birth to a doctrine which hath since been called Semi

pelagianism.

The difference between the Pelagians and the Semipelagians seems to have been only this, that the latter acknowledged a natural corruption of man in some degree, and insisted more upon the necessity of

at least in words.

grace,

Yet they anathematized Pelagius, upon the supposi tion perhaps that he adopted all those opinions which the African councils had condemned, and laid to his charge.

The notions of St. Augustin, opposed to those of the Pelagians and Semipelagians, may be found in his books of predestination and perseverance, and in the writings of St. Prosper.

In the year 429, one Agricola, the son of a Pelagian bishop, carried Pelagianism into England. But St. Germanus, bishop of Auxerre, was sent thither by pope Cælestinus, or by the bishops of Gaul, to extirpate this heresy. Many miracles are said to have been wrought by him in his voyage, and during his abode in England, which may be found in bishop. Usher, But if what Hector Boetius relates in his history of the Scots be true, Germanus made use of a me thod which is not less efficacious for the destruction of heresy; and the Pelagians who would not retract their errors were burnt, by the care and order of the magistrales.'

[Le Clerc hath passed over the wonderful works of Germanus; but I think they deserve to be laid before

the reader, as an important specimen of the miracles of the fifth century.

As Germanus was sailing to Britain, a horrible tempest arose, raised by the devil, as it afterwards plainly appeared. The saint was fast asleep in the ship; but being roused by the cries of the perishing crew, he rebuked the storm, and in the name of the Trinity sprinkled a few drops of holy oil upon the raging waves, and instantly there was a great calm.

A multitude of Britons were assembled together, expecting his arrival, for the devils had foretold his coming, and when he afterwards cast them out of dæmoniacs, they honestly owned that it was they who raised the storm,

When he landed, he disputed with the Pelagians, and by a torrent of eloquence, and the irresistible dint of demonstration, he so confuted them, that they had not one word to say for themselves, good or bad; insomuch that the populace was hardly restrained from assaulting these stubborn heretics, and beating their stupid brains out.

A man of quality had a blind daughter, and Ger manus, calling on the Trinity, touched her eyes with some relics which he had in a box, and instantly she received her sight. Germanus put these relics into the tomb of St. Alban, for the benefit of the English, and in lieu of them took away what was as good, namely, a bit of earth where the blood of Alban had been shed.

The Picts and Saxons at that time invaded England;

but Germanus put himself at the head of the Britons, and procured a miraculous victory. Though he had grace irresistible and præternatural powers on his side, yet he thought it proper not to neglect the art military: he sent forth scouts to reconnoitre the enemy, and to know the nature of the ground, and he posted himself to the best advantage, and played the part of the saint and of the soldier ;

Αμφότερον, ἱερεύς τ' αγαθός, κρατερός τ' αἰχμητής.

In his return homewards he sprained his foot, and whilst he was confined in bed, a fire broke out, which burnt all the adjacent buildings, but had no power to hurt the saint, or even the house where he lay. S. Basnage relates these Calvinistical miracles, as a man some

what inclined to believe them. Ann. iii. 328.

Germanus made a second visit to Britain, A. D. 446, to fight the Pelagians once more, and performed a multitude of miracles, and even raised the dead. He continued the trade of a wonder-worker to the end of his days. Fleury, H. E. tom. vi.

And yet, which is very strange, Germanus himself is suspected of having been a Semipelagian, and was intimate with Hilary of Arles, who was infected with those notions. Stillingfleet, Orig. Brit.]

But whilst St. German was purging and purifying England, the seeds of Pelagianism were sprouting up in France, which had been sowed by Cassianus amongst the monks of Marseilles and in Gallia Narbonensis. St. Prosper and Hilary had written to St. Augustin

about it, and had informed him that many ecclesias tics in Gaul accounted his sentiments to be dangerous innovations. St. Augustin had answered their objec tions in the books which have been mentioned; but the Semipelagians, being protected by Hilary bishop of Riez, were unmolested, although they declared a great dislike of the doctrine of St. Augustin.

'Julian and the other bishops, who, as we observed, were expelled from Italy, repaired to Constantinople, where they importuned the emperor that they might be reestablished: but as they had been accused of heresy, he would grant them nothing, without first. knowing the reasons for which they had been banished. Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, wrote concerning this affair to pope Calestinus, who sent him a rude answer, telling him that it was no concern of his to inquire into the causes for which these bishops had been condemned, and reproaching him at the same time for his own heterodoxies.'

[Julian, for defending free-will and conditional decrees in opposition to the African innovations, was anathematized, banished, deposed, and driven about from place to place, a vagabond and a fugitive. His declaring his sentiments so freely on these points, at the expense of his preferment, reputation, and repose, and against all his temporal interests, creates a favourable prejudice in his behalf. He was an Italian, and the son of a bishop, and in his youth he married a lady of a consular family. His wife, it is thought,

was dead before these calamities fell upon him, and he might have said, with old Evander,

Tuque, o sanctissima conjux,

Felix morte tua, neque in hunc servata dolorem ! The friendly hand of death removed this bishop beyond the reach of his inexorable enemies, about the year 455, after he had distributed all his goods to the poor in a time of famine, and had kept a little school, to get his bread. He was ingenious, and learned, and eloquent for those times, and well versed in the holy Scriptures, even his adversaries, being judges, and he was commonly called the Roman Demosthenes. He is treated as an obstinate heretic by S. Basnage, Tillemont, Cave, Jenken in his Defensio Augustini adver sus Phereponum, and many other moderns; but Du Pin speaks candidly of him.

Jenken in his Defensio, which is a mere panegyric upon Augustin, and an invective against Le Clerc, says of Julian; “At si Julianus qualis fuerit novit Phereponus, cur foeda ejus et verba et crimina non notavit? cur eum contra S. Augustinum audiendum censuit? Hac præsertim in re; qui et INCESTA LIBIDINE in sororem suam lasciviret, et obscoenis Augustinum convitiis insectaretur? Istud se Marius Mercator novisse affirmat.Ea ignorare Phereponus non potuit, saltem non debuit: multo autem minus debuit infamis hæretici auctoritate, quæ nul la est, adversus catholicæ ecclesia episcopum pug nare."