when God incarnate vouchsafed so much to abase himself.

Q. How did St. Peter behave himself upon the Approach of our Saviour's Sufferings?

29, 31.

A. He was unwilling to think, that one he loved so dearly should be so cruelly used; and betrayed too much Presumption and Self-confidence, not without some Reflection upon the Weakness of his Brethren; though all should forsake him, yet he pro-Mark xiv. fessed he would not deny him. Add to this, his unjustifiable Zeal in using the Sword without his Master's Order; for which he stands rebuked by our Saviour: And thus trusting too much to his own Strength, he became a great Example of human Frailty, in denying his Master.

Q. How was St. Peter recovered from his Fall? A. By our Saviour's gracious Look, whereby he called to Mind what our Saviour had foretold: And by passionately bewailing his Folly, and the Aggravations of it; endeavouring, by his penitential Tears, to wash away his Guilt; and in this he is a Pattern for the Direction, as well as the Comfort, of all those that sincerely turn from the Evil of their Ways.

Q. Why doth our Saviour so early appear to him after his Resurrection?

A. To comfort him under his great Sorrow for his late Fall; and to encourage him with fresh Assurances of his Favour; withal confirming him in the great Article of his Resurrection, requiring John xxi. of him, as a farther Proof of his Love, to feed his 16. Sheep, faithfully to instruct and teach them, carefully to rule and guide them.

Q. Why doth our Saviour make three several Enquiries concerning St. Peter's Love to him?

A. That St. Peter, who had been so defective in his former Professions, might be put in Mind of his thrice denying our Saviour, and, from the Sense of his Weakness, be engaged to a better Discharge of his Duty, and give more than ordinary Assurance of

his sincere Affection to his Master. Besides, this Question, Lovest thou me? thus often repeated, fairly intimates, that as nothing but a mighty Love to our Saviour will support a Man under all the Difficulties and Dangers of the pastoral Function; so the best Testimony that can be given of a sincere Affection in that great Office, is carefully to feed the Flock of Christ, and with Zeal to contribute toward the Salvation of Souls.

Q. How did St. Peter behave himself after our Saviour's Ascension?

A. In his first Sermon after the Descent of the Holy Ghost, he, with the rest of the Apostles, conActs ii. 41. verted three thousand Souls; by justifying those miraculous Gifts the Apostles had received, and by preaching the Resurrection of that Jesus, whom the Jews had crucified; and when the Sanhedrim would have obliged him to desist, with Boldness and ReCh. iv. 19. solution he referred it to their own Determination, whether it was not fit to obey God rather than Man. Q. How did he punish the Sacrilege of Ananias and Sapphira?

Ch. v.5.10.

Acts viii.

14, 15, 17, 18.

A. With present Death. They had consecrated some Land unto God, and sold the same to that Purpose; and, afterwards, through Covetousness, they purloined from the Price, and laid but Part of the Sum at the Apostles' Feet. The dreadful Punishment they suffered should make all Men careful not to alienate what is consecrated to God; since what is so set apart in a peculiar Propriety and Relation belongs to him, and the converting it to other Uses, is robbing of God.

Q. Where was St. Peter's first Mission?

A. He was sent to visit those Christians Philip the Deacon had converted in Samaria; where he confirmed the new Converts; and by Prayer, and Imposition of Hands, communicated to them the Gift of the Holy Ghost, and severely rebuked Simon Magus for imagining that the Gift of God could be purchased with Money.

Q. How was St. Peter influenced to open the Door of Salvation to the Gentiles?

A. The divine Goodness vouchsafed to remove those Prejudices of his Education, which the Jews had entertained for several Ages against the Gentiles, Acts x. by the Means of a special Vision; which, with the Relation of what had happened to Cornelius, fully convinced him that God was no Respecter of Persons; that honest Heathens, who exercised Works of Mercy and Devotion, and were well disposed to receive the Christian Revelation, should be accepted by him. Q. How did he carry himself in the Dispute between the Jewish and Gentile Converts?

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A. He declared God's Acceptance of the Gentiles, which was communicated to him by a Vision from Heaven; and was farther confirmed by their receiving the Holy Ghost as well as others; and that therefore the Yoke of the Jewish Rites ought not to be laid upon the Gentile Converts. Yet afterwards he dissembled his Christian Liberty, by which he confirmed the Judaizing Christians, in their Errors, and cast Scruples in the Minds of the Gentiles, for Gal. ii. 1. which he stands rebuked by St. Paul.

Q. How was St. Peter preserved from the cruel Designs of Herod?

4. God was pleased to hear the fervent Prayers of the Church that were offered in his Behalf; for Acts xii. being put into Prison by the Command of Herod, and strictly guarded by Soldiers, and secured in Chains; the Night before his intended Execution, the Angel of the Lord came unto him, raised him from Sleep, knocked off his Chains, and conducted him to a Place of Safety, so that he was delivered out of the Hand of Herod; who, being provoked by the Disappointment, commanded the Keepers to be put to Death.

Q. In what Place besides Judea did St. Peter bestow his Apostolical Labours?

A. At Antioch he employed himself in making Converts, and was the first Bishop of that Place, ac

Euseb.
His. Eccl.

1. iii. c. 1.

cording to the Sense of Antiquity. He afterwards preached the Gospel to the Jews dispersed in Pontus, Gallatia, Cappadocia, and Asia. Towards the latter End of his Life he went to Rome, about the second Year of the Emperor Claudius: where he laboured in establishing Christianity; chiefly among the Jews, being the Apostle of the Circumcision.

Q. What was it that at that Time so particularly prejudiced the Minds of the Romans against receiving the Doctrine of Christ?

A. The Arts of Simon Magus, who sought to advance his Reputation among the People, by doing many wonderful and strange Things: And who used to style himself the first and chiefest Deity, the Father who is God over all, and to whom Justin Martyr affirms a Statue to have been erected with this Inscription: Simoni Deo Sancto: To Simon the Holy God.

Q. How did St. Peter expose the Impostures of this wicked Wretch?

A. By shewing the Vanity of his Pretences, and working himself those Wonders which Simon Magus falsely boasted of. For there being at Rome a Trial between them about raising a Kinsman of the Emperor lately dead, the Magician failed in the Attempt, in which St. Peter succeeded. when Simon Magus, to recover his Reputation, pretended to fly up to Heaven from the Mount of the Capitol, by the Prayers of St. Peter, the Wings he had made began to fail him; and falling he was so bruised, that in a short Time he died.

Q. When did St. Peter suffer Martyrdom?

And

A. About the Year of Christ sixty-nine, under Nero; whom he had provoked by his Success against Simon Magus, and by his reducing many dissolute Women to a temperate and sober Life; and it was probably in that Persecution of the Christians when the Emperor burned Rome, and charged them with the Guilt and Punishment of it. The Manner of his Death was by Crucifixion, with his Head down

wards, affirming, that he was unworthy to suffer in the same Posture wherein his Lord had suffered before him.

Q. What became of his Body?

A. It is said to have been embalmed by Marcellinus the Presbyter, after the Jewish Manner, and that it was buried in the Vatican, near the Triumphal Way, where there was a Church erected to his Memory, now one of the Wonders of the World for all the Advantages that Riches and Art can bestow. Q. Was St. Peter a married Man?

14.

A. The Scriptures mention his Wife's Mother, Mat. viii. and he is reckoned among the Ancients as one of the Apostles that was married and had Children. Moreover, there is a Tradition that his Wife suffered Euseb. 1. by Martyrdom in his Life-time, and that he rejoiced she 3. c. 30. was called to so great an Honour: and in his Exhortation to her it is recorded, he earnestly used these Words, O Woman, be mindful of the Lord' Q. What Writings did this Apostle leave behind him?

A. Only two Epistles that are genuine, and which make Part of the sacred Canon. They were addressed to those Jewish Converts that were scattered through Pontus, Galatia, &c. not only upon the Persecution 1 Pet. i. 1. raised at Jerusalem, but upon former Dispersions of the Jews into those Places upon several other Occasions. The principal Design of the first is to comfort and confirm them under those fiery Trials and manifold Temptations they were then subject to, and Ch. iv. 12. to direct and instruct them how to behave themselves in the several States and Relations both of the Civil Ch. ii. 12. and Christian Life; that they might not be engaged to 25. in those Rebellions against Cæsar and his Officers, then fomented among the Jews; and that they Acts iii. might stop the Mouths of those who spoke against 2 Pet. ii. them as Evil Doers. In the second he prosecutes the 21. same Subject, to prevent their Apostacy from the Ch. ii. 7. Faith, their turning away from the Holy Commandment, and their falling from their own Stedfastness, by

16, 17, 18,