that St. Peter went to Antioch, where, it is pretended, this Apostle occupied the Episcopal chair for seven years; which would be still so many to be deducted from his pretended residence at Rome.

But this is not all. St. Paul wrote to the Romans in the year 57 or 58, about 25 years after the death of Christ; at this very time, St. Peter ought to have been at Rome, or never. Meanwhile St. Paul glories in being especially their Apostle: "I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the Apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify my office." If St. Peter had been settled and acknowledged as their proper apostle or bishop for several years past, would it not have been great arrogance in Paul to deprive him, after some sort, of his title and character? Above all, would it not have been great injustice to say, "From Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the Gospel of Christ. Yea, so have I strived to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation." (Rom. xv. 19, 20). How then should he think of going to Rome, if St. Peter had already built there the first church of the world? Why, in the long detail of salutations, which fill almost the whole of the last chapter of this epistle, is there no mention made of the great head of the universal Church? In A. D. 60, when Paul arrived at Rome, he called together the principal Jews that were in the city, (Acts xxviii 17), without supposing himself to usurp the rights and the authority of the prince of the Apostles, without even thinking of St. Peter, who beyond controversy would have been of the greatest utility to him in his bonds. (A. D. 62). St. Paul remained two whole years in Rome (Acts xxviii. 30); he wrote from thence divers letters to the Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and the Philippians; all these letters close with the salutations of the principal Christians of that famous city, and nowhere do we find a single word of St. Peter. How shall this silence be accounted for [consistently with Peter's supposed presence at Rome?] Truly, I should be curious to know. "Aristarchus," (it is said in the Epistle to the Colossians, iv. 10, 11,) "my fellow-prisoner-and Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas and Jesus who is called Justus, who are of the circumcision: these only are my fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God, who have been a comfort to me." Mark well the words "these only." How injurious to St. Peter, if he had been at Rome!

Upon his return to Rome, A. D. 63, St. Paul came with Timothy into the Isle of Crete or Candia, where he preached the Gospel. But not being able to remain there, he left Titus with the necessary instructions to regulate all things according to the Lord, (Tit. i. 5). He was at Colosse, where Philemon lived (Phil. 22); at Ephesus, where he left Tim

othy (Tim. i. 3); and at Philippi, where he wrote the First Epistle to Timothy, about A. D. 64. Finally, after having passed through Nicopolis (Tit. iii. 12), and Troas (II Tim. iv. 13), he returned to Corinth (II Tim. iv. 20), and arrived, for the second time, at Rome, A. D. 65 or 66, and the 10th or 11th of the reign of Nero. He was then put in so close a prison that Onesiphorus could scarcely find him, (II Tim. i. 17), and the persecution was so great, that he wrote to his dearly beloved pupil, Timothy, (II Tim. iv. 16), that "no man stood with him, but all men forsook him." Would not this have been a fine eulogy on St. Peter, if he had been at Rome? Let us farther observe, that this Apostle, to whom was committed the circumcision, as we have remarked above, never wrote an epistle to the Romans; that he never speaks of them in the two letters, which we have from him; and that, in writing the second to the same churches to which he had written the first, (II Pet. iii. 1) he speaks to them as aware that he would shortly quit this earthly tabernacle (II Pet. i. 14). Let us finally remark, that St. Peter, although near his departure from this world, salutes the faithful only on the part of Marcus his son (I Pet. v. 14), without speaking of St. Paul, whose companion in martyrdom some would have him to be.

To conclude, whether St. Peter resided at Rome or not, is of no consequence to our faith: but it is wholly otherwise with them who have built so prodigious an edifice upon a foundation so uncertain. Let us say with this holy Apostle, to the only Saviour of souls, "Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life; and we believe and are sure that thou art the Christ, the son of the living God." (John vi. 68, 69). And if, like him, we have denied this adorable Master, like him let us weep bitterly, and mercy shall be granted us.

LETTER I.

CHARLESTON, S. C., Nov. 4, 1828.

My Friends:-I take the liberty of addressing to you, a few letters upon a subject which, to some of you, is interesting, but which others regard as of little or no moment. No person is forced to read what I write; and, therefore, no person can complain of my treating this matter, provided, in so doing, I shall not infringe upon their feelings.

There is a monthly Magazine, called The Christian Advocate, published in Philadelphia, by A. Finley: in the 67th No. of which, for July 1828, is found the following preface to a dissertation.

"We are indebted to a clerical brother, to whom we lent a few numbers of the Archives du Christianisme, for the following translation. It will convey useful

information to many of our readers-and we earnestly recommend to the serious consideration of all, the remarks of the translator at the close. While the Romanists are pursuing an organized system to diffuse their pernicious errors in our country, it does seem to us that some systematic endeavours should be employed to counteract them."'

This dissertation and its appendages are published to the American people as a deliberate attack upon what the writer is pleased to call the Romanists, that is the Roman Catholics, to whose body I have the honour and happiness of belonging. I am not aware of any organized system amongst us, save that which is common to all our brethren of other denominations: the system of having our public churches and our regular ministry. If a line of distinction were to be drawn between the Roman Catholic and the Protestant churches of the United States, upon the point of "organized system," I am of opinion that, owing to circumstances which I am in charity bound to suppose beyond the control of those with whom the remedy lies, the former is manifestly the worst organized church in our states; 8 and it is notoriously defective in the essential points of system, which are community of counsel, and unity of action. If irony and sarcasm were intended by the writer, I lament that he has had the cause afforded for his display: yet still he might have pitied our weakness, and if our failure was desirable, he might have continued satisfied that until we shall be able, not to mend our system but to supply its want, and to organize our provincial church, we must be exposed to mortification and disappointment. He should not then have made what does not exist, a pretext for his rude assault; and despicable as our weakness may be, it cannot be admitted to excuse his want of urbanity.

rors.

This writer complains of the attempt to diffuse our pernicious erCan he be a Protestant who writes thus? The first principle of a Protestant is, that the Bible, as understood by those who earnestly seek after truth, will lead to the knowledge of God, and not to pernicious error: now we discover our doctrines in this sacred book as understood by us after earnest search: it is true our tenets do not agree with the opinions of the writer in the Advocate, but surely he claims no infalli bility for himself nor for his church: how dares he, then, call those tenets drawn by us from the word of God, pernicious errors, when it is, according to his own principle, equally a chance that he is in error, and that we follow the truth?

I cannot avoid here noticing another exhibition of his intention to

This was written A. D. 1829, since when the principal defects lamented by the writer have been supplied: this language therefore cannot correctly be applied to the Catholic Church of the U. S. as it now exists.

undervalue us; but it is not peculiar to him, it is pretty general. Writing in his own name, or in that of the denomination to which he belongs, he calls America our country. Really, my friends, I always looked upon America to be as much the country of old Charles Carroll of Carrollton as of any Presbyterian gentleman or of any clerical brother who writes for the Christian Advocate, although I have frequently known the vainglorious boasting of men, who in the same breath proclaimed our Union "a Protestant country," and bewailing that the people here sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, complained that they were Sabbathbreakers, even to the travelling in stages and steamboats, yea, so far as to permit small meats to be sold in open market, in southern cities, on the summer Sabbath morning!!!

However, it seems that full scope was not afforded for the zeal of the writer in the wrestling with those abominations, but that he had a superabundance which could only be expended upon the Romanists; neither was he content that the venerable Bishop White and his brother Bowen, together with their two armies of zealous ladies, should have the exclusive honour of pelting Popish pastors with their paper pellets, for their enormous errors, but that this chosen one should like another Saul lead his host to complete the victory by pursuing the Philistines, whom Jonathan and his armour-bearer had already routed.

It cannot be unknown to you that "systematic endeavours" have been during a long period "employed to counteract the Romanists" in all parts of this Union, from the period when the ebullitions of zeal against Popery in New Zealand and in Georgia rendered abortive the mission of Franklin, of Carroll, and of Chase into Canada, down to the present day; you that have ears to hear must frequently have found the religion of your Catholic progenitors "systematically" denounced in prayer, and in declamation from the desk, the pulpit, and the stump; in the tale of your horrified grandam and of your enthusiastic attendant in the nursery; in conning over the spelling and the reading book of your infancy, in the nasal eloquence of your pedantic pedagogue, in the learned lucubrations of your proud professor, as well as in the pretty lispings of your sweet Sunday school spinsters. Yea, this is but a faint outline of the "systematic endeavours," which are so powerfully aided by the upturned eye, the sigh of pity, the ejaculation of pious wonder, and the sanctimonious sneer. If missions hither and thither, if the donations and legacies of the wealthy, if the gathering of the mites of the poor, the calculation of the back stitches and the hemmings and fellings of the industrious, the prayers of those who are "powerful to wrestle with the Lord," the publication of the conversions of blank papists in

places to the amount of

blank numbers, testified by blank witnesses to blank persons of blank respectability: if the distribution of tracts filled with misrepresentations of the Roman Catholic religion and practices, and a thousand other such modes of "systematic endeavours," be not already in existence, the people of America are indeed deluded. What farther "systematic endeavours should be employed to counteract the Romanists," the holy editor saith not: and we cannot determine unless he would induce all the states to imitate North Carolina and New Jersey in their degrading bigotry; for you are of course aware, my friends, that neither of those two sanctified states will admit a Papist to hold any civil office.

The editor then gives the translation of an article from a French publication, Archives du Christianisme, "On the residence of St. Peter at Rome," which dissertation I intend to examine in these letters; and then subjoins:

"Note by the Translator.-It will appear from M. Blanc's scriptural statement of the question respecting Peter's residence at Rome, that it is very doubtful whether that Apostle ever saw Rome, and demonstrably evident, that he never was bishop of that city. This removes the very corner stone on which Roman Catholicism rests. For if Peter was not Bishop of Rome, the bishops or popes of Rome are not his successors; and even the most devoted Catholic must then see, that the assumed authority of the Pope is unhallowed and unchristian usurpation, the traditions of the Romish Church a tissue of human inventions, and the infallibility of that church a dream. At a time when the emissaries of that delusion are compassing sea and land to gain proselytes, especially in the south and west of our land, it is believed that the above brief exposure of the false foundation on which they build their Babel, may not be unprofitable. In France, it has been republished and circulated in the form of a tract; and it might be attended with benefit to souls, if several thousand copies of it were dispersed in those portions of our own country which are most exposed to the influence and the arts of men, who would have the whole world to wonder after, and worship "the beast."

"The translator, in a letter to the editor, which accompanied the above, very justly adds

"It seems to me that Protestants should not be idle spectators of the exertions of the Catholic priests to waylay the unwary, and destroy the simple. I have access to a weekly paper published in Charleston, called the United States Catholic Miscel lany, which affords melancholy proof of their industry, success, and deep delusion— as well as of their hatred of Protestant teachers, and of the unblushing falsehoods they invent and propagate to rivet the fetters of their followers, and decoy the ignorant into their toils.'''

Allow me, my friends, to address you freely. You who differ from me in religious sentiment are too frequently under the impression that we are continually in the habit of using insulting and opprobrious language to you and of you, and that you and your ministers always speak of us in kind, mild, charitable, affectionate and conciliating terms.