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southern parts of the island found the benefit of his CENT. labours, and of those of his auxiliaries.

I shall close the story of English affairs with the death of Augustine, which happened early in the 7th century. And as the ground I am now upon has been disputed, I am willing to lay open all the information which antiquity can give us. Let us

hear some other accounts of these transactions.

Writers, who have been studious of the honour of our country, tell us, that when Augustine came into England, he found seven bishops and an archbishop supplied with godly governors and abbots, and that the Church was in goodly order, at Bangor particularly that Dinoth the abbot showed Augustine that they owed him no subjection: that their bishops had been independent of Rome: that the bishops of Rome had no more right to their obedience than other Christians had, and that the bishop of Caerleon upon Usk was their proper superior*; and that in revenge for this honest assertion of their independency, the Kentish king procured the invasion and slaughter of the British monks mentioned above.

How Christianity was afterwards propagated in our island, and how the disputes between the Roman and British churches terminated, will properly fall under our consideration hereafter. In the mean time, the injustice of a certain writer to the memory of Gregory, in accusing him of exercising tyranny over the British Church, is very glaring. We have, by an early association of ideas, been so habituated to condemn every thing that is Roman in religion, that we are not easily open to conviction on this subject. It should, however, be remembered, that not the least revenue could accrue to Gregory from the conversion of Britain; nor did he

Galfridus Monometensis, B. IV. C. 12. See Nicholls on the Common Prayer.

+ Bower's Lives of Popes, Vol. II. Gregory.

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VII.

CHAP. suggest or intimate any lucrative plan, directly or indirectly. If there were any improper steps taken, they must not be charged to a selfish or interested spirit, such as that which has since animated the papacy. The doctrines avowedly and earnestly taught by Gregory and his followers, were the doctrines of Grace; and though no account of the faith of the Welsh monks is given us, there is great reason, on account of the Pelagian leaven of our island, to fear it was not so truly Christian as that of Gregory. That they were uncharitable, appears incontestable from their neglect of the Saxon pagans, and their obstinate refusal to hearken to any advice on that head. And the reader has already had a view of their manners, very different from the flattering account of Galfridus. The extent of.the British Church, before the arrival of Augustine, was so inconsiderable, that when Gregory planned the hierarchy of this island, it is probable he knew little of the very existence of such a Church. The fault of ambitious encroachment must, therefore, be laid to Augustine. Seduced he undoubtedly was, according to the common superstition of the age, by an excessive zeal for uniformity. And that admirable method of uniting zeal for establishments with a spirit of toleration, which was discovered toward the close of the last century, was as yet unknown. The Britons had been independent, and they had a right to continue so; but I believe, from all appearances, that Augustine's desire to make a connection with the Romans sprang from charitable

views.

What could be the meaning of his wishing the Britons to baptize after the Roman manner? This question has exercised the critical talents of authors. After all, as baptism by trinal immersion was then the Roman mode, this seems to give the most natural account of the circumstance.

The charge of Galfridus, in accusing the Romans

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of employing the pagans to murder the British, is CENT, too absurd to merit any serious notice. Augustine died long before it happened. Gregory himself was deceased before the controversies between Augustine and Dinoth took place. He has been accused of extreme inconsistency, in being imperious toward heretics, and indulgent toward pagans and Jews. But a more exact acquaintance with cases would enable men to form a better judgment. Gregory, like all real good men, was averse to use violent methods in proselyting; he knew that conversion, if sincere, must be voluntary. But when men once have been received into the Christian pale, the same zeal which laboured for their conversion, is studious for their uniform attachment to Christian fundamentals. It was no breach of charity in Gregory to attempt to hinder the promotion of a Donatist in the Christian church in Africa, and such an attempt was very consistent with that charity which forbad the persecution of the Jews.

On the whole, Gregory's conduct with respect to our island appears one of the most shining efforts of Christian charity. His missionaries, in general, acted laudably; and the real establishment of Christianity was, under God, effected by their means. There was a stain of rivalry and jealousy, as we have seen, which appeared in their conduct; but they were men.

CII A P. VIII.

THE WORKS OF GREGORY.

VIII.

THIS great prelate, worn out at length with la- CHAP. bours and diseases, slept in Jesus in the year 604†, after he had enjoyed, shall I say-or endured his Death of bishopric thirteen years and six months? No man Gregory.

• Bower.

+ Fleury, Vol. IV. B. XXXVI. 51.

A. D.

604.

VIII.

CHAP. in any age ever gave himself up more sincerely to the service of God, and the benefit of his fellowcreatures. Power in him was a voluntary servitude, undertaken not for himself, but for all the world. Even the growth of superstition, with which he was strongly infected, while it secured to him the cheeful obedience of the laity, contributed nothing to his ease or secular emolument. The belief of the Roman bishop's succession to Peter, which he found prevalent in Europe, was accidentally strengthened by his eminent piety and his laborious virtues.

Had he even been disposed to extend his authority to much greater lengths, all the world would have been prone to submit to his decrees; so firmly was the opinion of his integrity established among men. His conscience, however, would not suffer him to carry any thing farther than precedents had sanctioned; and who, especially in an age of superstitious credulity, could doubt the justice of his pretensions, while the pre-eminence was so painful, so disinterested, and so beneficially exerted?

For I cannot persuade myself to call him Pope, He pretended not to any thing like infallibility, nor did he ever attempt any thing like a secular domination. The seeds of Antichrist were vigorously shooting indeed; and the reputation of Gregory doubtless contributed much to mature the poisonous plant. But idolatry, spiritual tyranny, and the doctrine of the merit of works, the three discriminating marks of the papacy, had, as yet, no settled establishment at Rome. Had this man lived in cur age, he would doubtless have beheld, with astonishment, on the one hand the worldly spirit of many Christian pastors so called, and on the other thre impiety of numerous infidels who are continually railing against the religious. His mind, naturally vigorous, industrious and active, would doubtless have shaken off the gloom and credulity of superstition; but he would have been amazed to hear the

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pompous pretences to philosophy, in which every CENT, juvenile sciolist indulges himself. He would have examined the fruits, and have been at a loss to conceive with what propriety the term philosopher could be applied to sceptics, blasphemers, atheists, levellers, and sensualists. He would, as a bishop, have tried what could be done to stem the torrent, and have exerted in the way of discipline, which was his peculiar talent, his usual address, mildness and resolution. He would have mourned over his beloved England*, if he had seen her so absurdly enslaved to ideas of mistaken liberty, as to spurn at decent rules of discipline, and to discountenance, as tyranny, godly attempts to introduce and support them. He would have been ready to say, "this people are enemies to their own good;" he would have pitied them, wept, and consoled himself with his usual refuge, the views of a better world, and have done what good was still in his power, by the example of a holy life, by painful preaching, and by pious writings.

compiled

Of these last we have many still extant. He The Litany particularly excelled in devotional composition. byGregory Litanies had been used in the West before his time, in calamitous seasons, as the plague or famine. These were collected, and the choicest parts selected from them, and compiled, through the care of Gregory, into one large litany, not much different from that used by the Church of England at this day, It was much corrupted afterwards in the popish times, was reformed by Hermannus, archbishop of Cologne, in the days of Luther, and afterwards improved by our reformers.

*The gratitude of Bede has (B. II. C. 1. Ecc. Hist.) led him to apply to Gregory the words of St. Paul in regard to the Corinthians. As an Englishman, who felt his obligations to Gregory, he says, "the seal of his apostleship are we in the Lord." The testimony of antiquity to Gregory's beneficent piety toward this island is uniform.

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