of Abraham, of Ifaac, and of Jacob,-the God of our fathers, through faith in his name, hath made this man whole, whom ye fee and know.

This is the beft anfwer I am able to make to this objection against the uniformity of the apostle's character which I have given :-upon which let it be added,--that was no fuch apology capable of being made in its behalf;-that the truth and regularity of a character is not, in justice, to be looked upon as broken, from any one fingle act or omiffion which may feem a contradiction to it:-the best of men appear fometimes to be strange compounds of contradictory qualities: and were the accidental overfights and folly of the wifeft man,—the failings and imperfections of a religious man,the hafty acts and paffionate words of a meek man; were they to rife up in judgment against them,—and an ill-natured judge be suffered to mark in this manner what has been done amifs, -what character fo unexceptionable as to be able to stand before him?-So that, with the candid allowances which the infirmities of a man may claim when he falls, through furprize

more than a premeditation,-one may venture upon the whole to fum up Peter's character in a few words.-He was a man fenfible in his nature, of quick paffions, tempered with the greatest humility and most unaffected poverty of spirit that ever met in fuch a character.— So that in the only criminal instance of his life, which I have spoke to, you are at a loss which to admire most ;-the tenderness and fenfibility of his foul, in being wrought upon to repentance by a look from Jefus ;-or the uncommon humility of it, which he testified thereupon, in the bitterness of his forrow for what he had done.-He was once prefumptuous in trusting to his own ftrength; his general and true character was that of the most engaging meekness,-diftruftful of himself and his abilities to the laft degree.

He denied his master.-But in all instances of his life, but that, was a man of the greatest truth and fincerity;-to which part of his character our Saviour has given an undeniable teftimony, in conferring on him the cymbolical name of Cephas, a rock, a name the most expreffive of conftancy and firmness.

He was a man of great love to his master, and of no lefs zeal for his religion, of which, from among many, I fhall take one instance out of St. John, with which I fhall conclude this account. Where, upon the desertion of feveral other disciples, our Saviour puts the question to the twelve,-Will ye also go away? -Then, fays the text, Peter answered and faid,-Lord! whither shall we go? Thou haft the words of eternal life,—and we believe, and know that thou art Chrift the fon of God. -Now, if we look into the gospel, we find what our Saviour pronounced on this very confeffion.

Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee,— but my father which is in heaven.-That our Saviour had the words of eternal life,-Peter was able to deduce from principles of natural reafon; because reason was able to judge from the internal marks of his doctrine, that it was worthy God, and accommodated properly to advance human nature and human happiness. -But for all this,-reafon could not infallibly determine that the meffenger of this doctrine

was the Meffias, the eternal fon of the living God:-to know this required an illumination; -and this illumination, I fay, feems to have been vouchfafed at that inftant as a reward,as would have been fufficient evidence by itself of the difpofition of his heart.—

I have now finished this short effay upon the character of St. Peter, not with a loud panegyric upon the power of his keys, or a ranting encomium upon fome monaftic qualifications, with which a popish pulpit would ring upon fuch an occafion, without doing much. honour to the faint, or good to the audience; -but have drawn it with truth and fobriety, representing it as it was, as confifting of virtues the most worthy of imitation, and grounded, not upon apocryphal accounts and legendary inventions, the wardrobe from whence popery dresses out her faints on these days, but upon matters of fact in the facred Scriptures, in which all chriftians agree.And fince I have mentioned popery, I cannot better conclude than by obferving, how ill the fpirit and character of that church resembles that particular part of St. Peter's which has

been made the fubject of this discourse.Would one think that a church, which thrufts itself under this apostle's patronage, and claims her power under him, would prefume to exceed the degrees of it which he acknowleged to poffefs himself.-But how ill are your expectations answered, when instead of the humble declaration in the text,-Ye men of Ifrael, marvel not at us, as if our own power and holinefs had wrought this;-you hear a language and behaviour from the Romish court, as oppofite to it as infolent words and actions can frame

So that inftead of, Ye men of Ifrael, marvel not at us,-Ye men of Ifrael, do marvel at us,-hold us in admiration :-Approach our facred pontiff,-(who is not only holybut holiness itself)-approach his perfon with reverence, and deem it the greatest honour and happiness of your lives to fall down before his chair, and be admitted to kifs his feet.

Think not, as if it were not our own holinefs which merits all the homage you can pay