I wonder that Taylor should have introduced so very strong an argument merely 'obiter'. If St. Peter ever was at Rome, it must have been for the Jewish converts or _convertendi_ exclusively, and on what do the earliest Fathers rest the fact of Peter's being at Rome? Do they appeal to any document? No; but to their own arbitrary and most improbable interpretation of the word Babylon in St. Peter's first epistle. [7] I am too deeply impressed with the general difficulty arising out of the strange eclipse of all historic documents, of all particular events, from the arrival of St. Paul at Rome as related by St. Luke and the time when Justin Martyr begins to shed a scanty light, to press any particular instance of it. Yet, if Peter really did arrive at Rome, and was among those destroyed by Nero, it is strange that the Bishop and Church of Rome should have preserved no record of the particulars. Ib. s. xv. p. 71. But what shall we think of that decretal of Gregory the Third, who wrote to Boniface his legate in Germany, 'quod illi, quorum uxores infirmitate aliqua morbida debitum reddere noluerunt, aliis poterant nubere.' Supposing the 'noluerunt' to mean 'nequeunt', or at least any state of mind and feeling that does not exclude moral attachment, I, as a Protestant, abominate this decree of Gregory III; for I place the moral, social, and spiritual helps and comforts as the proper and essential ends of Christian marriage, and regard the begetting of children as a contingent consequence. But on the contrary tenet of the Romish Church, I do not see how Gregory could consistently decree otherwise. Ib. s. iii. p. 82. Nor that Origen taught the pains of hell not to have an eternal duration. And yet there can be no doubt that Taylor himself held with Origen on this point. But, 'non licebat dogmatizare oppositum, quia determinatum fuerat.' Ib. p. 84. And except it be in the Apostles' Creed and articles of such nature, there is nothing which may with any color be called a consent, much less tradition universal. It may be well to remember, whenever Taylor speaks of the Apostles' Creed, that Pearson's work on that Creed was not then published. Nothing is more suspicious than copies of creeds in the early Fathers; it was so notoriously the custom of the transcribers to make them square with those in use in their own time. Ib. s. iv. Such as makes no invasion upon their great reputation, which I desire should be preserved as sacred as it ought. The vision of the mitre dawned on Taylor; and his recollection of Laud came to the assistance of the Fathers; of many of whom in his heart Taylor, I think, entertained a very mean opinion. How could such a man do otherwise? I could forgive them their nonsense and even their economical falsehoods; but their insatiable appetite for making heresies, and thus occasioning the neglect or destruction of so many valuable works, Origen's for instance, this I cannot forgive or forget.