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    290 The first Introduction of the Gospel into Britain .

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    evil , apd that he has power to co-operate with the Deity / ' fcc . These are so very like what are said to have been the leading and distinguishing tenets of the Pelagians , that we may

    venture to conclude the latter to have sprung from them ,. It does not appear that Pelagius , who was a British Christian , and whose original name , was Morgan , or Morgant , was the founder or inventor of the religious svstem that goes under his name- When he went abroad to Rome , Africa , Jerusalem , and other parts , there is reason to believe that he only taught and defended the religious principles that prevailed , and which

    be had imbibed in his own country . He had been educated , it is said , in the college or monastery of Bang or which , in all probability , had been originally a drudical-seminary , and would continue still to inculcate , in some , form or degree , many of the precepts and maxims of the old religion , and among the rest those above mentioned . As a pupil or student there he would , naturally imbibe them , and when he went abroad , would

    as naturally promulgate and defend them : hence the rise or origin of that frightful heresy of Pelagius , about which there has been so much clamour and contention in the world ever since , and in opposing which the redoubtable Bishop of Hippo ,

    couiiiionly called Saint Augustine , rendered himself so celebrated . After all , may it not really be very fairly questioned whether the dm id ism of Pelagius , or the platonism of his opp-ment ^ was the most foreign from , or inimical to the religion of the New Testament ? The mere opinion or authority of

    Augustine can determine nothing against Pelagianism ; for it does not appear that he was either more pious , more honest , more wise more learned , cr more infallible , than his opponent , His chief advantage or superiority seems to have consisted in his having the civil and ecclesiastical powers , with the rabble or majority on his side ; and that advantage or superiority Caiaphas also had , in his controversy with Jesus Christ , and

    the Jews , in ( heirs with the apostles . The question must be decided ; like all other religious questions , by the voice of scripture , and not by that of Saint Augustine , or any other such saint or sinner . Pelagius is also supposed to have beeq an universalist , because universalism appears to have been a druidical tenet , but in that he could be no more a heretic than Origen , and others , in ancient as well as modern times .

    Other accounts have been piven of the first introduction of the gospel into Britain , of which the following are the most remarkable . —One ascribes it to James the son of Zebedee ; but the little credit that is due to this will soon be perceived by adverting to the early date of that apostle ' s martyrdom . By

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1807, page 290, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2381/page/2/