The native Britons were

Roman citizens were the only sufferers. still under the government of their own princes, and left to follow their own domestic regulations, provided they acknowledged themselves subject to the supreme rule of the Romans.

We have before observed that, first of all, owing to the usurpations of Carausius and Alectus, the British Church escaped the provincial persecutions raised by Galerius; and then, owing to the mildness of Constantius, the storm never raged violently here. In Spain and Gaul, the persecution raged to that degree, that the emperors flattered themselves that they had utterly extirpated the Christian religion, as appears by certain monuments, the inscriptions on which are preserved in Gruterus, containing these words, Nomine Christianorum deleto; upon another, Superstitione Christi ubique deleta. When Constantius attained the imperial dignity, the persecution was immediately put a stop to in the western provinces: this good prince, during the two years in which he enjoyed the supreme power, proved a father to the Britons and the Christian Church among them.'

Under the reign of the Emperor Constantine, a rapid advancement in civilization took place in this country, and the Roman literature, the Roman arts, and Roman luxury found their way to the towns of the once rude and hardy Britons. From this time,' says Bishop Stillingfleet, we may date the 'flourishing condition of the British Church. As the best comment on this assertion, we insert Mr. Hughes's judicious remarks on this period of our ecclesiastical' history.

It has been generally supposed that, during the reign of Constantine the Great, the Christian religion took deep root in Britain, and shared the royal patronage in common with other provinces of the empire. The British Christians improved in the external splendour which marked the progress of religion during this sunshine of its prosperity: the edifices appropriated for public worship were rendered decorous, and perhaps had a degree of magnificence suited to the established religion of the empire; and the clergy were treated with respect, and dignified with the notice of great men. But the hierarchy which flourished in other countries, under the fostering wing of Imperial favour, did not meet with a soil so congenial in this Island; and it is not easy to decide whether a regular diocesan church government obtained here during this century. There were bishops, it is true, in several of the great towns and cities; but these were not yet loaded with temporal honours and large revenues. We may form some conjecture respecting their situation, from what is related of the British bishops at the council of Ariminum; for while all the others bore their own expenses, they alone accepted of the Emperor's bounty, and had their charges defrayed at the public cost.

Druidism, although formally proscribed by the Romans, and opposed by Christianity, was still adhered to in the secluded parts of the country, while even too many who professed the true religion, were more heathens than Christians at heart. We cannot find there were any men of a truly apostolic spirit in this age, who nobly stood

up on behalf of the Gospel, and, like burning luminaries, diffused the knowledge and practice of its benign religion among their country

men.'

Those among the Britons who were enrolled among the Roman citizens, and acquired the language and the literature of the empire, which was now nominally Christian, were possessed of many advantages over those who still remained under the more immediate government of their own princes. The latter enjoyed but little cultivation either in civil or religious matters; and it is doubtful whether they had yet the word of God in their native language, if they had any Christian worship at all, except among the Silurian Britons. Our accounts of the state of religion in Britain during this age, (the fourth century,) are very confused; and there is reason to think that even the forms of Christianity were not generally adopted within the province. The luxury and the heathen propensities of the Roman Britons, and the rude fierceness of the natives, presented very powerful obstacles to the spread of the religion of Christ. The religious characters of the age were more disposed to flee from the world, than to combat its vices and its errors, and bear an open testimony for the truth of Christ. Such were Kebius and others.'

At what period a regular hierarchy' was nominally instituted in Britain, and the country laid out into dioceses, it is quite immaterial to inquire, since this would assist us but little in our researches into the religious state of the kingdom. The signatures of three English bishops to the acts of the council held at Arles, prove that, under the Imperial government, an episcopacy had been established in the parts of Britain subject to the Romans; but they prove nothing more. 'There were as yet,' Mr. Hughes remarks, no archbishops and metropolitans, at least among the British clergy; the regular hierarchy,' therefore, was far from being perfected. Nor does it appear that the western parts of the Island were represented at the council; although Bishop Stillingfleet conjectures, that the third signature, (De Civitate Col. Londin.) which is by Spelman and Usher supposed to stand for Camalodunum (Colchester or Maldon), while others have referred it to Lincoln, and, as in Lingard, to Richborough, was for Isca Silurum or Caerleon. But nothing can be wilder than the supposition that, prior to the reign of Constantine, there existed among the petty sovereignties into which Britain was subdivided,-among tribes of different origin and speech, who were still, for the most part, heathen, a connected hierarchical episcopacy. By the British Church, we must understand at this period, the Roman Church in Britain. The council or assembly at Arles, was summoned by the Emperor, who selected the judges at his pleasure; and there can be little doubt that these British bishops owed their creation, as certainly they owed their appointment as delegates, to the Imperial favour. It was but natural that Constantine

should choose to assimilate the ecclesiastical government of this important province of the Empire to that of the continental churches; and it rested only with himself to effect this. York, which Constantius had chosen for his residence, and where he was interred, would have a strong claim to the honours of ecclesiastical precedency: and accordingly, the signature of Eborius bishop of York, is the first of the three. That Britain was the native country of Constantine, and York his birth place, there is still room to question; although there is a singular concurrence of testimonies in favour of the opinion. But it was certainly the country which first beheld the Emperor Constantine. Constantius having declared him his successor in the western empire, he was, immediately on his father's death, proclaimed emperor by the army in Britain, and the imperial purple was transmitted to him in this country. This circumstance, together with his father's partiality to Britain, and his preference of it as a residence, will sufficiently explain the honours conferred upon the British bishops, and the equality on which the Church of Britain was placed with the Churches of Gaul and Spain, without having recourse to the supposition, that either its antiquity or its extent entitled it to such consideration; that its hierarchy was founded by King Lucius, or its episcopacy derived from St. Paul. After all, in what sense these prelates were diocesan bishops, or what was the extent of their dioceses, is extremely doubtful; nor is there any other document than the signatures to the acts of the council of Arles, to authorize the statement, that diocesan bishops were settled in most, if not all the principal cities of this Island. That document affords a strong presumption only, that the ecclesiastical government of Britain resembled that of other parts of the empire. But the sunshine of royal favour,' remarks Mr. Hughes,tended but little to the real prosperity of the Christian Church in Britain, 6 any more than in other countries.'

6

We feel no disposition to plunge into the Pelagian controversy. Mr. Hughes goes into the history of it at considerable length, and to his pages we must refer our readers. Mr. Richards discovers a strong feeling in favour of his countryman. Pelagius, whose real name was Morgan, is supposed to have been a native of Glamorgan, and to have received his education at the seminary of Caer Worgan, established by the Emperor Theodosius. He is generally believed to have imbibed his heterodox notions at Rome; but Mr. Richards contends for the probability,

❝ that the tenets or religious opinions of the British Christians, and of their countryman Pelagius, were the very same, and that any difference found between them and the doctrine of the New Testament, was owing to a tincture of Druidism, which their religion had im

bibed from a long intercourse with the votaries of that ancient institution, many of whom had, from time to time, become proselytes to Christianity. This conclusion will be strongly corroborated by comparing what have been deemed the principal errors of the Pelagians, with the most authentic accounts we have of the Druidical or Bardic system.'

Mr. Hughes objects against this hypothesis, which was first started by the learned Author of Cambrian Biography, the following considerations:

1. Morgan left his native country when a young man ; and he lived some time at Rome in great repute before he was charged with unsound doctrine.

2. We are told that the errors propagated by him and Celestius, were previously taught by Ruffinus.

3. These errors were considered as built upon certain speculations contained in the writings of Origen; and Pelagius, in his confession of faith, appears anxious to free himself from the Origenian doctrine of the pre-existence of souls.

4. Several things which entered into the Pythagorean and Platonic philosophy, such as the pre-existence of souls, &c. were much the same as what the Druids held.'

That Pelagius and his adherents were ill treated and grossly calumniated, and that they were much better men than some of their adversaries,' as Mr. Richards says, may be admitted. This is not saying much in their favour, nor is it much to the purpose. Pelagius was one of the most learned men of his day, subtle and acute in argument, dispassionate in his temper, and blameless in his morals. His error was precisely of that description into which a man of his character and temper would be apt to fall, in pursuing his metaphysical speculations beyond the limits of human knowledge. On most points he professed himself an orthodox believer; but there is reason to doubt his spirituality of mind. His style and manner are those of one who had corrupted the simplicity of the Gospel by a vain philosophy. On the other hand, Mr. Hughes remarks, that bis opponents trod on the verge of fatalism;' that they sometimes fought in the dark, not properly understanding each other's meaning, nor having compassion on each other's infirmities;' so that the Church was in danger of becoming, with regard to these abstruse disputations, a sort of Pandemonium.' Pelagius has been accused, and not altogether without reason, of prevarication and sophistry; but his tenets necessarily involved him in embarrassments and in inconsistencies which might give to his conduct the appearance of vacillation. It has been the universal practice of controvertists, to attempt to fasten on their opponents the odium of inferenees, supposed to be deducible from their doctrines, which the abettors of those doctrines dis

6

avowed and rejected. His errors, however, were certainly, in their tendency, destructive of all piety. Mr. Hughes justly remarks with respect to them: He who denies our fall in Adam, cannot consistently believe in our restoration through • Christ.'

To put a stop to the contagion of the Pelagian heresy, which had been brought over to Britain by Agricola, a Gallic prelate, the British Christians had recourse to the advice and assistance of the bishops of Gaul. At a synod convened in consequence, Germanus bishop of Auxerre, or, as the Welsh call him, Garmon, was deputed to visit this country, which he did twice; onee, with Lupus of Troyes, in 429, and again in 446 with Severus of Treves. The necessity of their coming over, indieates,' says our Author, the helpless situation of the Church in this Island.' But it seems that the British Church' had frequently sent over, before this, to implore the assistance of their brethren in Armorican Gaul. Lingard contents himself with briefly stating, that, by the authority of Germanus, the 'new doctrines were condemned and suppressed;' having previously intimated, that that authority was derived from Papal appointment, for which assertion there is no foundation. The conference in which Garmon and his holy colleague triumphantly confuted the Pelagians, was held, according to an ancient tradition,' at Verulam; and Mr. Whitaker is delighted to recognise in the ruins of St. German's chapel near St. Alban's, the undoubted memorial of the very spot upon which Germanus stood when he spoke at the conference. A vague tradition of this kind, however, is but a slender support for so improbable a statement. The visit of Garmon appears to have been made to the western churches only. Tradition has preserved his name in Cornwall; and in Wales, there are several churches conseerated to him, particularly one in the county of Denbigh, known by the name of St. Harmon, or Lan Armon in Iale.' The scene of the Halleluia victory is believed to have been near Mold, a town about ten miles from Chester and fourteen from Denbigh. The schools for the education of the clergy, which he instituted on his second visit to Britain, were all, so far as appears from any account transmitted to us, in Wales. Mr. Hughes is led to infer from this circumstance, that Christianity had never taken deep root among the natives in most other parts. This is not improbable; but we should rather conclude, that the visit of Germanus was undertaken at the solicitation of the Silurian Christians, and that his labours were confined to that part of the Island. If this was not the case, the Saxon invasions have swept away all traces of them in the eastern and central provinces

And now, for nearly a hundred and fifty years, we lose sight of the Church of England, and must again understand by the