Our Lord's words have indeed been wrested to a meaning plainly foreign to the facts which followed, and to the whole history, and recorded circumstances of the Apostolic age. They who have so restrained our Lord's words to one Apostle in favor of their own assumed dominion, did not put forward that groundless claim until after the lapse of some ages of the Christian era, in which no trace can be found of any such pretension. When they strove to realize their ambitious project, they sought to build the Church of Christ, not upon its only Lord and Head, nor, under his commission, upon his twelve Apostles, of whom St. Paul declares in exact conformity to the final mandate of his Lord, that they were joint foundation stones; but upon the single head of one Apostle, without one witness from the first ages of the Church to give countenance to this plea, and with many plain and convincing intimations in the page of Scripture, which directly militate against this extravagant conceit.
The first general councils of the Church afford no shadow of support to this pretension; and the faithful page of history shews plainly when it first began. The challenge, however, was made, and we know with what success, although this very claim, when the bare title had been arrogated in another See, had been marked with the severest censure by one of those whose successors assumed the same distinction, and founded a portentous empire on that basis. With incredible audacity they professed to cast out, and condemn the whole body of believers who would not yield to this gross usurpation, which confined to a single Church the privilege of all Churches.
It was necessary to vindicate the text, which has been pressed into this cause, from such restrictions: but having done this, we are free to state, that although the words which were spoken by our Lord in this place, were not restrained to the single person of St. Peter, so as to detach his throne in any manner from the seats of eminence which our Lord so distinctly gives in common to his Apostles; yet the zeal of Peter, the peculiar reference to his name at this time, which marks his person as graced with a special token of allusion, together with the several addresses which our Lord made to him, may justly stand as so many indications of peculiar favor. His early call, his age, his prompt confession at this moment, though it embraced and testified the faith also of his fellow Witnesses, and the joint confession of all true believers, will most readily account for this distinction.
A stress so great and unwarrantable having been laid upon our Lord's words to St. Peter in this place, it perhaps has happened that in combating such overstrained and novel applications and restrictions, the line of interpretation may sometimes have been carried too far in an opposite direction, and our Lord's regard to Peter in this promise, and in some other words of kindness, may have been turned quite away from any personal respect to him. It is not necessary, in the least, in order to overthrow unfounded claims, to do this violence to marks of favor and distinction, which however they might extend, as indeed they did in the main particulars, to others, yet were first discovered, and first pledged to this Apostle. The common sentiments of mankind, on the ground of ordinary reason and propriety, allow the preference which is due to those who stand foremost, though but in point of time and order among men. The first man; the first born in the families of men; the first that occupies a throne, and leads a dynasty; the first called among men or nations; the first foot that enters on a new found region; the first born from the grave (which is one of our Lord's own privileges) form considerable marks of eminence in the sacred page, without lending any countenance to those consequences which have been so strangely drawn from any tokens of distinction by which the name and memory of this Apostle have been graced. All these are circumstances of some worth, if the common feelings of mankind, or the testimonies of the Word of God himself, may be trusted . There is an honor of this kind plainly testified and vindicated to some among men above others, by the joint suffrage of divine truth, and of common reason.
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