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St. Peter and the Primacy of the

Roman See.

THE RT. REV. WILLIAM PARET, D.D., LL.D.,

Bishop of Maryland.

ST. PETER AND THE PRIMACY OF THE ROMAN SEE.

THE subject assigned to me for this lecture is 'St. Peter and the Primacy of the See of Rome"; and I understand that this is the first in a series of lectures bearing upon some of the most important points in Rome's controversy with all other Christian people. There have been greater controversies in the history of the Church. Those in the earliest centuries were concerned, not with matters of order and ministerial authority, but with the far more awful questions of the very nature of God; with the being and personality of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, and with their relation in the Blessed Trinity to the Eternal Father. While these controversies lasted they seemed to convulse the Church; but by our Lord's gracious ordering those questions, of doctrine most vital, were decided absolutely and finally while the

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ST. PETER AND THE PRIMACY

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ed of, in the times of the great Councils, have
been confidently made by Rome and as confident-
ly denied by all other Christian people, for the
last 1400 years. Not so boldly made at first as
now, and therefore not so strongly controverted.
Not stirring men's souls to the same earnestness
in all times and places. They swelled into bit-
terness and hatred at the great schism which sepa-
rated East and West. They burned with martyr
flames in the continental effort at reformation un-
der Luther and his co-workers. They flowed with
blood in the great slaughter of Protestants in Hol-
land and of Huguenots in France; and they made
England, for many a year, a horrid battle-ground
for the swaying forces. In our own time, with
less outward violence indeed, but with no less in-
ner intensity, the struggle goes on.
Rome strives
as earnestly as ever for absolute mastery. All
other Christians as earnestly reject the offered
yoke. The world's advance, rather the advance
of Christian principles, forbids the use of carnal
weapons, and the strife, intense as ever, seems
therefore at this time almost peaceful.

And the place of the struggle has changed.

Like a skilful commander, Rome has changed the order of the campaign. She leaves the East, for the most part, alone for the present. She is content to hold her own if she can in Germany. She is on her defence and must keep moderate in France; but she has gathered all her aggressive powers for the English-speaking peoples, in Eng. land, and chief of all here in the United States. Certainly with all the wisdom of the serpent, and professedly with the harmlessness of the dove, the Church of Rome is concentrating her full powers for the conquest and subjugation of the Christianity of America. Here then, if anywhere, the points of issue should be carefully studied and constantly kept in view.

It must be plain that in undertaking to deal with such a subject in one lecture, I must absolutely shut out all thought of originality. I am not exploring new mines of truth, nor old mines. for new results; but only working over and bringing to present view the treasures already gathered. I must use freely the thoughts of others, the facts gathered by others (not, I trust, without verifying them), and sometimes perhaps even the words of others. It will not be necessary, and I think it would not be profitable, for me to name authorities, and I will not waste your time and my own by attempting always to do so.

The very careful planning for this course of lec

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