so long a war, does not furnish a single instance of civilization-military, civil, or domestic; and if history had not told us that our forefathers were savages, the fact might have been confidently inferred from the nature and duration of their resistance. Their valour would have ensured success had it been aided by discipline. Their defeats would have been fatal to any soldiers but barbarians.

There is no circumstance in their government, their religion, or their families, to efface the impression which is made by their military sysThe country was possessed by small independent tribes; and the division was so minute that there were five kings in the county of Kent. Nothing can be certainly known respecting the extent of the king's jurisdiction; but he probably resembled a North American chieftain, and was the head of a large family, rather than the monarch of a realm. His subjects, if such they can be called, were devoted to war and hunting; were ignorant of letters, laws, commerce, and navigation; and their religion fostered natural courage and cruelty, and aspired to no farther influence.

The power of the Jewish and | Christian priesthood has been the subject of much complaint, and is described as unparalleled and intolerable. Yet, in truth, the Druid, in the forests of Gaul and Britain, exercised an authority which has never been possessed by Christians, and inflicted a punishment not less severe than excommunication itself. The possessors and employers of this heavy weapon were ministers of idols, as horrid and as numerous as those of Egypt, and endeavoured to appease their anger by the sa. crifice of human victims, burned alive at the altar. Such priests and such deities were not likely to inculcate pure morality. The very foundations of domestic virtue and happiness were overthrown by the community of wives, which was

generally established: and in the dearth of other particulars we must form our estimate of the private manners of the Britons from this disgusting but unquestionable fact. It tells us that Christianity, when first preached in our island, was preached to an ignorant, an illgoverned, an idolatrous, and an immoral people; and the next subject of enquiry is the success which it experienced.

If credit be given even to the more sober and cautious ecclesiastical historians, the British nation was converted to Christianity at a very early period, and, for the most part, continued stedfast in the profession of the true faith until the invasion of the Saxons. The gross tales and inventions of the monks have long ceased to obtain credit. But in the majority of our writers there is still a strong disposition to antedate the general conversion of their country. men. Accordingly they assure us that St. Paul preached in Britain before the year of our Lord 60; that Christianity continued to flourish un. til the Diocletian persecution in 285; revived and was re-established in 320, under the patronage of Con. stantine; and continued the universal religion of the country until the arrival of the Saxons in 449. The kingdom is also supposed to have been regularly divided into three archiepiscopal provinces, London, York, and Caer-Leon, and each province subdivided into dioceses and parishes. Schools of learning are said to have been established in the principal Roman towns, and the University of Cambridge has laid claim to many thousand students as early as the reign of Diocletian. The regular service, and discipline of the Church, the maintenance of the clergy, and various other particulars have been described with an appearance of accuracy; and nothing is wanted but the original authorities upon which such flattering descriptions rest. them may be correct.

Clemens

Romanus declares that the Apostles advanced to the extreme parts of the west; and Britain may be included under these expressions. It is affirmed by Tertullian, that the Gospel had reached and conquered countries which were inaccessible to the Roman legions; and many similar expressions have been pointed out by the historians. They establish the possibility of the events which they are brought to prove; but as proofs they are evidently insufficient. The western country alluded to might have been Spain, rather than Britain and the Gospel may have been received in the unconquered parts of our island from meaner lisp than an Apostles' *.

And where positive evidence is wanting, are we justified in presum. ing that an Apostle really preached, and that miracles were really wrought in a country, which made little or no subsequent progress in Christianity; and which can shew no reliques of au apostolic congregation, or an uninterrupted episcopal succession? Is it not taking very unwarrantable liberties with the Apostles, to represent them as going about breaking up much ground and thoroughly cultivating none? Is it credible that a nation which had been visited by St. Paul, should be reduced in less than a century to so low an ebb as to be compelled to send to Rome for instructors, as king Lucius is reported to have done, about the year of our Lord 160? The whole story of Lucius, is probably a forgery, designed to strengthen the claims of Rome; pope Elutherius being reported to have consecrated two bishops and despatched them to the king with instructions how

*Papists have contended that Britain was converted by St. Peter, with a view of establishing the Pope's authority in the island. Protestants have clearly shewn that no such event took place: but in order to make assurance double sure, they have transferred the task to St. Paul, a less improbable, but still a very doubtful circum.

stance.

to proceed in the work of conversion. But this strange tale is believed by the persons who contend for the Apostle's journey into England, and much pains and ingenuity have been thrown away in endeavouring to reconcile its numerous contradictions. But the strongest point of all is, that the earliest British historians knew nothing of these important and interesting circumstances. Gildas, a Briton, who flourished at least two centuries before any other of our native writers, enters into no details respecting the conversion of the island. He admits that in the fifth century he was not in possession of any national documents (Scripta patriæ, scriptorumve monumenta) but that if any such things had ever existed they had either been destroyed by enemies, or taken away by exiles; and that consequently he is obliged to have recourse to foreign and mutilated narrations. Of these narrations he has not given a very lucid abridgment. But he seems to mean that Christianity was introduced into Britain about the same time as the Roman authority, that is from seventy to eighty years after Christ. And he asserts that it was coldly received by the natives, and preserved by some persons with more or less care until the ninth year of the persecution of Diocletian. He names the three martyrs, Albanus of Verulam, and Aaron and Julius of Caer Leon, who suffered at that period; disfigures his history by the introduction of the legendary miracles of the former (almost the only passage in his work which can be fairly excepted against) and adds that others of both sexes underwent a similar fate in various places. After the persecution ceased, he describes the Christians as repairing their churches, and celebrating pious festivals, and continuing in unity until the Arian heresy introduced bitter strife, and opened a way for novelty, instability, and every deadly poison.

The account of the venerable Bede differs in several respects from that of Gildas. He gives the story of king Lucius, and considers that prince's conversion as the first planting of Christianity in Britain. The martyrdoms of Albanus, &c. he recites pretty much in the same manner as Gildas: adding that Albanus was not converted to Christianity until the day before his martyrdom; and describing the peace that ensued upon the close of the persecution in the very words of the elder historian; and the terrible effects of the Arian heresy in language evidently borrowed from him. There is nothing more upon the subject in Bede, until the departure of the Romans; and it is contrary to every just rule of evidence or inference to believe that these two writers were ignorant of facts that have been discovered by their successors, or that the British Church had arrived at a degree of solidity and extent, of which they entertained no conception.

Supposing Gildas, the elder and the more unbiassed author, to be correct, nothing can be simpler than the introduction of Christianity into Britain. It was brought by the Romans who settled here in the time of Claudius, and made but little progress before the reign of Constantine. Albanus is universally considered the first British martyr, and he died towards the end of Diocletian's tyranny. The Church would not have been suffered to remain so long unpersecuted, if its numbers or fame had attracted much observation. And the names of the sufferers and the detailed circumstances of their fate, render it probable that they were not Britons but Roman soldiers. Few years had elapsed after Diocletian's persecution, when Constantine, a native of Britain, prohibited idolatrous worship, and gave encouragement, if not establishment to the Christian faith; and accordingly Gildas tells us that the Church flourished and

encreased from this period to the introduction of Arianism. An account in itself highly probable, and which confines the prosperity of the British Christians to a short period of time. It has been usual to lay much stress upon the support and patronage of Constantine, upon the schools which he founded, and the churches which he built and endowed. Every thing, however, of this sort is mere supposition. He acted thus in other parts of the Roman empire, and it is inferred that Britain, his native country, was not neglected. But unfortunately we know, that Britain and Gaul, and the whole of his western dominions were neglected by Constantine, more especially towards the end of his life. And if Christian schools had been founded, and had flourished, it seems absolutely impossible that every vestige of them should have perished. The following age was distracted by controversy, and the writings of the different parties would naturally be numerous, yet Gildas doubted whether any ecclesiastical documents had ever existed in Britain, and was confident that none remained. The power, numbers, wealth, and civilization of the inhabitants had arrived at a very respectable height, and yet there are no civil or philosophical writers. Under all these circumstances, it is more probable that Constantine gave a few short years of peace and unity to the British Christians, than that he adorned religion by an established church, or strengthened it by a learned priesthood.

The existence of episcopal government, however, cannot be questioned. The signatures of three British bishops are affixed to the council of Arles; there is reason to believe that they were present at Nice; and at Ariminum among the bishops assembled by Constantius to support his favourite Arianism, three British bishops were too poor to defray their own expenses, and lived at the charge of the Emperor,

rather than encumber their richer brethren. This is ample evidence of the existence and the government of the British church. To explain away the obvious inference from the circumstance of there having been but three bishops at Arles, it has been conjectured that they were the three archbishops of the provinces formerly mentioned. The poverty of the bishops at Ariminum is attributed to their being only suffragans, who would have been supported, if they had not declined it, by their weal. thier metropolitans *. But these are weak excuses; and it is best at once to confess the truth, viz. that the bishops of those days were few and poor, and presided over a church which was neither numerous, powerful, or learned. In fact, the Romans conferred few benefits upon this portion of their empire. They drained the country of its men to recruit their armies, and of its wealth to feed them. They never effectually relieved it from the incursions of the barbarians. They involved it in all the wars which were occasioned by disputed successions. And more than usurper of the supreme command rested his whole chance of success upon the valour of the British troops. The history of Britain, during its subjugation by the Romans, is a continual series of rebel. lions, expeditions, and calamities; and if the civil and religious improvements were able to break the force of the old idolatry, and thus prepare the way for the general re

one

Milton, who in spite of his Preshyterian principles, entertained the most sovereign contempt for the Assembly of Divines by whom it was established, ob- · serves upon this circumstance in the following terms: "The bishops esteemed it more honourable to live on the public than to be obnoxious to any private purse. Doubtless an ingenuous mind, and far above the Presbyters of our age, who like well to sit in Assembly on the public stipend, but like not the poverty that caused these to do so."

ception of the Gospel, it was as much as there was reason to expect, and as much as can be proved to have taken place.

No notice will be taken, in the present sketch, of the lessons which were communicated to the people, under the style and title of Christianity, because all the statements which are put forth upon this subject, are of doubtful authority. They are taken from the Greek and Roman Fathers; and it is fair to suppose, than the doctrines of those Fathers were preached in Britain, while it was under the dominion of Rome. But there is no certainty that this was actually the case; the continental writers afford no precise information on the subject of British Christianity; and the statements of Gildas, which are at once full, satisfactory, and authentic, will be produced in their most appropriate place, if they are reserved until the departure of the Romans.

The convulsions by which that event was preceded and followed, left our affranchised country in a state of the greatest distress*. It had no acknowledged head, no constitution, no army, and no established or effective church. The people had given up one set of civil habits, and religious opinions and practices, and had not yet adopted another. Britain became the prey of every one that chose to invade it. The Picts, and Scots, the Irish, the Saxons, and many other savage tribes, took advantage of its wretched condition, and barassed the inhabitants in the most cruel manner. The Arian heresy was followed by Pelagianism in all its

Gibbon has amused himself, (Decline and Fall, ch. xxxi.) by giving a very poetical description of the wealth, power, and happiness of the Britons, after what he is pleased to term the expulsion of the Romans. It is not easy to discover the motive for this gross falsification of history. It does not tend to injure but to exalt Christianity; and the historian informs his readers, in a note, that they need not believe him unless they like it.

shapes; and the bishops and clergy, as will be seen hereafter were compelled to seek assistance from Gaul. In short it is impossible that the review of any future portion of our Ecclesiastical History can close in less satisfactory language than that which truth dictates upon the present occasion. The country was weakened and ruined by civilization; and Christianity, which had been known here for three hundred and fifty years, and had been the public religion of the nation for upwards of a century, was too much enfeebled by the ignorance and vices of its professors, to restore private

virtue or public strength. A useful lesson to those who are engaged in the conversion of heathen nations;-encouraging them never to despair of ultimate success, however trifling and dilatory their progress may appear ;-warning them never to expect that where miraculous powers are withheld, a sincere and genuine national conversion can be effected in a single age, or that when effected, it can be preserved without the help of regu. lar government, established forms of worship, and a well educated and pious priesthood.

WARWICKSHIRE BIBLE SOCIETY.

THE following letter has been received from the Rev. T. S. Grimshawe, disavowing the Report of his Speech, which was published in the Sketch of the Proceedings in the Court House at Warwick, &c. and quoted in the Christian Remembrancer, Vol. III. p. 750. We said at the time that we doubted the accuracy of the Report; and we exhorted Mr. Grimshawe, and likewise Mr. Spooner, and Mr. Dudley, to disown the speeches that had been imputed to them. We trust that the example of the former will be speedily followed up by his colleagues; and have only to add, with respect to his hesitation on the authenticity of the Sketch, that an application to the Warwick Committee would be the shortest mode of obtaining the information of which he is in

want.

To the Editor of the Remembrancer.

Sir, Having just perused the strictures in the Christian Remembrancer for December, on the subject of

the formation of the Warwickshire Bible Society, I trust I shall stand excused in offering a few remarks on that portion of them which personally relates to myself. An observation is there attributed to me, and alleged to be founded on a published account, or "Sketch of the proceedings," circulated by the authority of the committee. The passage is as follows.

"Mr. Grimshawe, in refutation of Mr. Boudier's statement, that the Bible Society was not generally sanctioned by the ministers of the Established Church, read over the names of the vice-presidents of the Bible Society, among whom were many of the first dignitaries of the Church."

Having never seen the publication of the proceedings here alluded to, I am willing to presume the passage to be justly quoted, but I lose no time in most explicitly stating that this was not the language uttered indeed, think that I was consulting by me on that occasion. I should, neither the obligations of private character, nor what is due to the dignity of a public institution, could I, in pleading its merits, adopt