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.
Ver. 18. Thou art Peter] i.e. Thou art a living stone in the spiritual temple, like as Peter saith all other Christians are,1 Peter 2:5. And here Christ tells Peter why at first he gave him that name.
Upon this rock] That is, upon this thy rocky, thy solid and substantial confession of me. Austin saith, the rock is Christ, not Peter. But this, saith Stapleton, is humanus lapsus in Augustino. So the schoolmen say that St Austin stood so much for grace, that he yielded too little to free will. But it was a true saying of learned Dr Whitaker's, in his answer to Campian, Patres in maximis sunt nostri, in multis varii, in minimis vestri. Not Peter, but Phocas, is the right craggy rock upon which the Popish supremacy is founded.
I will build my Church] Christ calls not the Church βουλην, or ουγκλητον, which is properly a convention of lords and statesmen, but εκκλησιαν, which is an assembly of the common people, even those of the lower rank and condition; a according to that1 Corinthians 1:26; Luke 1:48; "he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden."
And the gates of hell, &c.] That is, all the power and policy of hell combined. The devil lendeth his instruments, the Church's enemies, his seven heads to plot, and his ten horns to push. Craft and cruelty go together in them, as the asp never wanders alone; and as the Scripture speaks of those birds of prey, Isaiah 34:16; "none of them lacks his mate." But yet all this shall not prevail: the devil may shake his chain at the saints, not set his fangs in them. For what reason? they stand upon a Rock that is higher than they, so that the floods of temptations and oppositions cannot come so much as at their feet; or if they reach to the heel, yet they come not at the head; or if they should dash higher upon them, yet they break themselves.
Shall not prevail against it] No, though the devil should discharge at the Church his greatest ordinance; say they were as big as those two cast by Alphonsus, Duke of Ferrara, the one whereof he called the Earthquake, and the other Grandiabolo, or the great devil.
Whether may the Catholic Church err in fundamentals?
It is answered, that though the universal Church of Christ, taken for his mystical body upon earth, and complete number of his elect, cannot err in matters fundamental, yet the external visible part of the Church may err, because the truth of God may be locked up within the hearts of such a company, as in competition of suffrages, cannot make a greater part in a general council; so that the sentence decreed therein may be a fundamental error.
a εκκλησιαζειν, est concionari, cum populo agere. Cameron.