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    An Account of St. Germain. 023

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    tf M 2 4

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    A Sketch Of The State Of Christianity In...

    them lay toward the completion of the work 3 by the reduction or conversion of the _heterodox Britons to the catholic faith . Councils or synods were accordingly convened in Gaul on the occasion ; and in one of them , held in 429 , it was agreed to

    send over certain missionaries to this country , to promote the favourite object , and bring the erring inhabitants into th » Tight way .

    At the head of this mission was placed the celebrated St _* Germain , or Garmon , as the Britons usually call him . Of this orthodox and renowned ancient missionary , the following account has been given by a modern author , on the authenticity and accuracy of which the reader , it is presumed may pretty

    _tence them to eternal torments for sins committed "b y another , and which they themselves could not avoid * By the other he stirred up magistrates and all who have the administration of public affairs to persecute those who differ from them in religion . ' Au _? tin and his company also were the first who ventured to attack at law believers , baptism . They did not pretend to ground infant baptism on scripture , but tradition , and they aSirmedit to be an universal custom : but with what possible decency could Austin dare to _affirm this ? Was he himself then baptized in his infancy ? Was Ambrose who baptized him baptized in his infancy ?

    Was his own natural son _baptized when he was an infant f Wai his father Patricius baptized when an infant ? Had he who pretended to have been o £ the Manicheans , never heard that they did not baptize infants ? Had all other heretics escaped his notice ? Had he forgot himself when he taxed the Pelagians with denying infant baptism ? And when he complained in another book of people who opposed it ? If it were an established universal custom , for whose use was the Jaw made to compel it ? A thousand more _sucjti _questipns might be put , all serving to contradict this falsehood . He continued to be the oracle of the orthodox to the

    day of his death , and long after , even to modern times . His Works are numerous , consisting of many folios . The Jansenists among the Papists , and Calvinists among ; the Protestants , appear to owe to him their distinguishing dogmas and pcculiaritie _$ t from whose works they were adopted by Calvin and Jansenius . Even his very bones were long revered by multitudes , most devoutly sought after , purchased at vast expense , and preserved as most precious relics . An _archbishop of Canterbury , called . Agelnoth , being at Rome , in 1021 , and commissioned by the king of

    England , gave the Pope for one of AusthVs arms , the enormous sum or price of nc hundred talents , or six thousand pounds weight of silver , and one talent , or * ixty pounds weight of gold . " A prpdigous sum ! greater ( says Granger ) than Hxc finest statue of antiquity would then have sold for , * ' Such was the high _esti' mat ion and veneration in which the name of the bishop of Hippo was held in this island , ( and all over Christendom , so called ) in the eleventh century , and 500 years after his death ! But it needs not to be much wondered at : others , of as little

    Worth or merit have acquired in the world , and even herein Britain , immen € fame and veneration , very undeservedly . Among them we may reckon another Austin , called the Monk , an apostle of the Anglo > - Sa _* ons , who wa * canonized , as well as his African namesake ; and so was also _Thornas-a-Becket _, a character more worthless , if possible , than either of the others . Too often hat it happened that men who have proved the scourge and curse of their species , have yet ; been deemed and termed heaven-born , and obtained the _general admiration and

    blessing of their contemporaries , as if they had been indeed their real friends and . benefactors . So easy it often has been , in all departments , to acquire popularity , or a high and general reputation , without deserving it ; which surely exhibits human _nature in no very proud or _flattering aspect . We will now return , and resume the p opo _^ ed narrative ; leaving the reader to Judge which of the two characters appeari on the whple , the more estimable , that of the _persecuted Pcla _£ ius , or kit iai > _J ; _uuu 4 _aud intolerant _opponent St . Austin »

    An Account Of St. Germain. 023

    An Account of St . Germain . 023

    Tf M 2 4

    _tf M 2 4

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1807, page 623, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/mrp_02121807/page/3/