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Mark viii. 27. by the way,

Luke ix. 18.

as he was alone praying, his disciples were with
him and

Matt. xvi. 13. he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say
that I the Son of man, am?

Matt. xvi. 14.

And they

Mark viii. 28. answered,

Matt. xvi. 14. and said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist:

culous power.

To this our Saviour alludes, Matt. xii. 28. "But if I, in the Spirit of God cast out devils, then is the kingdom of God come upon you."

5. They supposed that the Messiah would appear, not in a real human body, but in the semblance of one; v dokýσe. This notion found its way into the Christian Church, and was the distinguishing dogma of the Docetæ. It is combated by St. John in several parts of his writings; viz. "The word was made flesh, and dwelt amongst us," (John i. 14.) not only seemed to wear a human form, but actually did so. Again, "Every Spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is not of God," (1 John iv. 3.) And it is not an improbable supposition of Professor Bertholdt, that the Evangelist had the same heresy in view, when he made particular mention of the blood and water which flowed from the side of Jesus, (John xix. 34.)

6. They expected that the Messiah would not be subject to death, (John xii. 34.) The multitude answered him, "We have heard out of the law, that Christ abideth for ever."

7. Yet they thought that he was to offer in his own person an expiatory sacrifice for their sins, John i. 29.

8. He was to restore the Jews to freedom. Compare Luke i. 68. xxiv. 21. 4 Esdr. xii. 34.

9. And to establish a pure and perfect form of worship, Luke i. 73. John iv. 25.

10. And to give remission of sins, Luke i. 76. Matt. i. 21.

11. And to work miracles, John vii. 31.

12. He was to descend into the receptacle of departed spirits, and to bring back to earth the souls of the Israelites, which were then to be reunited to their glorified bodies: and this was to be the first resurrection.

13. The devil and his angels were to be cast into hell for a thousand years. 14. Then was to begin the kingdom of heaven, or of God, or of the Christ, which was to last a thousand years.

15. At the end of that period of time, the devil was to be released from confinement, and to excite great troubles and commotions; but he was to be conquered, and again imprisoned for ever.

16. After that was to be the second and general resurrection of the dead, followed by the judgment.

17. The world was to be renewed; new heavens, a new earth, and a new Jerusalem were to appear.

18. At last the Messiah, having fulfilled his office, was to deliver up the kingdom to God, at whose right hand he was to sit for evermore.

Cæsarea

Philippi.

Cæsarea
Philippi.

r John vi. 69.

but some say,

Elias

s;

and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets;

Mark viii. 28.

Matt. xvi. 14.

and others say, that one of the old prophets is risen Luke ix. 19. again:

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he saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Matt. xvi. 15. And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou Matt. xvi. 16. art the Christ, the Son of the living God 18.

18 ON THE CONFESSION OF ST. PEter.

Our Lord had now, by his miracles, teaching, and conduct, so-impressed on the minds of his Apostles the certainty that he was the Messiah, whom they had expected, that St. Peter makes the fullest confession of his faith, in the most energetic language. Our Lord immediately addresses him in that remarkable language, which has been said, by the Church of Rome, to be the immoveable foundation of her undoubted supremacy and her exclusive privileges, as the depositary of truth, and of her consequent infallibility, as the director and instructor of the world. The question therefore is, whether the confession made by St. Peter was the rock on which the Church of Christ was to be founded, or whether the Apostle himself was that rock. The most eminent of the ancient Fathers have espoused the former opinion. Chrysostom (a) interprets the passage τῇ πέτρα-τουτέστι τῇ πίστει τῆς ὁμολογίας, upon the rock, that is, upon the faith of his profession.

The most probable meaning of the passage appears to be that which shall comprise both of the controverted senses. St. Peter was always the most zealous of the Apostles, and to him was reserved the honour of first preaching the Gospel to the Gentiles. The probable reason why our Lord addressed himself particularly to Peter was, that he happened to be the first who had acknowledged Him as the Christ the Son of the living God. St. Peter generally proved himself the chief speaker, and he continued to do so after our Lord's ascension, without, however, assuming the least degree of authority over the rest of the apostles. The occasion of our Lord's addressing Peter was the confession the Apostle had just made; and He may be considered as speaking prophetically, when he said, pointing to or resting his hand upon the Apostle, thou art Peter, and on thee, as the first preacher to the Gentiles, and on this confession, which thou shalt preach to them, I will establish my Church.-Beza, Lightfoot, Bishop Burgess, in his treatise inserted in a collection of tracts lately published, and many others, among whom may be reckoned some of the Popes themselves, have espoused this conclusion. Bishop Marsh, however, in his work on the Comparison between the Churches of England and Rome; Grotius, Michaelis, Whitby, with Pere Simon, and the Romanists in general, have adopted the latter opinion.

Among other of the Protestant writers who have strenuously advocated the opinion that Christ and not St. Peter was the founder of the Christian Church, we meet with the venerable name of the late Granville Sharp. The assumption of supremacy over all the Churches of Christ by the Church of Rome, filled him

(a) Vide Elsley in loc. who quotes Chrys. in Matt. xvi. 18. and Tom. 5, or

163.

Matt. xvi. 17.

Philippi.

And Jesus answered, and said unto him, Blessed Cæsarea art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

with astonishment. He was induced, in consequence, to pay particular attention to the passage upon which this arrogant claim was supported, and the result of his examination is here annexed. The Greek word πETроç, he observes, does not mean a rock, though it has indeed a relative meaning to the word πεтρa, a rock; for it signifies only a little piece of rock, or a stone, that has been dug out of a rock; whereby the dignity of the real foundation intended by our Lord, which he expressed by the prophetical figure of Petra (a rock,) must necessarily be understood to bear a proportionable superiority of dignity and importance above the other preceding word petros; as petra, a real rock, is comparatively superior to a mere stone, or particle from the rock; because a rock is the regular figurative expression in Holy Scripture for a Divine Protector; y', Jehovah (is my rock,) 2 Sam. xxii. 2. and Psa. xviii. 2. Again, yx, my God (is) my rock, (2 Sam. xxii. 2. and Psa. xviii. 2.) and again, yban qır •pi

and who (is) a rock, except our God? 2 Sam. xxii. 32. That our Lord really referred to this declaration of Peter, relating to his own divine dignity, as being the true rock, on which he would build his Church, is established beyond contradiction by our Lord himself, in the clear distinction which he maintained between the stone (πεTρos, petros,) and the rock (πɛTρа, petra,) by the accurate grammatical terms in which both these words are expressly recorded. For whatsoever may have been the language in which they were really spoken, perhaps in Chaldee or Syriac, yet in this point the Greek record is our only authoritative instructor. The first word, wεrpoç, being a masculine noun, signifies merely a stone; and the second word, wɛrpa, though it is a feminine noun, cannot signify any thing of less magnitude and importance than a rock, or strong mountain of defence.

With respect to the first. The word πετρos, petros, in its highest figurative sense of a stone, when applied to Peter, can represent only one true believer, or faithful member of Christ's Church, that is, one out of the great multitude of true believers in Christ, who, as figurative stones, form altogether the glorious spiritual building of Christ's Church, and not the foundation on which that Church is built; because that figurative character cannot, consistently with truth, be applied to any other person than to God, or to Christ alone. And though even Christ himself is sometimes, in Holy Scripture, called a stone, (Oos, but not wεTроç,) yet whenever this figurative expression is applied to him, it is always with such a clear distinction of superiority over all other figurative stones, as will not admit the least idea of any vicarial stone to be substituted in his place; as, for instance, he is called, “the head stone of the corner," (Psa. cxviii. 22.)—“ in Zion a precious corner stone,” (Isa. xxviii. 16.) by whom alone the other living stones of the spiritual house are rendered “acceptable to God;" as St. Peter himself (previous to his citation of that text of Isaiah) has 'clearly declared, in his address to the Churches dispersed throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, wherein he manifestly explains that very text of Isaiah, as follows:-" Ye also," says the Apostle, "as living stones, are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sa

Cæsarea

Philippi.

And I

say

also unto thee, That thou art Pe- Matt. vi. 18. John 42. ter, and upon this rock I will build my Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

crifices acceptable to God, by (or through) Jesus Christ." (1 Pet. ii. 5.) Thus plainly acknowledging the true foundation, on which the other living stones of the primitive Catholic Church were built, in order to render them "acceptable to God," as a "holy priesthood."

From this whole argument of St. Peter, it is manifest that there cannot be any other true head of the Church than Christ himself; so that the pretence for setting up a vicarial head on earth, is not only contrary to St. Peter's instruction to the eastern Churches, long after Christ's ascent into heaven; but also (with respect to the inexpediency and impropriety of acknowledging such a vicar on earth as the Roman pretender,) is equally contrary to our Lord's own instruction to his disciples (and, of course, also contrary to the faith of the true primitive Catholic Church throughout the whole world,) when he promised them that, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, (said our Lord Jesus, the true rock of the Church,) there am I in the midst of them," Matt. xviii. 20. So that the appointment of any vicar on earth, to represent that rock, or eternal head of the Church, whose continual presence, even with the smallest congregations on earth, is so expressly promised, would be not only superfluous and vain, but must also be deemed a most ungrateful affront to the benevolent Promiser of his continual presence; such as must have been suggested by our spiritual enemies, to promote an apostacy from the only sure foundation, on which the faith, hope, and confidence of the true Catholic Church could be built and supported.

A due consideration also of the second noun, πɛτpa, a rock, will demonstrate that the supreme title of the rock, which, in other texts of Holy Scripture, is applied to Jehovah, or God, alone, most certainly was not intended by our Lord to be understood as applicable to his disciple Peter; but only to that true testimony which St. Peter had just before declared, concerning the divine dignity of the Messiah-" Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God."

I have already remarked, that werрa, a rock, is a feminine noun; and a clear distinction is maintained between werρog, the masculine noun in this text, and the said feminine noun wεrpa, the rock, by the grammatical terms in which the latter, in its relatives and articles, is expressed, which are all regularly feminine throughout the whole sentence, and thereby they demonstrate that our Lord did not intend that the new appellation, or nominal distinction, which he had just before given to Simon, (viz. TETρog, the masculine noun, in the beginning of the sentence) should be construed as the character of which he spoke in the next part of the sentence; for, if he had really intended that construction, the same masculine noun, #ɛʊρoç, must necessarily have been repeated in the next part of the sentence with a masculine pronoun, viz. επι τουτῳ τῳ πέτρα, instead of eπi ravтy Ty πerpa, the present text; wherein, on the contrary, not only the gender is changed from the masculine to the feminine, but also the figurative character itself, which is as much superior in dignity to the apostle Simon, and also to his new appellative Terpoç, as a rock is superior to a mere For the word poc cannot signify any thing more than a stone; so that the Popish application to Peter (or TETρoç) as the foundation of Christ's

stone.

Matt. xvi. 19.

Cæsarea

And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt Philippi. bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and

Church, is not only inconsistent with the real meaning of the appellative, which Christ at that very time conferred upon him, and with the necessary grammatical construction of it, but also with the figurative importance of the other word, πετρα, the rock; επι ταυτη τη πέτρα, upon this rock," he declared the foundation of the Church, a title of dignity, which, as I have already shewn by several texts of Scripture, is applicable only to God or to Christ.

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And observe farther, that the application of this supreme title (the rock) to Peter, is inconsistent, above all, with the plain reference to the preceding context, made by our Lord in the beginning of this very verse-" And I also say unto thee," which manifestly points out, both by the copulative“ and,” and the connective adverb" also," the inseparable connexion of this verse with the previous declaration of Peter, concerning our Lord's divine dignity in the preceding sentence, "Thou art the Christ the Son of the living God;" and thereby demonstrates that our Lord's immediate reply, (“ And I also say unto thee," &c. did necessarily include this declaration of Peter, as being the principal object of the sentence-the true foundation or rock, on which alone the Catholic Church can be properly built, because our faith in Christ (that he is truly "the Son of the living God,") is unquestionably the only security, or rock, of our salvation.

And Christ was also the rock, even of the primitive Church of Israel; for St. Paul testifies, that "they (i. e. the hosts of Israel) did all drink of that spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ," 1 Cor. x. 4. And the apostle, in a preceding chapter (1 Cor. iii. 11.) says, "other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus

Christ."

It would exceed all due limits to attempt to discuss at full length the controversies which have divided Christians, when the peculiar passages of Scripture upon which each controversy principally depends, passes under consideration. The observations of Granville Sharp, which I have now extracted, appear to be deserving of attention. The various points which separate the Catholic and Protestant Church, will soon perhaps compel the more serious attention of the Protestant world, by the general revival and increase of Popery, and the re-action in its favour in a neighbouring country. And it may be considered the bounden duty of every theological student to make himself acquainted with the controversy existing between the Churches of England and Rome (b).

The political discussions respecting the extent of the privileges which the state may conveniently assign to the members of the Church of Rome, have of late years so entirely absorbed public attention, that they have almost superseded the religious argument, which is by far the most important part of the controversy; inasmuch as mistaken religious principle is the root of that system of action, which originally excited the vigilance of the legislature, and still requires a watchful superintendence.

(b) See on this subject the tracts of the Bishop of St. David's-the tracts against Popery. The ninth volume of Bishop Hall's Works. Bishop Bull's reply to the Bishop of Meaux. Barrow's Pope's Supremacy, and many others.

t John xx. 23.

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