Malice has Argus' eyes-the watchful foe A ball of dung, from the green turf he bore, Confess'd the author of the wrong now stands; Behoov'd it Jove himself, now to decide Go, screen'd by Justice yet, in thy intent For know, henceforth our Eagles shall employ Note. This fable is so beautiful a fiction, that we can scarcely hesitate to ascribe it to Esop himself. The conduct of the Beetle exhibits, in lively colours, the nature of revenge, and the dreadful perseverance which accompanies that restless passion, and enables the weakest of mankind to annoy the most powerful. But it should be known beforehand, (for Revenge, once roused, will not listen to reason,) that every step in the progress of such machinations is taken at the expense of torments within, to which the sufferings brought by the original injury (great as it may have been) will not, probably, bear a comparison. The passions have their very name from the state of uneasiness in which they place us: this is perhaps the most agonizing of them all, and it is our interest, as much as our duty, to stifle its first emotions. But the lesson intended by the fabulist was perhaps not merely of a moral nature. Esop, who spent his latter days at the court of an Eastern despot, could scarcely fail of witnessing some violation of the rights of the subject, analagous to the outrage sustained by the Beetle; and, supposing this, the fable is finely imagined, both for denouncing the wrong, and threatening the oppressor yet without implicating the monarch; who, we may observe, is represented as too just to take advantage of the weakness or obstinacy of the aggrieved party; but as choosing rather, by a new and equitable decree, to provide for the interests of his favourite. Communications may be addressed, POST-PAID, "For the Editor of the Yorkshireman, "at the Printer's, Pontefract; at Longman and Co.'s, London; John Baines and Co.'s Leeds; and W. Simpson's, York. CHARLES ELCOCK, PRINTER, PONTEFRACT ART. I.-The Apostle Peter: his official character, or primacy in the Church of Christ. When we assert that a Scripture text is perverted by others, we should at least be prepared to give a satisfactory account of it to ourselves. What are we to think of the expressions of Christ to Peter, in the xvi Matthew, verses 13 to 19? And especially of this sentence, "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it: and I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shall loose on earth, shall be loosed in heaven." These are very full expressions, and seem to attribute much to that disciple; who presently afterwards shewed (see v. 22) that he took too much, on this occasion, to himself; he interrupted his Master when he was prophesying his own humiliation and death, bidding him pity himself (as the Greek words signify) and put the thing from him; by which forwardness he drew on himself the rebuke of Christ, and an epithet certainly little consistent with the title of Supreme Head of the Church on earth. We will translate it in the mildest form, thus, "Get thee behind me, (out my presence!) thou adversary, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men"-the great fault of aspiring Ecclesiastics ever since! of Our adversaries in religious controversy, in another communion, who maintain the authority of the Pope over the whole collection of believers on earth, build much (I understand) on this text. They say, that Peter now received from the Lord that episcopal authority, which he afterwards exercised at Rome; and transmitted to other Ecclesiastics, his successors, and they to our own clergy, here in England. Yet Christ doth not say, in the text, I have built, but, I will build— not, I have given, but I will give-and we have only the events of the remaining New Testament History, to shew in what manner the promise was accomplished. Simon Peter was undoubtedly the chief among Christ's followers, while our Lord exercised his ministry on earth: he was also a ruling elder, but not supreme, in the church, after Christ's ascension. He was (we should remember) the first person called by Christ to be his disciple: and our Lord on his being introduced to him by his brother Andrew, gave him at once the surname of Cephas, (a stone, not a rock) which he afterwards bore; and with which we are chiefly conversant in the New Testament through its Greek equivalent, petros, also signifying a stone. John i. 40-42. Matt. iv. 18-20. Mark iii. 14, 16. Simon Peter's house is the first place specified as the scene of a miraculous cure by Christ; which was also wrought on Peter's near relative. Thus does his family stand on record, as the first that especially partook of the benefits of the Messiah's coming. Jesus is thought by some to have been their inmate at the time. Simon Peter's boat is the first pulpit that Christ is recorded to have used, in his free and glorious ministry, (Luke v. 3) of which honest Bishop Latimer takes good notice in his Sermons.' He says, I think, that unlike our unpreaching prelates, Christ took all opportunities to promulgate the gospel; and used all places, a room in a house, or a hill side, or an old crazy boat, as it might happen. And though Christ had taught before in the Synagogue, it appears to have been only by standing up in his place, to claim the privilege of a member of the Church of God, of reading to the people out of Holy Scripture under the authority of the priest, and with the attendance of the minister, in whose keeping the book was left, Luke iv. 16-32: which Scripture he then expounded to them, on a subject connected with the purposes of his coming. Simon Peter is the first person recorded to have made confession of sins to Christ, "Depart from me O Lord, for I am a sinful man” [a frail mortal, unfit to be the associate of Deity]. Luke v. 8. He needed not more words on this occasion; his Lord knew the rest, better than he could tell it. Once more, Simon Peter is the first named, wherever their names occur together, of the twelve; see especially Matt. x. 2. We find him, among three of these, (and the first-named here also) who were chosen to be with Christ on two special occasions-(indeed on threesee Mark v. 32, and Luke viii. 51.) in order to witness his exaltation by being transfigured, or changed in his outward appearance into a form of celestial glory; and his extreme dejection, by the weight of our sins upon his spirit, and the acute mental suffering caused by the persecution of his adversaries, the chief priests and scribes, and the whole council of the Elders; Matt. xvii. 1-9. xxvi. 36–40. Simon Peter appears, accordingly, to have regarded himself, and to have been regarded by them all as the chief. He is almost always their spokesman (see Matt. xv. 15 xvi. 22. xvii. 4–24. xviii. 21. xix. 27. and others) and the most forward to act, upon emergencies; of which take but the instances of walking on the sea to Christ, and assaulting one of those sent to apprehend him. Then, as regards the period of the Evangelic history subsequent to the ascension of Christ, we have Peter moving the Church (which now consisted of about an hundred and fifty persons) to fill up the vacancy occasioned by the death of the traitor Judas. Acts i. 15-26. And Peter on the day of Pentecost, giving the first public testimony and exhortation, in the power of the Holy Ghost, to the people, by which about three thousand souls were added to the company of believers. And again, Peter in company with the apostle John, having wrought a miracle which attracted the attention of the Jews in the temple to him and his mission, he preaches also to them, and converts many more. For which action he is immediately conducted-not to an Episcopal throne in their mighty Cathedral, but to a noisome hold, to be the companion of malefactors. To the assembled rulers, elders and scribes, again, he preaches Christ crucified and risen from the dead,-and this with a courage and freedom which effectually retrieves his character, after that foul lapse of denying (while the fear of man possessed him, in their hall) that he so much as knew his Lord. Acts iii. iv. Yet more-the Devil having prevailed to bring into the Church that root of all evil the love of money, together with the vice of lying, so commonly the associate of the former, Peter feels himself invested with the power of the keys, in the opposite sense to that of the ministry he had before exercised-to shut instead of opening-and while he simply pronounces the sentence, a most awful execution follows, by the immediate hand of divine justice; and the liar, and his lying wife, are dismissed to everlasting punishment. Not to dwell on further instances to be found in Acts v. 29–32. viii. 14-25. ix. 32-43. x. xi. xii: xv. 7-11-the acts and speeches of Simon Peter, after the ascension of Christ, shew him to have been a great and good man; full of the Holy Ghost; a servant and an apostle (so he styles himself) of Jesus Christ; a delegated shepherd over his flock; and who, in that character, behaved himself with zeal and diligence, feeding them as his risen Lord had charged him to do, John xxi. 15-17; and ruling, jointly with others, (his fellow-believers and companions) in the Church of God, but not, by any exclusive authority over it. Let any who incline to support that doctrine prove, if they can, from Holy Scripture the contrary position. Simon Peter was not infallible. Some relics of human infirmity, in first eating with gentiles and then, upon the arrival of others who did not approve of this, withdrawing and dissembling, drew on him the public opposition and reproof of the Apostle Paul; because in this matter, he was to be blamed." Yet had he the power of the keys still: of the admission and exclusion of members of the visible church, of deciding controversies, and of making regulations for the common good but this only to be used in concert with the twelve ; as is manifest from that passage in the xviii. Matt. compared with chap. xvi. verse 19th. Christ seems to have opened first to him the nature and extent of that power, which he intended should reside in the church, under a ruling elder-of which description of officers in the Christian church Peter was undeniably the first. The authority of such is exercised rightly and legitimately, only in and with and, in some cases, even under the Church, or any company of believers, who are found sufficiently united to each other, in spirit and in purpose, to hold the authority of Truth, as well over offenders within as against opposers without. But, admitting for a moment, that Peter had been invested, on that remarkable occasion at which we began, with the Primacy as now claimed by one over the whole church; and had exercised, without the church, the office of first bishop, and had ordained his own successor; what will follow thence in respect of the argument that Peter is the Rock, on which is built the whole church of Christ? To judge rightly of this we should consider, first, what it was that our Lord must have intended, on that occasion, by the term “ my Church." I believe it to have been that which the church of Rome admits in words in her catechisms, but not in deed in her conduct, viz. "All the faithful in one body, under one head, Christ Jesus." This being admitted, how is the church to be built upon Peter? By the successive addition of Popes, Cardinals, Archbishops, Bishops, Priests, down to the poor curate, who gets his bread or his potatoes as he may, out of hands as necessitous as his own? This might do very well for the building of a clergy; who by way of distinguishing themselves from the people, (whom they call lay or low persons,) have got themselves styled "the Church"-And for such a building, such a foundation might suffice; yet with this absurdity in the application of the metaphor; that whereas other buildings begin at the bottom and proceed upwards, this hath its foundation in the top! All the faithful, under one head, and thus built upon Peter, as their foundation, the rock against which the gates of Hell should never prevail! The Romanists know too well the consequences of that proposition, to urge it upon us. Peter is not, nor ever was, but CHRIST alone, (THE POWer of God unTO SALVATION), is, both the foundation or rock, and the pinnacle or chief corner stone of his own Church, built up in him. In proof of this doctrine, compare together these:-Ps. cviii. 22. Is. xxviii. 16. 1 Cor. iii. 10-12. Eph. ii. 20. 2 Tim. ii. 19. 1 Peter ii. 6. with Matt. xxi. 42. and other scriptures easily to be found with the help of a Concordance. There are two ways in which the passage in question may be interpreted without involving any absurd consequence, or the necessity of a recourse to tradition, or to the authority of the Church in later ages. 1. Let us understand our Lord to have addressed the Apostle, upon his confession in the 16th verse, to this effect, Blessed art thou, Simon Son of Jonas, for flesh and blood hath not now unveiled or discovered itself [the Greek verb is reflective] to thee, but my Father |