X. is affixed to the moral characters of Jovinian and Vigilantius, amidst an intemperate effusion of satire, the probability is, on the whole, that they were pious men, and deserved to be ranked in a very different class from that of heretics. Jerom wrote apologies for his books against Jovinian*, which gave additional strength to the charges of asperity justly brought against him by many. His commendation of rhetoric is excessive, and his vain-glory odious, though it seems unknown to himself. The best instruction to be collected from them is, to see how the defect of Christian principle fails not to appear in the defect of humility, meekness, and love. Augustine and Jerom, in principles and practice, form in this respect a strong contrast. The pieces against Vigilantius deserve the same censure. He absurdly gives to saints a sort of omnipresence and intercessory power. I have said already, that the contest between Jerom and Ruffinus is uninteresting. It is a deplorable evidence of the weakness and corruption of human nature, even in men constantly engaged in religious studies! A sincere and practical attention to the real peculiarities of the Gospel, can alone secure the genuine holiness of professors, and mortify the whole body of sin. When Jerom is calm and unruffled, and looks to Jesus Christ in faith and love, he seems quite another man from what he is when engaged in controversy. For a single page of Jovinian or Vigilantius, I would gladly give up the whole invectives of Jerom and Ruffinus. It is remarkable, that Jerom confesses the vast obscurity of the whole Epistle to the Romans †. To one who studied so much, and whose mind was so clouded with self-righteous superstitions, it must appear in that light. He evidently speaks as one irresolute, embarrassed, and confused. His immensity of verbal learning, in which he much excelled * 37 D. 43 D. 44 G. † 58 D. Tom. ult. of vol. i. Augustine, was not combined with that luminous perspicuity, and comprehensive judgment of doctrinė, which enabled the latter to see his way through witrious mazes, and to find order and beauty, where the former beheld inextricable confusion. Such is the difference between divine and human teaching! 9 Hence Jerom, in his very voluminous exposttions*, speaks at random; is allegorical beyond áll bounds, and almost always without accuracy and precision; lowers the doctrine of illumination in Cor. ii. to things merely moral and practical; Hints at something like a first and second justification before God; asserts predestination, and, as it were, retracts it; owns a good will as from God in one place, in another supposes a power to choose to be the whole of divine grace; never opposes fundamental truths deliberately, but though he owns them every where, always does so defectively, and often inconsistently? It must be confessed, the reputation of this father's knowledge and abilities has been much over-rated. There is a splendor in a profusion of ill-digested learning, coloured by a lively imagination, which is often mistaken for sublimity of genius. This was Jerom's case; but this was not the greatest part of the evil. His learned ignorance availed, more than any other cause, to give a celebrity to supersti tion in the Christian world, and to darken the light of the Gospel. Yet, when he was unruffled by con tradiction, and engaged in meditations unconnected with superstition, he could speak with Christian. affection concerning the characters and offices of the Son of God. 1. ne hemat zi l It was a marvellous effect of Divine Providence that while all other truths were more or less clouded that which relates to the person of the Son of God? on whom rests the salvation of men, should res main unsullied. From St. John's days to Jerom we have seen the whole church unanimousinja * Vol. ii. throughout. CHAP. comprehensive view of the Godhead and manhood of the divine Saviour: whoever opposed either, could never obtain the free sanction of the church. Imperial violence was ever found necessary to extort the admission of such persons into the church as pastors. This essential article of Christianity seems even to have been studied with the minutest accuracy; and few perhaps, even of the best modern divines, have attained the precision of the ancients. Heresiarchs have not failed to take advantage of this circumstance, and the narrow and imperfect conceptions, which some authors have formed of the person of Jesus Christ have emboldened them to suppose, that the assertion of the manhood enervates the proof of the Godhead. Inferiority to the Father, confessed in any light, seems to startle many minds unaccustomed to the generous and extensive habits of thinking, in which the fathers excelled on this subject; while yet the answer is so easy to all supposed difficulties of this nature; " equal to the Father as touching his Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching his manhood." CHAP. XI. CHAP. XI. THE CHURCH OF CHRIST IN THE WEST. It is time to take up the connected thread of history again. But the reader must not expect a successive detail of the proceedings of the Roman princes. After the death of Theodosius, the empire was torn by various convulsions, tending, in the West particularly, to its destruction. It is my duty to watch only the real Church amidst these scenes; for she lived, while the secular glory of Rome was destroyed. Honorius, the son of Theodosius, reigned there, while his brother Arcadius governed at Constantinople. * Athanasian Creed. CENT. V. Honorius, or to speak more properly, his ministers, (for he himself was, like Arcadius, a very feeble prince,) protected the external state of the church, and followed the steps of Theodosius in extirpating the remains of idolatry, and in supporting orthodoxy, against the Donatists, and all heretics. The superior advantages of a Christian above a Pagan establishment, even in times of such decline as the present were, appear in the humanity of a number of laws and edicts, by which idolatrous impurities and savage games were abolished, and due care was taken of the needy and the miserable. In what, for instance, but in a Christian government, shall we find so humane a law as that of Honorius, Humaue enacted in the year 409, by which judges are di- Honorius, rected to take prisoners out of prison every Sunday, and to inquire if they be provided with necessaries, and to see that they be properly accommodated in all things? In this reign, Rome was sacked by the Goths; and an opportunity was given for the exercise of many Christian virtues, by the sufferings to which its inhabitants were exposed. But enough has been said of this subject, in the review of Augustine's City of God. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, was one of the greatest ornaments of Gaul in this century. He was a person of quality, and exercised the profession of a counsellor in the former part of his life. Amator*, his predecessor in the See, foresaw however, I apprehend, some symptoms of grace in him, and ordained him deacon. A month after the decease of Amator he was unanimously elected bishop by the clergy, nobility, citizens, and peasants, and was forced to accept the office notwithstanding the great * He foresaw these, by the observation which he made of the frame of his spirit, rather than by any special revelation. From various places in Fleury I have collected this short account of Germanus, and, stripping it of the marvellous have retained only the credible. law of A. .D 409. CHAP. Germanus Britain, A. D. 430. reluctance which he discovered. He employed himself in the foundation of monasteries, and in enriching the church, while he impoverished himself; and for thirty years, from his ordination to his death, he lived in extreme austerity. About the year 430, that is, about the time of visits Great Augustine's death, he visited the island of Great Britain, with an intention to oppose Agricola, the son of a Pelagian bishop called Severinus, who propagated heresy among the churches there. Hence it is probable, that Pelagius, after he had ceased to be famous in the world, had retired into his native country, and there died. It is no wonder that his opinions should there find abettors. Lupus, bishop of Troyes, accompanied Germanus in the mission, which was undertaken on the recommendation of a numerous council in Gaul. Lupus governed his church fifty-two years, and was highly renowned for sanctity. These two bishops, on their arrival, preached not only in the churches, but also in the highways, and in the open country, and vast crowds attended their ministry. The Pelagians came to a conference; the doctrines of grace were debated; the bishops, supporting themselves by express passages of Scripture in the hearing of all the people, were allowed to be victorious, and Pelagianism was reduced to silence. At this time, the Picts, a race of barbarians who inhabited the north, and the Saxons, a German nation, called in by the Britons, as it is well known, to assist them against the Picts, united their forces against the natives. The latter, terrified at the approach of the enemy, had recourse to Germanus and Lupus. Many, having been instructed by them, desired baptism; and a great part of the army received it at Easter, in a church which they made of boughs of trees twisted together. The festival being over, they marched against the enemy, with Germanus at their head. He, still * Beda, 1 Hist. * |