hence Vnless therefore the Advocate be pleased to shew that the Name of Scots doth so belong to the Irish upon their remove into Britain that it could not agree to them in Ireland it will be impossible for him to make out that the Name of Scots doth originally belong to the Irish in Britain and onely by way of communication to those in Ireland I have already shewed that Jos. Scaliger doth assign such a Reason of the Name of Scoti as agrees onely to those who came over upon Expeditions but I believe the Scots will take it far better to receive their Name from the Irish Scots than to have had the original Name given them on such an Account 2. As to the Circumstances of Palladius his Mission the main difficulty objected is from St. Patrick's being sent so soon after into Ireland which needed not have been if Palladius were sent before thither and not rather into Scotland whither Bale saith he went and died not A. D. 431. but 434. This is the force of what the Advocate saith upon this matter But the Bishop of St. Asaph had proved from Prosper that Palladius was sent to the Scots in Ireland because he distinguishes the two Islands the one he calls Roman i. e. Britain the other barbarous where the Scots lived to whom Palladius was sent which could be no other than Ireland To which the Advocate answers that the Northern part of Britain was by Tacitus and Bede said to be reduced into an Island by the Roman Wall from Sea to Sea and Bede in other places calls the Scots Islanders Tacitus indeed saith that by Agricola's Fortifications between the two Friths the Britains were driven as into another Island but this is a very different way of speaking from that of Prosper who makes a distinction between two proper Islands And Prosper could not be ignorant that Festus Avienus not long before viz. in the time of Theodosius had distinguished the two Islands the one inhabited by the Hiberni and the other he calls Insula Albionum which takes in all that we now call Britain But according to the old Geographers Ireland was accounted one of the British Islands as appears by the Testimonies of Pliny Apuleius Ptolemy Diodorus Siculus and Marcianus Heracleota which have been produced by others and need not to be repeated here But no one ever mentioned Scotland as a distinct Island and therefore it is unreasonable to understand Prosper in that Sense Bede mentions the Insulani in the Chapter refer'd to but nothing can be plainer than that he speaks of the Britains on this side the Wall who raised up the Wall of Turf between the two Friths for their own security against their Enemies beyond the Wall In the other place of Bede the Insulani are to be understood of those of Ireland as Bede clearly expresseth himself misso in Hiberniam exercitu But the ingenious Advocate hath a fetch beyond this for he saith that Bede by Ireland meant Scotland which he sets himself to prove from this very passage For saith he the same thing that is first said to be done in Hibernia is afterwards said to be done in Scotia And might it not be so if Ireland were then called Scotia as appears by the former Testimonies But that Bede could not mean any other than Ireland appears from hence that he saith the Nation which Egfred invaded had been always kind to the English and the Irish Annals give an account of the very Place and Time of Egfred's landing in Ireland and the Captives he carried away from thence But Bede elsewhere saith the Scots in Britain had been great Enemies to them as appeared by the Battel at Degsastan where the whole Army of the Scots was almost cut off by Edilfredus King of Northumberland and their King Edan fled from which time none of the Kings of Scotland durst appear in the Field against the English Which argues no great kindness between them but Bede saith that these had been Nationi Anglorum gens super amicissima and therefore his Words must relate to the Scots in Ireland But doth not Bede say that Columbanus came from Ireland to Hy and so to Britain and afterwards that Colman returned to Scotland i. e. to Hy from whence Columba came therefore Scotland was called Ireland or rather Ireland was called Scotia which is so clear in Bede that I wonder that any that carefully reade him can dispute it He saith indeed that the Scots had a Kingdom in Britain but where he speaks of the Religion of the Scots he then means the Scots of Ireland as will easily appear by the series of his Discourse When he speaks of Laurentius his care not onely of the Britains but of the Scots too he explains himself to mean those who lived in Ireland an Island near to Britain Columba he saith came from Ireland to convert the Northern Picts and obtained from their King the Island Hy where he founded his Monastery which he saith was the chief of all the Northern Scots not of those in Scotland but in Ireland For in the same Chapter he distinguished the Scots in the Southern parts of Ireland from those in the Northern the former following the Roman Custome of Easter and the Northern refusing it From these Aidanus came the first Scotish Bishop who setled among the English being sent for by King Oswald Furseus saith he afterwards came from Ireland being of the most noble Race of the Scots and there he mentions the Scots of his own Nation and saith he had preached a great while in Scotia before he came into England but he never takes notice after his coming over of his being any where but among the Britains before he went to the East Angles After Aidan's death Finan came from the same Scots who persisted in the old way of the keeping Easter after Finan Colman succeeded who was missus a Scotia who maintained the same practice and afterwards he returned home in Scotiam regressus est but what he means by it Bede presently informs us when he saith that Tuda succeeded who had been brought up among the Southern Scots i. e. in the Southern parts of Ireland Tuda died of the Plague which Bede saith passed into Ireland whither many English went in the time of Finan and Colman who were all kindly received by the Scots When Colman returned Bede saith he went first to Hy then to an Island on the West of Ireland but not a word of the Northern parts of Britain Afterwards he sheweth how the greatest part of the Scots in Ireland were brought to compliance in the point of keeping Easter by means of Adamnanus who endeavoured to reduce those of Hy but could not but upon Egbert's coming to them from Ireland the Scotish Monks of the Island Hy or Jona yielded when Duumchadus was Abbat there And now let any indifferent Reader
Bishops were of the Western Bishops meddling in their matters ever since the Council of Sardica of which afterwards but they tell them it was no new thing for the Western Bishops to be concerned when things were out of order among them Non Praerogativam say they vindicamus examinis sed Consortium tamen debuit esse communis arbitrii They did not challenge a Power of calling them to account but they thought there ought to be a mutual Correspondence for the general good and therefore they received Maximus his Complaint of his hard usage at Constantinople Will any hence infer that this Council or St. Ambrose had a Superiour Authority over the Patriarch of Constantinople So that neither Consultations Advices References nor any other Act which depends upon the Will of the Parties and are designed onely for a common good can prove any true Patriarchal Power Which being premised let us now see what Evidence is produced from hence for the Pope's patriarchal Power over the Western Churches And the main thing insisted upon is The Bishop of Rome 's appointing Legates in the Western Churches to hear and examine Causes and to report them And of this the first Instance is produced of the several Epistles of Popes to the Bishops of Thessalonica in the Roman Collection Of which a large account hath been already given And the first beginning of this was after the Council of Sardica had out of a Pique to the Eastern Bishops and Jealousie of the Emperour allow'd the Bishop of Rome the Liberty of granting a re-hearing of Causes in the several Provinces which was the pretence of sending Legates into them And this was the first considerable step that was made towards the advancing the Pope's power over the Western Churches For a present Doctour of the Sorbon confesseth that in the space of 347 years i. e. to the Sardican Council No one Instance can be produced of any Cause wherein Bishops were concerned that was ever brought to Rome by the Bishops that were the Iudges of it But if the Pope's Patriarchal Power had been known before it had been a regular way of proceeding from the Bishops in Provincial Synods to the Patriarch And withall he saith before that Council no instance can be produced of any Iudges Delegates for the review of Iudgment passed in provincial Synods And whatever Privilege or Authority was granted by the Council of Sardica to the Bishop of Rome was wholly new and had no Tradition of the Church to justifie it And was not then received either in the Eastern or Western Churches So that all the Pleas of a Patriarchal Power as to the Bishop of Rome with respect to greater Causes must fall very much short of the Council of Nice As to the Instance of Marcianus of Arles that hath been answered already And as to the Deposition of Bishops in England by the Pope's authority in later times it is of no importance since we do not deny the matter of Fact as to the Pope's Vsurpations But we say they can never justifie the exercise of a Patriarchal Power over these Churches by the Rules established in the Council of Nice But it is said That the Council of Arles before that of Nice attributes to the Bishop of Rome Majores Dioceses i. e. according to De Marca all the Western Churches But in answer to this I have already shew'd how far the Western Bishops at Arles were from owning the Pope's Patriarchal Power over them because they do not so much as desire his Confirmation of what had passed in Council But onely send the Canons to him to publish them But our Authour and Christianus Lupus say that such is the Patriarch's Authority That all Acts of Bishops in Council are in themselves invalid without his Sentence which onely gives Life and Vigour to them As they prove by the Patriarch of Alexandria But if the Bishop of Rome were then owned to be Patriarch over seven or eight Dioceses of the West according to De Marca's exposition how came they to sit and make Canons without the least mention of his Authority So that either they must deny him to be Patriarch or they must say he was affronted in the highest manner by the Western Bishops there assembled But as to the expression of Majores Dioceses it is very questionable whether in the time of the Council of Arles the distribution of the Empire by Constantine into Dioceses were then made and it seems probable not to have been done in the time of the Council of Nice Dioceses not being mentioned there but onely Provinces And if so this Place must be corrupt in that expression as it is most certain it is in others And it is hard to lay so great weight on a place that makes no entire sense But allowing the expression genuine it implies no more than that the Bishop of Rome had then more Extensive Dioceses than other Western Bishops Which is not denied since even then he had several Provinces under his immediate Government which no other Western Bishop had St. Basil's calling the Bishop of Rome Chief of the Western Bishops implies nothing but the dignity of his See and not any Patriarchal Power over the Western Churches It must be a degree of more than usual subtilty to infer Damasus his Patriarchal Power over the West because St. Jerome joins Damasus and the West together as he doth Peter and Egypt Therefore Damasus had the same Power over the West which Peter had over Egypt It seems St. Jerome's language about the different Hypostases did not agree with what was used in the Syrian Churches and therefore some charged him with false Doctrine he pleads for himself that the Churches of Egypt and the West spake as he did and they were known then neither to favour Arianism nor Sabellianism And to make his Allegation more particular he mentions the names of the Patriarch of Alexandria and the Bishop of Rome But a Cause extremely wants Arguments which must be supported by such as these If St. Augustine makes Innocent to preside in the Western Church he onely thereby shews the Order and Dignity of the Roman See but he doth not own any Subjection of the Western Churches to his Power since no Church did more vehemently withstand the Bishoâ— of Rome's Incroachments than the Churches of Africa did in St. Augustine's time As is notorious in the business of Appeals which transaction is a demonstration against his Patriarchal Power over the African Churches And the Bishop of Rome never insisted on a Patriarchal Right but on the Nicene Canons wherein they were shamefully baffled It cannot be denied that Pope Innocent in his Epistle to Decentius Eugubinus would bring the Western Churches to follow the Roman Traditions upon this pretence That the Churches of Italy Gaul Spain Africa Sicily and the Islands lying between were first instituted either by such as were sent by St. Peter or his
it seems wrote Additions and Continuations to him such as besides Maculloch Arelat and Walter Bowmaker are said to have been who continued the Histories to the Reign of James II. And yet I would be glad to see any Testimony of Veremundus of that Antiquity As to the Testimony of Chambers who saith he had these principal Authours Veremund a Spaniard Turgott Swinton Campbell c. till some farther Proof be produced I have reason to suppose it was the same Case as to him with that of Sir R. Baker which immediately follows For we are told that he likewise quotes this Veremund among the Authours out of whom he compiled his History and likewise Campbell and Turgott And if we have no more ground to believe that Chambers had them than Sir R. Baker the matter must remain in as much obscurity as before For no one imagines that Sir R. Baker had all those Authours by him which he there mentions but he sets down the Names of those whose Authorities he relied upon although he found them quoted by others And he is not the onely person in the World who hath cited the Authority of Books which he never saw The same is to be said of Hollinshed But if such kind of Proofs must pass for evident Demonstrations that the Scots had such Historians as Veremundus and the others before mentioned I wonder the same Learned Authour should shrink so much the Faith of History as to allow that despicable thing called Moral Certainty to be a sufficient Probation for it For scarce any History can be mention'd but may have such kind of evident Demonstrations to prove it Well but Balaeus a Learned English-man and Gesner and other famous Strangers quote Veremundus But so do not Boston of Bury nor Leland who had written of the British and other Writers before the time of Hector Boethius And those were Men who searched all our Libraries for the ancient Books in them and have digested them with great Care and if Veremundus with other MSS. were brought into England by Edw. I. as is now suggested it could hardly have escaped the diligence of those Men. But those who lived after Hector Boethius published his History took his word for Veremundus and entred him into their Catalogues as Vossius hath done many whom he never saw But Erasmus saith that Hector was a Person who could not lie That was more than Erasmus could know unless he had been by when he wrote his History and compared it with the Authours he pretended to follow As to Paulus Iovius he was a fit Second to Boethius but I am sure Erasmus would not have said of him that he could not lie For Hector's pretending to have his Books from the Island Iona I have given an Account of it already and shew'd how inconsistent his own relation thereof is But all this while Where is the great Applause of these Scotish Antiquities for many hundreds of years by all Historians Antiquaries and Criticks of foreign Nations When not so much as one is produced who lived before Hector Boethius and I think that was not many hundred years since But whatever becomes of Veremundus we are told That the Black-book of Scoon containing the Scotish Histories from the beginning was among President Spotswood 's Books and given to Lambert and by him to Collonel Fairfax All this I am afraid is a great mistake for a Black-book of Fordon's which was brought out of Scotland and presented to the late King by a Gentleman of that Name as some yet living can attest But no such thing as the Black-book of Scoon was ever heard of here and if any such could be found we should be so far from suppressing any thing that tended to the Glory of the Scotish Nation that some here would be very glad to publish it with all other ancient Annals which themselves would think fit to be printed whether it be the Black-book of Paslay Pluscardin or any others We do not deny that they had any ancient Annals or Registers in their Monasteries but we desire to be better acquainted with them and it is no good Argument they can tell us where to find them that they are so carefull to let us know how they came to lose them But after all this Fencing it is positively said that the surest foundation of all History is the common belief and consent of the Natives But what if the Natives of several Countries differ from each other It may be reasonable to believe neither but it is not possible to believe both What if they had for a long time no certain way of conveying their Histories from one Age to another It is possible Oral Tradition may preserve some general strokes of the ancient History of a Countrey but it is hardly credible that so many particulars as Boethius hath in the first Race of Kings could be kept so distinctly by the force of Tradition The case of the old World is vastly different from any other People since the shortning of Mens Lives and whatever Nation wanted Records could never make out the Credibility of their History to other People We do not deny the Annals of the Jewish or Roman Priests but we think Annals and Oral Tradition are two things when Annals are produced we must weigh and consider them and compare the Annals of several Nations together that we may better judge which are to be relied upon And yet we are told again that when Histories are already formed out of ancient Records there is no farther need to produce them for Papers may be lost by accident but the Histories taken out of them are to be believed although the Records cannot be found as it is in respect of the Histories of Rome and Greece whose Authority remains although the Testimonies on which they relied are not extant So that at last Geffrey of Monmouth must be believed as to the British Antiquities as well as Hector Boethius as to the Scotish For Geffrey doth no more pretend to invent his History than Hector and Hunibaldus is as good an Authour as either of them and Keting as good as Hunibaldus For they all equally pretend to derive their Histories from ancient Records and the Tradition of the Natives and all these having formed their Histories out of these substantial Grounds we are to search no farther but to believe them all however improbable in themselves and contradictions to one another The case is very different as to the Learned Greek and Roman Histories from those of the modern barbarous Nations which were plainly made in imitation of them as will appear afterwards And as to the Greeks and Romans there is a considerable difference to be made between the Histories that related to the times before they had written Annals and after Can any Man imagine that there is as great reason to believe the first Accounts of Greece as those that were written after the Peloponnesian War Or that the first beginnings of the Roman
wonder at the Advocate 's looking on Baronius as more disinterested when the Conversion from a Pope was in question Which shews him to be such a stranger to Baronius that one would think he had never looked into him For Dempster is displeased with Baronius as one injurious to their Nation as to this first Conversion saying that there were no Christians in Scotland before Palladius but such as fled thither out of this part of Britain because of persecution And Baronius doth wonder that such a Conversion should be omitted not onely by Bede but by Marianus Scotus 5. The Magdeburgian Centuries he saith agree with Baronius and these are the Standards of Ecclesiastick History to the Professours of both Religions He had as good have said they were the Hercules Pillars and there is no passage beyond them But no learned Professours of either Religion allow these to be Standards How many Errours in Baronius have been discovered by the learned Antiquaries of his own Communion What Complaints have been made of his partiality to the Court of Rome not onely by the Sorbonists but by the King's Advocates in France And as to the Magdeburgians we commend them for their noble attempt and great diligence and industry but matters of Ecclesiastick Antiquity are extremely improved since that time More ancient Authours having been published out of MSS. and better Editions by comparing the Authours before printed with MSS. and many counterfeit Authours discovered and far greater Enquiries have been made into all parts of Ecclesiastick Antiquities so that after so many new discoveries to make these the Standards were almost as absurd as to make Ptolemy the Standard for modern Geography We do not disparage what he hath done when we say many things have been found out since his time 2. As to the mission of Palladius into Scotland the Advocate insists on these three things 1. That Bede affirms that he was sent to the Scots in Britain 2. That there is no probability in the Circumstances of his being sent into Ireland 3. That Dr. Hammond yields that the Scots were converted before Celestine 's time and therefore it is more probable that Palladius was sent Bishop to them To these particulars I shall give a distinct Answer 1. To Bede's Testimony he affirms that in the eighth of Theodosius the younger Palladius was sent by Celestine the first Bishop to the Scots believing in Christ. Wherein Bede onely applies Prosper's Words to the eighth of Theodosius which he had placed under Bassus and Antiochus Consuls but he doth not determine whether these Scots were in Ireland or in Britain But the Advocate saith all that which Bede saith before and after concerning the Scots relates to the Scots in Britain and therefore these Words are so to be understood Whereas Bede in the very beginning declares that Ireland was the proper Countrey of the Scots and that Dumbritton Frith did anciently separate the Picts and the Britains but the Scots coming afterwards to the Northern part of that Frith there setled themselves Which Words do evidently prove that Bede did not look on the Scots as ancient Inhabitants there for then he would have said that the Frith did antiquitus gentem Britonum à Scotis secernere but he never mentions the Scots but the Picts as the ancient Inhabitants on the Northern part of the Frith But saith the Advocate Bede 's Title of his Chapter is of the ancient Inhabitants of Britain and he mentions the Scots among them Very true but shall not Bede explain himself whom he means by the ancient Inhabitants viz. the Britains and Picts For by the Advocate 's reasoning the Saxons will be proved to have been in Britain before Julius Caesar as well as the Scots for they make up one of the five Nations spoken of in that first Chapter And so Bede doth not onely settle the Scots and the Picts in this Countrey by his first Chapter but the English too And it is an extraordinary sagacity that can discover this Chapter in Bede to be clear to a Demonstration that he makes the Scots to be ancient Inhabitants in Britain whereas to my dull apprehension Bede is clear the other Way But the Advocate proceeds to shew that the Name of Scots doth originally belong to the Scots in Britain and onely by way of communication to those in Ireland This were indeed to the purpose if it were proved And there ought to be the more care in doing it since it is so new and singular an opinion For even Buchanan saith that the Irish were at first called Scots and from thence they passed into Albany and that by the Name Scots their coming from the Irish is declared Joh. Major saith that Scotia among their Ancestours was the common Name for Ireland And if their ancient Annals may be believed the Name of Scot came from Scota the Wife of Gathelus whose Posterity went first into Ireland and then carried the Name into Scotland In Fordon and Elphinston there is another Scota mentioned as a Leader of the first Colony into Ireland who gave the Name to that Countrey of Scotia and Joh. Major saith She was the Mother of Hiber But whichsoever of these stands unless the Advocate will at last give up the Cause of their Ancient Annals which he hath contended so warmly for he must renounce this opinion of his that the Name of Scots doth originally belong to the Albian Scots and onely by way of communication to the Irish so that there is no need to produce the plain Testimonies of Orosius Bede and Isidore which make Ireland the proper Countrey of the Scots But it is a wonderfull subtilty from hence to infer as the Advocate doth as if it might have been justly doubted and were not true in all senses Doth he mean proper or improper senses Their words are plain that Ireland in a strict and proper sense was the Countrey of the Scots i. e. the Patria Originis though the other might afterwards be Patria incolatus Domicilii as the Advocate himself doth distinguish but that which follows from hence is that if the Scots came originally from Ireland then the Name of Scots doth not originally belong to the Scots in Britain but to those in Ireland unless he can shew that the Reason of the Name doth agree to them onely upon their removal into Britain As to take his own instance no one will question that the Colony of Virginia are called English because the Inhabitants of the Countrey from whence they came are so called But were not the Irish called Scots before they went into Scotland If not that could not be propriè Scotorum Patria as Orosius and Bede and Isidore affirm as England could not be said to be the proper Countrey of the English unless the Inhabitants were called English and the Colony of Virginia received its denomination of being English because they came from