first Christian Council was not St. Peter but St. James; and the first Christian Bishop was St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem. I conclude therefore, first, that our Saviour's words do not mean that the Church should be founded on St. Peter; secondly, that it was not so founded-but on the Messiaship of Jesus, the doctrine, which St. Peter had confessed; and thirdly, that St. Paul, and not St. Peter was the first founder of the Church of Rome.

II. St. Paul was not only the founder of the Church of Rome, but of the Church in Britain. Of St. Paul's journey to Britain, a point of great importance in the history of the Gospel, and of the Protestant Church, we fortunately possess as substantial evidence as any historical fact can require. But though Usher and Stillingfleet* have collected the most unquestionable authorities for it, it seems not to have acquired, generally, that degree of historical credit to which it is entitled. It deserves therefore, on many accounts, to be brought more home to us as a part of our national history and as such, I have

* Mr. Nelsonǝhas given in his excellent work on the Feasts and Fasts of the Church, a summary of Bishop Stillingfleet's observations on this subject; and Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, has adopted the whole discussion. Bishop Gibson, in his Notes on Camden's Britannia, concurs with Bishop Stillingfleet.

† An inquiry into the evidences of the foundation of the British Church by St. Paul, is rendered the more necessary by the defective statement of them in a late very learned Analysis of Chronology; of which statement an account is given at the end of this Inquiry.

endeavoured to make all the use of it I could in the discourse, which I lately delivered to you at Carmarthen.

Some of our most valuable ecclesiastical historians have no scruple in acceding to the general testimony of the Fathers, that the Gospel was preached in Britain by some of the Apostles soon after the middle of the first century, but shrink from the particular evidences of time and person, as fables, which would discredit the dignity and accuracy of history. In which caution there is more, perhaps, to regret than to censure. They are unwilling to affect the general credit of their naratives by the admission of particulars, however interesting, which they think they cannot substantiate. But unfortunately they reject the probable on account of the improbable, And in this rejection, it is certainly much to be regretted, that they have given some advantage to the advocates of popery and infidelity; to the former by the suppression of evidences, which disprove the right of supremacy in the Church of Rome; and to the latter, by withdrawing some strong and tangible proofs of the truth of Christianity.

Gildas says that Christianity was introduced into Britain before the defeat of the British forces under Boadicia, (A. D. 61) and between that event, and some others not long preceding it. He has just mentioned this defeat, and then adds; "In the mean while the sun of the Gospel first enlightened this island, which displayed his bright beams to the whole world,

as we know, in the latter part of the reign of Tiberius Cæsar."* In the 20th or 21st of Tiberius the Apostles received their commission to preach the Gospel to all the world.

Eusebius affirms, that the Gospel was preached in Britain by some of the Apostles. Other ancient historians expressly say this of St. Paul. In the before-mentioned Discourse I have endeavoured to prove, that we are indebted to St. Paul for the first preaching of the Gospel in Britain; and founded this proof on Eusebius's and Jerome's testimony, that St. Paul was sent prisoner to Rome in the second year of Nero, that is, in the year 56. The family of Caractacus, who were sent as hostages with him in the year 51,† were still at Rome; for we are informed by an ancient British record,‡ that Caractacus's father accompanied his son, as an hostage, and

* Interea glaciali frigore rigenti insulæ (et veluti longiore terrarum recessu soli visibili non proximæ) verus ille (non de firmamento Sol temporali sed de summa etiam cœlorum arce tempora cuncta excedente) universo orbi præfulgidum sui coruscum ostendens tempore, ut scimus, summo Tiberii Cæsaris (quo absque ullo impedimento ejus propagabatur Religio comminata senatu nolente a Principe morte dilatoribus militum ejusdem,) radios suos primum indulget, id est, sua præcepta Christus. (Gilda Epist.) This passage was misunderstood by Camden, Usher, Simson, and others; but is well explained by Stillingfleet in his Origenes Britannica. See a further account of this passage in the Postcript to this Letter.

†Tacitus, Annal. 1. XII.

Myvyrian Archæology, Vol. II. p. 63. Triad 35. The passage is translated in Williams's Dissertation on the Pelagian Heresy, p. 14, and in the Appendix to Roberts's Collectanen Cam

hrine,

returned to Britain after staying at Rome seven years, that is, till the year 58, and brought with him the knowledge of the Christian faith. This family, I conclude, that St. Paul either accompanied in their return to Britain, or followed them after he had visited Spain.

The practicability of St. Paul's journey to Britain, within the period mentioned by Gildas, depends, in a considerable degree, on the year of his first going to Rome; and that, again, on the recall of Felix from the government of Judea. To St. Paul's first journey to Rome different dates are assigned by different writers: the

* Imperii sui (Neronis) anno secundo Festum Judææ procuratorem fecit. Chronicon Ivonis apud Corpus Francice Historic Veteris, p. 28. Hanovia 1614.

+ Simson says secundo Neronis anno, though he dates it A.D. LVII.

*

Of these dates, the two last which are adopted by our very learned Chronologists, are most at variance with the testimony of Gildas. For if St. Paul had gone to Rome so late as the year 60, (as he staid there two years according to St. Luke) he would not have reached Britain till after the defeat of Boadicea, and would have found the country, under all the horrors of devastation and oppression, and in a state very unfavourable to the reception of the Gospel, especially by the mission of a Roman citizen. The first of these dates (2d of Nero) not only accords with Gildas's testimony, and with the residence of Caractacus's family, and other favourable contingencies, at Rome, but has the authority of Eusebius and Jerome, and the concurrence of Stillingfleet in his Origenes Britannicæ, and which is of great consequence in adjusting the chronology of St. Paul's ministry,) it affords sufficient time for St. Paul's various journies and labours in the West and East before his return to Rome.

But still the date of St. Paul's first journey to

* The great diversity of dates assigned to the same events in St. Paul's ministry, (his first visit to Rome, his return, and his death,) seems to have been occasioned in uo small degree by the omission of so material a portion of that Ministry, as the Apostle's journey to the West.

† Before the defeat of Boadicea the Britons had destroyed seventy or eighty thousand Romans. At least as many Britons perished in the victory which followed; and hostilities were on both sides carried on for some years, with unusual cruelties.

Acts xxi. 39.