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

;218 APOSTOLICITY, OR PETEr's PRIMACY.also unto thee," continues our Lord, " that thou art Peterand upon this rock will I build my Church." Upon whatrock ? Upon Peter, say Romanists, grounding their interpretationupon the similarity of sound, " Tu es Petrus, et superhanc petmm.''''Upon the truth Peter had just confessed, sayProtestants, grounding their interpretation upon the higherprinciples of sense, and the reason of the thing. " Uponthis rock," says our Lord, not upon thee, the rock, but uponthis rock, namely, the truth you have now enunciated in thewords, " the Christ, the Son of the living God,"—a truthwhich has been matter of special revelation to thee, the beliefin which has made you truly blessed, and a truth whichholds a place so fundamental and essential in the gospelkingdom, that it may be well termed " a rock." What isthe Church ?Is it not an association of men holding certaintruths ? The members of the Church are united, not bytheir belief in certain men, but by their belief in certainprinciples. As is the building, so must be the foundation :the building is spiritual, and the foundation must be spiritualalso. And where, in the whole system of supernatural truth,is there a doctrine that takes precedence, as a fundamentalone, of that which Peter now confessed ? Remove it, and nothingcan supply its place ; the whole of Christianity crumblesinto ruin.This truth formed the foundation of our Lord'spersonal teaching ; it was this truth which he nobly confessedwhen he stood upon his trial ; this truth formed the sum ofthe sermons of the apostles and first preachers of Christianity;and this truth it was that constituted the compendious creedof the primitive Church. Thus, in opposition to an interpretationwhich has nothing but an agreement in sound tosupport it, we can set an interpretation which is stronglysupported by the reason of the thing, by the constitution ofthe Church as revealed in the New Testament, and by thewhole subsequent actings and declarations of the apostlesand primitive believers. To choose between these two interpretationsappears to us to involve little difficulty indeed,—at least to the man inquest of the single object of truth.