llusion to
prayers to be made by those saints. It grieves me to copy out the
invocation made to St. Peter on the 18th of January, called the
anniversary of the Chair of St. Peter at Rome; the words of our Blessed
Lord himself, and of his beloved and inspired Apostle, seem to rise up
in judgment against that prayer, and condemn it. It {261} will be well
to place that hymn addressed to St. Peter, side by side with the very
word of God, and then ask, Can this prayer be safe?

1. Now, O good Shepherd, 1. Jesus saith, I am the good
merciful Peter, Shepherd. John x. 11.

2. Accept the prayers of us 2. Whatsoever ye shall ask in
who supplicate, my name, that will I do. That
whatsoever ye shall ask the
Father in my name, he may give
it you. John xiv. 13; xv. 16.

3. And loose the bands of our 3. The blood of Jesus Christ
sins, by the power committed to his Son cleanseth us from all sin.
thee, 1 John i. 7.

4. By which thou shuttest 4. These things saith he that
heaven against all by a word, is holy, he that is true, he that
and openest it[98]. openeth and no man shutteth, and
shutteth and no man openeth.
Rev. iii. 7.

I am he that liveth and was
dead, and am alive for evermore,
and have the keys of hell and of
death. Rev. i. 18.

[Footnote 98: This hymn is variously read. In the edition of Mr.
Husenbeth (H. 497.) it is: "O Peter, blessed shepherd, of thy
mercy receive the prayers of us who supplicate, and loose by thy
word the bands of our sins, thou to whom is given the power of
opening heaven to the earth, and of shutting it when
open."--"Beate pastor, Petre, clemens accipe voces precantum,
criminumque vincula verbo resolve, cui potestas tradita aperire
terris coelum, apertum claudere." H. 497.]

Let it not be answered that many a Christian minister is now called a
good shepherd. Let it not be said that the very words of our ordination
imply the conveyance of the power of loosing and binding, of opening and
shutting the g