to the Churches they never bid them be subject unto him much less to his Successors but only to those that rule over them to those that admonish them and watch for their Souls that is to their own Pastors and Governors in those places where they lived II. Since therefore we are undoubtedly a true Church of Christ though we have no dependance on him and should have been so though we had never heard there was such a Bishop in the World let us be mindful of the Exhortation of the Apostle St. Jude ver 20 21. which contains the properest Use of what hath been said 20. But ye Beloved building up your selves on your most holy Faith praying in the Holy Ghost 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God looking for the Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto Eternal Life First Build up your selves on your most holy Faith. Do not think of building upon the Successor of St. Peter as the Priests of the Church of Rome would perswade you but upon that Christ and that most holy Faith on which St. Peter himself was built There are three things which the Apostles of our Lord speak concerning Faith. First They speak of laying the Foundation of it which I hope is done already so that there is no need to exhort you to it but I may say as the Apostle doth to the Hebrews Ch. vi 1. Let us go on unto perfection not laying again the Foundation of Repentance from dead Works and of Faith towards God. Secondly They speak of continuing in the Faith for by that we continue in the Church the Body of Christ Rom. xi 20. Thou standest by Faith 2 Cor. i. ult by Faith ye stand Thirdly Of continuing stedfast in it Col. ii 5. I rejoyce beholding your order and the stedfastness of your Faith in Christ 1 Cor. xvi 13. Stand fast in the Faith. And here St. Jude adds an Exhortation to building up our selves on it to endeavour that is to increase and grow strong in Faith by understanding all the Grounds and Reasons on which it relies by observing all the Testimonies which God hath given to his Son Jesus Christ for this is the very Foundation of Religion to use the words of St. Chrysostom the original of Righteousness the head and fountain of Sanctity the beginning of all true Devotion the light of the Soul and the gate of Eternal Life But we need not go to Rome for any of these and particularly we may know this great thing St. Chrysostom speaks of and be sure without consulting them that the Son of God is come as it is in the last Verse but one of the first Epistle of St. John and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true i. e. the true God whose Nature and Will is declared by him and we are in him that is true even in his Son Jesus Christ that is Children of the true God or his chosen People in or by his Son Jesus Christ that is by hearty Faith in him who is his only Begotten of one substance with the Father full of Grace and Truth Of all this I say we may be sure and this as it there follows is the true God and Eternal Life though we never know whether there be such a place as Rome and such a Bishop as the Pope of whom many Christians no doubt in several parts of the World never heard so much as one word And therefore let us not be so weak as to think we must needs use any of his Tools and Instruments for the laying the Foundation or for the building up our selves in the Christian Faith. Which relies upon the Testimony of all the Apostles whose words we have recorded in the holy Books and no where else and which all the Ministers of Christ have as much Authority to expound as they and can give as good reason for what they say as appears by what hath been said upon this place which is the Principle from whence they would wring for derive they cannot so great a Power as they challenge To which if you submit it is to undo all that you have done to lay again the Foundation of Faith or rather to overturn it and build upon Human Authority instead of Divine Which is one thing that would prevail with you if it were considered not to give up your selves to their Directions whose great labour it is to unsettle your Faith not to strengthen it to make you doubtful of every thing in the Christian Religion not to build you up on the Faith of Christ Secondly But besides this he would have us pray in the Holy Ghost That is ardently and with such devout Affections as the Holy Ghost sometimes inspires and for such things as the Holy Ghost teaches us to ask in the holy Gospel which is the Mind of the Spirit of God and especially to pray thus in the Christian Assemblies For the Apostle here opposes these things to the practice of those that separated themselves being sensual having not the Spirit ver 19. Our Lord would have us pray always and in our Closet especially in the Assemblies of our Christian Brethren where we must take heed of being frigid or luke-warm of praying to gratify any of our Carnal Desires especially that of Revenge as St. James teaches us ch iv 1 2 3. and of praying in the Name of St. Peter or St. Paul or any other Saint or Angel for which the Holy Ghost hath given no direction but quite contrary told us by the Mouth of his holy Apostles that to us there is but one God and one Lord 1 Cor. viii 6. One God and one Mediator between God and Man 1 Tim. ii 5. So that to use any other is to fall into a Schism to spoil the Unity and break the Communion of the Church of Christ as they of the Church of Rome have done both by this and by changing the ancient Government Discipline and Faith of the Christian Church which believed nothing heretofore concerning St. Peter and his Successor's Supream Power over all the Bishops in the World who took themselves to be the Vicars of Christ as much as the Bishop of Rome Take a Review of what I have said and you will see that it is they who have separated themselves from the rest of the Christian World by usurping this Universal Jurisdiction as well as by many other things and so broken that Charity and quenched that loving and kind Spirit which gives the greatest efficacy to our Prayers and makes them most fervent and most prevalent Joyn not therefore your selves to them but as the Apostle adds in the third place Thirdly Keep your selves in the Love of God. Our Lord Christ tells you how Joh. xv 10. If ye keep my Commandments ye shall abide in my Love c. adding ver 12. This is my Commandment that ye love one another as I have loved you which he repeats again Verse 17. These things I command
his Divinity upon which the Angels waited and attended just as they did upon the Divine Majesty in the Old Testament Gen. xxviii 12. And if all this do not seem sufficient to evince the Truth what think you of the Testimony which St. Peter bears to them all that they did believe and know that he was the Christ the Son of the Living God Joh. vi 69. To which may be added that our Blessed Lord and Saviour himself solemnly gives Praise and Glory to God for revealing those things which concerned his Kingdom of which this was the first unto them all Matth. xi 25 26. And lastly As this Opinion is against Reason and Scripture so it is most certainly against the Authority of the Ancient Fathers For as St. Hierom a In Matth. xiv 33. alledges the Confession of the Mariners against the Arians So the Orthodox commonly used this as an Argument against them That the very Devils had more Faith than they for they confessed what the Arians denied That Jesus was the true and natural Son of God. So they interpret those words Mark iii. 11. b V. Athanasium de Incarn Verbi p. 85. Which Maldonate himself acknowledges the Fathers are wont wonderfully to amplifie against those Hereticks which they could not have done if they thought less was meant by it than by this Confession of St. Peter's Who if he were the only Person that at this time understood this secret then the Quire of the Apostles as Basil calls them when he speaks of their Ignorance had less knowledg of the Saviour of the World than the Herd of unclean Spirits Which we cannot affirm without the greatest reproach to them they having been so long under our Saviours Discipline and seen his Power over those Spirits nay received Power themselves from him as it there follows to heal Sicknesses and to cast out Devils Mark iii. 15. But I need not laboriously inlarge upon this Argument St. Ambrose saith c L. vi in Luc. cap. 9. expresly they all knew what St. Peter alone spake And St. Chrysostom himself is of the same mind when he makes him here the Mouth of all and elsewhere d In Gal. ii 2. saith he was their Tongue and answered for them all which he could not have done if he had not known they were all of his belief And therefore we can learn nothing in this matter from such Doctors as Bellarmine but that they are resolved to affirm any thing to maintain their unjust Pretences The ambitious claim of the Bishop of Rome must by all means be supported else they would not prostitute their Consciences and their Reputations too in this manner by asserting things which are so apparently untrue that the smallest skill in the Holy Scripture is sufficient to confute them But of all the accounts of this Confession of St. Peter there is none so unaccountable as that of Cardinal Baronius who without the least Syllable in all Antiquity to countenance it adventures to say That now St. Peter Defined Decreed and made a Rule of Faith for all the World For he fancies our Blessed Saviour now to have held a Council with his Disciples in which St. Peter e Ad Annum 33. N. xvii talem fert sententium ut erudiat atque decernat ac fidei Canonem perpetuo per mansurum oonstituat Decreed and Constituted the Canon of Faith for ever to endure So that there was no need saith he our Saviour should consult the rest of the Apostles though the Text saith expresly he askt them all Whom say ye that I am What their Opinion was it being sufficient that Peter had spoken f Acquid de fide sentiendum esset clavam fixisse Ibid. and so struck the nail to the head that he had setled what was to be thought of Faith. Which is such an astonishing Instance of the Power of Prejudice Passions of all sorts and worldly Interest to corrupt and pervert the wisest Minds that it ought to be an admonition to us all to employ the strictest Care to discharge all these when we are seeking after Truth that they may not frame our Opinion for us For how could such a Thought as this without a strange Bias upon his Mind enter into any Mans head Or if it did how could it stay there or how should he be perswaded to publish such an absurdity to the Christian World Is it credible that in the Company where the Lord Jesus the Eternal Son of God was present any person though never so great should take upon him to teach nay to make an Article of Faith St. Peter certainly was no Master in this Assembly but a Scholar only not an Instructor but a Learner of Religion at this time and in this place Much less was he a Supreme Lawgiver and a Judg of Truth of which as yet he had not much Knowledg it appears by what follows in this Chapter where we read he so opposed our Saviour in another great point of Faith that he calls him Satan but barely pronounced what he had been taught to believe by our Lord himself and had heard as I have shown from John the Baptist and seen proved by such mighty Works as none could do but God alone If I seem to have stood too long in explaining this Confession let those who think so consider that it was to open the clearer passage to all the rest that follows which will be the more plainly and easily understood Particularly the next words of the Evangelist who tells us that upon this Confession of St. Peter our Lord answered and said unto him Blessed art thou Simon Barjona for flesh and blood that is man hath not revealed it unto thee but my Father which is in Heaven v. 17. In which words he pronounces them all happy men this not being revealed peculiarly unto him but unto the whole Company who were all taught of God by such means as I have named as much as he For if Peter were their Mouth then as you have heard his Confession was their common voice in answer to a question put to them all and by the same reason our Saviours reply to him was the pronouncing a Blessing on them all who in him had made this worthy Confession and thereby demonstrated their proficiency in his School In one regard indeed St. Peter was more happy than the rest that as he was the first in the Colledg of the Apostles so he had the Honour as you shall hear to be the first employed in that glorious work unto which they were all chosen as much as he and in which they so laboured that they were partakers no less than himself in that Blessedness which is elsewhere pronounced to that faithful and wise servant whom his Lord hath made ruler over his houshold c. Matth. xxvi 45 46. Which words g Lib. ii de Concil c. 17. Bellarmin hath the confidence to apply peculiarly to St. Peter and the
could add Sixteen other ancient Writers and not put S. Austin into the number who often follows this Exposition four of which were Popes of Rome * Leo I. Foelix M. Gregorius I. Adrian I. and I do not reckon neither Isidorus Hispalensis venerable Bede and a great many other excellent Writers later than they down to Alphonsus Tostatus and lower among whom are five or six Bishops of Rome †Nicholas I. John VIII Steph. VI. Innocent II. Hadrian IV. Urban III. who expresly say The Rock that Christ here speaks of is the Faith which Peter confessed For the Church saith the last named Writer is built upon faith which faith is called a rock because it always remains firm and solid III. But there are others of no less name and credit that understand Christ himself by this Rock Who then may be conceived to have pointed to his own person when he spake these words shewing by his voice and gesture whom he meant by this Rock Which as it is an elegant so it is no unusual form of Speech but made use of by our Lord himself on another occasion Joh. II. 19. when he saith destroy this Temple intending the Temple of his Body and in three days I will raise it up And there are no small number of the antient Doctors who thus expound these words particularly S. Austin in divers places of his Works as he himself takes notice in his Review of them Where he saith †Retract L. 1◠Cap. 21. that in a certain place of his Book against the Epistle of Donatus he made Peter the Rock on which the Church was founded but since that time had very often said it was Christ the Son of the living God. He leaves the Reader indeed to chuse which he pleases but any one may see he inclined to the last which he followed in those Books which he wrote after this of his Retractions For which I must needs say there are no small reasons that are worthy to be mentioned First this very Apostle whose name is Peter or Stone calls Christ a living stone unto whom ye coming saith he to his flock as lively stones are built up a spiritual house c. 1 Pet. II. 4 5. Who can read these words without prejudice and not think that S. Peter lookt upon Christ as that Rock on whom every one must be built who will be a part of the spiritual House that is of the Church And therefore he adds that Christ is that chief Corner Stone elect and pretious whom the Prophet Isaiah foretold God would lay in Sion v. 6. And Christ alone for if he had had any conceit that he was a joynt secondary foundation of this building it would have been very seasonable or rather necessary to have bidden his flock come to him as that chief Corner Stone which God of old predicted he would lay in Sion as the foundation of his Church together with Christ For so Bellarmin †is bold to expound that Praefat. ad Libros de summo Pontif. Prophecy of Isaiah indeavouring at large to prove that every particular there mentioned belongs to Peter and his Successors in the See of Rome who he saith are that tried Stone that pretious nay that corner Stone that sure foundation in fundamento fundatus as they translate it that stone laid in the foundation which we read of Isaiah XXVIII 16. Directly against the words of S. Peter himself who applys all this to Christ alone and indeavours to fasten his flock unto him as the only sure Rock of their Redemption and Salvation This is a Doctrine frequent in the mouth of this very Apostle whom against his own mind they will needs make the Foundation of the Church and which he had read in other places of the antient Prophets For long before the writing of this Epistle he tells the Council of Jerusalem that Jesus was the stone which was set at nought by such Builders as they but become the head of the Corner Act. IV. 11. The great Men that is of the Jewish Church would not build on this Foundation by joyning themselves unto him as the rest of the Stones in a House are to that of the Corner and so they excluded themselves from his Body and from Salvation for there is no Salvation saith he in any other Secondly Another great Apostle also tells us that Christ is the Rock 1 Corinth X. 4. Who poured out his Spirit after his Death upon the Church as the Rock in the Wilderness after it was smitten did Water for the Israelites Thirdly And more than that he tells us in that Epistle III. 11. Other foundation can no Man lay than that is laid which is Jesus Christ How is it possible to have a better interpreter of Christs words to Peter than this which is here given us by the great Apostle of us Gentiles There are sundry Elogiums indeed which the antient Fathers have bestowed on S. Peter in their writings of which they of the Church of Rome are wont to boast and we grant them all nay have often told them that if it will do them any service we will furnish them with as many more titles of Honour out of the Fathers as they have collected But when we have done we will present them with as many and great and transcendent yea the very same titles bestowed upon S. Paul Who here tells us in plain words whom we are to understand by the Foundation of the Church and consequently by the Rock on which it is built And indeed our Saviour doth not here say to Peter Thou art Peter and upon thee will I build my Church but upon this Rock as if he spoke of something else either himself or that Faith concerning him which Peter had confessed Tu Petrus Ego Petra thou art Peter and I am the Rock on whom thou art built thy self and must help to build others If Peter himself was the Rock then how is he built upon the Rock He would be a Rock and a Foundation to himself For there is no mention of more Rocks than one which if it be Christ then Peter and all must be built on him Hear how handsomely S. Austin * Serm. 13. De verbis Domini Cap. 1 2. expounds these words Thou therefore art Peter and upon this Rock which thou hast confessed upon this Rock which thou hast known saying Thou art Christ the Son of the living God I will build my Church Super me aedificabo te non me super te I will build thee upon me not me upon thee For they that would build upon men said I am of Paul I am of Apollo I am of Cephas that is Peter and others who would not be built upon Peter but upon the Rock said I am of Christ Now S. Paul seeing them make choice of him and contemn Christ asks them Is Christ divided Was Paul Crucified for you Or were you baptized in the name of Paul No