The-papacy-its-history-dogmas-genius-and-prospects-wylie

MATTHEW XVI. IS EXAMINKD. 217ject to serve but the discovery of truth.Our Lord and hisdisciples were now on a northward journey to Cesarea Philippi.They were already within its coasts ; the snowy peaksof Lebanon gleamed full in their sight ; and nearer to them,indenting the bottom of " the goodly mountain," were thewooded glens where the Jordan has its rise. Our Lord,knowing the time of his death to be nigh, thought it well, asthey journeyed onward, to direct the current of the conversationto topics relating to the nature and foundation of thatkingdom which was so shortly to be visibly erected in theworld. " Whom do men say that I, the Son of man, am V*said he to his disciples.To this interrogatory the disciplesreplied by an enumeration of the various opinions held respectinghim by the people at large." But," said he, directinghis question specially to the disciples,— " But whom sayye that I am V " And Simon Peter answered and said,Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Pleasedto find his true character so clearly understood, so firmlybelieved in, and so frankly avowed, our Lord turned to Peterand said, " Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona ;for flesh andblood hath not revealed IT unto thee." What it? Unquestionablythe truth he had just acknowledged, that Jesusis" the Christ, the Son of the living God,"—a truth whichlay at the foundation of hismission, which lay at the foundationof all his teaching, and, by consequence, at the foundationof that system of truth, commonly called his kingdom,which he was to erect in the world, and which, therefore,was a fundamental truth, if any truth ever merited to becalled such ;for unless it be true that Jesus was " the Christ,the Son of the living God," there is nothing true in Christianity,—itis all a fable. We must bear in mind, then, inproceeding to the next clause, that it was on this truth,which both Papist and Protestant must confess to be thevery Jirst truth in Christianity, that the minds of our Lordand his disciples were now undividedly fixed. " And I say* Matt. xvi. 13-20.