Jerusalem. St. Phillip also in Scythia and Phrygia. St. Bartholomew in Judea and Armenia. St. Matthew in Ethiopia. St. Thomas preached in Parthia Medea, in Persia and among the Brachmans, Hircaniens and other nations. St. Simon preached also in Persia and Mesopotamea. St. Jude in Egypt. St. Matthew in the upper part of Ethiopia. The apostle Paul and Barnabas in different parts of Europe and Asia; none of them had been subject to the others, not even under the direction of one another, much less under the jurisdiction of the apostle Peter.

As the church of Rome bases her infallible power upon her antiquity, Catholicity, and apostolical succession, I purpose examining each of them separately.

If the authority of antiquity be conceded as a test of its infallibility to any church, it ought to be to that of Jerusalem, because that church was founded by our Saviour himself. There the everlasting gospel was heard from the lips which spake as never man spake; there he exercised his high sacerdotal power and episcopal office; there he offered himself up as a ransom for our sins and for the sins of the world. There the operations of the Holy Spirit were manifested on the first

day of Pentecost. Jerusalem was called by the ancient writers, "the mother of all other church

es.

"Even Antioch has greater claims than Rome for the primacy, if ever a primacy should exist, being the first church the apostle Peter governed, and where the disciples were called christians for the first time; which Chrisostomus calls: "the capital of the christian world."

If the mother is older than the daughter; the source older than the stream from which it flows; the Greek church has certainly the claim to be the oldest; being founded by the apostle Paul and St. Andrew, from which the spirit of christianity flowed as from a sacred fountain, and extended over many nations and kingdoms. Another very important historical consideration convinced me that Rome has no claim of primacy upon the ground of her antiquity, because the history of the councils themselves testify that the church of Rome received the New Testament, the creed of the apostles, that of Nice and that of Athanasia from the Greek church, and that until the time of

'Theod. Hist. lib. v. chap. 9, atque in lib. 4, ann. 382, etiam Baronius ad annum 382.

2Acts of the Apost. chap. 11, v. 26.

Chrisost. Hom. 3 ad populum Antioch.

Bishop Britontius.' The council of Trent itself recognized her as the mother of the church of Rome.

Having found nothing in the writings of the fathers and ancient historians, which gave the church of Rome any title to that boasted antiquity of which she vaunts so much, I begun to reason with myself in this way. If the doctrines and the practices of the church of Rome are antiscriptural, will they become better when they number five hundred or more years existence? Or is the truth less truth, because it cannot show that it has been acknowledged centuries ago? If a man would build a house upon the land of his neighbor, without having any title to that land, can he claim that property as his own, because he intruded upon the rights of his neighbor for many years? So it is with the truth. If an error is received and accredited from the beginning of the world, will a long series of years give any advantage and weight to that error? or give a right to those who believe it, to remain in that error for no other reason than because it is an old established error? Certainly not. Error can never change into truth even though it exists until the end of

'Hist. Concilii.

the world, but rather crescit eundo, like a chronic disease which increases in malignity in proportion as it approximates to its consummation; thus it is with the pretended antiquity of the church of Rome.

It is certain that the heathen are the most ancient worshippers of their idols; who will contend that because their idolatrous worship is the most ancient, it is the most true and infallible? Is it probable that the primitive christians ever advanced such an argument to the heathen, that the most ancient religion is the most true? Would the heathen not have boasted of the antiquity of their worship? But we read the contrary, St. Cyprian says: "that antiquity has no influence in religious matters if it is not accompanied with the truth." To show that the ancient prevalence of

1

idolatry is nothing but an error of antiquity, he adds "if an error would be sanctioned because it claims antiquity, no crime would be too little which could be committed without impunity, for the thief would say that my ancestors were also thieves and corrupt."

That such a doctrine upon which the church of Rome builds her infallibility was not known to

'Cyprian Epist. 74, cont. idolatr.

the prophets, is evident from the words of the prophet Jeremiah,' when he reproached the Jews for their sinfulness, and called them to repentance, "thou art Gilead unto me and the head

he says: of Lebanon; yet surely I will make thee a wilderness and cities which are not inhabited. And I will prepare destroyers against thee, every one with his weapons, and they shall cut down thy choice cedars and cast them into the fire. And many nations shall pass by this city; and they shall say every man to his neighbor, wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this great city? Then they shall answer, because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord their God and worshiped other gods and served them." This clearly shows that the kings, priests, and the people had no right to continue in sin, to despise God and his holy word, because they had despised it for a long time. Our Saviour himself preached against that principle, and maintained that the antiquity of a thing is no proof of its being truth. For when the scribes and pharisees gloried in Abraham, who was their father, he told them that their genealogy extends still further back, that they are children of the devil.

'Jeremiah, chap. 22, v. 6. Ibid. chap. 32, v. 30-35.