unauthenticated accounts, excites, with regard to facts, less distant, and better substantiated, a scepticism, which would not otherwise have arisen.

In applying this remark to the narrative on which we are entering, we may observe, that, although the testimony of several writers, and the intimate connexion and intercourse subsisting betwixt provincial Britain and the Roman metropolis, render it highly probable, that the Gospel was introduced into the former country before the end, or about the middle of the first century, it is not easy to ascertain, with precision, the individual, to whom we are indebted for its original communication, or the precise period, at which a Christian church was first planted in our island.

A multitude of authors, cited by Usher, ascribe the introduction of the religion of Jesus among the Britons, to James, the son of Zebedee; but as it is certain (Acts, xii. 1, 2) that this Apostle was put to death by Herod, in the ninth year after our Saviour's resurrection, these testimonies are little to be relied on. Simon Zelotes, St. Peter, St. Andrew, and St. Paul, have each of them respectively been mentioned by other writers, as having first addressed the words of salvation to our ancestors. The same honour has been attributed to Aristobulus, saluted by St. Paul (Rom. xvi.) as the father of a domestic church in Rome; to Joseph of Arimathea, and to

Polycarp, "the angel of the church of Smyrna." (Revel.) No one of these representations, however, appears to rest on evidence sufficiently solid, to raise it above the faintest probability.

for the more

which would

II. In exterminating the priesthood of the Druidical superstition, the legions of Rome were unconsciously preparing the way, ready admission of the true faith naturally encounter less opposition amongst the vanquished, than if the religion of their forefathers had continued to flourish, supported by the persuasions and authority of its ministers.

Still more effectually did Roman ambition faci litate the accomplishment of the same end, by subjecting under one common dominion, the various petty states of the southern Britons: thus putting a period to their continual contests, and establishing amongst them an easy communication. This state of things renders it highly probable, that many parts of the island had, early in the second century, been visited by preachers of the new religion; whom, indeed, a desire to escape from the persecutions, sustained by their brethren, under Domitian, Trajan, and Adrian, must have furnished with an additional motive, for resorting to this remote province of the empire. To these united causes it seems to have been owing, that the day-spring shone out on an island afar off from its source, while a number of intervening coun

tries on the continent, were enveloped, during many subsequent years, in darkness.

It is, nevertheless, by no means likely, that the first British converts to a religion, publicly discredited, plain in its rites, and preached in general by timid refugees, were either numerous or of eminent rank. Lucius, the reputed sovereign of a southern district, is mentioned by several writers, as having embraced Christianity about the year of our Lord 150*; but, as the Romans were at that time masters of the country, this story contradicts itself.

III. The scantiness of information, elucidating our ecclesiastical history, in these remote periods, is thus accounted for by the historian Gildas: "Scripta patriæ, scriptorumve monumenta, si quæ fuerint, aut ignibus hostium exusta, aut civium exulum classe longius deportata, non comparent."

It is not until the commencement of the third century, that authentic narrative succeeds to uncertainty, in regard to the state of Christianity amongst our ancestors. But from the joint authority of Tertullian and Origen, who acquaint us, that it had penetrated, at that epoch, into districts of our island beyond the rampart of Severus," inaccessa Romanis loca, Christo vero

* Bede, Eccles. Hist. Monastic. Ang. vol. iii. 198. + Orig. Hom. Ezekiel, 4. Tertull. adversus Jud. c. vii See also Gildas, Hist. p. 11. Bede, Eccles, Hist. c. iv.

subdita," we may presume that it had already, for a considerable space of time, prevailed within the Roman province.

Happy in being almost entirely overlooked in the great mass of the empire, as the ultimi orbis Britanni, the early converts had hitherto lived in security from the nine persecutions which had already raged in all such parts of the Roman territory, as lay more contiguous to the seat of power. But at length, towards the close of the reign of Dioclesian, and in the first years of the fourth century, the storm, which had so often muttered at a distance, swept over this remote country. On this occasion, the first martyrdom which stands on record, as endured in our island, was inflicted on Alban, the British Stephen, who was put to death on a rising ground, called Holm-hurst, close to his native city of Verulamium; a place which has ever since preserved his memory, by retaining the name of St. Albans.

IV. Our knowledge of the general history of Christianity in Britain, during the three first centuries, being thus faint and imperfect, we must necessarily be still less able fully to ascertain the internal condition of the churches, with regard to their doctrine or discipline. From all the accounts of the earliest historians, however, they appear to have held the faith in great purity, at least until the beginning of the fourth century. The clergy were supported by the contributions

of their respective congregations, and by the profits arising from such houses and lands, as were bequeathed to them by pious individuals. Stillingfl. Orig. Brit. ch. 4. !!

An indigent people, it will readily be supposed were unable to be very liberal in maintaining the ecclesiastical body: but the state of church revenues at an early period, and before the nascent institution enjoyed the favour of the civil govern ment, ought evidently to form no precedent for regulating, either the mode of collection, or the measure of provision, in wealthier times, and when Christianity has become the established faith.

No commission whatever, from Rome, was borne by our first preachers. They probably, indeed, delivered the same doctrines, which then prevailed in that city but let not the modern Roman Catholic hence pretend, that his religion, in its present form, was the primitive creed of Britain; for, as an early writer has well observed, "that faith of the Romish church, which is said by St. Paul to have gone abroad unto all men, is nót less different from its present corruptions, than the Latin of Cicero from the language of modern Italy."-Fuller.

In this country, as well as in many others, the first places of Christian worship were, for the most part, the same temples, which had formerly been dedicated to Pagan deities. From the de