to be. And it is very observable, that we have a better transcript of every other state and province in Italy, better histories published of them, and of their rise and growth to the lustre they are now in, than we have of Rome itself, since it took upon itself to promote Christianity; so unsolicitous that court is, which desires to prescribe and give laws to all other courts, to publish the records that should prove its authority, or their actions which should introduce a reverence for that authority.

To begin then with Italy: I think we may very reasonably not be sorry that we were not born there within the first three hundred years, during the times of the ten persecutions; when men, women, and children, run in shoals with the same curiosity to baptism, and to martyrdom, before they understood the importance of either; and when the merit of the martyrdom could rather consist in their courage and constancy in telling truth, and not denying what they did believe, than in their understanding that truth, and the obligations thereof, for which they suffered; and within which time that uncharitable persecution and animosity was amongst the best Christians for above fifty years together, in that impertinent quarrel about the keeping of Easter, which had no more to do with Christian religion, than they would have who should

now fall out in affirming or denying that our Saviour was or was not born upon the 25th day of December; and it cannot be enough wondered at, that the same man, Pius the First, should have so much passion in that argument, and so much piety to suffer martyrdom for the faith of Christ, as he did. It is very true, that within this time many learned (for the learning of the time) and godly men lived, as Polycarp, Irenæus, Origen, Tertullian, and others, though not in that region, yet those times saw very little of that light which they saw, and they saw much the less for the darkness of those times; nor hath the catholic church at any time since subscribed to all that was delivered by those fathers. So that those first three hundred years, nor the persons who lived in them, are those primitive times, to which we are called upon to pay our veneration. And of those millions of martyrs which suffered death in several kingdoms, the names of many hundreds of whom are transmitted to us, whether true or false, there is scarce one who hath left any testimony behind him in writing, of his understanding and knowledge of the Christian religion; nor is it probable that they did know more than the very history of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of our Saviour, as they found it in the evangelists. And it is yet more strange, that Rome itself (how ignorant soever it might be of

what was done in Asia and Africa, and other countries far remote from them) should have so few records of their own Christianity, that they do not well agree in the succession of their own popes, whether Pius or Clement succeeded St Peter, whether Cletus and Anacletus were one or two persons, and many other particulars; nor do they pretend to know how they, and the other who succeeded them for some hundreds of years, come to be chosen, or what authority they had to exercise that charge; and the same ignorance remains amongst them of all that was done for a long time after the emperor was Christian; nor, which is more strange, can any man conclude, from any thing they say, that Constantine himself was ever christened, at least not where, nor when; plain it is, that he much advanced Christianity, and built many churches, before he was himself baptized: and though they would have it believed, that pope Sylvester christened him shortly after he came to Rome, (which yet was many years after his being emperor) Petavius the Jesuit (who hath a place in the first rank of their antiquaries) affirms, that it was the opinion of most of the antients, that he was not baptized till very little before his death, which was in the year 337, and seems to agree with Cardinal Perron, that it was at Nicomedia, by Eusebius Nicomediensis. So little light we have

into the primitive times from Rome, which would be thought to have kept a diary from the death of our Saviour. But to return; though the next age, in which St Ambrose and St Austin, St Basil and St Gregory Nazianzen, St Jerom and St Chrysostome, St Hilary and others, lived and flou. rished; and, it may be, the excellency of those pious fathers have entitled that age, how incongruously soever, to be looked upon as the primitive time; yet the unbloody persecution of Julian, the heresies of Donatus, Pelagius, and Arius, the last whereof corrupted emperors, kings, and bishops, and upon the matter covered the whole face of the church, the schisms in the government of the church, and the great passion and contradiction that was between and amongst those sacred fathers, do not invite us to any reverence for that time: nor is our veneration for the memory of those great lights of the church less than it should be, though we believe that the succeeding ages, and even this in which we live, have yielded many great and godly men, not inferior in piety and devotion, and much superior in learning, to those antient, excellent men; and for Italy, though Christianity had been planted there by St Peter, and other apostles, it was so unhappily cultivated, that what by the Arian and other heresies, and the little zeal of most of the empe

rors (though Christians) and by the incursion of the Goths, who brought with them no less than two hundred thousand men, presently after the death of Theodosius, (who died about or shortly after the year 400) it became almost defaced, and afterwards so obliterated between the little and ill Christianity of the Goths, and the Gentilism of the Vandals, that we cannot resort to Italy either for principles in religion, or maxims in policy (except what were comprehended in the narrow stratagems of the popes, to raise their own greatness, by infusing jealousies into the princes and great men in Italy, and between them and the emperors) until the time that Charles Martell, or rather his son Pepin, came to Rome; who rather enlarged the power and authority of the popes, by extinguishing the office of the exarch, and giving all that was under it to the Bishop of Rome, than advanced Christianity in Italy; which, by the frequent schisms and corrupt lives of the popes, remained undervalued and dishonoured until Charlemagne (who died but in the year 815) came into Italy, totally destroyed the kingdom of the Lombards, which had governed Italy for above the space of two hundred years, and called a counsel for the composing all the scandals and differences, which made him Emperor of Germany, and appointed the pope for the time to come to be always made