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IV.

CHAP. namely, that there had been a considerable degree of pure religion among our ancestors before the invasion of the Saxons; that even after the declension and decay, there were still faithful pastors, who carried back into France that spirit of godliness which the latter country, by the means of Germanus of Auxerre, had brought over into our island; and that the poison of Pelagianism must have had a considerable influence in the production of that national decay of piety, which Gildas so feelingly deplores.

Colomban, an Irish priest in this century, came over into the northern parts of Scotland, and laboured with much success among the Picts*. The southern parts of Scotland had been evangelized long before by the instructions of Ninias, a British bishop, who had himself been instructed at Rome. Colomban lived thirty-four years after his passage into Britain. His disciples were remarkable for the holiness and abstemiousness of their lives. Thus, while the Gospel was rapidly withdrawing from the East, where it first arose, God left not himself without witness in the most distant parts of the West.

Radegunda, daughter of Bertharius, king of Thuringia, having been taken captive by the Franks in her infancy, fell to the lot of king Clotaire, who married her. This woman might have been added to the list of those pious persons of her sex, who were made highly instrumental in instructing mankind, had she not imbibed monastic ideas, the pest which infected godly persons, in general, in these times, and which, though it could not ruin their relation to God, cut off the greatest part of their usefulness. She obtained a separation from her husband, and followed the monastic rules with great austerity to her death. These rules were now grown stricter than ever; the

* Probably they were originally Britons, who fled into Scotland from the arms of the Saxons, and were called Picts, because they painted their bodies, according to the custom of our barbarous ancestors.

.VI.

vows were made perpetual, and this godly queen, CENT. who might have caused her light to shine in a blessed manner in the world, was shut up during the remainder of her life in a nunnery.

Toward the latter end of this century, the Lombards came from Pannonia into Italy, and settled there under Alboinus, their first king. They fixed their metropolis at Pavia. As they were Arians by profession, heresy again took root in Italy, whose inhabitants felt all the horrors and miseries which a savage and victorious nation could inflict. But the Church needed the scourge: the Roman See had been dreadfully corrupt under Vigilius, and formal superstition was corroding the vitals of genuine godliness.

At the same time John Climmachus flourished, who was abbot of the monastery of Mount Sinai, in Arabia, near to which was a little monastery, called the Prison, in which all who had committed any great crime, since they entered on the monastic state, voluntarily confined themselves. The account which Climmachus gives of it is striking. The poor prisoners spent their time in prayer, with every possible external mark of self-denial and wretchedness. They did not allow themselves any one comfort of human life. In their prayers they did not dare to ask to be delivered entirely from punishment; they only begged not to be punished with the utmost rigour. The voluntary torments they endured were amazing, and this voluntary humility of theirs continued till death. But I turn from the disagreeable scene to make one remark:

How precious is the light of the Gospel! how gladly, we may suppose, would many of these miserable persons have received the doctrine of free forgiveness by faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ, if it had been faithfully preached among them! How does their seriousness rebuke the levity of presumptuous sinners among ourselves, who trifle with

IV.

CHAP. the light! how deeply fallen was the East from the real genius of Christianity, when men distressed for sin could find no hope but in their own formalities and rigid austerities! .

Remark

of Levigil

In the year 584, Levigildus, king of the Visigoths able Story in Spain, having married his eldest son Hermenigildus, to Ingonda, daughter of the French king, A. D. began to find effects from the marriage, which he 584. little expected. Ingonda, though persecuted by her

dus,

mother-in-law, the wife of the Spanish monarch, persevered in orthodoxy, and, by the assistance of Leander, bishop of Seville, under the influence of divine grace, brought over her husband to the faith. The father, enraged, commenced a grievous persecution against the orthodox in his dominions. Hermenigildus was led into the grievous error of rebelling against his father, not through ambition, it seems, but through fear of his father, who appeared to be bent on his destruction. Being obliged to fly into a church, he was induced by his father's promises to surrender himself. Levigildus at first treated him with kindness, but afterwards banished him to Valentia. His wife Ingonda flying to the Grecian emperor died by the way. Some time after, the young prince, loaded with irons, had leisure to learn the vanity of earthly greatness, and exhibited every mark of piety and humility. His father sent to him an Arian bishop, offering him his favour, if he would receive the communion at his hands. Hermenigildus continued firm in the faith, and the king, enraged, sent officers who dispatched him. The father lived however to repent of his cruelty; and the young prince, notwithstanding the unjustifiable step into which his passions had betrayed him, had lived long enough to give a shining example of Christian piety. Levigildus, before he died, desired Leander, bishop of Seville, whom he had much persecuted, to educate his second son Recaredus* in Gregory of Tours, B. VIII. C. ult.

the same principles in which he had instructed his eldest. Recaredus succeeded his father in the government, and embraced orthodoxy with much zeal. The consequence was the establishment of orthodoxy in Spain, and the destruction of Arianism, which had now no legal settlement in the world, except with the Lombards in Italy. Though this account be general and external, it seemed proper to give it, as an illustrious instance of the work of Divine Providence, effecting, by the means of a pious princess, a very salutary revolution in religion.

I have collected in this chapter the few events which appeared worthy of notice from the death of Justinian to the end of this century, with a studied exclusion of the concerns of Gregory the first, bishop of Rome. He is a character deserving to be exhibited distinctly. And in connexion with his affairs, whatever else has been omitted, which falls within our plan, may be introduced in the next chapter.

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HE

CHAP. V.

GREGORY THE FIRST, BISHOP OF ROME.

HIS PASTORAL LABOURS.

V.

E was a Roman by birth, and of a noble fa- CHAP. mily. But being religiously disposed, he assumed the monastic habit, and was eminently distinguished by the progress he made in piety*. It was not till after he was drawn back, in a degree, to a

* Bede Eccles. Hist. B. II. C. I.

It should be observed here, that before this he had studied the Roman jurisprudence, was eminent in that and every other fashionable secular kind of knowledge, had been distinguished as a senator, and promoted by Justin II. to the government of the city of Rome, an arduous and important office, which he had discharged with singular prudence, fidelity, and justice.

CHAP. secular life by his employments in the Church', V. that he became thoroughly sensible what advantage he had enjoyed for his own soul from religious retirement. With tears he owned, that he had had the world under his feet while he was absorbed in heavenly contemplation; but was now bereft of comfort. "Now," says he, "my mind, by reason. of pastoral cares, is oppressed with the business of secular persons, and after so fair an appearance of rest, is defiled with the dust of earthly action. And suffering itself to be distracted by outward things in condescension to many, even while it desires inward things, it returns to them, without doubt, more faintly. I weigh, therefore, what I endure: I weigh what I have lost, and while I look at that which I have lost, my present burdens are more heavy."

In truth, in different periods of his life he moved in opposite extremes. He was one while dormant in the quietism of solitude; another while, involved in the multiplicity of episcopal cares at Rome. If his lot had been cast in the earlier and purer days of Christianity, he would neither have been a monk, nor a bishop charged with such extensive secular concerns, and so would have avoided the evils of which he complains. The great Sees in these times, that of Rome in particular, through the increasing growth of spiritual domination, and the load of worldly business very improperly connected with it, worldly, though in some sense ecclesiastical, were indeed agreeable enough to minds like that of Vigilius, earthly and ambitious, but were fatiguing beyond measure to men like Gregory, who unfeignedly loved heavenly things. Nothing could be more unwise than the custom which prevailed of encouraging monasticism and very large episcopal governments at the same time. The transition from the one to the other, as in Gregory's case (and it was a common one) must to holy minds, like his, have been a trial of no small magnitude. The serious

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