(ch. xvi. ver. 19.) "The Churches of Asia salute you; Aquila and Priscilla salute you much in the Lord, with the Church that is in their house." This authority of St. Paul will, we trust, be as well received by Roman Catholics as though it came from the Pope and all his cardinals? The writings of the New Testament were sent to the respective Christian Churches, each of which sent copies to the rest; and, in general, at the conclusion of the Epistles, it is stated by what hands they were conveyed. Thus, when Paul addressed the Romans from Corinth, he added, "Sent by Phoebe, servant of the Church at Cenchrea." Nothing could have been better arranged for the preservation of these scriptural truths in their original purity than the plan he recommended of exchanging copies of them :-" And when this Epistle is read amongst you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the Epistle from Laodicea." "Col. iv. 16." And thus, when spurious Epistles were forged by heretics, they were at once detected, as they could not produce the originals from whence they said their copies were taken.

The three first Gospels were approved by John*, who did not write his own until more than fifty years after Matthew's had gone forth among the Christians; or about the year 99 of the vulgar era, and after the taking of Jerusalem by Titust. The chief parts of the New Testament were received in the Church in the beginning of the second century ‡; and the canonical books finally arranged before the council of Laodicea, which took place towards the end of the fourth §. By the writings of the Apostles themselves we learn that "wolves in sheep's clothing" had crept in among their flocks; yet by the unremitting exertions of the primitive fathers, "the word

St. John had seen the three first Gospels, for he wrote his own as a supplement to them.-Jortin's Rem. on Eccl. Hist. vol. i. p. 46.

See Townson's Discourses, p. 109.
P. 108.

Mosheim, Eng. Trans. vol. i.
Lardner, vol. vi. p. 29. (8vo.)

of the righteous" increased in despite of heresy and persecution; and which, during the two first centuries, was chiefly propagated from the Euphrates to the Ionian Sea *. To Rome, however, persons who were either guilty or suspected of being so, hastened, as they might, there," in the obscurity of that immense capital+," evade the law. Of the Roman Empire, the more especially under the circumstances stated, it is but natural to imagine the metropolitan church was the most populous; and "in the middle of the third century (and after a peace of thirty-eight years) its clergy consisted of a bishop, forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, as many sub-deacons, forty-two acolythes, and fifty readers, exorcists, and porters." The Emperor Constantine commenced his reign in the beginning of the succeeding age; and as he was the first monarch who had professed and encouraged the doctrines of Christianity, Rome soon became more important both in her clerical and secular influence.

After the first general council of Nice, which assembled about the year 325, the bishops began to entertain different notions with respect to church authority from "the mild and equal constitution by which the Christians were governed for more than a hundred years after the death of the Apostles§." "The primitive bishops were considered only as the first of their equals, and the honourable servants of a free people ||." But now the correspondence with the provincial synods, which had been the strength of "the union of the Church,” was superseded by councils,-bishops soon distinguished themselves from deacons and elders; and attacking the original rights of clergy and people, their language of exhortation was changed into an expression of command T." The first breach thus created in the primitive discipline of the church was followed by aiming at pre-eminence among the bishops them

Ibid.

See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 359. + Ibid. Ibid. p. 335.

| Ibid. p. 334.

§ Ibid. p.

333.

selves; each of whom appeared anxiously bent upon increasing the importance of his own power and jurisdiction; and the Roman Church being the most considerable of the West, on the supposition that St. Peter might have been a bishop of that see, it was readily asserted as a positive fact that he was so, although we cannot find in the Scriptures that he was ever at Rome at all*. And even the ancient writers who speak of his having suffered martyrdom in that city, relate that he arrived there in the reign of Nero, and but a short period before his sufferings and death. But whether St. Peter was ever at Rome or not, he never wrote to the Romans, as did Paul; but it well answered the purpose of the Romish Church to insist upon it, although we defy any Popish priest of the present day to prove, by the Scriptures, that he had anything whatever to do with Rome.

Although "+the hard necessity of censuring either a Pope or a saint and martyr distresses the modern Roman Catholics whenever they are obliged to relate the particulars of a dispute, in which the champions of religion indulged such passions as seem much more adapted either to the senate or the camp," yet why this should be the case we know not, otherwise than from a fear of the truth; but TRUTH being our object, we certainly feel no such fastidious qualms. Constantine had removed the seat of his empire from Rome to Byzantium, from him since called Constantinople. Still, the see of Rome had obtained and kept the precedence of all others in the empire, amidst constant and mutual excommunications between her bishops and those of other churches, who denied her right of encroachment upon their privileges and institutions. Until the council of Chalcedon, about 450 years after Christ, a

On this subject see Bishop Bull's Vindication of the Church of England, p.139; Burnet's History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 175. Also Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 264.

Eusebius (on the authority of Papius, a credulons writer) says, Peter was at Rome in the days of Claudius. See Eveleigh's Serm. p. 95.

+ Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. ii. p. 343.

E

patriarch with jurisdiction over several metropolitans, or provinces, had never been heard of. Even then, the provinces, or countries over which they presided, maintained their own temporal privileges for some time after, as was the case with England; but the Asiatic and African churches were ultimately, by intrigue and the sword, merged into the see of Rome*. But the "universal supremacy" assumed by her Popes was not acknowledged until the commencement of the seventh century (about 606), when Boniface III. took upon him the privilege of becoming "infallible" and " supreme;" although towards the latter end of the preceding age, John, Bishop of Constantinople, (after the seat of empire was translated to that place,) took the liberty of trying the experiment of absolute authority over all his contemporary bishops.

This attempt of John was not attended with complete success, although his assumption may be styled the foundation. of Popery. Gregory, Bishop of Rome, afterward called the Great, wrote against John's new doctrine, which he denounced as a "Luciferian pride," asserting, that whoever should adopt it, would be the forerunner of Antichrist; declaring also, that if there were to be such a head of a church, the church must err with him. But Gregory's successors had not so humble an opinion of power and wealth as himself; Boniface made the most of the opportunity afforded him by Phocas, on the latter murdering his sovereign the Emperor

The first attempt to exercise any species of undue authority in the Christian Church was made by Victor (A. D. 195), then Bishop of Rome, in opposition to Polycarp (who succeeded Bucolus in the bishopric of Smyrna, and was consecrated by St. John the Evangelist) and the other heads of the Asiatic churches, relative to fixing the day for the celebration of Easter; Victor excommunicating all the churches which dissented from his opinion. For this insolent assumption he was condemned by all the other bishops; and Irenæus, in the name of the bishops of France, in censuring Victor, reminded him of the vast difference of his thus breaking the union of the Church to the peace and unity of Christian love. See Euseb. 1. 5. c. 24.

In the seventh century the bishops of Rome "received the pompous titles of Masters of the World, and Popes, i. e. universal fathers." Mosh. vol. ii. p. 146. Eng. trans.

Registrum, Lib. ii. Epist. 32. 36. 38. Lib. vii. Epist. 30. 36, &c.

Mauritius, and seizing the throne: in this deed of blood he was abetted by Boniface, who owned him as his prince; and Phocas, in return, acknowledged the supremacy of Boniface over all other bishops. Thus was the despotism of the Church of Rome established in the seventh century; and such the alteration in the government and unity of the Christian Church, from that which was ordained by CHRIST himself preached by his apostles-and persevered in during the first ages of the primitive fathers and other good men. Thus did the Church of Rome usurp the name of Catholic whose badge of unity is subserviency to her bishop; and thus having wrested their just rights from the whole christian world, she maintained them pro viribus, until her superstitions rendered her victims defenceless. These facts are matters of history-let those who would deny them prove their incorrectness. The apostles speak often of christian churches (all under CHRIST as their head;)-which of the churches headed by the Pope was Catholic, in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh ages, when these infallible saints were butchering the people and each other*; and when Benedict IX., John XIX., and Sylvester III. were Popes of Rome at the same time, besides John Gratian, who was a fourth aspirant, and ultimately succeeded as Gregory VI. What says Dupin on this subject? "It is true that, at present, the name of the Church of Rome is given to the Catholic Church, and that these two terms pass for synonymous. But in antiquity, no more was intended by the name of the Church of Rome,

*From the ninth to the thirteenth centuries, there cannot be found in history such horrible atrocities as those which disgraced the Papacy. "There was a succession of not less than fifty bishops" (of Rome) says Stillingfleet, "so remarkable for their wickedness, that Annas and Caiphas (setting only aside their condemning Christ) were saints in comparison of them."

"For one hundred and fifty years together, out of fifty Popes, scarcely one can be found who was not notorious for wickedness," says Townsend. See also Tillotson's Rule of Faith, p. 718-722. Baronius calls these the Iron and Leaden Ages; and owns, that by the crimes of his "Church," it seemed as though Christ had slept, and that there were none of his disciples to cry to him. See also Platina, Luitprand, (who wrote in the tenth century,) &c. &c. &c.