Popery condemned by scripture and the fathers - End Time Deception

16 POPERY CONDEMNED EY
he may be informed that he was a heathen god ;
and his labours relate, how he begat fifty children
on fifty sisters all in one night ; with many
other stories equally edifying and pleasant, and
such as an apostle would naturally keep about
his house for the amusement of his visitors.
*' Our worship, however," says Giucomo Bartolini,
who was present at the discovery, '^ was
^'
not misplaced ; since we did not pay it to the
*' wood itself, but to the prince of the apostles,
^^ St. Peter *.'* Another Italian writer, unwilling
that this holy chair should be altogether excluded
from the worship of the church, attempted
to explain the labours of Hercules, as emblematical
of the future exploits of the Popes f.
And it must be confessed, that the procreative
powers of some former heads of the See of
Rome, afforded him cause to entertain sanguine
hopes of their future deeds of generation.
Though I have no intention at present to de-.
ny that Peter was at Rome, I cannot help observing
that the proof which the R. pretends to
draw from the scripture is entirely unfounded.
" His first epistle," says he, " is dated from
" Babylon, and that, under the name of Baby-
" Ion, Rome v/as then undersood, we know
" from the scripture and authentic history : St.
" John,
* Bartol. Anticli. sacr. dl Ronia. f
Juuchesini Catectra
restit. a S. Pietro.