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weak; the doctrine of the soul's immortality had the abusive notion of transmigration engrafted upon it. The priests were polluted with human sacrifices; and the people were guilty of the greatest impurities, and even of incestuous mixtures." *

As long as the Britons continued masters of their own country, their native superstitions would necessarily prove a most powerful obstruction to their reception of Christianity; we therefore see the over-ruling hand of Providence in their subjugation to the Roman authority, whereby the ascendancy of the Druid priests over them was gradually diminished, and at length destroyed. It was by slow degrees, indeed, that the Britons could be divested of a superstition so deeply rooted in their habits, and intimately combined with all their practices. The wise policy of the Romans, sensible as they were of this difficulty, led them to adopt those -measures that were the most effectual to loosen the attachment of the Britons to their country superstition, in order to render them more completely Roman. It is true, as before observed, that the mythology of the masters was, in many respects, equally absurd with that of their new subjects: but ancient prejudices being once loosened, the minds of the Britons would be more at liberty to examine the pretensions of that religion which was equally the reverse of both the Druidical and the Roman. Every system of Heathenism countenanced cruelty and sensuality; although the Romans stigmatized that of the Britons as being connected with the most barbarous rites, while they were insensible of the great moral defect of their own religion, "But a religion of truth and purity now presented itself; a religion which drew aside the curtain of Heathen ignor

* See History of Manchester, Vol. II. 8vo. p. 180–183.

ance, and displayed the genuine nature of God, the genuine nature of man, and the duties and rewards resulting from both. It placed a true and real Divinity at the head of the creation; a nature eternal in duration, unlimited in power, and unconfined by space; an intelligence unerringly wise, and unweariedly provident; and a will infinitely just, unspeakably kind, and inconceivably pure." Mr. Whitaker proceeds, "Christianity represents man as having been once exactly fitted to his sphere of action; all moral harmony within, and all natural order without: the central point of this lower creation, and a probationer for a happy eternity in a higher state. It then reversed the glass, and shewed him no longer moving in the orbit of duty, and receiving light and warmth from the Divinity, but voluntarily stooping to sin, and necessarily subjected to wretchedness: his body diseased, his understanding darkened, and the little empire of his passions and appetites all risen in rebellion against his reason; found his mind perplexed with doubts, and his soul distracted with fear, conscious of weaknesses that required the assistance of some kind intercession, and conscious of guilt that needed an atonement; man, vainly casting a wishful eye for one and the other, through the whole compass of created nature, sinks therefore in melancholy, under the weight of sin, and shudders with horror at the world unknown. The Gospel displays this kind Interceder; it points out this benevolent Atoner to the eye of despairing man: One fully qualified to mediate from the purity of His will; and One absolutely enabled to atone, from the dignity of His nature; a Man interceding for the ruined manhood; and a God appeasing the offended Godhead; a Friend descending from the throne of heaven, and a Saviour conducting us to the happiness of it. Such a system of religion, sanc

tioned, as it was, by preceding prophecies, and authenticated by accompanying miracles, must carry conviction of its Divinity to the soul, melt even the obstinacy of prejudice, and proselyte even the profligacy of guilt."

It is to be lamented that we have no particulars handed down with respect to the manner in which Christianity was propagated among our ancestors; and it is difficult to infer whether its progress was rapid or gradual, whether the Roman government opposed it, or whether it gained ground almost imperceptibly to them among the native Britons. Gildas affirms that it met at first with but a cool reception, and there is too much reason to think that such was the real fact.

With regard to the spread of Christianity in Britain, it must be considered that the intercourse between different parts of the island was exceeding difficult, until the Romans had completed their great roads; and even then we know what obstructions the Roman citizens would meet with in the public profession of Christianity, from the jealousy of the Roman government. The native Britons, addicted as they were to a deep rooted superstition, would be very backward to embrace, if not strenuously opposed to a new religion, which had to combat with all their prejudices, and to oppose all their impurities. Many causes would also tend to prevent the communications between the Roman and the British Christians; and particularly the different languages of the one and of the other.

As the Christian faith is affirmed to have been first brought over to the natives by means of the family of Caractacus, we may be disposed to draw the inference that Christianity would gradually spread among the Silures, and the Demetæ, and the contiguous tribes of the Edui of Somerset, and the Dobuni of Gloucestershire; as well as the Ordovices of North Wales, and

the Cornavii of Shropshire and Cheshire. By means of the Roman Christians, Christianity would also be diffused in the large towns of Camalodunum and Verolam; the trading towns, such as London; and the great stations of York, Caerleon, Exeter, Winchester, Chester, &c. But it was in obscure places in the country of the Silures or the Edui, or some of the other tribes of the Britons, I am disposed to think, the first congregations of Christians were collected, and public profession was made of the faith of Christ.

How pleasing to carry our views back into those remote ages, and imagine we see the first missionaries, and their disciples, assembled under the shade of the wide spreading oak, instructing the people in the knowledge of the true God, and of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind; disputing with the Druids, confuting their absurd notions, their gross conceptions, their confused and complex mythology. If, indeed, these men, whoever they were, went forth with the zeal and in the spirit of the apostles, the truth could not fail of carrying its own evidence, and of producing conviction, being accompanied with Divine influence, and perhaps with miraculous powers, as in Judea. The example of genuine purity and innocence displayed in the lives of such, and the happiness of their dispositions, would command esteem and reverence for the system of religion they professed.

But, however great their zeal may have been, when we consider the nature of the country, and the difficulty of communication, we cannot suppose that the new religion would spread from nation to nation, with victorious rapidity. Their wars and insurrections, their intestine divisions among themselves, the ferocity of some, and the deep rooted prejudice of others, together with the abominable wickedness of the generality, must

present very formidable obstacles to the spread of the Gospel. We may, in some measure, conceive how it was among our ancestors, when we consider what slow progress Christian missionaries make in the present day among the Heathen inhabitants of India, although enjoying the powerful protection of the British govern

ment.

That love of liberty and of independence, which was so inherent in the Britons, produced in them such fancour, and hatred, and impatience, under the Roman yoke, that it was extremely difficult for any of them to divest themselves of such passions, and rise superior to the wrongs they had experienced from their victorious masters. This would tend to obstruct the intercourse between the Roman and the British Christians; besides the difference between the languages of Rome and Britain.

If the Silures were the first of the British tribes among whom Christianity was propagated, as the Christian faith is said to have been brought over by means of the family of Caractacus, the fierceness of their habits, and their living in a state of continual struggle to throw off the Roman yoke, may account for the slow progress of the religion of Christ among them. On the other hand, it may be thought a wise and a gracious Providence that this new religion was introduced among them by a family so greatly revered in Britain.

Under the government of Julius Agricola many important plans for the civilization of Britain were effected, and the ferocious manners of the natives were smoothed; but, as the Roman luxuries and refinements were hereby introduced among them, it may remain a query, which I do not undertake to solve, Whether the good or the evil of this were the greater, in a moral point of view? The intellectual improvement, which was acquired by a

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