Yet we must remember that to illustrate different truths,

Fathers whom I have cited as holding the contrary opinion. It seems to me that they have erred in considering the general doctrine of Scripture, rather than what is required by the context of this particular passage. It is undoubtedly the doctrine of Scripture that Christ is the only foundation: 'other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ' (1 Cor. iii. 11). the same metaphor may be used and so, according to circumstances, may have different significations. The same Paul who has called Christ the only foundation, tells his Ephesian converts (ii. 20):-Ye are built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone.' And in like manner we read (Rev. xxi. 14):—‘The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and in them the names of the twelve Apostles of the Lamb.' How is it that there can be no other foundation but Christ, and yet that the Apostles are spoken of as foundations? Plainly because the metaphor is used with different applications. Christ alone is that foundation, from being joined to which the whole building of the Church derives its unity and stability, and gains strength to defy all the assaults of hell. But, in the same manner as any human institution is said to be founded by those men to whom it owes its origin, so we may call those men the foundation of the Church whom God honoured by using them as His instruments in the establishment of it; who were themselves laid as the first living stones in that holy temple, and on whom the other stones of that temple were laid; for it was on their testimony that others received the truth, so that our faith rests on theirs; and (humanly speaking) it is because they believed that we believe. So, again, in like manner, we are forbidden to call anyone on earth our Father, for one is our Father which is in heaven.' And yet, in another sense, Paul did not scruple to call himself the spiritual father of those whom he had begotten in the Gospel. You see, then, that the fact that Christ is called the rock, and that on Him the Church is built, is no hindrance to Peter's also being, in a different sense, called rock, and being said to be the foundation of the Church; so that I

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consider there is no ground for the fear entertained by some, in ancient and in modern times, that, by applying the words personally to Peter, we should infringe on the honour due to Christ alone.

If there be no such fear, the context inclines us to look on our Lord's words as conferring on Peter a special reward for his confession. For that confession was really the birth of the Christian Church. Our Lord had grown up to the age of thirty, it would seem, unnoticed by His countrymen; certainly without attempting to gather disciples. Then, marked out by the Holy Ghost at His baptism, and proclaimed by John. as the Lamb of God, He was joined by followers. They heard His gracious words; they saw His mighty works; they came to think of Him as a prophet, and doubted, in themselves, whether He were not something more. Was it possible that this could be the long-promised Messiah? This crisis was the date of Peter's confession. Our Lord saw His disciples' faith struggling into birth, and judged that it was time to give it the confirmation of His own assurance that they had judged rightly. By His questions He encouraged them to put into words the belief which was forcing itself on them all, but to which Peter first dared to give profession. In that profession he proclaimed the distinguishing doctrine of the Christian Church. Up to that time the Apostles had preached repentance. They had been commissioned to announce that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. But thenceforward the religion they preached was one whose main article was faith in Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour.

When you once understand the importance of this confession, you will understand the warmth of commendation with which our Lord received what seems to us but the simple profession of an ordinary Christian's faith. We are apt to forget what an effort it was for a Jew, at the time when the nation was in a state of strained and excited expectation of some signal fulfilment of the prophetic announcement of a coming deliverer, to give up his ideal of a coming triumphant Messiah, to fix his hopes on a man of lowly rank, who made no pretensions to the greatness of this world, and to believe that the prophecies were to receive

no better fulfilment than what the carpenter's son could give them. One proportions praise and encouragement, not only to the importance of the thing done, but also to its difficulty to him who does it. The act of running a few steps alone, or of saying a few articulate words, is a feat on which none of you would dream of priding himself; but with what praise and encouragement parents welcome a child's first attempt to walk without support; with what delight they catch at the first few words he is able to pronounce. And it is not only that the first efforts of the child are as difficult to him as some more laborious exercise would be to us; but also that first victory is the pledge of many more. The very first words a child pronounces give his parents the assurance that that child is not, either through want of intellect or through want of powers of speech, doomed to be separated from intercourse with mankind. The learning these two or three words gives the assurance that he will afterwards be able to master all the other difficulties of language, and will be capable of all the varied delights which speech affords. And so in that first profession of faith in Christ, imperfect though it was, and though it was shown immediately afterwards how much as to the true character of the Messiah remained to be learned, was contained the pledge of every future profession of faith which the Church then founded has since been able to put forth. This accounts for the encouragement and praise with which our Lord received it. I own it seems to me the most obvious and natural way of understanding our Lord's words to take them as conferring a personal honour in reward for that confession. Thy name I have called Rock and on thee and on this confession of thine I will found my Church. For that confession really was the foundation of the Church. Just as in some noble sacred music, the strain which a single voice has led is responded to by the voices of the full choir, so that glorious hymn of praise, which Peter was the first to raise, has been caught up and re-echoed by the voices of the redeemed in every age. Nay, the anthem of thanksgiving to Jesus, the Son of God, which has filled the mouths of the Church militant on earth, shall still be the burden of their songs in heaven as they ascribe

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'blessing, and honour, and glory, and power to Him that sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb.'

It was not only in this first recognition of the true character of our Lord that Peter was foremost. Jesus fulfilled His promise to him by honouring him with the foremost place in each of the successive steps by which the Church was developed. It was through St. Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost that the first addition was made to the number of the disciples whom our Lord Himself had collected, when on one day there was added to the Church 3000 souls; and it was by Peter's mission to Cornelius that the first step was made to the admission of Gentiles to the Church; thus causing it to overleap the narrow barriers of Judaism and to embrace all the families of the earth. Thus the words of our Lord were fulfilled in that Peter was honoured by being the foremost among the human agents by which the Church was founded.* But I need not say that this was an honour in which it was impossible he could have a successor. We might just as well speak of Adam's having a successor in the honour of being the first man, as of Peter's having a successor in the place which he occupied in founding the Christian Church.

I have said that the Romanist interpretation of the text we have been considering is refuted by the fact that many eminent Fathers do not understand the rock as meaning St. Peter. You will see now, that even if they did,† as I do myself, the Romanist consequences would not follow. If Peter were the foundation of the Church in any other sense than I have explained, it would have shaken immediately afterwards when our Lord said unto him: Get thee behind me, Satan,' and tottered to its base when he denied his Lord. Immediately after Peter had earned commendation by his acknowledgment of Jesus as the Messiah, the doctrine of a

The same explanation may be given of the bestowal on Peter of the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

+ For example Tertullian, the earliest writer quoted as interpreting the 'Rock' to mean St. Peter, contends vehemently (De Pudic. 21) that the privilege conferred by our Lord on that occasion was exclusively personal, and was fulfilled by the part Peter took in the first formation of the Church.

crucified Messiah was proposed to him and he rejected it. So that if the Apostles had believed that the words 'On this rock I will build my Church' constituted Peter their infallible guide, the very first time they followed his guidance they would have been led into miserable error. They would have been led by him to reject the Cross, on which we rely as our atonement, and on which we place all our hope of salvation. I will not delay to speak of the latter part of the passage, because it is clear that the privileges therein spoken of are not peculiar to Peter, very similar words being used in the 18th of St. Matthew to all the Apostles.

I hasten on to the words in St. Luke, on which Roman Catholics are forced to lay much of their case. For when it is pointed out, as I did just now, that the charge in St. Matthew clearly did not render Peter competent to guide the Apostles, it is owned that the due powers were not given to him then, but it is said they were conferred afterwards. When it is pointed out that the disputes among the Apostles for precedence show that they were not aware that Peter had been made their ruler, it is answered that our Lord on the night before He was betrayed decided the subject of these disputes in His charge to Peter. Our habitual use of the second person plural in addressing individuals so disguises from the modern English reader the force of the Roman Catholic argument, that I have hardly ever found anyone who could quote correctly that familiar text about sifting as wheat unless his attention had been specially called to it. Our Lord's words do very strongly bring out a special gift to Peter: Simon, Simon, Satan hath desired to have you (uâs, all the Apostles) that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for thee (Peter) that thy faith fail not, and when thou art converted strengthen thy brethren.' But certainly no one who interpreted Scripture according to its obvious meaning could suspect that the passage contains a revelation concerning the Church's appointed guide to truth in all time. The whole passage refers, on the face of it, to the immediate danger the faith of the Apostles was in from those trials under the pressure of which they all deserted their Master. There was a special prayer for Peter because of his special

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