66 being reckoned up amongst the particular gifts of the Holy Ghost, nor is there any other to which it can with equal probability refer. A power to inflict diseases upon the body, as when St. Paul struck Elymas the sorcerer with blindness: and sometimes extending to the loss of life itself, as in the sad instance of Ananias and Sapphira. This was the virga apostolica, the rod (mentioned by St. Pauli) which the apostles held and shaked over scandalous and insolent offenders, and sometimes laid upon them : What will ye shall I come to you with a rod? or in love, and the spirit of meekness?" Where observe (says Chrysostom*) how the apostle tempers his discourse; the love and meekness, and his desire to know, argued care and kindness; but the rod spake dread and terror: a rod of severity and punishment, and which sometimes mortally chastised the offender. Elsewhere he frequently gives intimations of this power, when he has to deal with stubborn and incorrigible persons: "Having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled; for though I should boast something more of our authority, (which the Lord hath given us for edification, and not for your destruction,) I should not be ashamed; that I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters." And he again puts them in mind of it at the close of his epistle: "I told you before, and foretell you as if I were present the second time, and being absent now, I write to them which heretofore have sinned, and to all others, that if I come again I will not spare." But he hoped these smart warnings would supersede all farther severity against them: "Therefore I write these things, being absent, lest being present I should use sharpness, according to the power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction."" Of this nature was the "delivering over persons unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh,"" the chastising the body by some present pain or sickness, "that the spirit might be saved" by being brought to a seasonable repentance. Thus he dealt with Hymenæus and Alexander, who had "made shipwreck of faith and a good conscience; he delivered them unto Satan, that they might learn not to blas m i 1 Cor. iv. 21. k Chrysost. Hom. xiv. in 1 ad Cor. s. 2. vol. x. p. 119. et vid. Hieron. in loc. m 2 Cor. xiii. 2. 1 Cor. v. 5. vid. Chrysost. et Hieron. in loc. pheme." Nothing being more usual in those times than for persons excommunicate, and cut off from the body of the church, to be presently arrested by Satan, as the common serjeant and executioner, and by him either actually possessed, or tormented in their bodies by some diseases which he brought upon them. And indeed this severe discipline was no more than necessary in those times, when Christianity was wholly destitute of any civil or coercive power to beget and keep up a due reverence and regard to the sentence and determinations of the church, and to secure the laws of religion and the holy censures from being slighted by every bold and contumacious offender. And this effect we find it had after the dreadful instance of Ananias and Sapphira: "Great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things." To what has been said concerning these apostolical gifts, let me farther observe, that they had not only these gifts residing in themselves, but a power to bestow them upon others, so that by imposition of hands, or upon hearing and embracing the apostles' doctrine, and being baptized into the Christian faith, they could confer these miraculous powers upon persons thus qualified to receive them, whereby they were in a moment enabled to speak divers languages, to prophesy, to interpret, and do other miracles, to the admiration and astonishment of all that heard and saw them a privilege peculiar to the apostles; for we do not find that any inferior order of gifted persons were intrusted with it. And therefore, as Chrysostom well observes, though Philip the deacon wrought great miracles at Samaria, to the conversion of many, yea, to the conviction of Simon Magus himself, "yet the Holy Ghost fell upon none of them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus," till Peter and John came down to them, who having "prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost, they laid their hands upon them, and they received the Holy Ghost:" which when the magician beheld, he offered the apostles money to enable him, that on whomsoever he laid his hands he might derive these miraculous powers upon them. : XIV. Having seen how fitly furnished the apostles were for the execution of their office, let us in the last place inquire into its duration and continuance. And here it must be considered, p 1 Tim. i. 20. Chrysost. Hom. xviii. in Act. s. 3. vol. ix. p. 146. 4 Acts v. 11. that in the apostolical office there was something extraordinary, and something ordinary. What was extraordinary was their immediate commission derived from the mouth of Christ himself, their unlimited charge to preach the gospel up and down the world, without being tied to any particular places; the supernatural and miraculous powers conferred upon them as apostles; their infallible guidance in delivering the doctrines of the gospel; and these all expired and determined with their persons. The standing and perpetual part of it was to teach and instruct the people in the duties and principles of religion, to administer the sacraments, to constitute guides and officers, and to exercise the discipline and government of the church: and in these they are succeeded by the ordinary rulers and ecclesiastic guides, who were to superintend and discharge the affairs and offices of the church, to the end of the world. Whence it is that bishops and governors came to be styled apostles, as being their successors in ordinary; for so they frequently are in the writings of the church. Thus Timothy, who was bishop of Ephesus, is called an apostle; Clemens of Rome, Clemens the apostle; St. Mark, bishop of Alexandria, by Eusebius styled both an apostle and evangelist; " Ignatius, a bishop and apostle. A title that continued in after-ages, especially given to those that were the first planters or restorers of Christianity in any country. In the Coptic Kalendar, published by Mr. Selden, the seventh day of the month Baschnes, answering to our second of May, is dedicated to the memory of St. Athanasius the apostle. Acacius and Paulus, in their letter to Epiphanius,” style him νέον ἀπόστολον καὶ κήρυκα, “ a new apostle and preacher:" and Sidonius Apollinaris, writing to Lupus, bishop of Troyes in France, speaks of "the honour due to his eminent apostleship." An observation which it were easy enough to confirm by abundant instances, were it either doubtful in itself, or necessary to my purpose; but being neither, I forbear. X Philostorg. Hist. Eccl. 1. iii. c. 2. u Hist. Eccl. 1. ii. c. 24. y De Synedr. 1. iii. c. 15. a Lib. vi. ep. 4. vid. ep. 7. t Clem. Alex. Strom. 1. iv. c. 17. Chrysost. Encom. S. Ignat. s. 1. vol. ii. p. 593. z Præfix. Oper. de Hæres, THE LIFE OF SAINT PETER. SECTION I. OF ST. PETER, FROM HIS BIRTH TILL HIS FIRST COMING TO CHRIST. Bethsaida, St. Peter's birth-place: its dignity of old, and fate at this day. The time of his birth inquired into. Some errors noted concerning it. His names; Cephas, the imposing of it notes no superiority over the rest of the apostles. The custom of popes assuming a new name at their election to the papacy, whence. His kindred and relations; whether he or Andrew the elder brother. His trade and way of life, what, before his coming to Christ. The Sea of Galilee, and the conveniency of it. The meanness and obscurity of his trade. The remarkable appearances of the Divine Providence in propagating Christianity in the world by mean and unlikely instruments. a THE land of Palestine was, at and before the coming of our blessed Saviour, distinguished into three several provinces, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. This last was divided into the Upper and the Lower. In the Upper, called also Galilee of the Gentiles, within the division anciently belonging to the tribe of Naphthali, stood Bethsaida, formerly an obscure and inconsiderable village, till lately re-edified and enlarged by Philip the Tetrarch, by him advanced to the place and title of a city, replenished with inhabitants, and fortified with power and strength, and in honour of Julia, the daughter of Augustus Cæsar, by him styled Julias. Situate it was upon the banks of the Sea of Galilee, and had a wilderness on the other side, thence called the Desert of Bethsaida, whither our Saviour used often to retire, the privacies and solitudes of the place advantageously ministering to divine contemplations. But Bethsaida was not so remarkable for this adjoining wilderness, as itself was memorable for a worse sort of barrenness, ingratitude and unprofitableness under the influences of Christ's sermons and miracles, thence severely upbraided by him, and threatened with one of his a Joseph. Antiq. Jud. 1. viii. c. 3. C deepest woes, "Woe unto thee, Chorazin; woe unto thee, Bethsaida," &c. A woe that it seems stuck close to it, for whatever it was at this time, one who surveyed it in the last age tells us, that it was shrunk again into a very mean and small village, consisting only of a few cottages of Moors and wild Arabs; and later travellers have since assured us, that even these are dwindled away into one poor cottage at this day. So fatally does sin undermine the greatest, the goodliest places; so certainly does God's word take place, and not one iota, either of his promises or threatenings, fall to the ground. Next to the honour that was done it by our Saviour's presence, who living most in these parts, frequently resorted hither, it had nothing greater to recommend it to the notice of posterity, than that (besides some others of the apostles) it was the birth-place of St. Peter; a person how inconsiderable soever in his private fortunes, yet of great note and eminency as one of the prime ambassadors of the Son of God, to whom both sacred and ecclesiastical stories give, though not a superiority, a precedency in the college of apostles. II. The particular time of his birth cannot be recovered, no probable footsteps or intimations being left of it: in the general we may conclude him at least ten years elder than his master; his married condition, and settled course of life at his first coming to Christ, and that authority and respect which the gravity of his person procured him amongst the rest of the apostles, can speak him no less: but for any thing more particular and positive in this matter, I see no reason to affirm. Indeed, might we trust the account which one (who pretends to calculate his nativity with ostentation enough) has given of it, we are told that he was born three years before the blessed Virgin, and just seventeen before the incarnation of our Saviour. But let us view his account.d Nat. ab Orbe cond. (4034) à Diluvio V. C. Oct. August. 8 Herodis Reg.) 20 2378 Ann. à 1o ejus consul. 24 Ann. ante B. Virg. 3 734 pugna Actiac. 12 ante Chr. nat. 17 When I met with such a pompous train of epochas, the least I expected was truth and certainty. This computation he grounds upon the date of St. Peter's death, placed (as elsewhere b Matt. xi. 21. Stengel, de S. Petro. c. 1, J. Cotovic. Itin. Hieros, 1. iii. c. 8, |