IX.

preach among the people of Brandenburg, which CENT. hitherto had, been altogether pagan, and made some progress toward their conversion. He died in 888.

Dies,

A. D.

English

Jeron, an English presbyter, went over to Hol- 888. land, in this century, and preached the Gospel Jeron, an there: and, so far as appears, with faithfulness. missionary, He was crowned with martyrdom about the martyred in year 849*.

Holland,

A. D.

849.

Patto, a Scotch abbot, was appointed bishop of Verden, by Charlemagne. The Centuriators only tell us, that he strenuously supported popish corruptions and human traditions. But Crantzius, from whom they collected this account, would have informed them also of better things t. Patto, it appears, had great success among the infidels, but was grieved to see Christian professors disgracing patto, a the faith by their vices. He faithfully rebuked Scotch abthem; and for his honest zeal in preaching against dered, the sins of nominal Christians, was murdered about the year 815.

bot, mur

A. D.

81.5.

Tanes, who had succeeded Patto in the Scotch abbey, after a time left his situation, and followed his countryman into Germany, not so much with a desire of martyrdom, say the Centuriators, as of obtaining a richer benefice. Uncharitable surmise! There is too much of this leaven to be found in a work, which, in other respects, abounds in piety and industry. The same Crantzius informs us, Crantzius's that Tanes, in fact, laboured in conjunction with account of Patto, and, after a while, was appointed his successor to the See of Verden. Were the sufferings and hardships, which Patto and himself had sustained among barbarians, likely to render the bishopric of Verden an enviable object of ambition?

I know no other ground on which the propagation of the Gospel may be discovered in this + See A. Butler, Vol. II.

Cent. Madg.

Tanes.

V.

CHAP. century. The accounts of the labours of Spanish pastors among the Mahometans, or of the sufferings of the Christians under the persecutions of the Moors, are not sufficiently authenticated.

The reader, I hope, has seen, in this dark century, a clear demonstration, that the Church of Christ still existed. He may now, if he please, descend with me to the ultimate point of Christian depression.

CENTURY X.

CHAP. I.

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE CHURCH IN THIS

THE

CENTURY.

I.

HE famous annalist of the Roman Church, CHAP. whose partiality to the See of Rome is notorious, has, however, the candour to own, that this was an iron age, barren of all goodness; a leaden age, abounding in all wickedness; and a dark age, remarkable above all others for the scarcity of writers, and men of learning*. "Christ was then, as it appears, in a very deep sleep, when the ship was covered with waves; and what seemed worse, when the Lord was thus asleep, there were no disciples, who, by their cries, might awaken him, being themselves all fast asleep." Under an allusion by no means incongruous with the oriental and scriptural taste, this writer represents the Divine Head of the Church as having given up the Church, for its wickedness, to a judicial impenitency, which continued the longer, because there were scarce any zealous spirits who had the charity to pray for the cause of God upon earth. I give this serious and devotional sense to Baronius, because the words will bear it, without the least violence, and the phraseology is perfectly scriptural †.

Infidel malice has with pleasure recorded the

* Baron. Annal.

4 As for instance, Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Ps. xliv. 23.

I.

CHAP. vices and the crimes of the popes of this century. Nor is it my intention to attempt to palliate the account of their wickedness. It was as deep and as atrocious as language can paint; nor can a reasonable man desire more authentic evidence of history, than that, which the records both of civil and ecclesiastical history afford, concerning the corruption of the whole Church. One pleasing circumstance, however, occurs to the mind of a genuine Christian; which is, that all this was predicted. The Book of the Revelation may justly be called a prophetic history of these transactions, and the truth of Scripture is vindicated by events of all others the most disagreeable to a pious mind.

What materials then appear for the history of the real Church? The propagation of the Gospel among the pagan nations, and the review of some writers of this century, form the principal materials, and shall be the subjects of two distinct chapters. But the general description of the situation of the Church, can be little else than a very succinct enumeration of the means made use of to oppose the progress of popery.

The decrees of the council of Frankfort against image-worship had still some influence in Germany, France, and England. In the year 909, a council was held at Trosle, a village near Soissons in France, in which they expressed their sentiments of Christian faith and practice, without any mixture of doctrine that was peculiarly popish. Many Churches still had the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue. The monks took much pains in our island to erect an independent dominion on the ruin of the secular clergy. This scheme, equally destructive of civil and clerical authority, met, however, with a vigorous, and, in a great measure, a successful resistance; and the celibacy of the clergy was strongly opposed. Even the doctrine of transubstantiation itself, the favourite child of Pascasius

X.

Radbert, was still denied by many, and could not CENT. as yet gain a firm and legal establishment in Europe. Altric, in England, whose homily for Easter used to be read in the Churches, undertook to prove, that the elements were the body and blood of Christ, not corporeally, but spiritually. In an epistle he asserts, that this sacrifice is not made his body, in which he suffered for us, nor his blood, which he shed for us, but is spiritually made his body and blood, as was the case with the manna which rained from heaven, and with the water which flowed from the rock. Opposition was also made by kings and councils to the authority of the pope. One of the most remarkable instances of this kind took place in the council of Rheims, which deposed a bishop without the consent of the pope. The story is tedious and uninteresting. I have looked over the acts of the synod, which are circumstantially detailed by the Centuriators in their history of this century; and a few words of the discourses of Arnulph, bishop of Orleans, the president, may deserve to be distinctly quoted *. "O deplorable Rome, who in the days of our forefathers producedst so many burning and shining lights, thou hast brought forth, in our times, only dismal darkness, worthy of the detestation of posterity: What shall we do, or what council shall we take? The Gospel tells us of a barren fig-tree, and of the divine patience exercised toward it. Let us bear with our primates as long as we can; and, in the mean time, seek for spiritual food, where it is to be found. Certainly there are some in this holy assembly, who can testify, that in Belgium and Germany, both which are near us, there may be found real

Bishop Newton, in his 3d Vol. p. 161, on the prophecies, of whom I have made some use in a few foregoing sentences, assigns the words to Gerbert, of Rheims. The acts of the synod which I have mentioned show his mistake; they expressly ascribe them to Arnulphus.