our Saviour's death. In the fifth of those years, Peter fixed his See at Antioch: this would leave him more than the three years, claimed by the essayist, for the occurrences related in Acts viii., ix., x. and xi. When an Apostle fixed his See in any particular city, it by no means follows as a necessary consequence that he never visited any other: a Bishop's See is the principal place where he usually resides, but he is frequently absent on visitations, at councils, and on a variety of other occasions: so that the fixing of his See at Antioch is by no means a reason for assuming that the Apostle was never absent from that city. The statement of St. Paul's visit to Peter at Jerusalem, according to Mr. Blanc, will not interfere with this supposition: my object at present being, first, to take the essayist's own order of facts, which order, however, the sacred volume does not determine. I shall use the liberty which he gives me of placing the conversion of Paul in the year after the death of Stephen, or the second year after, if it pleases him better. St. Paul states, that "three years after this," not his conversion, but his return to Damascus, he went to Jerusalem and stayed fifteen days with Peter, (Galat. i. 18.) Now according to Mr. Blanc this might well have occurred previous to Peter's fixing his See at Antioch, or if we state this visit to have been in the year 37, as it is made by some who say that St. Paul did not return to Damascus until 33, Peter, though Bishop of Antioch, might have been on a visit in Jerusalem. Mr. Blanc, however, has to account in this place for a contradiction of his own to St. Paul, who, in Gal. i., informing us of his first visit to Jerusalem, states the object of his journey was "to see Peter," and this previously to his having been called by Barnabas to Antioch: yet Mr. Blanc tells us, that this is the same visit of which mention is made in Acts xi. 30, whereas the whole body of ancient witnesses as well as St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles, testify that they were different visits. Paul's object in his Epistle to the Galatians was not to state all the visits which he had paid to Jerusalem, but to state those by occasion of which he met any of the other Apostles in that city: and as the object of his first journey was "to see Peter," the object of his next was to carry alms: we are not then to confound both journeys as the essayist does, but to distinguish them, as the ancients and the Scriptures have done. But why, if his object was truth, does the writer pass over chap. ix. of the Acts, in which mention is made of this first visit? why does he at once bring us to chap. xi. where the second visit is related? In his Epistle to the Galatians Paul states that after his conversion he went into Arabia, and returned to Damascus, three years after which he went up to see Peter," who was in Jerusalem. In Acts ix. 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, we are told by St. Luke how he went from Damascus to Jerusalem. In this same place we are informed of the manner in which he was sent from that city to Cæsarea and Tarsus; there he is left, until we find in Acts xi. 25, that he is brought to Antioch, and then in v. 30, he makes another journey from Antioch to Jerusalem. But the good gentleman has so prettily attempted to interweave facts separated by years, and to transpose their order, that I must here stop to replace them. The first visit of St. Paul to Jerusalem was fourteen years previous to his second meeting of Peter in that city. (Gal. ii. 1.) St. Paul was not at Antioch before his calling on Peter in the third or fourth year after his return to Damascus; neither did he go from Jerusalem to Antioch at this time, but was brought by the disciples into regions which he mentions in Gal. i. 21, Cilicia and Syria: having tarried in those regions during three or four years, and his aid being called for in Antioch subsequently to the dispersion of the other Apostles and the departure of Peter from that city, he in the beginning of the reign of Claudius accompanied Barnabas thither; because of the necessities of that church, arising from the large number of converts, (Acts xi. 25, 26, &c.) The time is here marked by the sacred writer in verses 27 and 28. Claudius began his reign as we see in 41. There is nothing in the Bible to prevent our asserting that at this same period Peter was cast into prison in Jerusalem and miraculously delivered, as related in Acts xii., previously to his going to Rome; and that he occasionally visited the East so as to have met St. Paul again in Jerusalem in 51. However, I shall instead of those surmises lay down what appears to be the general testimony of all the ancient writers, viz. That Peter founded the See of Antioch in the year 33, and occasionally visited Jerusalem and the neighbouring regions: that in 37, when he was at Jerusalem, he was visited by Paul, who went thence to Cilicia and its vicinity, and that Peter having gone to Rome in 40, Paul was about 41 or 42 brought by Barnabas to labour for a time in Antioch; that Peter, having returned to visit the East. was cast into prison by Herod in Jerusalem in 44, and escaped as related in Acts xii., and going back to Rome, remained until the expulsion under Claudius in 49; when, returning a second time to the East, he was at Jerusalem at the council in 51 (Acts xv.), where Paul met him the second time, fourteen years after their first interview. But in the mean time whilst Peter was absent on his second visit to the West, in the end of 44 or 45, Paul had been to Jerusalem with the alms from Antioch and other places, (Acts xi. 30.) I am here obliged to notice another instance in which the essayist asserts incompatibilities. He states that Barnabas was sent to Antioch immediately after the dispersion of the Christians, upon the death of Stephen. I shall merely remark that St. Luke's object in this chapter evidently is to follow up the account which he had given in chap. x. and the first part of chap. xi., of the admission of Gentiles into the church. Hence he treats the subject historically and apart, without interweaving it with the other occurrences. A single observation will show this to be a correct statement. The conversion of St. Paul did not occur until after the increase of the Christians, by reason of their first dispersion upon the death of Stephen. (Acts viii. 1 to 5.) Now between the statement in this passage and its repetition, so far as regarded a particular place, viz., Antioch, in Acts xi. 19, a great many occurrences, which occupied several years, are summarily related without mentioning the exact order of their dates: it was not until some years after the death of Stephen, that Cornelius was received into the church, as related in Acts x.; Peter's explanation followed this occurrence, and then the sacred historian, having mentioned this account and decision of Peter, reverts to the former period of several years previous, for the purpose of showing how the church of Antioch had a great number of converts, and to continue therein the history of St. Paul, which occupies the chief share of his attention thenceforth. Hence it would be absurd to state that the occurrence related in the 19th verse immediately followed that whose relation had been closed in the 18th: and it is equally clear that the transactions related in verses 19, 20, 21 and 22, took up several years. In verse 19 it is plain that the first disciples preached only to the Jews at Antioch. It is equally clear from chap. xi. 1, 2, 3, that the Apostles and brethren who were in Judea, did not look upon themselves as authorized to receive the Gentiles into the church until after they had received the explanation of St. Peter; and it is only in verse 18 we find their first recognition of the principle that they might be received: they could not, therefore, have previously sent Barnabas to Antioch, and this recognition having been some years after the death of Stephen, they could not have sent Barnabas thither immediately after his death, as Mr. Blanc says they did. But suppose this dif ficulty now removed, still Barnabas could not have found Saul in Tarsus, until after his conversion, his return from Arabia to Damascus, his journey three years afterwards to Jerusalem, and his going thence to Cæsarea and Tarsus, in which place he tarried for some considerable time. So that if Paul came to Antioch in 44, as we believe he did, and soon after the arrival of Barnabas, as was the fact, this latter could not have gone thither before 42 or 43, at which period Peter, having left Antioch, was in Rome, or on his way thence, back to Asia. We shall also find time for him previously to have spent three years in his visits through the regions mentioned in Acts viii., ix., x., and xi., besides seven years being permitted to elapse from his having fixed his See in Antioch, until his departure for Rome; and we can easily conceive that within those seven years he might frequently have visited Jerusalem, on one of which occasions St. Paul paid him a visit of fifteen days, in the year 37. Mr. Blanc then, besides suppressing the reference to this visit, which is related in Acts ix., endeavours to confound it with that mentioned in Acts xi., and makes the statement in Galatians i., refer to the latter, when in fact it refers to the former; thus endeavouring to destroy the evidence of one of those journeys. He next, against all the ancient witnesses, defers the martyrdom of Stephen full seven years, and omits to correct the calculation of the era by upwards of four years, so as to throw twelve years out of the account: then to give a colour of truth to his statements, he makes the Apostles send Barnabas to Antioch immediately after the death of Stephen, when it is evident that such could not have been their procedure for several years thereafter, and he makes Barnabas bring Paul from Tarsus within a year or two after the death of the first deacon, when it is manifest, from the accounts of Paul himself and of Luke, that this could not have occurred at the soonest before the lapse of from eight to twelve or thirteen years from that period. Again, the essayist assumes that because Peter was twice met at Jerusalem by Paul, he could not in the fourteen years which elapsed between those interviews have been at Antioch and at Rome. You will then, my friends, perceive that our distribution of Peter's time creates no difficulty in explaining all the passages of St. Luke, whilst it also agrees with all the accounts of the ancient writers; whereas Mr. Blanc's mode of mixing up and con founding dates and facts makes the Scripture contradict itself, and it also contradicts all the ancient witnesses. Why Peter should go to Rome, even for the sake of the Jews, if for no other cause, I have already shown. That he went to Antioch after the Council of Jerusalem, which was held in 51, that is, fourteen years after 37, we also freely admit, and that for his imprudence he was admonished by St. Paul, I also believe, though several good critics are of opinion that the Cephas mentioned in Galat. ii. 14, and who was reproved, was not St. Peter, but another disciple. My own opinion, however, is in unison with that of the great body of commentators, that it was St. Peter the Apostle who was so admonished, though in verse 8, speaking of the Apostle, the writer calls him Peter, and in the next verse he mentions James, Cephas, and John, whereas it is not an unusual mode thus to write of the same person, almost in the same line, by two different names. However, suppose it be Peter; his being now at Antioch does not argue that he had not been previously there, and also at Rome: so that hitherto, as you will have perceived, my friends, the difficulties and contradictions are on the side of our opponents; and I shall have to reduce his A. D. 58 to A. D. 51. "But this is not all. St. Paul wrote to the Romans in the year 57 or 58, about 25 years after the death of Jesus 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 mine 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?" What I have stated in my last letter an swers this. 66 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 salutacity, and nowhere do we find a single word of tions of the principal Christians of that famous 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 Colossians, ch. iv. 10, 11,) my fellow-prisonerwho is called Justus, who are of the circumand Marcus, sister's son to Barnabas-and Jesus, cision: 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!" To this mighty query a short reply will be sufficient. 1. That St. Peter, being frequently absent from the city of Rome, might to the knowledge of Paul himself, have been elsewhere at the very time that he wrote his epistle; or that Phebe, who perhaps was the bearer of the letter to the Romans, was to deliver it to Peter, if in the city, and he was to make the salutations. The omission of the name of Peter is therefore no evidence that this was not his see: the same might be said of the omission of the names of other known prelates in other epistles. 2. That although the ordinary successors of Peter were to enter upon his full rights as head of the church, the extraordinary mission which each Apostle had specially and immediately from Christ was not under Peter's control, but the extraordinary commission of each Apostle was to expire with himself, and the surviving pastors were to be subordinate to the successor of Peter: such is the testimony of antiquity, and this supported by the testimony of facts, in those early days; hence there was no necessity for any one of the Apostles to apply to his brother for a power which they both possessed in common, viz., that of preaching and administering by the commission of Jesus Christ to the whole world. 3., The Jews whom St. Paul called to him at Rome were those who did not belong to the church, but who were in communion with those who opposed Paul himis found for his not calling upon Peter, either self in the East; and a very sufficient reason in the fact of his absence from the city, for he spread the faith in several other parts of Italy, and in other regions farther west,-or if he was in the city, in the fact of his being most obnoxious to the unconverted Jews, who, and whose fathers had been banished, because of the tumults caused by his former preaching, about eleven years before. This will also account for the mighty word ONLY, without being an imputation upon the zeal of Peter. One objection only remains. of Peter's travels. Eusebius informs us, that Origen, in the third tome of his Exposition on Genesis, wrote to this purpose: Peter is supposed to have preached to the Jews of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Bithynia, Cappadocia, and Asia; who, at length coming to Rome, was crucified with his head downwards, him self having desired it might be in that manner.' Some learned men think, that in the latter part his first Epistle, because the salutation of the of his life he went into Chaldea, and there wrote church at Babylon is sent in it; and their opinion, though not supported by the testimony of ancient writers, is not devoid of probability. The books of the New Testament, indeed, afford no light for determining where he was for several years, after receiving the reproof of St. Paul, already mentioned. The learned, therefore, have been obliged to content themselves with conjectures on this subject. Among the various hypotheses, not one appears to us to be upon the whole than that of the able and dispassionate Lardner. more reasonable, or less open to objections, "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, (2 Tim. i. 17,) and the persecution was so great, that he wrote to his dearly beloved pupil, Timothy, (2 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 (2 Pet. iii. 1), he speaks to them as aware that he would shortly quit this earthly tabernacle. (2 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 (1 Pet. v. 13), without speaking of St. Paul, whose companionIt appears to me not unlikely,' says he, that in martyrdom some would have him to be." St. Peter's eulogy is found in his imprisonment; and if neither Paul nor any person save Mark could approach him, it accounts for the omission of all other names, if indeed it is necessary to account for the omission. Monsieur Blanc, who ridicules the notion of Nero's permitting St. Peter to request that his crucifixion might take place with his head downwards, would indeed have room for his jocularity, were we to state that he permitted him and Paul, upon the eve of their martyrdom, to consult together upon the form of an exhortation to perseverance, to a people whom he had doomed to extermination!! I have done with Mr. Blanc. Allow me to sum up my statements. I have shown that there is nothing in the Scripture to interfere with the testimony of Peter's having been Bishop of Rome, and suffering martyrdom in that city. I have shown that a host of ancient testimony and modern criticism of the opponents, as well as the friends of the Bishops of Rome sustain the facts; I have shown that if we reject this testimony we must reject the Bible, because we receive the sacred volume only through similar, I might say, the same witnesses. I have shown that Mr. Blanc's theory, besides contradicting St. Paul and St. Luke, contradicts itself, whilst our statement is free from any such difficulty. I have shown numerous and important assertions of his to be contrary to the fact. I shall now, without having exhausted half my stock of testimony, close with an extract from a work compiled by English Protestants. (From Aikin's General Biography, London, 1813.) "After this journey to Antioch, we are nowhere furnished with any very distinct account Peter returned in a short time to Judea from Antioch; and that he staid in Judea a good while, before he went thence any more; and it seems to me, that when he left Judea, he went again to Antioch, the chief city in Syria. Thence he might go into other parts of the continent, and Bithynia, which are expressly mentioned in particularly Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, the beginning of his first Epistle. In those countries he might stay a good while. It is very likely that he did so, and that he was well acquainted with the Christians there, to whom he those parts, I think he went to Rome: but not afterwards wrote two Epistles. When he left till after Paul had been in that city, and was gone from it. Several of St. Paul's Epistles furnish out a cogent argument of Peter's absence from Rome, for a considerable space of time. St. Paul, in the last chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, written, as we suppose, in the beginning of the year 58, salutes many by name, without mentioning Peter. And the whole tenor of the Epistle makes it reasonable to think, that the Christians there had not yet the benefit of that Apostle's presence and instructions. During his two years' confinement at Rome, which endSt. Paul wrote four or five Epistles-those to ed, as we suppose, in the spring of the year 63, the Ephesians, the second Epistle to Timothy, to the Philippians, the Colossians, and Phile. mon: in none of which is any mention of Peter; nor is anything said or hinted, whence it can be concluded that he had ever been there. I think, therefore, that Peter did not come to Rome before the year 63, or perhaps 64; and, as I suppose, he obtained the crown of martyrdom in the year 64 or 65; consequently St. Peter could not reside very long at Rome before his death.' "Jerome, in his book 'De Vir. Illust.' cap. 1., and-twenty years; but such a statement is totally says, that Peter was bishop of Rome during fiveirreconcilable with the history in the Acts of the Apostles. On the other hand, several learned men, particularly Scaliger, Salmasius, Frederick Spanheim, and others, have denied that Peter was at Rome. But their opinion is satisfactorily opposed by a great majority of critics, Protestants as well as Catholics. In Lardner, as referred to below, the reader may meet with a concentrated view of the evidence from antiquity, on which Peter's having been at Rome rests, which is thus concluded by that writer: It is easy to observe, that it is the general, uncontradicted, disinterested testimony of ancient writers, in the several parts of the world, Greeks, Latins, Syrians. As our Lord's prediction concerning the death of Peter is recorded in one of the four Gospels, it is very likely that Christians would observe the accomplishment of it, which must have been in some place; and about this place, there is no difference among Christian writers of ancient times. Never any other place was named beside Rome; nor did any other city ever glory in the martyrdom of Peter. There were, in the second and third centuries, disputes between the Bishop of Rome and other bishops and churches, about the time of keeping Easter, and about the baptism of heretics: yet none denied the Bishop of Rome to have what they called the chair of Peter. It is not for our honour, nor for our interest, either as Christians or Protestants, to deny the truth of events, ascertained by early and well-attested tradition. If any make an ill use of such facts, we are not accountable for it. We are not, from a dread of such abuses, to overthrow the credit of all history; the consequence of which would be fatal. Fables and fictions have been mixed with the accounts of Peter's being at Rome; but they are not in the most early writers; they have been added since. And it is well known that fictions have been joined with histories of the most certain and important facts.' In our Life of St. Paul, we have already shown it to be most probable, that he and St. Peter were both put to death at Rome, in the year 64 or 65. With respect to what is said in the passage cited from Eusebius, concerning Peter's desire that he might be crucified with his head downwards, as the circumstance is not noticed by some ancient writers who speak of his martyrdom, its accuracy has been questioned. There is no doubt but that, among the Romans, some were so crucified, to add to their pain and ignominy; and Lardner admits that Peter might be crucified in that manner, and that it might be owing to the spite and malice of those who put him to death. He adds, however, the saying that it was at his own desire, may have been at first only theoretical flight of some man of more wit than judgment. But the thought was pleasing, and therefore has been followed by many.'"' I have quoted this at some length, to show the desire in those writers to destroy as much as they could: and to show their reluctant avowal of the impossibility of destroying the evidence that Peter was at Rome, and was there put to death. What then are we to think of the qualifications of the editor of the Christian Advocate, and of his clerical brother? What are we to say to the uninformed men who daily assert the most gross misstatements respecting a religion, of whose history they know so little? My friends, should their assertions be taken as proof? I remain, my friends, Charleston, S. C., Dec. 9, 1828. B. C. ON THE DISPENSING POWER OF THE POPE, INCLUDING AN HISTORICAL EXAMINATION OF THE PRINCIPAL CASES OF ITS EXERCISE. [The occasion of the following controversial pieces on the much litigated question respecting the Papal power of dispensation, was this.-A writer in a monthly paper published in Boston, Mass., called the "Gospel Advocate," commented with some severity upon the course taken by the 44 United States Catholic Miscellany," which was then just beginning to attract the attention of the Protestant press, as the first and only Catholic periodical in the United States. This writer published in the No. of the first-mentioned journal for October, 1822, the short article prefixed to the ensuing series. In this article, he summed up the ordinary charges to be found on the pages of the chief controversial writers against the Church of Rome, based on the supposed claim and exercise of a supreme arbitrary power of dispensing from moral duties and obligations required and enjoined by the Divine Law. These charges he put forth as a palmary argument designed to bar even the right to a hearing, on the part of an advocate of the Catholic religion. The article was republished in the Miscellany for November 20th, 1822, the 25th No. of the first Volume; and, in the next number, Dr. England commenced his reply,-of the ability and success of which those may judge, who shall carefully peruse the arguments of his opponent, and his refutation of them.] To the Editor of the Gospel Advocate. A WEEKLY paper, called the Roman Catholic Miscellany, is published in Charleston, South Carolina, which I sometimes see and peruse. It is, as might be supposed from its title, devoted to the interests of the Roman Church; but, in addition to this, is filled with the local concerns of the Irish. In this paper of 10th July last, p. 46, is the following paragraph: "To this moment, many well-disposed, and otherwise well-informed people in the south, are |