sand of your people. Would our fathers have tamely suffered this? Would they have let themselves been knocked down by sanguinary priests, like so many victims. You farther tell us, as if this butchery was not sufficient, that another time you ordered twenty-four thousand of your poor followers to be massacred, because one of them had lain with a Midianite, and you yourself married a Midianite; and after this you add; that you are the meekest of all men. A few more such meek procedures would have made an end of mankind.

No, had you been capable of such cruelty, had you been able to carry it into execution, you would have been the most barbarous of men; it would have been so enormous a guilt, that no punishment could have been equal to it.

These are pretty nearly the objections made by the learned to those who hold Moses to have been the author of the Pentateuch. But these rejoin, that the ways of God are not like those of men; that God, by a wisdom unknown to us, has tried and alternately protected and forsaken his people; that the Jews themselves, for above two thousand years, have universally believed Moses to be the author of those books; that the church, which has succeeded to the sy nagogue, and is endued with the like infallibility, has decided this point of controversy; and that the learned should keep silence, when the church speaks.

PETER.

IN ITALIAN Piero, or Pietro; in SPANISH Pedro, in LATIN Petrus, in GREEK Petros, in HEBREW Cepha.

How

How comes it that Peter's successors have had so much power in the west and none in the east? This is asking why the bishop of Wurtzburg and Saltzburg have in troublesome times assumed royal prerogatives, whilst the Greek bishops have remained subjects. Time, opportunity, and the ambition of some, and the weakness of others, do every thing in this world, and ever will.

To these troubles was added opinion, and opinion rules men; not that they in reality have a very determinate opinion, but they are as tenacious of words.

It is related in the Gospel, that Jesus said to Peter, "I will give thee the keys of the king"dom of heaven." The sticklers for the bishop of Rome maintained, about the eleventh century, that he who gives the greater gives the less; that the heavens encompassed the earth; and that Peter, having the keys of the containing, had also the keys of the contents. If by the heavens we mean all the stars and all the planets, then the keys given to Simon Bar-jona, surnamed Peter, were a passe-par-tout. If by the heavens are meant the clouds, the atmosphere, the ether, the space in which the planets roll, there are few lock-smiths, says Meursius, who can make a key to such doors.

In Palestine, keys were a wooden peg fastened with a leathern thong. Jesus says to Bar-jona, "What thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound

in heaven." From this the Pope's theologians have inferred, that the Popes are invested with a power of binding and loosening subjects from the oath of allegiance to their kings, and of dispos ing of all kingdoms at their pleasure: a notable

inference

inference indeed! The commons at a general assembly of the states of France in 1302, in their petition to the king, say, " that Boniface VIII. "was a scoundrel," believing that God bound and imprisoned in heaven all whom Boniface bound on earth. A famous German Lutheran (I think it was Melancthon) could hardly believe that Jesus should have said to Simon Barjona, Cepha or Cephas, Thou art Peter, and on this rock "will I build my church." He could not conceive that God had made use of such a play of words, so very extraordinary a pun, and that the Pope's power was founded on a quibble.

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Peter has been thought the first bishop of Rome; but it is sufficiently known that then, and for a long time after, there was no particu It was not till towards the end of the second century, that the Christians were moulded into a regular body.

lar see.

It is possible that St. Peter went to Rome; it is even possible that he was crucified with his head downwards, though that was not customary; but of all this we have no proof. A letter, bearing his name, is still extant, in which he says that he is at Babylon, Judicious canonists will have this Babylon to mean Rome; so that had he dated his letter from Rome, it might have been inferred that the letter had been written from Babylon such inferences are of a long standing; and thus it is that the world has been governed.

A very pious man, who had been exorbitantly imposed on at Rome in relation to the purchase of a benefice, a practice which is called simony, being asked whether he thought Simon Peter had ever been in that country, answered, see no

marks

marks of Peter's having been there, but I am very certain Simon was.

Ás to Peter's person, Paul is not the only one who has taken offence at his behaviour: both he and his successors have often been withstood to their face. St. Paul keenly reproached him for eating prohibited meats, as pork, puddings, hare, eels, &c. Peter, in justification of himself, alledged, that about the sixth hour, he had seen the heavens opened, and a large table-cloth full of eels, beasts, and birds descending from the four quarters of the heavens; and that the voice of an angel called out, "Kill and eat." Probably, says Wolaston, it was the same voice, which has called out to so many Popes," Kill every body, "and eat up the people's substance."

Casaubon could not approve of Peter's beha viour to Ananias and his wife ('), who were a good sort of people: What right, says he, had a Jew, a slave under the Romans, to order or allow all who believed in Jesus to sell their substance, and lay the produce at his feet. Were an Anabaptist preacher at London to order his brethren to bring him all their money, would he

not

(1) The punishment of Ananias and Sapphira might appear very severe for a fault, which does not seem at first sight to be considerable; but the offence was grievous, since they made so slight of lying to the holy Ghost. For it is thought by some eminent writers, that they had taken an oath not to reserve any thing to themselves; but to devote their estates to the common use of the faithful. Their crime therefore was a kind of perjury and sacrilege; and it was severely punished, because it was requisite in the beginning to give sanction to the laws of Christianity.

not be taken up as a mover of sedition, a robber, and as such sent to Tyburn? Was it not a horrid thing to strike Ananias dead, only because out of the money for which he had sold his es tate, he secretly reserved a few pounds against a rainy day, bringing the far greater part to Peter. Scarce was the breath out of Ananias's body, when in comes his wife. Peter, instead of kindly informing her that he had just killed her husband for keeping a few pence, and telling her to take care of what she had, allures her into the snare. He asks her whether her husband had brought in all his money for the saints; the poor woman an swers, yes, and instantly drops down dead. Something hard this!

Corringius asks why Peter, who thus demolishes those who brought him alms, did not rather go and kill all the doctors who had a hand in putting Jesus to death, and had caused himself to be scourged several times. Fie, Peter, to kill two Christians who had brought you a good purse of money; and they who crucified your God, you allow to live!

It is to be supposed that Corringius, when he put forth these bold questions, was not in a country subject to the inquisition. Erasmus has concerning Peter a pretty singular remark, that the head of the Christian religion began his apostleship by denying Jesus Christ; and the high priest of Judaism began his ministry by making a golden calf, and worshipping it.

However it be, Peter is transmitted to us as poor, and humbly instructing the poor; he is like those founders of orders who lived in indi gence, but whose successors are become great

men.

The