Page:Lives of the apostles of Jesus Christ (1836).djvu/247

 *op Peter sat at Rome in his episcopal character. This identical wooden chair in which his apostolical body was seated when he was exerting the functions of his bishopric, is still, according to the same high papal authorities which maintain the fact of his ever having been bishop, preserved in the Basilica of the Vatican, at Rome, and is even now, on certain high occasions, brought out from its holy storehouse to bless with its presence the eyes of the adoring people. This chair is kept covered with a linen veil, among the various similar treasures of the Vatican, and has been eminent for the vast numbers of great miracles wrought by its presence. As a preliminary step, however, to a real faith in the efficacy of this old piece of furniture, it is necessary that those who hear the stories should believe that Peter was ever at Rome, to sit in this or any other chair there. It is observed, however, in connection with this lumbering article, in the papist histories, that on taking possession of this chair, as bishop of Rome, Peter resigned the bishopric of Antioch, committing that see to the charge of Euodius, it having been the original diocese of this chief apostle,—a story about as true, as that any apostle was ever bishop any where. The apostles were missionaries, for the most part, preaching the word of God from place to place, appointing bishops to govern and manage the churches in their absence, and after their final departure, as their successors and substitutes; but no apostle is, on any occasion whatever, called a bishop in any part of the New Testament, or of any early writer. The most important objection, however, to all this absurd account of Peter, as bishop of Rome, is the fact uniformly attested by those early fathers, who allude to his having ever visited that city, that having founded the church there, he appointed Linus the ,—a statement in exact accordance with the view here given of the office of a bishop, and of the mode in which the apostles constituted that office in the churches founded and visited by them.

The date of the foundation.—All this is announced with the most elaborate solemnity, in all the older papist writers, because on this point of the foundation of the Roman church by Peter, they were long in the habit of basing the whole right and title of the bishop of Rome, as Peter's successor, to the supremacy of the church universal. The great authorities, quoted by them in support of this exact account of the whole affair, with all its dates, even to the month and day, are the bulls of some of the popes, enforcing the celebration of that day throughout all the churches under the Romish see, and the forms of prayer in which this occasion is commemorated even to this day. Moreover, a particular form is quoted from some of the old rituals of the church, not now in use, in which the ancient mode of celebrating this event, in prayer and thanksgiving, is verbally given. "Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, qui ineffabili sacramento, apostolo tuo Petro principatum Romae urbis tribuisti, unde se evangelica veritas per tota mundi regna diffunderet: praesta quaesumus, ut quod in orbem