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who have sworn to her, from their oath, and from all duty whatsoever in regard of fidelity and obedience."

Such were at that time the pretensions of the Pope, and such was the manner in which he sometimes tried to act upon them. I cannot now say any thing of the means by which he had “wriggled himself into this great sway;" but I shall shew that our Kings of England had, from time to time, resisted his encroachments, though with but indifferent success.

It is not known, who first preached the Gospel in this island. The earliest historian of the Church tells us that it was an Apostle; and St. Clement, himself a fellow-labourer of the Apostles,* tells us that St. Paul taught righteousness to the whole world, and went even to the utmost bounds of the West. It is possible therefore that St. Paul himself may have planted the Gospel in this island; at all events there was a Christian Church in England at a very early time, and it was governed from the first by Bishops.

But when the Romans were forced to leave the island to itself, the fierce Saxons brought idolatry back again, and the religion of Christ was driven with the native Britons to the mountains and valleys of Wales.

When the Saxons had dwelt in the land about a hundred and fifty years, the fair countenances of some youths who were standing in the market-place at Rome to be sold for slaves, led Gregory, Arch-deacon of that city, to ask what country they came from. When he heard that they were called Angli, and lived in the province of Deirat under King Ella or Alla; he said that these Angles, or rather Angels, should be snatcht de irá Dei, that is, from God's wrath, to sing Allelujahs in Heaven. The main thing however was, that "where his pleasant conceits did end, there his pious endeavours began:" being soon afterwards made Pope, he sent Augustine or Austin, a monk, with Mellitus and forty more, to preach the Gospel in Britain. "He himself, tarrying behind in body, went with them in his spirit, accompanying them with his effectual prayers: and none will deny, but that Moses on the Mount contributed as much to the conquering of Amalek, as Joshua in the valley."

Augustine and his small party landed in the isle of Thanet ; and Ethelbert King of Kent, who had married a christian princess and allowed her the free exercise of her religion, chose a place to meet them under the open sky, believing that, if they thought to practice magical arts against him, their

1. iv. 3. A division of Northumberland; Deir-ham or Durham. Fuller.

spells would have no power out of doors. The christian missionaries, having for their standard a silver cross and the painted image of our Saviour, came slowly forward, chaunting their solemn Litanies; and presently sitting down at his request, preached to him and all who were with him the tidings of salvation. The King, though not prepared to embrace the new religion at once, permitted them to reside at Canterbury, his chief city, made provision for their maintenance, and gave them free leave to preach their doctrine where they pleased. He was baptized within a year from the time of their arrival, and Augustine was ordained an Archbishop.

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You will remember, that before this time there were Bishops in England, who had been driven into Wales by the idolatrous Saxons. These Bishops had of course appointed successors to their sacred office, and these successors were summoned by King Ethelbert to meet Augustine at a place on the edge of Worcestershire, called from that time Augustine's Oak. Not many of the British clergy attended; and when the Roman Prelate called upon them to acknowledge the Pope's authority, and bring their rites to an exact agreement with those of Rome, the Abbot of Bangor answered for the rest; that they were obedient subjects to the Pope of Rome and to every godly Christian, to love every one of them in his degree in perfect charity, and to help them, both by word and deed to become the children of God:" but he added, that "other obedience than this he did not know due to him whom Augustine named the Pope; and that besides they were under the government of the Bishop of Caer-leon, who was, under God, to watch over them, and cause them to keep the way of holiness."

It is said however, that Augustine staggered them by giving sight to a blind man in their presence. A second meeting was appointed; before which the British Bishops repaired to an aged hermit, a holy and wise man, whom they all looked He advised them to follow Augustine, if upon as an oracle. he were a man of God. When they asked, how they might know this? he replied: "The Lord saith, take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart; if therefore this Augustine is meek and lowly in heart, it is likely that it is the yoke of Christ which he bears himself, and would have you bear. But if he is ungentle and proud, it is plain that he is not of God, and that you ought not to regard what he says." "But how," they asked, "shall we discover this?' “Contrive"

replied the hermit, "to let him be at the meeting before you; and if he rises up to greet you, listen to him obediently, knowing him to be a servant of Christ but if he slights you, and does not choose to rise up and greet you, though you are more in number than his party, let him be slighted by you in return." With

this advice they hastened to the place of meeting; and as Augustine did not rise from his chair at their approach, they would neither hearken to his proposals, nor acknowledge him for an Archbishop.

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In the northern parts of England, Christianity was taught successfully by Paulinus, who accompanied the daughter of Ethelbert to the court of her future husband, Edwin, King of Northumbria. When it was debated, whether this Prince and his nobles should consent "to be dedicated to Christ in the fountain of life;" one of his courtiers delivered this pleasing parable. This present life," he said, "is like a sparrow, which has flown on some stormy winter night, into a banqueting hall, where a fire is blazing on the hearth, and the whole room is warm and cheerful. It flies quickly through the house, and entering in at one door, presently goes out at another. Whilst it is still within, it is unhurt by the violence of the storm; but after this brief time of tranquillity, it disappears; and having come in from the cold and darkness, goes out into the cold and darkness again. So this life of man is seen for a little space; but what went before, or what is to follow after, we cannot tell wherefore if this new lore bring any thing more certain, it seems to me, that it is of such worth, that we ought to receive it.”*

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The council being all of one mind, the King asked, who should first profane the altars and temples of the idols? “I,” exclaimed Coifi, the Chief Priest, "for who more fit than myself, now that the true God has given me wisdom, to destroy for the good example of others, what in foolishness I have worshipped? Immediately he flung away vain superstition, and besought the King to grant him arms and a courser, that he might go forth to destroy the idols: for hitherto no priest had been allowed to wear arms, or ride any thing but a mare. Mounting the courser, and furnished with a sword and lance, he set out, and the people thought that he was mad. Nevertheless he stopt not till he came to the temple, which he immediately profaned by hurling against it the lance which he had held in his hand; and acknowledging with exultation the worship of the true God, he ordered his companions to pull down the temple and burn it, together with all its enclosures." * Bede, Book 2, 13.

From the time of these conversions the power of the Popes went on increasing, till it was at last, as Fuller says, “raised three stories high :" but England did not always submit tamely to their encroachments. Though William the Conqueror had won the crown under the Pope's banner, and that Pope the able and daring Gregory the Seventh, he refused to do fealty for the kingdom.. "One thing," he said, "I have granted, the other I have not granted. Fealty I would not do, nor will I; because I neither promised it, nor do I find that my predecessors ever did it to your predecessors."

The wicked and dastardly John made himself the Pope's slave; but Henry the Fifth desired the Roman Prelate not to meddle with the livings that were in the King of England's gift; and when the Pope returned no favourable answer, the English ambassadors said; that if he did not speedily satisfy their demands, the King would use his own right in all he had asked, which he had desired of his Holiness, not out of necessity, but only to show his respect to him, and to put in a public protestation concerning the matters in question before the whole College of Cardinals.*

Moreover there had been amongst the English clergy many learned and zealous opposers of Roman corruption, of whom something should be said.

ROBERT GREATHEAD (or Grostete), the famous Bishop of Lincoln, was raised to that see in the year 1235. At this time the Popes claimed the right of bestowing all the dignities of the Church on whomsoever they pleased; in fact they had usurped every kind of power and jurisdiction, together with the right of taxing the clergy to any amount. It had been lately found, that strangers, who never even came to look at their preferments, carried out of the kingdom above threescore thousand marks a year, the King's income being hardly twenty thousand. Amongst others, Bishop Greathead was ordered by the Pope to place a young Italian, his nephew, in the first stall that fell vacant in the Cathedral of Lincoln. The Bishop refused to do this; and wrote an indignant letter to the Pope, pointing out the sin of those shepherds who got their salary out of the milk and fleece of the sheep of Christ, who were to be quickened and saved, without administering to them their dues. He told him plainly, that he would filially and obediently disobey, contradict, and rebel against, the things con*From the life of Abp. Chichele.

+ Like a son; as became a dutiful son.

tained in the Pope's letter. On reading this the Pope exclaimed: "What meaneth this doting old man, deaf and absurd, by thus boldly and rashly judging my doings? By St. Peter and St. Paul, if it were not for my inbred ingenuity, I would confound him and muke him a fable, an amazement, and a prodigy to the whole world. Is not the King of England our vassal? nay, our slave? to imprison and destroy whatsoever persons we may please to appoint ?" Some of the Cardinals did what they could to appease the Pope, and hold him back from violent courses. They told him, that the Bishop did but speak the truth; that their contradiction would not be believed against him, for that he was a Catholic, a most holy man, more religious than any of them, and of a more excellent life, as was known to all the clergy of France and England; that, as it was, the truth of his letter would stir up many against them: for that the writer was a great philosopher, fully learned in Greek and Latin, a man zealous for justice, a reader of Theology in the schools, a preacher to the people, a lover of chastity, a persecutor of Simonists. This advice was so far successful, that Greathead was not deposed, but died Bishop of Lincoln. On his death-bed he feared not, we are told, to call the Pope Antichrist, because he laboured to destroy souls.

The tale goes, that after his death the Pope took heart, and was resolved to have his body dug up and thrown upon a dunghill: but that, whilst he was thinking to do this, the Bishop appeared to him by night with his crozier in his hand, and so rebuked him for favouring the wicked and persecuting the righteous, striking him moreover with his crozier, that he never enjoyed his papal dignity again. "This apparition haply was nothing else but the apprehension of his guilty conscience, representing unto him the person of him whom he intended to wrong, and terrifying him even unto death.”*

A word or two should be said of WILLIAM OCCAM, one of the greatest of the schoolmen, who, for siding with Lewis of Bavaria against the Pope, and maintaining the temporal power to be above the spiritual, was obliged to fly to the Emperor for safety.

THOMAS BRADWARDINE† was a humble-minded and singlehearted Christian, who attended King Edward as his confessor and chaplain in all his expeditions, ever striving to lessen the evils of war by the mild precepts of the Gospel. When the Archbishopric of Canterbury became vacant, the choice of * Field. † Le Bas. Life of Wiclif.

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