present moment, ever had, or now hath, pastoral jurisdiction."

It is a principle in logick universally acknowledged, that, if of this species of argument any one of the premises is refuted, the conclusion is thereby disproved. Such being the nature of Ward's argument, I undertook to examine the first proposition in it, namely, whether it be true or not, that, when Dr. Parker was constituted archbishop of Canterbury, the bishop of Rome was patriarch of England. And to shew, that this is not true, I quoted from an act of the English parliament these words: "The king, our sovereign lord, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the church of England." This law was enacted in the reign of Henry VIII. Dr. Parker was promoted to the sec of Canterbury by Queen Elizabeth. So that the bishop of Rome by an act of the English legislature had been deprived of his English patriarchy long before this promotion.

The papists maintain, that this deprivation was unjust and impious. The bishop of Rome, say they, from the very origin of the Roman church always had by divine right an ecclesiastical sovereignty everywhere in Christendom; and no act of man can annul a divine right. But it has been demonstrated, that, as what is termed by them a divine right on this occasion, solely rests upon this ground, that Peter, prince of the apostles, was the first bishop of Rome, this divine right is a baseless fiction. Whence it follows, that, when Dr. Parker was made archbishop

of Canterbury, the bishop of Rome was not patriarch of this nation. And the first link in Ward's chain of premises being thus broken in pieces, the conclusion appendant to it falls of course to the ground.

The conclusion appendant to this chain is the second of those three charges, which the subscribers to Ward's Errata have brought against us protestants. This second accusation therefore is now refuted.

SECTION XXIX.

THE THIRD ACCUSATION.

The third accusation preferred by those subscribers is, that bishops, priests, and deacons, being protestants, and all their flocks, are guilty of sacrilege. This charge is the substance of the two following corollaries to the conclusion of Ward's sorites.

"Do they not commit a most heinous sacrilege, who having neither valid ordination, nor pastoral jurisdiction, do notwithstanding take upon them to administer sacraments, and exercise all other acts of episcopal and priestly functions?

"Are not the people also involved with them in the same sin, so often as they communicate with them in, or co-operate to, those sacrilegious presumptions ?"

There are two species of sacrilege; one of which is a forcible and unjust appropriation of the church's revenues; the other a profanation of sacred things.

Now, if it were true, that bishops, priests, and deacons, being protestants, are without consecration, ordination, and pastoral jurisdiction, it would also be true, that all of them, who claim and receive tythes, or any other ecclesiastical property, do rob the church, and moreover that all of them, who administer the sacraments, seeing that they administer them with unhallowed hands, do profane things sacred. But the conclusion of Ward's sorites, that bishops, priests, and deacons, being protestants, are without consecration, ordination, and pastoral jurisdiction, has been disproved. Consequently this last charge, which is wholly founded upon that conclusion, is a gross calumny.

CHRIST, AND NOT SAINT PETER, THE ROCK OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH; AND SAINT PAUL, THE FOUNDER OF THE CHURCH IN BRITAIN :

A LETTER TO THE CLERGY OF THE DIOCESS
OF ST. DAVID'S.

BY THOMAS BURGESS, D.D. F.R.S. & F.A.S.

BISHOP OF ST. DAVID'S.

ADVERTISEMENT.

THE first object of the following pages, is to

shew that the Christian church was not founded on St. Peter, but on "the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief corner-stone," that is, on the predictions of the prophets, the testimony of the apostles, and the promises of Jesus Christ; that the first Christian church was the church of Jerusalem ; and St. James, the first Christian bishop; that St. James, and not St. Peter, presided at the first Christian council; that St. Paul was the first founder of the church of Rome; that the church of Rome was established, as a Christian society during St. Paul's first residence at Rome; and that the first Bishop of Rome was appointed by the joint authority of St. Peter and St. Paul, after St. Paul's return to Rome.

The next object is to shew, that St. Paul preached the Gospel in Britain, and to ascertain, as nearly as possible, the time of the apostle's journey to

Britain, on the authority of Clemens Romanus, Eusebius, Jerome, Theodoret, and two British records.

St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans was written before the apostle's first journey to Rome, as is evident from the Epistle itself. The dates of the journey and of the epistle will of course influence each other. If St. Paul was sent prisoner to Rome A.D. 56, the epistle could not have been written in the year 57, or any later year. And if the epistle was written A. D. 57, St. Paul could not have been sent prisoner to Rome in 56. But the choice of a date for the epistle must be governed by the journey, and not the time of the journey by the dates assigned to the epistle. To the latter, various dates are assigned.

I have exhibited this variety of dates, that the reader may not at once conclude, that St. Paul's first journey to Rome was not A. D. 56, because he finds the date of 57, or 58, or 60, assigned to the Epistle by different writers. These several dates appear to arise from the omission of St. Paul's journey to the West in arranging the chronology of the

Ch. i. ver. 10. 13.