l not prevail against it. And I will
give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt
bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed also heaven."(156) Here we find Peter
confessing the Divinity of Christ, and in reward for that confession he is
honored with the promise of the Primacy.

Our Savior, by the words "thou art Peter," clearly alludes to the new name
which He Himself had conferred upon Simon, when He received him into the
number of His followers (John i. 42); and He now reveals the reason for
the change of name, which was to insinuate the honor He was to confer on
him, by appointing him President of the Christian Republic; just as God,
in the Old Law, changed Abram's name to Abraham, when He chose him to be
the father of a mighty nation.

The word _Peter_, in the Syro-Chaldaic tongue, which our Savior spoke,
means _a rock_. The sentence runs thus in that language: _"__Thou art a
rock, and on this rock I will build My Church.__"_ Indeed, all respectable
Protestant commentators have now abandoned, and even ridicule, the
absurdity of applying the word _rock_ to anyone but to Peter; as the
sentence can bear no other construction, unless our Lord's good grammar
and common sense are called in question.

Jesus, our Lord, founded but one Church, which He was pleased to build on
Peter. Therefore, any church that does not recognize Peter as its
foundation stone is not the Church of Christ, and therefore cannot stand,
for it is not the work of God. This is plain. Would to God that all would
see it aright and with eyes free from prejudice.

He continues: "And I will give to thee the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven,"
etc. In ancient times, and particularly among the Hebrew people, keys were
an emblem of jurisdiction. To affirm that a man had received the keys of a
city was equivalent to the assertion that he had been appointed its
governor. In the Book of Revelation our Savior says that He has "the keys
of death and of hell,"(157) which means that He is endowed with power over
death and hell. In fact, even to this day does not the presentation of
keys convey among ourselves the idea of authority? If the proprietor of a
house, on leaving it for the summer, says to any friend: "Here are the
keys of my house," would not this simple declaration, without a word of
explanation, convey the idea, "I give you full control of my house; you
may admit or