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    £22 A Sketch of the State of Christianit...

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    A Sketch Of The State Of Christianity In...

    to that country _> as the result of a _previous application from the British Christians ; but of this we find no clear or good proof advanced ; and it appears most likely , that it originated in the forward and violent zeal of the adherents of the pope and St . Austin to improve the advantage they had already _gainedj and follow up the blow to the utter destruction of the partv and principles against which they had _conceived so strong and deadly an antipathy .

    After the emperor and the pope had espoused the cause of St Austin _^ St . Jeromand their adherents _, and become parties in the contest against the Pelagians , the continental Churches _* and those of Gaul among the rest , being under their influence and power _, would naturally and zealomsly embark in the same cause , and readily contribute as much as in

    grammar and rhetoric , nrst at Tagastc , then at Carthage . His mother , whose \ u $ i band had _ditfd when her son was about eighteen , more concerned about the _pro-Migsicy of her son than the loss of her husband , _went to Carthage to try , if pos- » 9 ible , ro reform him . He , without acquainting his mother , or Rominian his benefactor , got aboard a vessel , crossed over to Italy , and went with his lady to Rome where by some means he became acquainted with Symmachiis tbepraefect of the city , who knowing they wanted a teacher of rhetoric at Milan , sent him thither .

    His mother hearing he persisted in his former course of life , crossed over to Milan , to try once more to reform him . She found he went sometimes to hear Ambrose the bishop , at Milan , but this did not satisfy her , as he continued in his former course of living , and kept the woman whom he had brought from Carthage , and the child which she had by him , novy about thirteen years of age . She , good woman , lamented his condition , and besought him to marry and reform his life . Be pretended that he was not a pagan , that indeed he was not of his mother ' s church , but however he was of one much better ; he was of the Mariichcans , a

    people so remarkable for love of virtue , that they were called Puritans * Thi _^ cud not content the old lady , who thought , let him be of what denomination he would , lie was of the class whom God had threatened to judge . At length he gave out that , as he was walking . in a garden , he heard a voice from heaven , calling to him * nd saying , " Take up the epistles of Paul and read them !! " He obeyed the voice , opened the book , and found out what any pagan might have told him without a _revelation from heaven , that rioting and drunkenness , chambering and

    _wantonness "were grievous crimes . He determined therefore to marry , and as a proof of his sincerity , he put his name on the list of Catechumens . He now fixed his eyes on a girl who would be marriageable in two years . He sept his old mistress back to Carthage . He kept the child and put him also into the Catechumen ' s list ; an 4 while father and son were preparing for baptism , he took another mistress into keeping , till the young lady should come of age . Meantime he wrote books in defence of that religion he was about to embrace He understood neither Greek nor

    Hebrew , however he expounded both the Qld Testament and the New . I * the end he became intimate with Ambrose the foishop _, set his heart on the ministry , renounced rhetoric for a better trade , laid aside his proposed marriage , turned off his mistress , vowed he would become a monk , and in company with hi * _bastard son , then fifteen years of age , and his friend Alypius , was baptized by

    immersion m the baptistry at Milan , by Ambrose , at Easter , m the year 387 , arid _* the thirty-third year of his age . Soon after he became _assistant to Valerius bishop f Hippo , in his own country , and lastly his successor , and continued almost hall * century the light and glory of Hippo and of Africa ! _" Austin , " say $ _-Le Clerc , " was one of the very first who promoted two doctrina * which took away ail goodness and justice both from God and man . By the _© nc , Go _4 is represented as creating the _greatest part of mankind to _cfo ** tt * them , and to _ssj * _-

    £22 A Sketch Of The State Of Christianit...

    £ 22 A Sketch of the State of Christianity in Wales ,

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1807, page 626, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121807/page/2/