There is not a vestige therefore of scriptural evidence, much less an infallible demonstration, that the successors of St. Peter, whoever they may be, are possessed of infallibility. And supposing his successors to be infallible, there is not the slightest scriptural ground for believing that his successors are the Bishops of Rome. On this point, so vitally essential to the Papal cause, the sacred writings are wholly silent. They indeed inform us that this Apostle preached at Jerusalem, at Cæsarea, at Joppa, and at Antioch, but they no where even intimate that he ever was at Rome: still less therefore can we expect them to affirm that he was local Bishop of that See; and least of all, that the Roman Bishops (in preference to the Bishops in other churches of which he was the founder,) were heirs of his peculiar privileges; and along with other Apostolic privileges, inherited infallibility, while they lost the gifts of miracles and of tongues. {14b} The absence of proofs from Scripture in favour of the Papal claims, is by no means compensated by a plenitude of evidence from antiquity. In ancient times the pretension to infallibility, instead of being universally acknowledged, was not even alleged. It was never so much as mentioned. Churches and Fathers, in the primitive age, on occasions of their dissenting from the Roman Pontiff, so far from yielding reverently and implicitly to his opinions, openly contested them like those of any other bishop, metropolitan, or patriarch. Nay, they even sometimes excommunicated their infallible superior. {14c} The Roman Pontiff, on the other hand, so far from crushing opposition by the verdict of infallibility, endeavoured always to support his doctrine by the authority of Scripture, of reason, or of antiquity. When appeals were made to him by disputants in a later age, it was never stated or imagined to be their ground of selecting him as their arbiter, that his decision would be infallible; but only that he merited such a tribute of respect, either in consideration of his private character, as a wise, just, and holy individual, or by virtue of his official rank as bishop of the imperial city. {15a}