the church of Rome as she existed in this country before the Reformation. Mr. Butler replies, that the description is worthless, unless it be supported by decrees and catechisms drawn up after the Reformation. He puts the change upon his reader or upon himself, and virtually acknowledges the existence of the very corruptions which he censures Mr. Southey for condemning.

The first letter, on the extent of the Roman Catholic church, must be considered merely as a flourish, preparatory to the serious encounter. Who disputes the fact, or what is it supposed to prove ? The second letter, on the introduction of Christianity into this country, is more to the purpose. It places the knowledge and the temper of Bishop Milner in their true light. The bishop has inflicted the following "Stricture" upon Mr. Southey's account of British con

version:

"Speaking of the first conversion of this Island to Christianity by the envoys of Pope Eleutherius, under the subordinate British king, Lucius, he says, that it rests on legends of doubtful authority,' and yet it is recorded by every writer of character, who treats of the matter, whether British, Saxon, or Roman, whether Protestant or Catholic, from Nennius down to Parker, Godwin, and Usher; nor can any motive be assigned for his affected doubts on the subject, except his unwillingness to ascribe so great a benefit, as the conversion of the Britons. to the see of Rome.

P. 5.

We might easily expose this bigotted credulity. But Mr. Butler has done it for us; and while he vindicates Mr. Southey from affecting a doubt respecting stories as fabulous as those of Merlin the conjuror, he gives the vicar apostolic a hint that the infallibility of the Head of the Church does not extend to his English representatives.

That much in the history of the two first conversions of England is questionable, cannot be doubted." Butler, p. 21.

The third letter, on the Anglo-Saxons, opens with a strange blunder. It states, that "they extirpated the Pagan religion of Rome." Rome was at that time professedly Christian, and had introduced Christianity into Britain. The next assertion is still more startling: "Sacred history contains nothing more edifying than the account of the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons"!! One-half of that account is fabulous; the other half is strongly impregnated with superstition. The Anglo-Saxons embraced Christianity because their kings set them the example; and there is nothing in sacred history more edifying than this! A Gibbon or a Hume would have made the same remark.

6.6

“ In eighty-two years from the arrival of St. Augustine,

this mild, holy, and beneficent religion which he preached, was spread in every part of Anglo-Saxon England." P. 27. It was so; but not in consequence of his preaching. Threefourths of England were converted to Christianity by the Scotch. Northumberland had been visited by Paulinus, a follower of St. Augustine, but he was driven back into Kent, and the Scotch bishop, Aidan, was the founder of the Northumbrian church. The East Saxons, originally converted by Mellitus, relapsed into paganism, and were recovered by Chad, a Scot, with the support and encouragement of Oswy, King of Northumberland. The Mercians were converted by missionaries from the same quarter; and Diuma, a Scot, the first bishop of that kingdom, fixed his see at Lichfield. These extensive territories derived their Christianity from churches which professed no obedience to Rome; and if Mr. Butler will study Bede with half the pains that he has studied Lingard, his next edition will contain a candid acknowledgment of these facts.

The second-hand source from which he has derived his information, leads Mr. Butler into another gross mistake in this chapter. He asserts, p. 29, that "the doctrines of our AngloSaxon ancestors respecting the supremacy of the Pope, the real presence of Christ in the eucharist, the seven sacraments, the invocation of the Virgin Mary, and the other saints, and prayers for the dead, were the same as ours." We flatly deny the first and the second of these assertions. If by the "real presence," Mr. Butler means transubstantiation, we assert, that no such doctrine can be discovered in the records of the

primitive Anglo-Saxon church. And so far were our ancestors from acknowledging the supremacy of the Pope, that Gregory the Great, under whose auspices Augustine landed in Kent, was disobeyed by princes, priests and people. His edicts may be seen in his own epistles and in Bede. They contain a scheme for the government of the Anglo-Saxon church; and that scheme was disregarded in every part. The date and the manner of the introduction of the Pope's authority are well known. Wilfred, bishop of York, was the grand promoter of that work. He destroyed the ascendency of the Scotch prelates, and succeeded to their influence. He first appealed from his metropolitan to Rome. And his life, by Eddius, a work of indisputable authority, shows how firmly that appeal was resisted, and that it never produced the least effect until the crown descended to an infant, whose mother was under Wilfred's controul.

The next section in this letter, is an answer, not to Mr. Southey, but to Dr. Robertson and Mosheim, who appear to

have misrepresented the doctrines taught in Anglo-Saxon monasteries. We could wish that Mr. Butler had adverted. to the effect produced (the effect of monkery, not of Christianity), as well as to the lessons inculcated. Bede's account of it is lamentable. His letter to Egbert, Bishop of York, was written about fifty years after the introduction of the Benedictine order into England; and the venerable writer declares, that there are monasteries without number, useless both to God and man; depriving the king of the soldiers who might defend him against the barbarians; and disgracing the the monastic life by their luxury and vices. The nuns are described in similar language; and Boniface, Bishop of Mentz, in his epistles to Ethilbald, king of Mercia, and Cuthbert Archbishop of Canterbury, written about the same time, namely, in the year 745, informs his correspondents, that the goodness, honour and purity of their church, are become little better than a jest; that Satan has corrupted the monks and the nuns; and that the bishops, not content with intoxicating themselves, promote excessive drinking among others. These were aukward facts; the abuses were met by fresh enactments; and one set of new canons, the penitentiary of Archbishop Egbert, acquaints us with the duration and strictness of the fasts by which different crimes may be expiated. It adds, that their duration and intensity may be diminished upon payment of a fine to the church. So much for Anglo-Saxon morality and discipline. The fault of this portion of Mr. Southey's history is, that it under-rates the mischief of the monastic system. On this ground, Mr. Butler might find just cause for censure. But as it is a ground upon which it does not suit him to engage, he ceases firing against the Laureate, aad takes a passing shot at Dr. Robertson. Why should the learned apologist travel so far out of the

record?

The remainder of the letter is employed in discussing the general controversy upon miracles, with a slight reference to those that are said to have been performed by the AngloSaxon missionaries. It is the most important and mischievous part of Mr. Butler's work. He commences with a short exposition of the Roman Catholic doctrine.

"It is known, that Roman Catholics, relying with entire confidence on the promises of Christ, believe, that the power of working miracles was given by Christ to his church, and that it never has been, and never will be, withdrawn from her. Through the prophet Joel,* God announced to the Jews, that in the last days he would pour

*Chap. ii. 29, 30.

pour out his spirit on all flesh;' that their sons and their daughters should prophecy;' that their young men should see visions, and their old men dream dreams.' When St. Peter cited this prophecy to the Jews, assembled at the feast of Pentecost, he declared to them, that the promise contained in it,' was made to them, to their children, and to all that were afar off, whom the Lord God should call *." Christ, in his last sermon, after exhorting St. Philip to believe in him as God, equal to his Father; and after appealing to his works, as the testimony given by his Father to this truth, expressed himself in the following solemn terms: Verily, verily! I say unto you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, these shall he do, and greater works than these he shall also dot.' When, just before his ascension into heaven, Christ took his last leave of his apostles, and gave them his last blessing, he mentioned to them the signs which should follow those who believed: In my name,' he said, they ahall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and, if they eat any thing deadly, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall be cured‡."

Here Roman Catholics confidently ask :--Did not Christ promise by these words, that miracles should be wrought in his church? That they should be wrought without limitation of time? That some of these should be greater than his own?

To say that the promise failed would be impiety. Somewhere, therefore, miracles must have been uninterruptedly wrought. Now, the Roman Catholic is the only church, which, from the first propagation of Christianity until the present time, has had a visible and uninterrupted existence: uninterrupted miracles, therefore, could only have existed in the Roman Catholic church. They could not possibly have existed in any church which separated from the see of Rome at the time of the Reformation; for, to use an expression of Bossuet, in his controversy with M. Claude, when the church of the reformers first separated from the one, the holy, the Roman Catholic church, their church could not by their own confession enter into communion with a single church in the whole world.”” p. 37.

Can Mr. Butler be serious? Is there in the words which he quotes from Scripture, the slightest intimation, that miracles shall be always wrought in the Church? The Roman Catholics may confideutly ask, whether such a promise has been given. Protestants will as confidently answer, that it has not. The conclusion of the argument is worthy of its commencement. For Protestants deny that the Roman Catholic church is the only church that has had a continued existence. The reformation of a corrupt church, is not the formation of a new one. And Mr. Butler's ingenious sophism

John xiv. 12, 13.

+ Acts, ii. 39.

Mark, xvi. 17, 18.

merely begs the question. The next observation is of greater

consequence.

"The general position, that a constant succession of miracles in a church is a proof of the truth of its religions creed, seems to be universally admitted. It is,' says Doctor Middleton in his Free Enquiry, a maxim, which must be allowed by all Christians, that whenever any sacred rite or religious institution becomes the instrument of miracles, we ought to consider that rite as confirmed by divine approbation.'

"It necessarily follows, that if Roman Catholics prove a constant succession of miracles in their church, they consequently establish the truth of her doctrine.

"Aware of this inference, the Protestant divines found it incumbent on them to contend, that at some period in the Christian æra, there was a cessation of miracles in the Christian church. Being required to specify this æra, they answered that it was when the corruption of Christianity became general. They were then required to specify the period when this general corruption took place. Here a considerahle disagreement was found among them. Some assigned it to the fourth, some to the fifth, some even to the sixth century; but the generality assigned it to the conversion of the emperor Constantine. Then, according to their system, Christianity became the religion of the state; and, being supported by the secular arm, the Christians no longer put their trust in God, and a general corruption of Christianity ensued. From this time, therefore, the Almighty ceased to recognize their church, and withdrew from her the supernatural powers, with which, till then, He had invested her.

"Such is the account which Protestant writers give of the supposed æra of the corruption of Christianity. It is evident, that whatever may be the period which they assign for it, there must be error in the assignment, if miracles were subsequently wrought in the Catholic church, as it never can be supposed that the Almighty would work miracles in the support of a corrupted church. Now, the Roman Catholics produce a regular chain of miracles, wrought in every subsequent age of Christianity. Then, as the Protestants admit the existence of miracles, in the ages which preceded the æra assigned by them for the corruption of Christianity, it became incumbent upon them to disprove the miracles alleged by the Roman Catholics to have been wrought in the subsequent ages; and this they could only do, by showing that the evidence for them was not so strong as the evidence adduced in support of the miracles wrought in the preceding ages, and allowed and credited by themselves.

"Here Doctor Middleton intervened. It is, by his account, impossible for Protestauts to show, that miracles ceased at any of the æras assigned by them, as the Catholics, in his judgment, can incontrovertibly demonstrate, that the sanctity, the talents, and the discernment of those, on whose testimony the miracles in the sub

* 3d edition, p. 1. xvi.