BOOKS.
suzrwEnn's HISTORY OF THE CIMECH OP ROUE. THE received supremacy of the Pope as the successor of Peter in the bishopric of Rome, by enlightened Remoulds, is perhaps the most remarkable example of how little fact or reason has to do with religious persuasion. The moral doctrines of most creeds are so interwoven with the nature or man that the mind instinctively receivesthem. The dogmas of theology, the apparition of the Deity or his ministrants, azä miraculous events, are so clearly beyond the laws of nature as deduced by human experience, that it is uni- versally admitted reason has nothing to do with the things them- selves, but merely with the evidence to attest them ; while so wide a range of knowledge, so nice and complex a chain of rea- soning, is necessary to the discussion, that even professional minds are often- puzzled by the task. The practices of any religion in the outset so evidently reflect the customs of the people, and succeed- ing generations are so to the rummer born, that the mind becomes inured to usages however absurd or revolting. But that educated and critical persons believe in a fact without any sufficient evidence, and indeed in the teeth of evidence and probability, and make that fact too a basis for faith in a long series of consequential assump- tions, is one of the most remarkable circumstances in religious belief. That Paul was at Rome we know ; and it was fitting that he should go there, as the Apostle of the Gentiles. That Peter was ever at Rome, or that he was the Bishop of Rome, is not only unsupported by evidence or probability, but is contrary to the ne- cessity or requirements of the case ; for he was the Apostle of the Jews, and if able to shake off his Jewish prejudices, by no means disposed to brave the prejudices of his fellow Jews. If a broad fundamental fact of this kind can make no impression on the minds of votaries in an enlightened and critical age, it is not likely that secondary arguments will produce much abet, especially when they depend upon complex evidence and derive their force from learned arguments, or, in the case before us, from a scholastic ex- amination of the authenticity of writings hitherto for the most part received as authentic. The purpose of Mr. Shepherd is to give an account "of the Church of Rome, framed on the simple and obvious principle of merely collecting and arranging the testimony of history with re- gard to facts, and so presented to the reader as that he should have a right to believe that when he has read what is before him he has learnt all that is to be known? Unless this be done upon the plan pursued by Dr. Giles in his "History of the Ancient Britons," where all the passages of all the authors who have written upon the subject are successively brought together in the words of the writers, the object aimed at seems scarcely attainable. In the transcript of a scene or a face the mind of the artist -will be shown as well m what he leaves out as in his style of presenting what he puts in, so in a deduction from various authorities it seems diffi- cult if not impossible to avoid receiving the author's interpretation of these authorities. In the case before us, however, all discussion upon this point is needless. Mr. Shepherd's history is avowedly framed upon the principle of rejecting as forgeries of a later age whatever his inquiries have led him to believe to be forged, and oonfining his account of the Bishops of Rome as far down as 384 (at which period his volume closes) to such facts as he deems to be true : and a similar principle is applied, if not with quite such slashing effect, to the general review of Christian affairs through- out the world. The story of the Popes or Bishops of Rome is little more than a muster-roll of names ; the narrative of the history of Christianity at large is fuller, but still curt. The whole "history" proper, indeed, occupies but a hundred and twenty pages.
The remainder of the book is devoted to-1. a critical examination (tall the writings, or the statements contained in them, which Mr. lihepherd has been induced from his researches to believe spurious-
geries of a later age, perpetrated to strengthen the claims of ime to a supremacy which she was then aiming to establish ; 2. an inquiry into the authority of the doctrine of this supremacy by divine right. The writings classed in the category of forgeries are numerous; • some of them celebrated—as the Letters of Cyprian, and the history of Sulpieius Severns ; which last, however, Mr. Shepherd considers to be corrupted by interpolation rather than an entire forgery. His sceptical criticism also goes to deny the, exist- ence of some Councils of the Church. The argument against the 'supremacy rests upon a survey of the authors living up to the period at which the volume terminates ; and the proof consists in their total silence upon the subject, even when the occasion would naturally induce them to mention it if they had ever heard of it The passage referring to the commentary of-the celebrated Origen an the still more celebrated text "Thou art Peter," &c., will give an idea of Mr. Shepherd's treatment of his argument ; though it will, of course, convey but little idea of the argument itself, which is cumulative.
"We will now consider Origen's commentary .= the disputed teat of Idatt. xvi. 17, 18, on which the Roman Church relies as the foundation of its claim : and let it be remembered while it is read, that, if the Roman in- terpretation be true, the Roman Bishop was at this time exercising (and had been, for two hundred years) supreme authority at Alexandria, and over the whole Church, on the ground that Peter was the exclusive rock, and had had the keys given to him alone and exclusively.
"After stating that every one, who through Divine illumination makes the mane confession with Peter becomes Peter, and the Lord says to him as he said to Peter, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock,' &c., he proceeds- • The History of the Church of Rome, to the End of the Episcopate of Damasus. A.D. 384. By Edward John Shepherd, Rector of Luddesdown. Published by Longman and Co. "j' But if you think that upon that one Peter alone the whole Church was built by God, what do you say of John the Son of Thunder ? What of each of the Apostles ? Shall we dare to say that the gates of hell shall not pre- vail against Peter exclusively, but that they shall prevail against the other Apostles and the perfect ? or rather, is it not said of all and of each of them, that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it,' and also that upon this Rock I will build my church' ? Were the keys of the kingdom of -heaven given to Peter alone, and shall none other of the blessed receive them ? But if the gift of the keys is common to others, why not what goes before and what follows, and which were said to Peter ? For here (in Matthew) as if to Peter it seems to be said, Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven,' te. But in the Gospel of John, our Saviour when he gives the Holy Spirit to his disciples by breathing on them, he 'says, 'Re- ceive ye the Holy Ghost,' &c.' "From this passage it is quite clear, that Origen knew of no distinction arising from thatpassage between Pete; and the other Apostles. No languag-e can be plainer; they are the rock as well as he : our Lord's words conferred no exclusive universal bishopric on Peter. They have the keys also as well as Peter. The gates of hell shall no more prevail against them than him, and whatsoever they bind or loose shall be as much bound or loosed as if it had been bound or loosed by him."
The work before us is distinguished by extensive learning, pa- tient research, and great ingenuity, which yet do not encumber the author or overlay his theme. The first part, containing the nar- rative, is generally bare, because the facts that have to be narrated are few and stripped of circumstances. The inquiry into the au- thenticity of writings the author impugns, or of statements which he considers fabulous, is conducted with acumen and keenness : but this species of controversy is not Mr. Shepherd's forte; he does not always exhibit that grasp which, by placing the whole ques- tion and its consequences briefly before the reader, at once in- terests him in the inquiry; and he wants that power of titillating irony or ridicule which enlivens minute details. The inquiry into the supremacy is more convincing, if not more conclusive : greater ability is not displayed, but the question has mare interest in itself, and admits of broader treatment. The introduction, which precedes the inquiry, may be quoted as an example of the author's breadth of manner, as well as of comprehensiveness of statement when the subject admits of it.
-" The pretension of the Roman Church is, that its Bishop, as successor of St. Peter—to whom they say the government of the whole Church was com- mitted by our Lord as the regular Bishop—is the Bishop of the universal Church. This office, they add, implies— "I. That where the Bishop of Rome is professedly teaching the whole Church, he is infallible in his enunciation of articles of faith, and also of rules of life, in matters necessary to sal#ation, or Which are intrinsically good or bad.
"II. That as an earthly prince has a right to make laws for his subjects, so the Bishop of ROHM has a right to make laws for his subjects—that is, for all Christians on the face of the earth—so as to be binding on their conscience; and has also a right to punish the transgressors with excommunication, sus- pension, interdict, &c.
"III. That all ecclesiastical authority is committed by Christ to him alone, and can only be derived to others through him. And,
" IV. That although he has no temporal authority directly, yet he pommies it indirectly, by having supreme authority in all matters affecting the wel- fare of souls.
"Such a claim will, no doubt, strike the unprejudiced reader, after the perusal of the foregoing pages, as deserving only of ridicule. He will have seen that during three hundred and eighty-four years, thirty-six of these awful personages, all, too, with one exception, apparently orthodox,—to say nothing of the Arian thirty-seventh, (who, as it appears to me, has as good. a claim to the Roman succession as any of the other thirty-six, and a better than nine-tenths of them,)—passed through the world, and yet that, beyond their names, we scarcely know more about them than about their humble neighbours the Bishops of Gubio ; while he will have seen (what must have aroused his suspicions) the most barefaced impositions practised upon the credulity of mankind to gain credit for this fable about them. "Nothing could save a claim like this from the most unredeemable ridi- cule, had it not been and were it not still the faith of a large portion of Christendom. This faith was, no doubt, in a great degree produced and maintained by such stories as I have been exposing. They were auxiliary to attempts made on the weakness of the Churches to throw around theta the shackles of Rome. If, however, the question be carefully and dispas- eionately examined, it will be acknowledged that a claim like this, requiring communion with the Roman Bishop, the adoption of his tenets, and submis- sion to his laws, on pain of exclusion from eternal life, cannot expect to be met by rational obedience, unless it rests on the most clear and undeniable testimony. It ought to be distinctly proved from the Word of God. No less testimony ought to be received ; and then, no doubt, the concurrent voice and practice of primitive Christian antiquity will illustrate and enforce it. It is no transcendental mystery that cannot be defined ; nor is there any difficulty in our comprehension of it. If the Roman story be true, it was from the beginning a practical fact to which neither ear nor eye could be shut. The committal of such a power into any hands would be an event of such overwhelming importance, as to be of necessity a primary subject of revelation, and consequently of the apostolic teaching. The Apostles declared unto their people the whole counsel of God. What more important part of it is there, if the Roman story be true, than the Bishop of Rome's supremacy ? All belonging to it therefore—what it meant, its consequences, and its mode of perpetuation—all must have been most clearly and con- stantly pointed out to the early converts. A tenet of more vital importance could not have been preached to them; since, however pure might be their faith in a triune God, and in every article which the Nicene fathers after- wards inserted into their creed as necessary to salvation, still, if they did net also believe in this universal bishopric, (which, strange to say, the Nicene
b fathers did not even allude to,) their in all the rest would be of no avail; they would perish everlastingly."
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