THE FAITH AND OBEDIENCE OF CHURCHMEN,
THE STRENGTH OF THE CHURCH.
"And Simon Peter answered and said. Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him. Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Father which is in heaven. And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build My Church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Matt. xvi. 16–18.
The rock, then, upon which the Church is built, is the confession, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God; a truth set forth and shadowed by the Prophets, but openly and plainly taught by the Apostles. St. Paul uses a similar expression, when he speaks of the body of Christians being "built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets;" (i. e. resting in the sound and true doctrine which they taught;) "Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone," (Ephes. ii. 20.);—our very spiritual existence depending upon our adherence to this great truth, that Jesus was the anointed Son of God, God and Man, the promised Saviour of the world;—He, who by taking man's nature upon Him in the womb of the Blessed Virgin, fulfilled the prophecy, that the Saviour should be of the seed of Abraham, in whom "all the nations of the earth should be blessed," (Gen. xxii. 18.) and the seed of the woman, who should "bruise the serpent's head," (Gen. iii. 15.);—and who, inasmuch as He was "the Only-begotten Son of God, (John iii. 18.) "God of God," "Very God of very God," (Nicene Creed,) fulfilled the prophecy, that the Saviour should be "the mighty God," (Isaiah ix. 6.);—He, of whom it was said, "Let all the Angels of God worship Him,"
