He speaks of the Church of Rome not only as having been founded and settled under its first bishop by St. Peter and St. Paul, but as being one of the greatest and most ancient, well known to all men(138), preserving the true doctrine by the resort of persons from all quarters, and possessing from this circumstance a more powerful pre‐eminence; and states that all Churches must on that account resort to it(139). It is well known that this is a passage upon which Romanists very much rely, as establishing the claim of their Church to be the mistress of controversies to all Christendom; and I have chosen to give it the utmost force of which it is fairly capable, in order to avoid the charge of slurring it over, and in order to show that even thus it states nothing inconsistent with the doctrine of the Church of England respecting the present Church of Rome. I will therefore give a translation of the passage, which appears below, and make some remarks upon that translation:—“For every Church (that is, the faithful who are on all sides,) must on account of its more powerful pre‐eminence resort to this Church, in which the apostolical tradition is preserved by those who are on all sides.” There are several words in this passage which must influence the sense of it. The first I shall notice is the word _potentiorem_, the more especially as there is a various reading upon it. One MS. (the Clermont) of considerable value, reads _potiorem_; but Massuet, who examined it, says that it _had_ been written _pontiorem_ (but altered to _potiorem_,) which is almost certainly a contraction for the common reading. We must therefore, I conclude, sit down with the common reading; although Massuet, in the Benedictine edition, and J. J. Griesbach, in some remarks upon this passage(140), prefer the other. But what Greek word _potentiorem_ represents must be matter of conjecture; and no one who is acquainted with the manner in which the translator has rendered Greek words will be inclined to lay much stress upon it. It may have been put for ἱκανωτέραν, or κρείττονα; or, in short, the comparative of any adjective which _admits_ of being rendered _potens_. We then come to the word _principalitatem_. This we know that the ancient translator of Irenæus uses to signify ἀρχή(141). Putting these two together, Griesbach has rendered κρείττονα ἀρχὴν, _potiorem initium_, and thus got rid of the idea of _authority_ altogether. But there is no need of this. _Principalis_ is used by the translator as the rendering of ἡγεμονικός(142); _principaliter_, of προηγουμένως(143), and προηγητίκως(144); _principalitatem habeo_, of πρωτεύω(145). We know that all the apostolical sees had a kind of _principality_ or _pre‐eminence_ above the surrounding Churches; a _more powerful_ pre‐eminence than other Churches equally ancient with themselves. Nay, we know that the Church of Rome had at that time, in point of fact, a more powerful pre‐eminence than any other Church.