as we shall see.  But if Christ, by saying, “upon this rock,” instead of saying, “upon thee,” referred not to Peter as a person, but to a quality in Peter, namely, to his firm faith, then it follows that the Church is not built on the person of Peter, but on a quality of Peter.  This is the best that Catholics can obtain from the interpretation which they have attempted.  But if the Church is built on firm faith, there is no reason why that faith should be just Peter’s.  Would not every firm believer in the deity and Redeemership of Christ become the rock on which the Church is built just as much as Peter?  Luther declared quite correctly:  “We are all Peters if we believe like Peter.”  Really, the Catholics ought to be willing to help strengthen the foundation of the Church by admitting that the rock would become a stouter support if, instead of the firm faith of one man, the equally firm faith of hundreds, thousands, and millions of other men were added to prop up the Church.  In all seriousness, it will be absolutely necessary to give Peter some assistants; for we know that the job of holding up the Church was too big for him on at least two occasions.  What became of the Church in the night when Peter denied the Lord?  In that night, the Catholics would have to believe, the Church was built on a liar and blasphemer.  What became of the Church in the days when Peter came to Antioch and Paul withstood him to the face because he was dissembling his Christian convictions not to offend a Judaizing party in the Church? (Gal. 2.) Was the Church in those days built on a canting hypocrite?

But the greatest difficulty in admitting the Catholic interpretation is met when one remembers those Bible-texts which name an altogether different rock as the foundation and corner-stone of the Church.  Paul says that in their desert wanderings the Israelites were accompanied by Christ.  He was their unseen Guide and Benefactor.  He supported their faith.  “They drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10, 4).  At the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord relates a parable about a wise and a foolish builder.  The foolish builder set up his house on sand; the wise builder built on rock.  By the rock, however, the Lord would have us understand “these sayings of Mine” (Matt. 7, 24).  Paul speaks of the Church to the Ephesians thus:  “Ye are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone” (chap. 2, 20).  Most fatal, however, to the Catholic interpretation is the testimony of Peter.  Exhorting the Christians to eager study of the Word of the Lord, he goes on to say:  “To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.  Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner-stone,