cases the word is the same in the original. These shew by what a stretch of power and arbitrary dominion over words, these critics would bring the clergy or christian ministry under the bishop of Rome. So fades from the face of reason the whole evidence from the Bible, in favor of the grand office without which the papacy is as mere a figment of fancy as the visions of the prophet of Islamism!

Having found the office of vicar, or general superintendant of the whole church, the universal episcopate of Rome, without express or positive precept or institution, and without even inferential probability; I proceed in the third place to show still farther, that it is anti-scriptural, not only in theory, but in the facts recorded.

I have said that the first church was the Hebrew. It was catholic and apostolic for all the twelve apostles were in it. This cannot be said of any other society that ever existed. The whole college of the twelve apostles had their seat in Jerusalem. The Samaritan daughter of Jerusalem was the first fruits out of Judea. Philip, one of the apostles' evangelists, carried the word of the Lord to Samaria. They had believed, repented, and been baptized. News is brought to Jerusalem. The cardinals all meet. The twelve apostles are in session. But where is Peter's chair? The prince of the apostles, the vicar of Christ, had not yet learned his duty, and his brethren had not yet learned to call him pope. The fact is, they made a legate of him. They sent two legates to Jerusalem. And who do you think were the two first apostolic legates ? They, indeed sent pope Peter and his brother John!! Thus it is clear that the notion of Peter's universal episcopacy, and princeship of the apostles was not yet conceived. This fact speaks a volume against the pretended successors of Peter.

But again, and still more humiliating to his successors, when Peter had introduced the Gentiles into the church, the brethren of the circumcision rose up en masse against him, not regarding him as having the least supreme authority in the case. "How," do you ask, "did Peter receive the complaints from all quarters for his daring to innovate, by mere authority on all the holy brethren? Did he say, I am Christ's vicar-chief of the apostles, the supreme head of the church-I hold the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and do you demand of me, why I should act thus"?! Never thus, spoke Peter. He did not assume any thing but tells the matter over, and shows how God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles; "and what was I," he reasons, "that I should withstand God?" Ought I to have stood up and said to the Gentiles, you shall not enter the kingdom of the Messiah, nor be enrolled amongst the children of God?-In the 11th chapter of the Acts of the apostles, we have a full exposition of the groundless pretension of his successors, in the details of this case from the lips of the apostle himself. A third instance of the entire absence of all such vicars in the primitive church, appears in the "council held at Jerusalem." So the bishop's party designate it, and for the sake of argument, let it be a council.

It was not called by Peter the pope, nor was it a council of the whole world; but of two or three churches. Well, they met. Who was president? Neither the pope nor his legates. Peter is not in the chair; but on the floor. He spoke first, as he was always accustomed to do: but did he dictate the course to be pursued? No. Had he the honor of drafting or submitting the decrees? He had not. He arose

and spoke to the assembly, and told what God had done by him among the Gentiles. Paul and Barnabas, also on the floor, then stated what the Lord had done by them among the Gentiles, and when they had done, James arose to present his views. "My sentence is" says he, "that we ought to write so and so to the Gentiles." In his views they all acquiesced. They do not say in this letter, "it seemed good to Peter!" No, "it seemed good to us." Indeed, if any was pope in this assembly, it was James: not Peter. All the popes of Rome as successors of Peter, are therefore not only unscriptural; but anti-scrip

tural.

66

Again, and stronger still. In Gal. 1st chap. we are told of a certain controversy between Paul and Peter,-not about faith, nor morality; but about expediency. Paul never would have related this matter but in self-defence. There were some in Galatia that regarded him as a sub-apostle, not equal to those who had been companions of the Lord during his public ministry. In self-defence, he affirms that, in conversations with the pillars, as some called Peter and James and John-three of the oldest apostles he did not receive a new idea. So far from being dependant on Peter, or inferior to him, he was the only apostle in those days with whom Paul had the slightest dissension: for," says he, "after Peter came down to Antioch I withstood him to the face, for he was to be blamed: for before certain persons came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles; but when they were come, he withdrew and separated from them, fearing the Jews. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him, insomuch that Barnabas was carried away with their dissimulation. Seeing that they walked not uprightly, I said to Peter in the presence of them all; "Why do you compel the Gentiles to live as do the Jews?" Thus Paul reproved the head of the church, his father, pope Peter, in the presence of all the brethren for a sort of temporizing expediency in its practical details, squinting at dissimulation. All these facts show how contrary to the doctrine and facts of the sacred writings are the assumptions of popery.

A word or two from the last will and testament of the apostle Peter. Being far advanced in years he writes two letters containing his last advice to the brethren. In the first he associates himself with the elders of the Jewish church, and claims no other eminence than that of fellow elder, and as such exhorts them to feed the flock of God willingly. In the second letter, he wills, that the brethren addressed, "should, after his decease, be mindful of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior." Thus, with his last words, he disclaims every attribute of official supremacy. He is known only in the New Testament, as an apostle, either from his own words simply, or those of Paul, or from any other circumstance, which in the history of the church is recorded from Pentecost to the end of the New Testament. I shall leave other scriptures for the calls of my opponent, and the occasion.

I now proceed to show that as there is no foundation in scripture, so there is none in fact, nor in reason, for the papal supremacy. I have shown, that it wants positive proof-that it is built on inferencethat this inference is not found in the premises-and that other scriptural facts and documents preclude the possibility of such an inference. We have emphatically stated, that the first point is to establish the

office. If there is no office, there can be no officer. But my friend the bishop's system is still more at fault, for if he could prove (what he never will) that there was such an office; still he has to prove that Peter was the first officer.-That Peter was that officer is as cardinal a point to his system, as that the papal office had been set up by Jesus Christ. The Scriptures are perfectly mute on that point! What says church history? It is only inferred that Peter ever was in Rome! It is only probable. Barronius only says it is probable he had a see there he does not moot that question. There is not a single word in all antiquity which positively asserts that Peter was ever bishop of Rome, or was ever in Rome. The gentleman quoted Irenæus. Can he quote the original? I affirm that it does not exist: and even the copy from which he read was not found for centuries after Irenæus wrote. But admit it to be genuine. I affirm that Irenæus no where asserts, that Peter was bishop of Rome. If neither he nor his contemporaries assert it, what is the authority of Grotius, or Casaubon, or Usher or such modern authors?! It proves nothing. The assertion of my present opponent is worth as much as that of any man who has lived for a thousand years, to prove an event which happened a thousand years before he was born.

The bishop and his friend the editor of the Catholic paper and at least fifteen hundred citizens heard me lecture when last in the city; and yet, so faithless is tradition, that I have seen it stated in a print of this city-in a Roman Catholic Telegraph, too, that I had asserted as a proposition to be proved," that Charles Carroll, of Carrollton was not a Roman Catholic !"-words that never fell from my lips or pen. If then tradition cannot be kept here for a single week, in this day of light and knowledge, and good faith, how can you respect and believe traditions descending through ages of darkness and superstition ?why bring up men from the remote corners of the earth, who lived more than a century after the time in question, to tell us their hear-says or the rumors of past ages.

I have affirmed, that there is no document to prove that Peter was ever bishop of Rome. My friend disputes this point; we are then at issue, and this is a vital point. Let him then meet me upon it, and decide the controversy. Irenæus says not, that either Peter or Paul was bishop of Rome; but, "over that church that was planted by Peter and Paul sat Linus." True, the inference is, that Peter and Paul must have been at Rome; if not, how believe that the church was planted by them? But the church at Rome never was planted by them. The faith of the Romans was known through all the earth when Paul wrote his letter to them, and at that time he had never been in that city. The proposition is therefore not true; and Irenæus, if he wrote so, wrote on erroneous tradition, and is not worthy of credit. Admit, for argument sake, that we take the testimony of the fathers on the succession, which are we to believe? They tell us stories irreconcilably dif ferent. The gentleman triumphantly held up a map, as if there were some hidden virtue in it, and said he could speak upon it till doomsday. I have also a map here, which will prove that his map can prove nothing without a tongue in it; and if holding up this map before you could convince you, I should soon carry the point. Bellarmine admits, that the fathers contradict each other on the succession of the first popes. A phalanx of authors can be adduced to prove that the

fathers are not unanimous upon any one point of importance, on that or any other dogma of the papacy.

Divine authority cannot exist, but in the holy oracles: against any other pretended infallible standard, all men should protest. The fathers agreed in bearing testimony to the scriptures, as far as they individually knew them; but their unanimous consent on any thing else has not yet been found.

Justin Martyr, for example, proves my interpretation of the 16th ch. Matthew, on the rock. He is one of the primitive fathers. He gives substantially the same views of that whole passage as I have adduced here. Now it is impossible for my opponent to find a unanimous consent of the fathers with him, as I have Justin Martyr, of the second century, and many others, with me. My standing argument, on the consent of the fathers, is this:

I find many of the fathers unequivocally agreeing with me. These, therefore, must express the unanimous consent, if there be any; for it can not be unanimous without them. Now, if there be no unanimous consent, the Romanists build upon a false foundation; and if there be, they build on a false foundation; for we have that consent, not they.

But this unanimous consent fails in the succession. Admitting that Peter was first bishop of Rome, no living man can tell whether Linus or Clement was the second bishop of Rome. The ancients do not agree upon that point. Tertullian makes Clement second bishop, and others make Linus. I have a chart, in Eusebius, which differs from his own history in various points. I have other charts and indexes that place the bishops of Rome in a different order. Eusebius does not place Peter first; nor do any of the fathers. He places Linus first, then Clitus, then Clement. Another tells us, that Peter was first, then Linus, then Clement. A fourth, perhaps, on the authority of the last, places Peter first and Clement second.-[Time expired.]

It is well, beloved friends, to keep our eyes upon the polar star, when once we have embarked upon the sea of controversy. The polar star of this question, is the attempted disproof, by my learned friend, of the Roman Catholic claim, to be the holy, apostolic, catholic church. He was pledged to show her to be an apostacy from the only true church. Has he proved this? Is there one intelligent man in this assembly prepared to answer this question in the affirmative? I asked, from what church was she an apostacy? He told us that she had apostatized in the year 1054. But he has not yet told us what or where was the one true holy and apostolic church from which she seceded. There was a good reason for it: no other catholic church existed at the epoch indicated, but ours, the Roman Catholic. We were then taken to the year 250, or some time thereabout. These were indefinite words; and I ask again what and where was the true church from which she apostatized in 250? Has he informed you? we were referred to the Novatians-and a Protestant church historian Mosheim, tells us

[Mr. CAMPBELL here called Bishop PURCELL to order as not speaking to the point; the moderators decided that he was in order and he proceeded.] The gentleman cannot confuse me by these interruptions.

My eye is on the star. I say, that Mosheim, a Protestant ecclesiastical historian tells us that the Novatians embraced essential errors. have quoted from that historian, for this sect and all other prominent sects, to the beginning of the 16th century. They taught some doctrines which Catholics, and some, which Protestants hold. They taught some errors which Catholics and Protestants agree to reject— they taught disorganizing doctrines, which armed the civil power both Catholic and Protestant against them-and these doctrines, Catholics and Protestants mutually abhor. They were not then united, pure, or apostolic. They were not the church of Christ. The question then reverts upon us-which was the church of Christ, from which the Roman Catholic church separated in the 3d century?

I now come at once to the last speech of the gentleman.—I have already agreed that this controversy is resolvible into two or three grand principles-and by the discussion of these we may succeed in ascertaining their ulterior consequences. If true that Christ has established a head of the Church on earth, it follows that we must recognize that head. So far we are right. If Peter was made that head, we are right. If Peter was to have successors, we are right. If that succession was to last to the end of time, we are right, for we hold these propositions to be irrefragable. If on the contrary, these propositions could be satisfactorily proved to be untrue, the Catholics would be wrong.

I have proved the first of these, viz. that Peter was made the head of the church, by Christ, from scripture. And what has my friend discovered to weaken the force of the numerous and strong texts I have adduced, the rock, the keys, the feeding of the lambs, and of the sheep whom the lambs are wont to follow, the prayer of Christ that Peter's faith should never fail, the charge given him by Christ to confirm his brethren, his confession of the divinity of Christ before the other apostles, and the BLESSEDNESS pronounced on him for that confession by Christ, the deference shewn him-the poor illiterate fisherman, by Paul, imbued with the sublimest lessons of the Law at the feet of Gamaliel, &c. &c.? Why he says: “ Peter, lovest thou me more than these fish!"

My friends, I know not how to treat this interpretation seriously. But since the gentleman is so curious an interpreter, let us see if the text will bear him out. After the miracle of the draught of fishes, the apostles, at Christ's invitation, proceeded to some distance from their nets and barks, for the purpose of dining. It is natural to suppose they selected, for dinner, no more of the fish they had taken, than they would probably eat. Can my friend say that after they had dined there were any of the cooked fish remaining? There might have been some bones left on the table; but would Christ point to these fish bones, and say, Peter, lovest thou more than these? What a question for Christ to ask his leading disciple! Surely such an interpretation is absurd. But what is the voice of antiquity? My friend says that Justin bears him out in his interpretation. Will my friend point out the passage in that father's works? Will he say that it is the principal sense, the sense that father approves? I pledge myself he will not pretend to do so while refutation is near. Now if scripture is so very clear, and this meaning as obvious as Mr. C. supposes, is it not strange that this light should beam upon us to day for the first