OLD NEWS BETTER THAN NONE.

NOTES ON CHURCH HISTORY.

No. VI.

WHEN Hyde was gone, Butler himself took up the paper, and forgot himself so completely in thinking over it, that he was quite startled, accidentally raising his eyes, to find that he was not alone. The Clergyman, Mr. Jones, had come in unperceived by him, and was looking at him as one much interested and somewhat amused. "Well," said he, "it is a pleasure to think that any one should care so much about the Ancient Church; for I am quite sure, without your telling me, that your paper has something to do with that, else you would not be so wrapped up in it.” "Why, Sir," said Butler, "I do not know how any one who has a taste for what is noble and good, could help caring for the doings which your book here tells one of, even if he had no faith;" and he put his hand upon the volume of Fleury which was lying open upon his desk. However, to say the truth, I was not at that moment musing upon those ancient doings only, but upon a saying I met with the other day, which to my mind does not very well agree with them. May I make bold to tell it you now ?”

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Mr. Jones. "To be sure; I came on purpose to be asked about such matters. Whether I shall be able to answer is another thing."

B. "Thank you, Sir. The saying I mean was this:- The Holy Catholic and Apostolical Church of Rome I acknowledge to be the Mother and Mistress of all Churches." "

Mr. J. "Where did you fall in with that? it is the very words of the Confession of Faith, which the Roman Church, for the last three hundred years nearly, has added to the Nicene Creed."

B. "So I understood. I found it accidentally in opening this later volume of Fleury, which you lent me to make out a date by."

Mr. J. "And what brought it to your mind now?"

B. "We were just now talking, Master Hyde and I, of the Church of Jerusalem in the time of St. James, and how St. Paul was at Rome, helping to lay the foundations of the Roman Church, at the time of St. James's martyrdom. This

set one a thinking of the two Churches together; and since Hyde went, I have been fancying to myself how strange it would have seemed to a Christian of that time in Jerusalem, if he had been told that he must acknowledge the Church of Rome to be the Mother of his own Church; it was just making out the daughter at least thirty years older than the mother."

Mr. J. "Strange enough, certainly; but not stranger, I fear, than many other things in the same Creed would have sounded to every Christian ear at that time.

"But you said just now, St. Paul was then laying the foundations of the Roman Church. You had not forgotten that Christianity was flourishing in Rome before ever St. Paul came there, as we know both by the Acts and by the Epistle to the Romans?"

B. "I had not forgotten it, nor yet that St. Peter was probably that one of the Apostles who providentially first preached the Gospel there. But I understand from Fleury, that old writers say, St. Peter and St. Paul together founded that Church. It was not then completely founded until St. Paul had been there; and till it was itself founded, how could it be the Mother of other Churches? and in any case, how could it be the Mother of the Church at Jerusalem, the foundation whereof had been laid by the same St. Peter, with the other Apostles, on the day of Pentecost?

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Indeed, if one were left to one's own common sense, I think one should have made no question of it, that Jerusalem, not Rome, was to be the Mother of all Churches; as it is said to her by the Prophet Ezekiel, I will give them [thy sisters] unto thee for daughters;' and that this was fulfilled when the Law went out of Mount Sion, and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem; that is, when the Church began to spread itself after the day of Pentecost."

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Mr. J. "There is a great deal in what you say, and no doubt it was quite the feeling of the ancient Church of Jerusalem itself, for it is expressed in the Communion office of that Church, a form of prayer of which no one can say how nearly goes back to the very times of the Apostles. In that service, oblation and intercession is made for glorious Sion, the Mother of all Churches, and for Christ's Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church dispersed throughout the world.' Nothing is said of the Roman Church. Now, what makes you look up so eagerly? Something particular strikes you, I am sure."

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B. I ought not to interrupt you Sir; but it just then occurred to me, that I had somewhere seen a letter of a great Council of the Church, in which this same title, Mother of all Churches, is given to the Church of Jerusalem."

Mr. J. "You are quite right; it is in the circular of the Council of Constantinople, the second Universal Council, and one of those which the Church of England especially honors ;" and turning to the place, he read out of Fleury, 'Of the mother of all the Churches-the Church in Jerusalem,—we inform you that the venerable and highly-favoured Cyril is bishop.'

Well, Butler, you are very exact in these matters, I must say ; and if we are to go by history, I do not see how you can possibly be answered. And it must surely make unprejudiced people very suspicious of the claims of the present Roman Church generally, when they see her so quietly taking to herself a title, which she had no more right to than our Archbishop of Canterbury has to the bishoprick of Rome. It is one of too many things regarding her, which put one in mind of the Apostle's question to the self-willed Corinthians, What? word of God out from you, or came it unto you only?"

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But now let us see what you have been writing of the first beginnings of the Primitive Church of Rome. So saying, Mr. Jones took up the paper, and read on from where Hyde had left off, making remarks every now and then.

"We know that on the day of Pentecost, there were present, Strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytes,' who, on their return home, would not fail to make known the wonders of that day. But the earliest mention, in Christian writers, of any thing like a Church in Rome refers us to the time following S. Peter's miraculous release from prison, A. D. 44, about which time, according to an ancient tradition, the Apostles betook themselves to their several fields of ministry; and St. Peter is by some reported to have then visited Rome. The report is mixed up with some things which plainly contradict the New Testament: as that he had first presided for seven years over the See of Antioch, whereas there had been no Christians in Antioch till about three years before; and that he had been preaching all over Asia Minor, which does not well agree with St. Paul's having first preached to the Galatians. Yet St. Peter may have gone to Rome at that time. And either by his or by other preaching there came to be so many Christians, that the Emperor Claudius, partly on their account, commanded all Jews

to depart from Rome, A. D. 52. Two of these, Aquila of Pontus and Priscilla his wife, came to Corinth, where St. Paul shortly joined them and we may conceive that it was owing partly to their discourse that he began to feel a great desire to visit Rome. (Romans xv. 23.) They spent a great deal of time afterwards with him, especially at Ephesus, and were with him when he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians, but had gone back to Rome before he wrote to the Romans, A. D. 57: by which time the faith of the Roman Christians was 6 spoken of in the whole world.' And as St. Peter, we know, had been in the mean time at Corinth, it seems not improbable that he had then gone to Rome, and from thence wrote his first Epistle, dating it as from Babylon, to the Christians of Asia Minor especially. Then, also, St. Mark having composed his Gospel, at a request from the Roman Christians, that they might have in writing the great things which St. Peter had preached to them; St. Peter coming by revelation to know what had been going on, gave his own inspired authority to the whole work.

“The next thing related of the Church of Rome, is St. Paul's arrival there, in February, A. D. 61.”

Here Mr. Jones paused for a moment, and said, "Just let us see the account of his proceedings in the last chapter of the Acts." Butler looked out the place, and they read, "After three days, Paul called together those who were chief of the Jews." "It is not, you see," (added Mr. Jones,) as when he arrived at Jerusalem: then, the day following, he went in with them unto James, and all the Elders were present:' here it is, simply, he called the chief of the Jews together.'

"I beg your pardon, Sir," said Butler, "but I do not quite see the drift of what you have now said."

"It's force is," said Mr. Jones, "to confirm a thought which some have had, that although St. Peter may have been at Rome before the arrival of St. Paul, he had not founded a regular Church there the Christians perhaps had not yet separated themselves entirely from the Jews, certainly had not got their complete form of government, by a Bishop, with Priests and Deacons under him. I only want you just to observe this: now let us go on." And he took up the paper again.

"The Apostle during the two years of this his first stay in Rome, seems not to have been at liberty to move about, though all who would had free access to him: it is thought that he was chained to a centinel night and day. The consequence was,

the continual spreading of the Gospel, even into the Emperor's household. He was also at liberty to write to those at a distance, and so he wrote the four Epistles in his bonds,-to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon,—all of them, as it should seem, in the year 62, when he was hoping to be released. About Easter in that year, as is noticed above, St. James was martyred, and we may conjecture that St. Paul was then preparing for his journey into Spain, planned several years before, and, by ancient writers, said to have taken place immediately on his release from Rome. Tradition says that in passing through France, he left Bishops at various places in his way."

Here Mr. Jones paused again and said, "I see you do not say any thing of our own country: you know, of course, that some have imagined it also to have been visited by St. Paul."

B. "I have read it, but it is not in Fleury, and I understood that it was very doubtful."

Mr. J. I fear that it chiefly depends on its having been said, that he went even to the extremity of the west: an expression which, in the old Fathers, need not mean further than Spain and the straits of Gibraltar."

So saying, he read on. "We can hardly allow less than a year and a half for this western journey and his return into Italy, which would then take place towards the beginning of A. D. 64. There he would hear much of the sad state of Jerusalem, and of the clouds which were gathering over it, more and more since the death of St. James and accordingly at this time it may seem likely that he wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews, which was certainly written in Italy; in the end of which he says that he is waiting to be joined by Timothy, who was just released from imprisonment, and then he hoped they might come together to Jerusalem."

Here Mr. Jones remarked, "You might add that the great fire at Rome, which led to the first persecution of the Christians, happened that year, July 19; and if St. Paul were detained in Italy, as might very well happen, till after that time, the arrest from which Timothy was 'set at liberty' might be an cvent in that persecution: and this again would add great significance to the many sayings to the Hebrews about persecution.

"And do you not see, how well all this suits with St. Paul's loyal love to his own people, and also with the evident purpose of the Epistle, I mean its immediate purpose,-to prepare the