DID THE GOSPEL CO:\rK TO ERTTAIN FROM EOME? 207
more than once before, marching out of it against Bellsarius, left as desolate as a wilderness, without one living soul to inhabit it. " Ipse (Totilas) cum suarum copiarum parte progreditur, Romanes qui sena- torii erant ordinis secum traliens; alia omni urbanorum multitudine vel virilis muliebrisque sexus, et pueris in Campanige agros missis: ita ut RomjE nemo hominum restaret, sed vasta ibi esset solitude," saith Procopius, Hist. Goth. i. 8. Concerning which action, saith Sigonius de Imper. Occid. lib. xix. : — " Urbs Romas, incolis omnibus amotis, prorsus est destituta: memorandum inter pauca exempla humanse fortune ludibrium, ac spectaculum ipsis etiam hostibus, quanquam ab omni humanitate remotissimis, miserandum ;" — " The city of Rome, all its inhabitants being removed, was wholly desolate, an unparalleled repi'oach of human condition, and a spectacle of pity to the very enemies, though most remote from all humanity ! " The next inhabitants of it were a mixture of Greeks, Thracians, and other nations, brought in by Belisarius. You may go now and reproach the Britons, if you please, with their being conquered by the Saxons. In the meantime, pray give me a reason why the present inhabitants of England may not date their reception of Christianity from the first planting of it in this island, as well as you suppose the present inha- bitants of Rome may do theirs from the time wherein it was first preached unto the old Romans? But you except again, " That the Christendom that prevailed and lasted among the Britons before the coming of the Saxons, came from Rome too." You bid me mark that likewise. I do consider w^hat you say, and desire you to prove it; wherein yet I will not be very urgent, because I will not put you upon impossibilities: and your incompetency to give at least colour unto this remarkable assertion shall be discovered in our farther pro- gress. For the present I shall only mind you, that the Christianity which prevailed in Britain was that which continued among the Bri- tons in Wales, after the conquest of these parts of the island by the Saxons: and that that came not from Rome is manifest from the customs which they observed and insisted on, differing from those of Rome, and your refusal to admit those of that church; the story whereof you have in Beda, lib. ii. cap. 2. I know it may be ration- ally replied that Rome might, after the time of the first preaching of the gospel in Britain, have invented many new customs which might be strange unto the Britons at the coming of Austin ; for in- deed so they have done : but this exception will here take no place ; for the customs the British church adhered unto were such as, hav- ing their rise and occasion in the east, were never admitted at Rome, and so from thence could not be transmitted hither.
But there were also other exceptions put in imto your application of this principle unto your purpose, upon supposition that there Avere
208 A VlNDirATU^N OV I'llK ANl MADVKUSTONS ON FIAT lAIX.
any truth in the matter of fact asserted by you; for, suppose that those who from beyond seas first preached the gospel to the Saxons came from Rome, yea, were sent by the bishop, or, if you please, the pope of Home, I ask, wliether it was his rohgion or the religion of Jesus Christ that they brouglit with them i Did the jiope first find it out? or did they pubhsh it hi the name of the pope? You say, " It was the pope's religion, not invontinl but iirofossod by liim, and from him derived unto lis by his missioners." Well, and what more? for all this was before supposed in my inquiry, and made the foun- dation of that which we sought farther after. I supposed the pope professed the religion which he sent; and your courtly expression, " Derivotl unto ns by his missioners,'"' is but the same in sense and nK^nniug with my homely phrase, " They that preached it were sent by him." On tliis I incpiire, whellier it were to be esteemed his re- ligion or no, — that is, any more his than it is the religion of every one that professcth it ? or did those that were sent baptize in his name, or teach us that the pope was crucified for us ? You answer, that " he sent them to preach." I see
" Nil opns est to
Circiniiagi : quomlum volo viscrc nou tibi notuni;" llor. Sat. i. '^, 16.
you understand not what I inquire after. But if that be all you have to sny, as it was before supposed, so what matter is it, I pray, who planted, and who watered ? it was the religion of Christ that was preached, and God that " gave the increase." Christ liveth still, his word abideth still, but the planters and waterers are dead long ago. Again: what though we received the gospel from Rome? doth it therefore follow that we received all the doctrines of the present ch arch of Rome at the same time ? Pope Gregory knew little of the present Roman doctrine about the pope of Rome. AVhat was broached of it he condemned in another (even John of Constantinople, who fasted [lusted ?] for a kind of popedom), and professed himself an obedient servant to his good lord the emperor. Many a good doctrine hath been lost at Rome since those old days, and many a new fancy broached, and many a tradition of men taught for a doctrine of truth.