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AN

ESSAY,

&c.

NOTWITHSTANDING the labours of such learned Antiquaries as Giraldus Cambrensis, Camden, Usher, Lloyd, Stillingfleet, &c., the origin of the primitive British and Irish Churches has been wrapt in much obscurity and uncertainty. Of this, the following reasons may be assigned:

1. The idle and visionary tales, and monkish legends, blended with the original documents still subsisting, which render it no short nor easy task, to separate the wheat from the chaff, truth from fiction.

2. The undue credence given to the monkish historians, whose devotion to the See of Rome frequently led them to pervert, falsify, or suppress the early evidence of the usurped Supremacy of the modern Church of Rome, over her Sister Churches.

3. The want of more carefully examining, and more critically comparing together, the several valuable documents, that have been collected by the skill and industry of the foregoing Antiquaries; and of adjusting their Chronology.

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4. The want of some curious and important Welsh records, unknown to former Antiquaries, and but lately brought to light, by those learned and intelligent Welsh scholars, Roberts, Williams, &c., in the Archeologia Myviriana, Collectanea Cambrica, &c.; and of some interesting Irish records, the Annals of the four Masters, &c. lately translated by that eminent Irish scholar, Dr. O'Connor.

I shall therefore attempt, in the following Essay,

I. To review the various and discordant traditions respecting their origin.

II. To trace their true origin and establishment, upon Scriptural and Ecclesiastical evidence. III. To shew their entire and total independence upon the Church of Rome, from the earliest periods of their history.

IV. To shew the determined and unremitting opposition of the Church and State, in both Islands, to the encroachments and usurpations of the Church and See of Rome, from the first establishment of Christianity in Great Britain and Ireland, to the blessed Reformation. V. To exhibit some authentic and advantageous specimens of the purity and simplicity of the doctrine of these primitive Churches, and of their abhorrence of the errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome.

SECTION I.

UNFOUNDED TRADITIONS RESFECTING THE ORIGIN OF THE BRITISH AND IRISH CHURCHES.

THE introduction of Christianity into the Bri-. tish Isles, has been ascribed to several of the Apostles, or their immediate disciples: to the Apostles, John, James the elder, James the less, Simon Zelotes, Peter, or Paul; or to their assistants, Joseph of Arimathea, Aristobulus, &c.; who severally have been patronized by the learned, in ancient or modern times.

1. St. John. Tertullian relates, that this Apostle was cast into a caldron of boiling oil, by the tyrant Nero, at Rome; and after he came out unhurt, was banished to a certain island*. But this miracle is unnoticed by any of the early Fathers, Clemens Romanus, Irenæus, Eusebius, Origen, and Jerome, who had better sources of information. And St. John was banished not by Nero, but by Domitian, as we learn from Sulpicius Severus and Isidore, (see Lardner, Vol. p. 268; V. p. 164, 309); not to Britain, but to Patmos, in the Archipelago, as he declares him

II.

Ubi Apostolus Johannes, posteaquam in Oleum igneum demersus, nihil passus est, in insulam relegatur. De Præ. script. Hæres. c. 36, p. 245.

self, Rev. i. 9. The learned antiquary, Roberts, however, has adopted this tradition, on account of the great stress laid upon St. John's authority in the debate between Colman and Wilfrid, A. D. 664, about the time of celebrating Easter. The Irish champion, Colman, contended for the fourteenth day of the Paschal moon, when the passover was celebrated by CHRIST, and according to primitive usage; but Wilfrid, for the fifteenth day, with Caiaphas and the Jews; when it was improperly celebrated, as may be proved from John xviii. 28. xix. 14. compared with Luke xxii. 7.

But Roberts himself has satisfactorily accounted for the great veneration in which this Apostle and his writings were held in Britain and Ireland, from the early intercourse and connexion subsisting between the British and Gallican Churches; for Irenæus, the bishop of Lyons in Gaul, was the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of St. John. See the Collectanea Cambrica, No. 6. and Roberts' Visitation Sermon, 1812, notes, p. 20.

2. St. James the elder. He could not possibly have visited the British isles, because he was slain by Herod, A. D. 44.

3. St. James the less, or the Lord's brother, or cousin-german, was elected first bishop of Jerusalem; and was slain by the Jews A. D. 63., as we learn from Josephus.

4. Simon Zelotes. According to Nicephorus, he preached the Gospel as far as the Western ocean, and the British isles, and was crucified in Britain. This, however, is contradicted by Bede; who states that Simon suffered in Persia, Oct. 29, in his Martyrology.

5. St. Peter. His visit to Britain, rests on the single authority of Simeon Metaphrastes: who states that "St. Peter spent some days in Britain, and enlightened many, by the word of Grace; and having established Churches," &c. See Introduct. p. 20.

But it is incredible, that so much should be effected by the Apostle, in so short a time. And the total silence of all the early Fathers respecting this visit, and of any of the British Churches to claim St. Peter as their founder, is sufficient to invalidate his testimony.

Joseph of Arimathea. His pretensions have been supported by Theophilus Evans in his Drych y prif Oesoed, and the learned and pious Charles Edwards in his Hanes y Ffydd. But Mr. Roberts represents this as a legendary tale, fabricated by the Monks of Glastonbury, after they had plundered the records of St. David's. Sermon, p. 21.

6. There remains, therefore, only the tradition of St. Paul's visit to Britain, with which that of Aristobulus is connected. And this tradition has been adopted by the most learned Antiquaries, ancient and modern; by Parker, Camden, Usher,

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