of
the Evangehst's notice. B.ut if we read the story care
fully, we find that love (or charity, as it is sometimes
called) and faith are neither of them forgotten, before
if is done. Indeed, we are informed, on the authority
of our Lord himself, that love and faith existed in the
bosom of our penitent, in no inferior degree. Her sins,
which are many, said the Sa-viour, are forgiven; for

WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 307
she loved much. And again, thj faiih hath saved thee,
go in peace.
No, my Brethren, true Christian virtues are never
solitary. Here, in this tale of a penitent whom Om
niscience could approve, we see the record could not be
finished without distinct and ample testimony to her
faith and love; and as to her works, they speak elo
quently for themselves. Oh 1 it is a sad, a baneful, a dis
astrous error, which supposes true personal religion can
be separated, in fact, into elements, as we separate it
on paper. Disabuse yourselves, as fast and as effec
tually as possible, of an error so fuU of mischief True
Christian virtues are never solitary. On the contrary,
they grow together, and in harmonious proportions.
Is repentance deeper and more thorough than usual ?
The faith and love, which are its fruits, will be so, too ;
and thus we find it here. The profoundness of her
repentance, who, sinning as she had, could so ingenu
ously and humbly acknowledge it, as did the penitent
now before us, cannot be doubted. And what, also,
is the testimony to her love and faith ? Her love was
much, even in view of her heart-searching Redeemer.
Her faith, also, in his view, was strong enough to save
her soul.
My Brethren, we might suspect that system of the
ology, which left one of the virtues out of its reckoning.
Do you suspect your own personal piety, if any virtue
of the Christian life does not appear in it ? If you
have not repentance, in company with faith and love,
and all evincing themselves opnjointly in your works,
something, rely upon it, is wrong. Abandon such

308 THE REPENTANCE OP THE
piety and begin anew. You can build true piety on
no foundation but that which man never laid, which
is Jesus Christ. Build on that foundation, " in whom
all the building" of the true Christian life, "fitly
framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the
Lord ;"/ and then you will, in due time, come, in the
unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of
God, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness
of Christ — the fulness of him who fiUeth all in aH.ff
0, blessed and holy is he who thus grows in grace I
He hath part in the first resurrection : on such, the se
cond death hath no power.^
V. Lastly, notice that true repentance concfliates
divine sympathies.
The self-humiliation of such a penitent as our text
exhibits, was a spectacle to melt the sternest. To see
one, who might command the world's homage at the
price of -virtue, abandoning that homage utterly, and
taking the lowest station before an offended God —
approaching him in the person of his Son, without a
word of extenuation— bathing his feet with torrents of
tears — kissing them with deep devotion — wiping them
with her hair, and anointing them with the most costly
ointment — Oh ! Justice herself might have turned
from the scene, as hazardous to her inflexibility. Who,
who could be harsh towards one, whose fraflty was thus
bitterly, intensely, unsparingly lamented ? For man
to have so lamented it, were prodigious ; for a woman,
it were an effort beyond her sex. Surely, then, they
/Eph. ii. 21. g Eph. iv. 13. h Rev. xx. 6.

WOMAN WHICH WAS A SINNER. 309
who themselves are sinners, would look on such a
scene with sympathy.
No, Brethren, the inference is wrong; the treat
ment which our penitent experienced from the Phari
see, corrects me. " This man, if he were a prophet,"
said that cold-blooded, haughty judge, " would have
known who and what manner of woman this is that
toucheth him, for she is a sinner." There spoke out,
my Brethren, the spirit of the world. Such is the
world's mercy, not for them who have offended Hea
ven, but who have displeased itself. The world con
demns more sternly than the Judge of heaven and
earth, cavil as it will at the sentences of the final
day. The world is inexorable, even on this side of
the grave.
Not so the world's Redeemer. His heart had pity,
sympathy and mercy for one, whose bare touch would
have been accounted contamination by those, who had,
perhaps, no fewer, no lighter sins, in the eye of God,
to answer for. The immaculate, the sinless, is not in
approachable by those, whom the world would frown
into exile and despair.
Learn from this, ye weary and heavy laden, that in
the world ye can have no help. It will laugh at your
calamity; it will mock when your fear cometh. It
will say to your anguish and remorse, as the priests
did to Judas, and drove him mad — " What is that to
us ; see thou to that."
O, give up forever, then, expectation from any
earthly resources. Turn you to the strong hold, ye

310 THE REPENTANCE OP THE WOMAN.
prisoners of hope.* Seek ye the Lord, whfle he may
be found ; call ye upon him, while he is near. Let
the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man
his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord ; and
he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he
wfll abundantly pardon/ He, and he only, can or wifl
say, thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace !
i Zech. ix. 12. j Isaiah, Iv. 6, 1.

SERMON IX.
THE STANDARD OF APPEAL ON DOUBTFUL POINTS, WHERE
THE BIBLE FAILS TO PRODUCE UNITY.
" For the Jews had agreed already, that if any man did confess
that he wets Christ, he should be put out of the Synagogue" —
John, ix. 22.
" Behold, I thought, he will surely come out to me." — 2 Kings,
v. 11.
" I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things
contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth" — Acts, xxvi. 9.
" Lord, what wilt thou home me to do f — Acts, ix. 6.
This putting together of passages from different parts
of the Bible, in order to form one text, may seem sin
gular and unauthorized ; but ought hardly to do so, in
view of the fact, that the Author and subject of the
Bible are one also. And still less should it seem im
proper, in the present case, since all four of the pas
sages selected, bear directly upon my subject, which is
to show how differently we judge of divine require
ments, when influenced by our own spirits, and when
influenced by the spirit of God. And I cannot but
think such a subject eminently deserving our soberest
meditations at the present day. For never. Brethren,

312 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL
as it appears to me, has there been a time since man
was made, when he was more disposed to put his o"wn
"I thought" before any testimony to the contrary,
presented by earth or heaven, or by both together.
This is, indeed, an age, not of reason, but of individual
reasons ; in which every man's own mind is his highest
source of information and guidance, and when, in all
matters of opinion, man's highest delight has gro"wn to
be, the doing of that, and that only, which is right in
his own eyes.'* Talk to the world, now, of authority in
matters of religion, and you are suspected at once of
talking Popery ; of a disposition to steal from the un
wary the blessed right of private judgment, and to en
trap them in the toils of a second Inquisition.
And is it, then, that there is no such thing as author
ity in matters of religion? That there are no laws of
reverence and submission, which we are obligated to
respect and obey? that nothing is to be taken upon
trusf, but doFiionstration must be had for every thing ;
and that, too, a demonstration which suits exactly our
own "I thought?" If this be the ground, which, in
our protestation against Romish and inquisitorial tyr
anny, we are called upon and expected to take, it be
hoves us well to know it understandingly. That
some — that many Protestants, do suppose this to be the
a " And take upon us the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies." Lear, v. 8.
Or, as a Divine contemporaneous with Shakspeare expressed it, some
people coin what doctrine they will, with the minting-irons of their own
brain. It seems, our disease is hereditary — a part, doubtless, of original

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 313
ground which all Protestants are bound to take, I am
constrained to fear is but too true ; for some — for many,
appear to think, that Protestantism is, in all respects,
the direct opposite of Popery ; and that the only way
in which we can be true Christians, is to believe and to
do, in all particulars, the absolute contrary of what is
believed and done by Papists.
Now, if this be right, in reference to authority in
matters of religion, because the Church of Rome asserts
and maintains, that there is such a thing as such author
ity, then I have simply to observe, that the deists are,
in this article, at least, the most correct of all opponents
of Popery ; for no writers of modern times avow so
stiffly, as they do, the unlimited rights of reason and
of private judgment, or have advocated those rights so
vehemently. If to disbelieve all authority in matters
of religion, to argue against it strenuously, and even
to sneer at it as a dogma of Romanism — if this be to
become a true and deserving Protestart, then, of all
others, do the deists most merit that high and honored
name. Do we shrink from such a conclusion, which I have
purposely followed out, to show you where they must
end, who account the opposite of Popery the only
truth ? then what remains, but that we take our stand
somewhere between the extreme of Romanism, which
enslaves the judgment, and latitudinarianism, heresy
and deism, which set it free from every thing but the
counsel of its own will ? But this is precisely the stand
taken by our own Church ; of which you could not
have a more thorough proof, than the fact that, from
14

314 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL
the days of the Reformation, Papists have called us
schismatics and heretics, while schismatics and heretics
have called us Papists. Of course, we are exactly be
tween the two — as far removed from one extreme as
from the other. And, as a general rule, if you wish
to know what the true doctrine of your Church, in any
given instance, is, you cannot have a better than this :
strike the middle ground between Papists, who have
abandoned the Catholic faith on one side, and schis
matics and heretics who have abandoned it on the
other; and ihere you will find the object of your
search.^ But to come now to our more immediate topic, the
subject of authority in matters of religion. What is
the stand taken upon this subject by the Church of

b The middle character of the Church of England has been acknowl
edged by those outside of her.
" We never doubted that the Church of England was widely different
from the Church of Rome ; we own she is freed from innumerable Romish
superstitions, and we bless God for it." — Piei-ce's Findicat. of Dissenters,
p. 299.
Pierce then goes on to say, (as we might expect,) that too much of the
old leaven is left. But, for all that, here is a clear admission of itrauMER-
ABLE reformations.
Says Mosheim, the Lutheran, " Thus was that form of religion estab
lished in Britain, which separated the English, equally from the Church
of Rome on the one hand, and from the other churches which had
renounced Popery on the other." — Institutes, Cent. xvi. Sect. iii. Part
ii. §17; or vol. iv. p. 378, Maclaine's Translation.
The following is the testimony of the celebrated Isaac Casaubon, (a
layman too,) who visited England in the reign of James I. — " Mr. Casau
bon, in his epistles, admires and recommends the temper of our church
to his brethren beyond seas, as the avvSeafiog of purity and antiquity,
which was not else to be found, any where." ^Todd's Life of Bp. Walton.
i. 259.
Not dissimilar was the testimony of the great Duke of Sully, when he
visited England also. — Quart. Rev. x. 94.

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 315
Rome, and by those at the farthest remove from her ;
and how is the stand taken by our own Church, be
tween the two, to be illustrated hy the passages of
Scripture arranged to form a text ?
The Church of Rome teaches, that what the Pope,
who is its representative and head, shall now declare
ex cathedra to be a matter of faith, it must be believed
on peril of the soul's salvation. There is no appeal from
such decree, no refuge from its obligation — none what
ever. So that, one of the ablest of Romish writers, to
put this subject in the strongest light possible, does not
hesitate to say, that if the supreme authority of the
Church of Rome were to decree virtues to be vices, and
vices to be virtues, there is no help for us — we must
submit implicitly."
Those who, to avoid this manifest and inexorable
despotism, fly to the opposite extreme, tell us that in
interpreting Scripture, every man is a law unto him
self; that what every man believes to be Scripture, is
Scripture to his mind ; and that, consequently, all we
can do is, to put the Bible in his hands, and exhort
him to read it for himself, responsible to God alone for
the sense which he attaches to it.<^
e Nam fides catholica docet omnem virtutem esse bonam, omneui vitium
esse malum : si autem ^Papa erraret przecipiendo vitia, vel prohibendo
virtutes, teneretur ecclesia credere vitia esse bona, et virtutes malas, nisi
vellet contra conscientiam peccare. — Bellarmine de Rom. Pont. — Op. Lut.
Par. tom. i. col. 804. To say, as is sometimes said, that Bellarmine quali
fied this afterwards, by applying it to doubtful cases only, does not mend
the matter. Who is to say what the doubtful cases are? Why, of course,
the Pope; so that he has the whole game in his own hands still.—
Wordsworth's Letters to Gondon, vol. ii. p. 12, etc.
d The declaration of Rome about the obligjitions of a present faith alone
of the Church, is precisely the ground which John Robinson took, in his

316 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL
Is there, then, no medium between unlimited spirit
ual tyranny and the unlimited rovings of private judg
ment? Our Church, Brethren, and her soundest di
vines, have always taught that there is. We find in the
Prayer Book, " ancient authors" as well as Holy Scrip
ture appealed to, for the settlement of doubtful and
disputed points. In the Articles we are referred to
" the custom of the primitive Church," as a means of
throwing light on matters which Scripture, according
to modern disputants, determines very different ways.
And in the Homilies, we are again and again reminded,
that the primitive Church was " most uncorrupt and
farewell address to the Plymouth Pilgrims at Leyden ; and which was
taken also by the Independents, when they broke off from the Westmius-
ter Assembly, in 1643. So that here the Romish theory and the private
judgment theory, when acted out, come to the same conclusion — i. e.,
present faith, and that only. Robinson, in his " Parting Advice" to his
followers, thus blames both Lutherans and Calvinists, for abiding by a
present creed, as obligatory for the future. "As, for example, the
Lutherans, tbey could not be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw ; for
whatever part of God's will he had further imparted and revealed to
Calvin, they will rather die than embrace it. And so also, saith he, you
see the Calvinists stick where be left them ; a misery much to be lament
ed." Robinson's own creed was that of the Development men of our day,
(whether in, or out, of the Church of Rome;) for "he was very confident,
the Lord had more truth and light to break forth out of His Holy Word."
Robinsoti's Works, vol. i. p. xliv. edit. 1851.
True to this Platform, thelndependents, when they issued their "Apo-
logeticall Narration," in 1643, carefully avowed their present notions, as
the only truth to them. "A second principle we carried along with us,
in all our resolutions, was, not to make our present judgment and prac
tice, a binding law unto ourselves for the future." — Edwards's Antapolo-
gia; or Reply to the Narration. Lend. 1644. p. 85. Edwards was an
old-fashioned Presbyterian; the same who wrote the celebrated Gan-
graena. Thus we see, that Popery and Independency meet in the same conclu
sion — a present church; in other words, both embrace the fashionable
theory of Development. Pope Pius IX., in adopting the Immaculate
Conception into his creed, did right, according to the principles of the
" Apologeticall Narration," which is the Magna Charta of Independency.

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 317
pure ;" that in the times of that Church, " Christian re
hgion was most pure, and, indeed, golden ;"«» and that,
therefore, to follow the example of the primitive
Church, is the surest possible way to bring our religion
to the pattern of actually apostolic times.
And, unquestionably, on all points of prominence
and general interest, this is the surest way of proceed
ing, and would sooner bring mankind to a substantial
unity of faith and practice, than any other which hu
man ingenuity has devised. I doubt, indeed, whether
the testimony of pure Christian aritiquity covers as
much ground as some have fondly imagined. That
antiquity will not tell us how every disputed text of -
the Bible is to be translated./ But it will tell us, very
plainly and very explicitly, facts in respect to cardinal
doctrines and rites ; which is all that we want to estab
lish substantial unity. Diversities, in respect to lesser
subjects, prevailed even in apostolic times ; and wiU
prevail, while human nature is as imperfect as it must
ever be in a fallen state. Take, however, any promi
nent point in doctrine, discipline or worship — any such
point as can be settled by the testimony of widely ac
cepted facts — and pure Christian antiquity is prompt
and decisive in its answer.
e See particularly the Homily against Peril of Idolatry.
/ This exception is no more than Waterland allows, in his invaluable
Chapter on the " Use and Value of Ecclesiastical Antiquity." He says,
" the stress is not laid upon any critical acumen of the Fathers in inter
preting every particular text; but upon their faithfulness in relating
wbat was the doctrine of the church, as to the prime things, in their times,
or before ; and upon their interpretation of some remarkable and leading
texts, (such as John, i. 1.,) upon which, chiefly, the fundamental doctrines
were conceived to rest." — Waterlamd's Works, 2d edit. iii. 650.

318 ' THE STANDARD OF APPEAL
Would you know, for example, whether the prim
itive Church believed in the doctrine of the Trinity?
The Nicene Creed, which was the testimony^ of all
Christendom, as to what had ever been believed re
specting the Godhead, is an answer which heretics can
not quibble away, as they do texts of Scripture. The
very ringleader of ancient Unitarians tried, in every
possible manner, to evade that Creed's expressions,
and was forced to abandoa the enterprise as desperate.^
Would you know whether the primitive Church had
such an officer as we now call bishop ? Lists of such
officers, traced up to the apostles' days, can be produced
with ease.* Would you know whether primitive
Christians worshipped with a form? Their actual
liturgies can be laid before you. You have a peren
nial specimen in that most comprehensive and appro
priate collect, at the close of morning and evening
prayer, called " A Prayer of St. Chrysostom." Would
you know whether they had an order of men called
clergy, and employed sacraments as outward and vis
ible signs of inward and spiritual grace? You can
g The testimon,y, not the decree. Hence its amazing value, as an attes
tation of the Catholic faith "through the ages all along."
h This was in a. n. 325. So in a. d, 383, the Macedonians, who
denied the Divinity of the Holy Ghost, gave way before " the common
suffrage of the ancients." — Waterland's Works, iii. 659.
i It seems unaccountably strange, that it should be the impression of
many, that the Primitive Church was not careful to maintain a record
of Episcopal successions. Why, Eusebius tells us he devoted seven books
of his Ecclesiastical History to that very subject ! See the preface to his
eighth Book, the opening of his first Book, the close of the seventh, and
the close of chapter fourth. Book third. Surely, an apostolic succession
was not lightly esteemed in primitive times, how much soever of a
novelty and monstrosity some pronounce it now.

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 319'
not stir one step, in the history of the primitive Church,
without encountering such things.
Thus easily could great principles, now daily and
sharply disputed by different Christian sects, each and
all appealing with the same confidence to the Bible,
and appealing, as fact shows, entirely in vain (since
they differ, still, as much as ever)^thus easily, I say,
could great principles be settled, which would produce
substantial unity among all who profess aijd call them
selves Christians.
But even the Papist, fond, as many suppose him, of
relying for the maintenance of his cause upon the old
fathers, rejects their testimony when it pleases him not.
They talk of bishops, but not of a Pope ; and, there
fore, in his view, the present Church is both truer and
wiser. The advocate of ministerial parity rejects
them, because, silent if they be respecting a Pope, they
speak too familiarly and frequently of bishops, to be
accounted any thing but Episcopalians. The Socinian
rejects them for their Nicene Creed ; the Anabaptist for
their infant baptisms ; the Quaker for their outward
sacraments and standing ministry ; and Protestants, of
many names and classes, because of their habitual em
ployment of forms of prayer.
And yet, all of thein, from the Papist down to the
Socinian, appeal to this same antiquity, to settle one
of the most fundamental of afl possible positions, the
Canon of Christian Scripture itself The New Testa
ment was not all written, for more than sixty years
after the Ascension of Christ. There was a multitude
of writings, scattered over Christendom, claiming to

820 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL
be Epistles and Gospels ; for St. Paul warns the Thes-
salonians against forged epistles, written to inculcate
the opinion that the end of the world was nigh ;i and
St. Luke, in the preface to his Gospel, alludes to
"many" who had taken in hand the subject of our
Saviour's life, and executed their task like bunglers ;
because they had not written "in order," nor had
"perfect understanding of all things from the very
first." But, amid this mass of Epistles and Gospels, (many
of which were famous enough to be preserved and to
come down to our own times,) who should determine
what was truly inspired and apostolic, and therefore
genuine Scripture? Who should settle the delicate
and perplexing question, whether the Epistle of Barna
bas, an actual apostle, should be thrown out of the
Sacred Canon, while productions of Mark and Luke,
neither of them of apostolic rank, should be inserted
into it? The Primitive Church decided these first
and foremost of theological questions, and has given
us our present New Testament.*
Now, knowing this, our own Church has, not un
wisely or strangely, as some think, but most judiciously
determined, that the Primitive Church which settled
the great fundamental question, ' What is the New
Testament?' is equally competent to testify to the next
/ 2 Thess. ii. 1, 2.
k In respect to this question, says the Presbyterian, Dr. Spring, " Our
appeal is to the earliest ecclesiastical historians; and we find a nerfeot
agreement among them." — Rule of Faith, 1844, p. 28. — They agree as
perfectly about Episcopacy. Will the learned doctor listen to them on
that point?

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 321
great fundamental question, 'What was the New
Testament, in apostolic times, believed to teach ?'
Therefore, as in her Homily, on the peril of idolatry,
she commends the Primitive Church as a standard,
"which is specially to be followed as most incorrupt
and pure;" and is willing to take its testimony at
large, on all chief points of doctrine, discipline and
worship. And she is the only Christian communion
which treats Christian antiquity consistently. For,
while she is ready to go to such antiquity for any
thing, which the Bible (as sects and disputes show)
cannot settle clearly, all others, from the Romanist
down to the Socinian, reject the Fathers for one reason
or for another ; and yet, without those Fathers, they
cannot determine which is the true Scripture and
which is false !
Such, Brethren, is our Church's view of the neces
sity of something besides private judgment, or a stern
anathema, to settle disputed questions in religion, and
such is the standard to which she cheerfully and con
fidently appeals. And this mode of reference was any
thing but new and strange, in those trying times, when
our ecclesiastical forefathers, attacked on all sides, had
to defend themselves against their thronging foes, "by
the armor of righteousness on the right hand and on
the left." Then, it was well known to the laity, as
well as to the clergy, as an extract from even a poem
will show. Says Dry den, in his " Rehgio Laici," or
Layman's Faith,
In doubtful questions, 'tis the safest way
To learn what unsuspected ancients say;
14*

322 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL
For 'tis not likely we should higher soar
In search of heaven, than all the Church before ;
Nor can we be deceived, unless we see
The Scripture and the Fathers disagree.
Not, however, "as we be slanderously reported, and
as some af&rm that we say" — not that our Church
' puts the testimony of Christian antiquity dbove Scrip
ture, or on a par with Scripture. That, Romanism or
Rationalism alike may do ; but we say, ' God forbid
it.' With us. Christian antiquity is "a witness, not
at all competing with Scripture — never to be balanced
against it ; but competing with our less able, and less
pure, apprehension of Scripture."^ But, unless we
submit to the Pope, and take what he says as infalli
ble — or erect every man's judgment into a pope, and
make it infallible for him — there must be some umpire
in disputed cases. Well, if so, what shall that umpire
be ? it is useless to say that the Bible shall be such
an umpire, for the meaning of ihe Bible is the very mailer
in dispute f and with the Bible only for an arbiter,
sects would and could come no nearer unity than they
do now. If I may again quote Dryden, (of whom it
was said, that he reasoned better and more closely in
poetry than in prose,)
We hold, "and say we prove from Scripture plain,
That Christ is God ; the bold Socinian
From the same Scripture urges he's but man.
Now what appeal can end th' important suit ?
Both parts talk loudly, but the rule is mute.
I J. B. Tyler's Primitive Worship, p. 4.

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 323
We must give up these opinions about the Bible, and
come to facts of history, for its just interpretation. We
must ask. How did those believe, and those act, who
were nearest the Apostles' days ; who received at their
hands the Church, the ministry, and the Catholic faith,
and were most likely to have, and to exemplify, the
Bible's true construction ? The facts which rise up
to answer such a question, you have seen (a specimen
at least Sf them) ; and you have further seen how
easily and quickly they can determine questions now
most vehemently disputed. Be it, that such an appeal
would fail in some cases ; since there ever were, and
ever wfll be, those who, "though vanquished can ar
gue still." It would not fail in multitudes ; and it
would save us from many of those lawless speculations
of ignorance, self-conceit and heresy, which are every
whit as arbitrary and magisterial as decrees from the
Roman Vatican. Be it, that such an appeal is not
perfection or inspiration. Where I ask, with all as
surance, since the Bible will not harmonize us — where
can common sense, or " science," not " falsely so-
caUed," or enhghtened piety, point out to us a better?
It is but the principle of settling doubtful construc
tions, by the most authoritative and least suspicious
precedents. But that is a principle of confessed and
universal obligation, in all courts of law and justice ;™
and in such courts, if any where on earth, is pure rea
son supposed to hold sovereign and undisputed sway.
It is time, however, some of you will doubtless
m " Contemporanea expositio est optima et fortissima in lege, is a very
maxim among jurists." — Broom's Legal Maxims, 2d ed. p. 532.

324 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL
think, to draw a little nearer to my compound text,
and show how it illustrates the topic on which I have
been insisting — the necessity of some standard of appeal
in disputed matters of religion, and the m-anner in
which our own Church has recognized such necessity,
and provided for its exigencies.
That text, in its various portions, bears chiefly upon
the mischiefs attending an arbitrary method of settling
disputed or doubtful points (whether by tSe decrees
of the Church," or the decrees of our own minds) ;
and commends to us, in the example of one who was
beginning the life of a disciple, the profound and prac
tical submissiveness of humble and earnest piety.
The passage depicting the conduct of the Jews,
when one of their number acknowledged Jesus, for
the Messiah, shows how mischievous ecclesiastical de
crees may become, when founded upon nothing but
present and dominant impressions. In the decree of
the Synagogue, which was a decree of excommunica
tion, you have an exact counterpart of the policy and
conduct of the Church of Rome. That policy is to
admit no standard of appeal, but the Church of Rome's
decrees, and to denounce, as heretics, all who dissent
from such a violent and selfish determination ; or dare
even to doubt its righteousness." Sometimes all which
n I mean decrees in the proper sense. Not creeds ; for I beg again to
say, the point is so constantly misunderstood, the old creeds are not
decrees, they are testimony.
0 " Nulli ergo omnino hominum liceat banc paginam nostras, damnatio-
nis, reprobationis, definitionis, inhibitionis, decreti, ordinationis, statuti,
et mandati infringere, vel ei ausu, temerario contraire." — Gone. Lateran.
V. sub Leon. X. Sess. viii.
This is strong enough, probably, as a threat against all acts contrary

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 325
can thus be done is simply to denounce ; but where
the Inquisition can prevail, the process can be pursued
to shapes of torture and death, which fiends might
gloat upon.
But the direful arm of the Inquisition was wielded,
long beforethe name arose, and the thing was founded
in form in modern Spain. The decree, the excom
munication, and the anathema, of the- Synagogue of
Jerusalem, were as truly inquisitorial as any thing ever
sanctioned by the bulls of the Papal See, or the fiats
of papal thrones. They are the natural mischiefs at
tending the erection of a church into a tribunal, pre
suming to speak the voice of God, with the majesty
and with the force of law. Persecution will ever be
the issue. The blood of the oppressed will, sooner or
later, cry unto him who has most solemnly and most
sovereignly declared that vengeance is his sole pre
rogative — that he, and he only, may repay i*
We may think, however, that it is perfectly safe to
take from the Church the power to decree, and to en
force decrees by temporal punishments, and refer the
whole subject to private judgment. But, as another
part of my text teaches, we do no better. Endow
private judgment with arbitrary power — let it make
to Rome. Now for an authority to extinguish the bare doubter of Rome's
infallibility. It is from Azorius, a celebrated Spanish Jesuit of the 16th
century, who wrote folios upon morals. "Si quem in foro exteriori
legitimfe allegata et probata probaverint in rebns Fidei, scienter et volun-
tarie dubitasse, arbitror eum, utverfe et proprife, hseretioum puniendum."
— Tom. I, Moral. Lib. viii. cb. 9. Quoted in Hacket's Abp. Williams,
pt i. p. 108, No. 2 ; as p. 103 is repeated twice.
p We may j-e/eoi a man for heresy; but we cannot go on and heap
retribution on him, after a Jewish or Romish fashion. — Titus, iii. 10.

326 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL
its own decisions the rule of right — and private judg
ment is just as persecuting as the Pope, with his
crook and sword. Look at Saul of Tarsus, determin
ing by his private judgment whether all Christianity
were not treason, or an old wives' fable. " I verily
thought with myself, I ought to do many things con
trary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth." And what
was the direct consequence of this arbitrary thinking
with himself? To seek authority for persecuting;
which, once obtained, many of the saints did he shut
up in prison ; many did he punish in every synagogue ;
many did he compel to blaspheme ; many did he drive
before the goads of cruelty, to strange and distant
cities ; while those who perished were, by his voice,
sentenced to the horrors of a malefactor's death.
So, then, private judgment can persecute as well as
Popery, and with as unrelenting vehemence; as in
stances in modern times, but hardly to be named with
prudence, might abundantly demonstrate.? And if
q I alluded to such a denunciatory exercise of private judgment, as
was once attempted by a British House of Commons; when it erected
itself into a tribunal to establish Calvinism.
"We, The Commons in Parliament assembled,' do claim, and protest,
and avow for trutb, the sense of the Articles of Religion, which were
established by Parliament, in the 13th year of our late Queen Elizabeth,
which, by the public act of the Church of England, and by the general
and current exposition of the writers of our Church, have been delivered
unto us. And we reject the sense of the Jesuits, and Arminians, and
ALL OTHERS, whcrcin they differ from us." — Rushworth's Collections, i.
649, 50.
So they rejected all Christendom, and the world beside, if they pre
sumed to differ from themselves. They set themselves up for the only
" standing order ;" as the old phrase was, in the colonial days of New
England. I leave it to my readers to say, whether they had after them
" a regular succession."

ON I*UBTPUL POINTS. 327
private judgment do not, from the nature of civil in
stitutions, or the tendencies of an age, (things which
are clogs on Popery, too,) have as much swing as it
could desire for a bloody hand, it will none the less
indulge a furious temper. Paul said that he perse
cuted some from home ; probably because he could
not persecute them unto death ; and against these, he
says, he was " exceeding mad." And where. Brethren,
painful as the reference is — where will you find more
of this excuseless wrath, than among sects, whose fun
damental rule is, that each man's decision is infallible
for his own self, and that to talk of any standard of
appeal in doubtful matters, but the light within, is to
talk like the servile adherents of the popedom ?
From all which, it is clear that, let the Church de
cree, or let the individual mind decree, the issue is
substantiafly the same ; and the best cure we know
of for this serious and ominous predicament, we be
heve to be, an appeal to a mass of facts which are
alike removed from the present Church and from
present minds — ^facts far away in the past, where
prejudice and misconstruction cannot so easily reach
and mould them. But, alas ! when we lisp of defer
ence to the old councils, creeds, and fathers, we are
sneered or scoffed at, as depreciating the Bible upon
the one hand, and offering fellowship to Rome upon
the other.
Thus, we see how to reject such a standard of ap
peal for authority to settle doubtful cases, as our
Church commends to us, results in the indulgence of
a persecuting temper. And this illustrates one class

328 Tl-IE STANDARD O:^ APPEAL
of the mischiefs attending such rejection. There is
another class, also, upon which portions of our text
bear ; to this would I now direct you.
Suppose the restored bhnd man to have been in
timidated by the anathema and excommunication of.
the Synagogue, and to have disavowed his faith in the
Restorer of his body, and the Saviour of his soul.
The unity of the Synagogue would not have been
broken. But what sort of unity would have prevafled
there ? a unity of appearance solely : the same which
existed in the person of Galileo, when he was de
nounced as a heretic for afi&rming ih6 revolution of
the earth around the sun.'' Galfleo, through fear of
r I add a few words respecting Galileo, though I have alluded to him
before; for many are not aware that he is no longer a heretic in the
view of Rome. Very few, probably, of the Christian public in this
country, are aware how he ceased from being a heretic. The story is
told by the Rev. Joseph Mendham in his work on the Index of Gregory
XVI., and it admirably illustrates Rome's way of doing business. She
puts everybody else in the wrong ; yet when confessedly in the wrong
herself, never acknowledges an error, but gets out of a false position by
stealth. Here, however, is Mr. Mendham to speak for himself. " In the
Roman Index of 1704, we read the general condemnation : — Libri omnes
doeentes mdbilitaiem, Terrce et immobilitatem Solis, Not a vestige of any
of these decisive proscriptions is now to be found in any Roman Index.
The nam£ of the persecuted and condemned reviver of a doctrine now
universally received, with that of his Dialugo, kept their place the last,
and were only silently and furtively withdrawn, in the year 1835. In
all the preceding Indexes, the condemnation, not of the man only, but
of the DOCTRINE, stands an imperishable monument of the ignorance,
bigotry, and intolerance of the Roman Church." — p, 18. After telling
the story of Galileo, Mr, Mendham goes on to show that the ancient
heresy of Copernicus and of Poscarini has, by the same Romish alchemy,
been transmuted into present orthodoxy. The question is often asked
whether Copernicanism is still heresy at Rome ; and whether she still
presumes to dictate about pAifcsopAy, as well as theology, to the world at
large. To such a question the above is a curious and instructive answer.
Rome is fallible, at last, by her own concession; yet the acknowledg-

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 329
imprisonment and death, admitted his constructive
error; and then observed in an undertone to a by
stander, that notwithstanding all he had said or done,
the earth still pursued her legitimate course in the
solar system. Force cannot produce genuine unity,
and it never will ; and under the .so much boasted
unity of the Church of Rome, he, who sees the heart,
may perceive far more sad and numerous diversities,
than disfigure the whole Protestant world. Force
may make cowards and hypocrites : it can never
make true believers. And he who succumbs to all
the dogmas of Rome, because of her threats or thun
ders, would lose heaven twice over, though it were as
true, as Rome dictatorially assures us it is, that upon
the belief of her dogmas depends our everlasting sal
vation. And now, on the other hand, suppose the blind man
to have indulged the querulous disposition of Naaman,
who, when told to wash in Jordan for the cure of his
leprosy, drew himself up in the full grandeur of self-
sufficiency, and resolved to follow the dictates of his
^vate judgment, rather than the mandate of the pro
phet. " Behold," said the haughty captain-general of
Syria, " I thought he will surely come out to me."
But he did not; and that self-willed "I thought" had
nearly left His Mightiness a leper still. If the blind
man had listened to the promptings of the same de
ceiver, he might have gone down to his gloomy grave.

ment is made with not a particle of manliness, but after the manner of
a sneak !

330 THE STANDARD OF APPEAL
and never been greeted by "holy light, offspring of
heaven, first born."
And this sort of private judgment it is, which in*
flicts upon us all the wildness and extravagance of the
almost countless sects, which presume to appropriate
the name of Christian. Long since did Lord Boling-
broke say, that one " cause of the multiphcation of
extravagant opinions and sects in Christianity, has
been the arbitrary practice, of giving different senses to
the same passages of the Bible."* And yet, as an in
fidel, he cared not which way his remark might cut ;
and was as indifferent to its bearing upon one sect as
upon another. And do we not see for ourselves, that
he has not missed the mark, in his statement, be the
motive which brought it out whatsoever it might?
Can we fail to perceive, that sects are inevitable, so
long as the Bible is the sole standard of appeal, and
the same passage is interpreted twenty different ways ;
while private judgment is the only guide, and its deci- •
sions are infallible for every mind ? Is not one man's
" I thought," as good as any other man's ? and if so,
is not one man's " I thought" about the Bible, as gd8G
as that of any of his fellows ; and again, if so, is not
the wildest sectarian under heaven in the right ?
But what then, the captious will exclaim, must we
sell the birthright of our soul's freedom, and go and
bow down to the image of unity, which ecclesiastical
pride and usurpation has set up in the Vatican at
Rome? We ask no such unqualified surrender of
your reason, and power of judging aright, and for
s Wks. iii. 464. Philad. 1841.

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 331
yourselves. There is a medium, (oh, that.it were not
such an invisible and inconceivable paradox to thou
sands I) — there is a medium, and a most blessed one,
between the extravagances of Rome, upon the one
hand, and the extravagances of schism and heresy
upon the other. We ask you not to surrender your
reason, to be bound with links of iron ; and we beg
you not to let it run rampant, like the untamed wild
ass, which will not be held by bit or bridle. Exercise
it no longer upon conjectures, but upon facts ; no
longer upon opinions, but upon history. Go to the
Church, as she was in the days of her virgin purity,
before she was wedded to the state, and began to do,
as the married do, the will of an imperious husband.
There is a period of three centuries for you to inquire
into ; and what the Church then was, baptized in the
blood of martyrdom, and refined by the fires of perse
cution, you may safely, most safely, be. Cast in your
lot with her, as she then was ; for then, most assuredly,
her Lord was with her ; then she was the brightness
of everlasting light, the unspotted mirror, of the power
of God, and the image of his goodness.* The ignorant
will try to frighten you, by telling you that this will
lead you into the mazes of Popery, and that you will
lose your independence, if not your soul. But it is a
grand mistake to suppose that Popery existed during
the first three centuries, when the Church stood alone,
untrammelled, and uncorrupted ; when, as one of her
oldest historians informs us, there was an inseparable
communion between the Western and Eastern Churches ;
t Wisdom, vii. 26.

332 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL
i. e., throughout Christendom." Popery was the growth
of the middle ages ; of periods when this commu
nion began to be broken or sundered. It attained its
fullest development in periods when this communion
was most effectually interrupted. It grew fastest un
der the shadow of monarchical patronage ;« and is one
part of the tribute, which the Church has 'had to pay,
for the misnamed privilege of allowing the state to call
her after its own name, and receive her nominally
under its protection, but really under its domination.
If the Church were set free, to-morrow, from all civil
control and interference, the doom of Popery would
speedily be written. " The holy text of pike and
gun," now furnishes its strongest arguments ; and
" infallible artillery" is its surest peace-maker.
Take, then, my Brethren, such a standard to settle
disputes about the Bible's meaning, as that commended
to you in the Prayer-Book, Articles, and Homilies,
the Primitive Church " most incorrupt and pure ;"
and let that be your rock, while the surges of sectarian
controversy are beating about you, and against you.
And, with all his ease, and all his comfort, will you
do this, if the temper which prevailed in Paul's bosom,
when he had ceased to listen to the dictates of private
judgment, and sought wiser counsel, prevails in yours.
"Lord," said the new convert, when he gave up think
ing within himself as a guide, " Lord, what wilt thou
have me to do?" True, piety is not a boisterous and
u Socrates, book ii. ch. 18.
V Homilies, edit. 1817, London, p. 192.

ON DOUBTFUL POINTS. 333
self-willed assertion of our own rights, the certainty
of our own judgments, and a reckless discardance of
all authority in spiritual matters. Ecclesiastical des
potism, and Pharisaism, and heresy, and Deism, can
stand by themselves, and be satisfied with their own
selves, perpetually. But genuine piety is humble,
diffident, clinging, relying, reverential, anxious not
for distinction or self-gratification, but for obedience.
Where, it says, aire the old paths, in which they whom
the world knew not, nay, whom it hated, the paths in
which they walked, where I may find refuge for my
longing soul ? Carry me back to the days of the ear
liest followers of Christ, let me see how they thought,
and felt, and acted, and I may obtain light and peace.
I am weary with the din of sects ; this perpetual ar
rogance of infallibility — lam of Paul, and I of Apol-
los, and I of Cephas, and I of Christ. The Bible, in
modern hands, means every thing or nothing. Let
me have its meaning, as the Primitive Church pos
sessed it, and I will content myself and be at rest.*"
Thus may God help you to discover your Master's
will, and to do it perpetually for your everlasting joy.
And setting . out with such a scheme ; discarding Po
pery on the one hand, and sectarianism on the other,
as the manufactures of men ; relying on the Church,
as she was in her earliest and best days, for your
model and guide, my faith is all-confiding, that if,
un-der God, the truth as it is in Jesus without mixture
w " To understand the Holy Scriptures aright," says the eminently
devout Bishop Wilson, "is to understand them as the Primitive Church
did."— Wilson's Works, ii. 227.

334 THE STANDARD OP APPEAL, ETC.
is any where to be found, it will greet your eyes — nay,
bless and gladden them, to your latest days. And,
then, when the light of the Church below shall cease
to shine on you, the light of the Church above shall
be* exchanged for it. • No more shall your sun go
down, or your moon withdraw itself; for th-e Lord
shall be your everlasting light, and the days of your
mourning shall be ended.

Note. — The doctrine of this Sermon has sometimes been considered in
compatible with the free dissemination of the Scriptures. The intelligent
will at once perceive, that it is consistent with the freest dissemination
of the Scriptures. All it opposes is a lawless interpretation of the Bible ;
while it suggests a guide to its ancient and true sense.

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