On this page

• Text (2)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    by those of other British christians , a great revival is said to have taken place , and Britain soon became noted for the multitude and zeal of its converts . It is also said to have escaped , ( probably by the moderation and mildness of its governors ) all those cruel persecutions that had raged ,

    from time to time , in the other provinces of the Roman Empire ; that only excepted which took place under Dioclesian , about the beginning of the fourth century ; and even that is said not to have raged here so long , or so violently as in other parts of the empire . Calamitous , however , must that time have been , and manv were those who then

    received the crown of martyrdom m Britain ; among whom were Aaron and Julius of Caerlton-upon-Usk , the capital , of Siluria , Here it may b ^ proper to observe , that some have entertained an opinion that certain missionaries from the East , supposed to have been disciples of Polycarp , who .-suffered

    in the year 170 , visited Britain toward the latter part of the second century * , * This opinion is of modern date , and seems altogether problematical . It hinges chiefly , and it may be said entirely , upon the conformity of the British with the oriental Christians about the time of keeping Easter , and such like circumstances , in which they differed from all their western hrethern . But this seems

    very far from being sufficient to establish the said opinion , as it might , for aught we know , be owing to some other cause . And even " were it admitted to have been really owing to the teaching of eastern " missionaries , yet still there appears no just or substantial reason for fixing the time of their arrival here in the second , any more than in the third , or even the fourfit century . History is quite silent on the subject ; but of this -point the discussion can be no way

    interesting . After the termination of Dioclesian ' s persecution , Christianity continued to exist in this country more or less prosperously , till the era of the Saxon invasion , when it appears to have been entirely extirpated in most parts of

    England , and to have remained only in Cumberland and Scotland , Devon and Cornwall , and the principality of Wales , where the old inhabitants still maintained their ground , and long preserved their liberties and their religion . The times , however , must have been then awfully distressing , and the nation being kept in a continual 'state of war , alarm , and agitation , it may well be supposed that Christianity would soon de-* . Soc Macpherson ' s Dissert . No . xx . p . 331 5 and Henry ' s Hist . Gt , Brit ,

    Untitled Article

    The first Introduction of the Gospel into Britain . 295

    Untitled Article

    5

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1807, page 295, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2381/page/7/