t, 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 equa