vi. flame by the keen blast of wholesome affliction. CENT. Mauritius bore the scene with silent resignation, repeating only, as each of his children was butchered, Righteous art thou, O Lord, and true are thy judgments." A nurse, who took care of his youngest son, placed her own in its room: Mauritius detecting the generous fraud, discovered it to the executioners, and prevented its effect.-This is a transaction of civil history, but it falls in with our plan. The great faults of one, who had a latent spark of grace within him, were punished in this life by the wickedness of the monster Phocas, and the story deserves to be remembered as a beacon to warn professors of godliness against the love of the world. Mauritius seems to have profited abundantly by the scourge, and to have died in such a frame of mind, as belongs only to a Christian. We are not apt to be aware of the advantages which society receives from Christianity. Let us suppose this emperor to have been totally unacquainted with, or entirely averse to Christian principles. How immensely more pernicious his natural disposition would have been, unchecked internally, as well as externally, can scarce be conceived. The images of Phocas and of his wife Leontia, were sent to Rome, and received with much respect by the people, and by Gregory himself. It cannot be supposed, that the bishop of Rome could be acquainted with the personal character of Phocas, who was in truth a man of extraordinary wickedness; and the late transactions at Constantinople would naturally be misrepresented to him in the accounts transmitted thence. Prejudiced as he was against Mauritius, and willing to hope better things from the new emperor, he wrote him a congratulatory letter, in which he studiously avoided saying any thing on the detail of circumstances, of which he must have been very insufficiently informed, and dwelt on that which was certain, namely, the adorable hand of Divine Providence in changing the times, and in trans VI. CHAP. ferring kingdoms, as he pleases. He exults in the prospect which he had too eagerly formed of a wise, just, and pious administration. He modestly hints at the great abuses of the late government, and ex horts Phocas to redress them, reminding him, "that a Roman emperor commands freemen, and not slaves*." Such is the substance of his letter, in which I see nothing unworthy of the piety and patriotism of Gregory, but much of his wonted care for the good of the church and the public. Gregory wrote again to Phocas, to apologize for the want of a deacon, who should reside at Constantinople. Phocas had complained to him of this, and invited him to send one. The bishop informed him, that the severity of the late government had deterred all clergymen from going thither. But, as he now hoped better things, he sent him a person, whom he recommended to his protection. He beseeches Phocas to listen to his relation of facts, as he would thence learn more distinctly the miseries, which Italy had sustained without redress, for thirtyfive years, from the Lombards†. Is it at all surprising, that this language should be used by a man who sincerely loved his country, and knew little of the new emperor; who probably had received a false account of his actions and character, and who had so long been, on Christian principles, both patient and loyal to an oppressive government? In another letter to Leontia he is not to be excused from the charge of an unhappy superstition. He talks of Peter the Apostle, reminds her of the scripture-text, on the perverted use of which hangs the whole structure of the papacy ‡, and of his intercession in heaven. He prays, that she and her husband may be endowed with princely virtues, and expresses, I will not say with flattery, but with an expectation much too sanguine, his hopes of the blessings of the new administration. B. XI. Ep. 36. + B. XI. Ep. 43. ↑ Matt. xvi. 18. VI. Phocas was displeased with Cyriacus, the bishop CENT. of Constantinople, because he had generously interested himself in favour of the remaining branches of Mauritius's family; and while he courted the favour of Gregory and of the Romans at a distance, he tyrannized at home in an uncommon manner, But Gregory died the next year after Phocas's promotion, and had not, probably time enough to know his genuine character, and was himself also so bowed down with pains and infirmities, that he was unable to answer a letter of Theudelinda, queen of the Lombards. He had promised to do it, if his health was restored; but he grew less and less capable of business till he died. Had health and opportunity permitted, the vigour and piety of his character give me no room to doubt, that he would have rebuked the Roman tyrant in such a manner, as to have quite silenced the accusations, which, on this account, have been thrown upon him. That he should have opposed the usurpation of Phocas, will not be expected from those who consider the views of the primitive Christians, who intermeddled not with politics; but he, who plainly rebuked Mauritius, would certainly not have spared his successor, whose conduct was far more blameable*. CHAP. VII. GREGORY'S CONDUCT WITH RESPECT TO ENGLAND. THIS also has been a source of much accusation against the Roman prelate. Protestant writers, in their zeal against popery, have censured his domi * Phocas took away the title of universal bishop from the prelate of Constantinople, and granted it to Boniface III, the next successor but one to Gregory. After Phocas's death, the prelate of the East re-assumed the title. The two bishops each preserved it, and with equal ambition strove for the pre eminence. CHAP. neering spirit with acrimony, as if the British ChrisVII. tians had been protestants, and the Roman Chris tians papists, accurately speaking. But Gregory was no pope, nor had the Britons separated from the general Church, and formed a purer establishment of their own. Superstition and ecclesiastical power, in the excess, adhered indeed to the conduct of the Roman prelate, as the fault of the age, not of his temper; and if he had perfectly avoided the fashionable evils of his time, he would have been, I had almost said, more than human. But the ideas, peculiarly popish, were not yet matured in the churches. Dissenting writers, I find, have been seduced by the same sort of prejudices as divines of the Church of England, and it is curious to observe, how different writers can find in the features of the British Church, the very figure of their own denomination. I ought to profit by the mistakes of others; that is, to forget my own times and connections; to transplant myself into the age of which I write; to make liberal allowances for its customs and prejudices, and to enable the reader, from facts themselves, to form his own judgment. For near a century and a half the Gospel of Christ had been declining in Britain, and for the greatest part of that time had been, as we have seen, confined to Wales and Cornwall, or to the mountains of Scotland. Ireland too still preserved something of the light, while the Angles or Saxons, our ancestors, destroyed every evangelical appearance in the heart of the island. No barbarians were ever more ferocious or more idolatrous; and the Britons, who escaped their ravages, oppressed one another with civil broils. Being favoured with some cessation from their wars with the Saxons, they lost by degrees all traces of former piety, though the form of Christianity still remained. One proof among others, which the old historian Gilda's gives of their entire want of Christian zeal, is, that they took not the least pains for the conversion of the Saxons. Seven Saxon kingdoms, called the Heptarchy, were now formed, altogether ignorant and idolatrous, while the few British churches were inattentive to the propagation of Christian truth in the island. And the Saxons continued, some of them for a century, others more than two centuries, immersed in darkness*. One cannot form any agreeable idea either of the piety or of the knowledge of the British Christians, from these circumstances. Nor are the excuses, which our protestant historians are inclined to make for their want of zeal, at all satisfactory. It has been said that, "The hostilities of the Angles would cause such attempts to be arduous;" but let the reader only reflect how such difficulties were surmounted by zealous and charitable Christians in former agest. I cannot but therefore subscribe to the testimony of our antient historians, "that much worthier pastors were sent by the divine goodness, through whom, those, whom God had foreknown, might believe to salvation." A testimony as evangelical in its language, as it is solid in fact. 1 Mission to It was about 150 years after the arrival of the Gregory's Saxons in Britain, that Gregory sent his famous Britain. mission into our island, toward the close of the sixth century. It was no sudden thought, but the effect of much deliberation. Even before his consecration at Rome, walking one day in the forum, he saw some very handsome youths exposed to sale. Asking of what country they were, he was informed they were of the island of Britain. "Are the inhabitants of that island Christians or Pagans?" They are Pagans, was the reply. Alas! said he, deeply sighing, that the prince of darkness should possess countenances so luminous, and that so fair a front should carry minds destitute of eternal grace. What is the *Bede. See Warner's Ecci, Hist. toward the beginning. Bede. |