DEAN BURKE AND BISHOP NEVILL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 12737, 10 August 1903, Page 6

DEAN BURKE AND BISHOP NEVILL.

TO TIIE EDITOR, Sib,—ln the early days-of Christianity, in consequence of tho oppression of the Je\va by the Romans, the City on the Seven Hills waa by them styled Babylon, and at.the ' present time there is a consensus of opinion amongst the best commentators that she ig the spiritual Babylon mentioned by St. John in tho book of Revelation. In, his eagerness to prove that.Peter was Bishop of Homo your correspondent assuredly gives away his Church, .for Rome is the great city, the mother of harlots and abomi-. nations of the'earth, tho woman drunkwith the blood of the saints (Revelation xvii, • 5-6). Such being the case, can it be thought for a moment that tho apostle would have founded a church thus described , by his fellow-worker? Dean Burke teaches his peoplo that Peter put away his wife, and, counting marriage unholy for priests, they forbid the whole Roman hierarchy to marry, while Paul states that a bishop must , be tho husband of one- wife. Peter was most ■ assuredly not the rock on which any Church '■ was built, for petros only.means a stone, butpetra means a rock—the. rock •being;: Christ. As to his argument that' Peter' 9 first epistle, was written from Rome,' tho apostle plainly states that tho Church in Babylon saluted tho churches to which it was addressed.—l am, etc., Bible Student..