"But we are not left to conjecture as to the relation of Britain to the rest of Christendom, and to the see of Rome in primitive times. The next notice we have of the British Church is, that British bishops were sitting with the other Catholic bishops at the Council of Aries in Gaul in 314, when the Roman practice as to the time was confirmed and accepted, and at the Council of Sardica in Illyricum in 347, where the right of appeal from all bishops to the apostolic see was confirmed by a special decree. This council, at the conclusion of its deliberations, writes to Pope Julius in the following terms: 'That though absent in body, he had been present with them in spirit,' and that it was best and most fitting that the bishops of each particular province should have recourse to him who is their head, that is, to the see of the Apostle Peter. (See Labbe's Councils, ii. 690.)
"That the primacy of the Roman see involved a real right of jurisdiction over other churches is manifest from the next fact of history bearing on the British Church. St. Prosper of Aquitain, a contemporary of the events he describes, writing in 430, tells us how a British priest, by name Morgan or Pelagius, had invented a heresy, (which still bears his name,) in which he denied the necessity of Divine Grace. That this heresy spread greatly in Britain, whereupon Pope Celestine, the same pope who sent Palladius and Patrick to Ireland, dispatched St. Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre in Gaul, as 'his vicar with Britain, and that he might drive away heresy, and restore Britain to the Catholic faith.' He tells us that he was received by the British bishops and presided at several national synods. St. Prosper also states as an existing fact then, just as any Catholic might make the same statement at the present day, that 'Rome as the See of Peter is head of the episcopal order in the whole world, and holds in subjection through the influence of religion, more nations than ever had been subdued by her arms.' (St. Prosper de Ingratitudine et Vocatione Gentium.)
"With the mission of St. Germanus the early history of the British Church closes. A dark and calamitous period of a hundred years succeeds, in which Britain is heard of no more until the time of Gildas, the British historian, who wrote about the year of our Lord 550, that is to say, about fifty years before the coming of St. Augustine.
"Britain, during this period finally abandoned by the Roman armies, is left a prey to continual invasion, first by the Picts and Scots, and then by the Saxons, who had settled down like a swarm of locusts upon the country, and driving the Britons before them into the natural fastnesses of Wales and Cornwall, had completely occupied the country and made it their own. At length the very name of Britain is lost; it had now become England, and a heathen land once more.
"The native historian Gildas describes the condition of his miserable countrymen, isolated from the rest of Christendom, overwhelmed by foreign invasion and by civil wars. As to religion, he tells us that it was at the lowest ebb, and that no heresy had arisen in the church which had not effected a lodgment in Britain: as to morals, he informs us that princes, nobles, and people were infected with the most shameful vices, and that even a large portion of the clergy were sunk in profligacy. There were still many bright exceptions amongst all classes, especially in the monasteries, which were numerous and filled with a multitude of holy souls, who had fled from the almost universal corruption of morals in that miserable age.
"Gildas, moreover, upbraids the clergy for their want of charity, and because through hatred of their Saxon conquerors they could not be induced to attempt their conversion to the faith of Christ.
"And be it remembered that Gildas wrote all this as an eye-witness of the state of the British Church in his day, and that he wrote only fifty years before the arrival of St. Augustine to preach the faith to the Anglo-Saxons. Can we wonder then that when he invited the remnant of the British clergy to join him in his holy mission he met with a contumacious refusal, at least from some of them?
"I quote from a Protestant historian, (Hart's Ecclesiastical Record.) He quotes as follows from Bede's Ecclesiastical History. 'In many things,' says St. Augustine, 'ye act contrary to our custom, and those of the universal church; yet if in these three respects you will obey me, to celebrate Easter at the proper time, to perform the rites of baptism according to the custom of the Roman Apostolic Church, and to join me in preaching the Gospel to the English nation the word of the Lord, all other changes which you do, although contrary to our customs, we will bear with equanimity.' These terms they refused to comply with, and the above-named Protestant writer thus comments on their refusal. 'While we triumphantly cite these testimonies to our original independence, let us not seek to palliate the contumacious spirit displayed by the British clergy in their conference with Augustine. As Christians they ought cheerfully to have assisted in evangelizing the pagan Saxons. The terms which he proposed were mild and reasonable, and the faith which he professed was as pure and orthodox as their own.'
"It is quite clear that the faith of the British Church was essentially the same as that of St. Augustine, otherwise he would certainly have taken exception to such differences in essentials, and not solely of accidental points of discipline, and moreover it is inconceivable that he should have invited them to preach to the Saxons a faith different from his own. That the faith taught to our forefathers by St. Augustine was the same as that of the Catholic Church of the present day, does not require proof to any one who has made the most superficial study of the annals of the Anglo-Saxon Church. The supremacy of Rome, the doctrines of the real Presence, the sacrifice of the Mass, purgatory, devotion to the blessed Virgin and the Saints, are written on every page of her history, as narrated by Bede and the ancient chroniclers, and came to be incorporated into the very language and customs of the people.
"As for the grounds of the opposition of the British bishops to St. Augustine, this can be fully accounted for. The decay of faith and morals amongst clergy and people, isolation from the rest of Christendom, natural pride and hatred of the Saxons, all which Gildas tells us existed in the British Church in his day, are quite enough to account for their opposition to St. Augustine, and this opposition cannot in the truth of history be attributed to any primitive independence of Rome in the British Church. In the whole early history of British Christianity there is not one fact which proves any difference in faith whatever, or any variation in discipline inconsistent with that obedience to the Bishop of Rome as successor of St. Peter, which Irenaeus tells us was in his time considered essential for all churches, and which is at the present day as then, an essential feature of Catholic Christianity.