Supposing now, that, by the Teaching of the Church, he means exclusively the Teaching of the particular Church of Rome; for such, I fancy, is

the slighest hint of any other interpretation being then in existence, makes the Rock to be, not Peter himself, but Peter's Confession of Christ in his twofold character of the human Messiah and the divine Son of the living God?

Is it possible, again, for him to be ignorant, that, in the writers of the Early Church, three different expositions occur: that The Rock is Peter personally; that The Rock is Peter's Confession; that The Rock is Christ: which last is virtually pretty much the same as the second or oldest ?

Is it possible, furthermore, for Dr. Wiseman to be ignorant, that, during the antenicene period of the three first centuries, even those apparent innovators, who fancied Peter to be the Rock instead of Peter's Confession, never imagined that the character was to descend like an heirloom to the successive Bishops of Rome ?

Finally, is it possible for Dr. Wiseman to be ignorant, that, when, about the latter end of the second century, the then yet further innovating Bishop of Rome claimed to be the Rock as the successor of Peter, his extraordinary demand was forthwith unceremoniously exploded as a matter too absurd and too newfangled to be entertained for a single moment: or can he be ignorant, that, when the same claim was again put forth by Stephen about the middle of the third century, the pretended monarch of the Church was sneered at for setting up such a ridiculous figment, was pronounced to be a second Judas, and was roughly denominated an arrogant and presumptuous and manifest and notorious idiot ?

I admire not the uncivil language of the day: but there it stands upon record.

All these points I had distinctly stated, with the full authorities subjoined in the margin, in my Difficulties of Romanism :

the intended import of his very indefinite phraseology: I ask, To the Church Authority of Rome, at what precise TIME, is the devout Catholic re

and, since Dr. Wiseman confessedly does me the honour to read my performances, I marvel that he should hazard an assertion, even before his subjects (as I believe the correct romish phrase runs) at Moorfields, which, to all appearance, he must have known to be evidentially altogether untenable.

2. But this is not all. Dr. Wiseman adduces Ireneus for the purpose of demonstrating, that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, and thence that the Roman Bishop must needs be the inheritor of Peter's imaginary Rockship.

After observing, that, among the moderns, no ecclesiastical writer of any eminence pretends to deny the fact that Peter was the first Bishop of Rome, the Lecturer, in evidence of the fact, cites Irenèus as speaking in terms following.

To Peter, succeeded Linus: to Linus, Anacletus: then, in the third place, Clement. Iren. adv. hær. lib. iii. c. 3.

I have carefully given the citation with its appended reference, precisely as both are given by Dr. Wiseman (Lect. on the Doctr. lect. viii. vol. i. p. 278.): and I readily admit, that the passage, purporting to be cited from the oldest author who details the foundation of the Roman Church and the succession of her early Bishops down to Eleutherius the twelfth, clearly and distinctly propounds Peter to have been the first Bishop of this Church and Linus to have been his immediate successor. This I readily admit; and no thanks to me, for the adduced passage is imperative: but, unluckily for Dr. Wiseman's cited testimony, no such passage occurs, either in the place referred to or (I will venture to say) in any other place of the Work of Ireneus. The account, which that very ancient Father really gives of the matter, differs toto cœlo from that, which, through the medium of a non-occurring citation, is gravely ascribed to him by Dr. Wiseman. It is as follows.

quired to pay absolute and unconditional submission? To her Church Authority Now: or to her Church Authority at some OLDER PERIOD?

The Church of Rome, he tells us, was founded and organised, not by Peter singly, but by Peter and Paul conjointly: and, when the two Apostles, not one of them but the two, had thus conjointly founded and organised the Roman Church, the two, still the two, conjointly delivered to Linus (who stood to the two Apostles exactly in the same ecclesiastical relation, as Titus and Timothy severally stood to Paul alone in their respective capacities of the first Bishops of Crete and Ephesus) the episcopate for the purpose of administering their newly founded Church. Thus, in point of authoritative derivation from the two apostolical joint founders, Linus stood as the first Bishop and thence, since he was succeeded by Anacletus and Anacletus by Clement, Clement himself is of course represented, as holding the episcopate in the third place, or, in other words, as being the third Bishop.

That there may be no room for misapprehension, I subjoin a correct citation from Irenèus.

Antiquissimæ et omnibus cognitæ, a gloriosissimis duobus Apostolis Petro et Paulo Romæ fundatæ et constitutæ, Ecclesiæ, eam quam habet ab Apostolis traditionem-indicantes, confundimus omnes eos, qui, quoquo modo,-præter oportet, colligunt.—Fundantes igitur et instruentes beati Apostoli Ecclesiam, Lino EPISCOPATUM administrandæ Ecclesiæ tradiderunt. Hujus Lini, Paulus, in his quæ sunt ad Timotheum epistolis, meminit. Succedit autem ei Anacletus. Post eum, tertio loco ab Apostolis, EPISCOPATUM sortitur Clemens: qui et vidit ipsos Apostolos, et contulit cum eis, cum adhuc insonantem prædicationem Apostolorum et traditionem ante oculos haberet. Iren. adv. hær. lib. iii. c. 3. p. 170, 171.

Dr. Wiseman is aware, I conclude, that, from certain historical difficulties, many have doubted, whether Peter was ever

Dr. Wiseman, I venture to conclude, will answer: To the Church of Rome or (in his own inaccurate language) to the Catholic Church, as NOW

at Rome at all or at least whether he suffered martyrdom there: but, so far as my own judgment goes, I cannot set aside the express testimony of such an ancient and competent writer as Irenèus; a testimony, indeed, not going to the extent of his being the first Bishop of Rome which (according to the plain statement of that venerable Father) he no more was than his coöperator, Paul, but to his having both visited Rome and concurred in the authoritative organisation of the infant Community.

2. The most whimsical part of the matter is yet to come.

Peter, if we may depend upon the very oldest historical evidence, most certainly was never Bishop of Rome: but, according to Dr. Wiseman, he was Bishop of Antioch. Now, if the Lecturer be correct in this last particular: then the true heir of Peter's fancied Rockship, on the two-fold supposition first that Peter was the Rock and next that The Rockship was hereditary, must have been the Line of his Episcopal Successors the Bishops of Antioch, not the Line of the Bishops of Rome who were NOT his Episcopal Successors.

So far as the Patriarchal Dignity and Prerogative are concerned, Dr. Wiseman himself makes the Antiochian Prelates the heirs of Peter: the reason why he mercilessly deprives them of all right and title to the Rockship is more easily understood and explained, than the ingenious Lecturer's consistency.

I give his own statement, as a real dialectical curiosity.

Peter first sat in the Chair of Antioch: and that Chair has ever retained its dominion over a large portion of the East. In like manner, therefore, IF, to the See of Rome, he brought not merely the Patriarchate of the West, but the Primacy over the Whole World, this accidental jurisdiction became inherent in

existing, and as NOW enforcing the doctrinal definitions of the Council of Trent; but still, furthermore, to the same Roman or Catholic Church as existing FROM THE FIRST, and as ALWAYS invariably teaching the same doctrines.

Such an answer immediately produces the question: DOES the Roman Church of the present day, or, as Dr. Wiseman calls it, the Catholic Church, teach precisely the same doctrines as the Catholic Church taught from the beginning?

Dr. Wiseman, according to his principles, will probably reply that Even to propose such a question is itself to deviate from an absolute unconditional submission to the teaching of the Church.

I readily admit, that it is a departure from absolute submission to the teaching of that part of the Church which is in communion with the Bishop of Rome: but, before this can be construed into any failure of submission to the teaching of the Church Catholic, the Roman Church and the Catholic Church must be demonstrated, and not merely affirmed, to be PERFECTLY and EXCLUSIVELY identical.

This, however, has not been done: and, in fact,

the See and heritable by entail to his Successors. the Doctr. lect. viii. vol. i. p. 279.

Lect. on

Indisputably, as the saw runs, your IF is a great peace-maker. To give its full value to Dr. Wiseman's IF, nothing is wanting save historical testimony. His conclusion would be highly respectable, provided only his premises had been established.

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