Jerusalem. In the two following years he visited the churches recently planted, preached at Lydda and Joppa, removed to Cesarea, and baptized Cornelius and his family. After this, he returned to Jerusalem, was cast into prison by Herod, and delivered by an angel. About four years after, we find him in the council at Jerusalem. After this he had the contest with St. Paul at Antioch, and from that period, sacred history is altogether silent in this affair.

We must endeavour therefore to trace his footsteps, afterwards, from other sources. About the year fifty-three, St. Paul is said to have written his epistle to the church at Rome, wherein he spends the greatest part of one chapter, in saluting particular persons that were there; amongst whom it might reasonably have been expected, that St. Peter should have had the first place, but there is no mention made of him, or of any church founded by him. Now St. Paul intimates, what an earnest desire he had, to come to Rome, that he might impart unto the inhabitants, some spiritual gifts, to the end that they might be established in the faith; for which

there could be no apparent cause, if Peter had been in the imperial city, so long before him. In the second year of Nero, St. Paul is sent to Rome. When he arrives there, does he sojourn with Peter, with whom it is likely he would have lodged, if St. Peter had been there? it is said he dwelt in his own hired house. During his residence at Rome, St. Paul wrote epistles to several churches, to the Colossians, Ephesians, Philippians, and one to Philemon. There is no mention of St. Peter, in any of these.

In his letter to the Colossians he says, that of the Jews at Rome he had no other fellowworkers, unto the kingdom of God, who had been a comfort unto him, except Aristarchus, Marcus, and Jesus, who was called Justus, which evidently excludes St. Peter. And in that to Timothy, (which Baronius confesses to have been written, a little before St. Paul's martyrdom,) he tells him, that at his first answer at Rome, no man stood with him, but, that all men forsook him: which we cannot believe St. Peter would have done, had he been in that neighbourhood. He further says, that only Luke was with him, that

Crescens was gone to this place, Titus to that, and Tychicus left at another, but not a syllable is said of Peter.

If I were required to point out those, who first preached the gospel at Rome, I should refer to that passage in Acts ii. 10. which states, that there were at Jerusalem, at the feast of Pentecost, (when the Holy Ghost was poured upon the apostles,) strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes. Some of whom believed, and returning to Rome, preached Jesus, and the resurrection, of these I shall name two, Andronicus and Junius, who, St. Paul says, were renowned amongst the apostles, and were in Christ before him.

It is however asserted, by some ancient historians, that St. Peter went to Rome, a short time before his death, assisted St. Paul in preaching the gospel, and that anno Christi 64, under the persecution of Nero, both these apostles sealed their testimony of Jesus, with their blood. Irenæus asserts, that St. Peter founded the Jewish church at Rome, St. Paul, that of the Gentiles. Gaius,

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an Ecclesiastical writer, of great eminence, speaking of the inscription upon the tombs, of these two distinguished martyrs, calls them the monuments of them, who founded the church.

Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, who lived anno 84, affirms, both of the church of Rome, and Corinth, that each of them was the plantation of Peter and of Paul; and the very seals of Popes are an irrefragable evidence, that both these apostles were considered the founders of the Roman church. An impression of the figures upon these seals, was taken by Matthew Paris, in the year of our Lord, 1237, of which he gives the following description: In Bulla Domini Papæ, stat imago Pauli a dextris crucis, in medio Bullæ figurata, et Petri a sinistris." In the bull of the Pope, stands the image of St. Paul, on the right hand of the cross, engraven in the middle of the bull, and the image of St. Peter on the left hand, and the reason given for St. Paul's having the nobler place, is this, "quia Paulus credidit in christum, quem non vidit," Because Paul believed in Christ whom he had not seen.

In Ignatius (ep ad Frall) we read of Linus and Clemens, (one St. Paul's, the other St. Peter's deacon,) both of whom succeeded to the episcopal chair, Linus being consecrated bishop of the Gentile, Clemens, of the Jewish christians. After Linus' death, Cletus, or Anacletus, succeeded him, and upon his decease, both congregations were united under Clemens; by which it appears, that even in those churches, of which St. Peter is acknowledged to be a founder (as of that at Rome), yet he cannot be deemed the sole founder, because St. Paul, the apostle of the Gentile proselytes, was his coadjutor, and possessed of the same general authority, and if the government of the Roman church be traced to its origin, it will be found to centre in Clemens, (in whom the union of the Jewish and Gentile congregations took pláce,) and not in St. Peter.*

* If St. Peter had been appointed supreme governor of the Christian church, it would have been necessary that he should have outlived all the apostles, otherwise either the church must have wanted a head, or there must have been an inextricable controversy who that head was. St. Peter died long before St, John, and perhaps before many other of the apostles. Now after his

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