I found in St. Matthew the calling of Simon, who was afterwards called Peter; Matt. 4:18, 19,20; but it did not appear to me to differ from that addressed to Andrew his brother, and all the other apostles.
In the tenth chapter of the same Gospel, I also observed that the first mission which Jesus Christ gave to his apostles, was given to all, without any particular prerogative to Peter. It is true that Peter is the first named, but this is merely an accidental priority, which implies neither distinction nor superiority; one must have been mentioned first. I made the same observation on the last mission which they received on the day of their Master's ascension, and which is related by St. Matthew, 28:19, 20; by St. Mark, 16:15; and in the Acts of the Apostles, 1:8. This mission, though variously expressed in the three places, is the same in substance. It is given indiscriminately to all; the promises by which it is accompanied are for all; and on all, the same powers are, equally conferred.
The 18th and 19th verses of chapter 16 of St. Matthew, where it is said, "Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church," startled me for a moment, and I was on the point of mistaking the true meaning of this declaration. But having reflected that Jesus Christ asked the question in the 15th verse, of all his disciples, and that Peter expressed the sentiment of all in his animated reply in the 16th verse, I considered that the words which Christ addressed to Peter, were applicable to all disciples; and that no supremacy could be attributed to him from this passage, more than from any of the preceding.
I was confirmed in this opinion, when I read in the Gospel of St. John, that Jesus, speaking to all had made them nearly the same promise: "Whose so ever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose so ever sins ye retain, they are retained," (John, 20:23;) and also by what St. Paul says to the Ephesians, "Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone; in whom all the building, fitly framed together, groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord." Ephes. 2:20, 21.
I was still more strengthened, when I found in the Revelation, that St. John says, "the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb." Rev. 21:14.
By these passages, and many others which I think it unnecessary to quote, I discerned that Jesus Christ is the true foundation, the corner stone on which the Christian church rests: that all the apostles and prophets are indeed mentioned as its foundation, but only because all their doctrines refer to Him; and I was convinced that St. Peter was in no degree more distinguished or more elevated than his fellow-labourers. Although I did not then understand, at least not so fully as I do now, the evangelical meaning of the 18th and 19th verses of chapter 16 of St. Matthew, yet I was persuaded that the papacy or sovereignty of St. Peter could not reasonably be deduced from them Finally my conviction that St. Peter was not above the other apostles, was completed by observing what he says himself in his first epistle, "The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder" 1 Pet. 5:1; by what St. Paul says to the Corinthians, "I was not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles," 2 Cor. 11:5; by noticing that St. Paul, according to his own account, "withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed;" Gal. 2:11; and that he severely and publicly reprehended him, because "he constrained the Gentiles to be circumcised;" by seeing how the common disciples of the church of Jerusalem made no scruple of reproving Peter, because "he went in unto men uncircumcised, and did eat with them," Acts, 11:3; how they required from him an explanation of his conduct, and how the apostle hastened to justify himself, by relating to them exactly how the thing had happened. Finally, by observing that "when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John." Acts, 8:14.
"There can be no doubt," thought I, as I perused and re-perused all these testimonies, "that Peter was in every respect equal to the other apostles; that he had no superiority nor jurisdiction over them. Had he been, had he thought himself, or had others thought him, the prince of the apostles and sovereign pastor of the church, would he have called himself an elder like unto the other elders? Is it possible that St. Paul would have declared himself to be 'not a whit behind him;' that he would have 'withstood him to his face,' and blamed him publicly? Is it probable that mere believers, common members of the church, should have ventured to dispute with him, to require an explanation of his conduct, or that he should have thought it necessary to satisfy them by giving one?[6] Is it likely that he would have been sent by the other apostles, or have received their orders, when it would have been his part, had he been their chief, to command and to send them?"
[Footnote 6: The popes, his pretended successors, have not been so obliging; they have been always solicitous to make their authority felt.]
I needed no more evidence to be thoroughly convinced that all which is taught by the Romish church of the supremacy of St. Peter, and of the sovereignty of the popes, his pretended successors, was a fable destitute of the slightest foundation; at all events, a doctrine no more to be found in the Gospel than that of purgatory.
If I were surprised at this, I was no less so when I observed, that in the whole New Testament there was not one word which gave reason to imagine that St. Peter had ever preached, or had even ever been, at Rome, where the Roman Catholics assert, and believe as an article of faith, that he was the first pope. The Acts of the Apostles maintains the most profound silence on this subject, and affords no ground whatever for the supposition. All the Epistles leave it equally in darkness. Those of St. Paul to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, the second to Timothy, and the Epistle to Philemon, all written from Rome at different periods, and that to the Hebrews, written from Italy, make no mention of Peter's being there. In the last four, the apostle speaks of his companions in suffering, in labour, and in the work of the Lord, but says not a word of Peter as being with him. Undoubtedly he would have mentioned him, as he mentions Tychicus, Onesimus, Aristarchus, Demas, Prudens, Livius, Claudia, etc. had he been at Rome; but neither his name, nor any allusion to his abode in the capital of the world, is to be discovered in any part of St. Paul's Epistles. In my opinion, there is no proof of his ever having been there, much less of his having held the bishopric. Finally, his own two Epistles furnish no evidence for such a supposition: the first, and in all probability, the second also, is written from Babylon, 1 Peter, 5:13, and addressed, not to the Romans, but "to the strangers (that is to say, the converted Jews) scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," 1 Peter, 1:1, countries where, it would appear, that he exercised his ministry, after having for some years preached to the church at Antioch.