And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.
Ver. 17. Blessed art thou, Simon] These and the following words of our Saviour to Peter were meant to all the apostles also, John 20:22,23. Christ took his beginning of one, to teach unity in his Church, in the confession of faith. Note this against the Papists, who miserably wrest and deprave this text, to the proving of the papal monarchy. Gregory the Great, though he styled himself a servant of God's servants, and detested the pope of Constantinople for arrogating the title of Universal Bishop, during the reign of Mauritius; yet when he was slain, and succeeded by the traitor Phocas, he ceased not to flatter the same Phocas, to commend unto him the care of the Church of Rome, and to exhort him to remember this saying of our Saviour, "Thou art Peter," &c., and for no other end, than that he might extend his power by the favour of the parricide.