TI Mr. Bernard Shaw (who asks not for a new kind of philosophy but for a new kind of man) cannot understand that the thing which is valuable and lovable in our eyes is man — the old beer-drinking, creed-making, fighting, failing, sensual, respect- able man. And the things that have been founded on this creature immortally remain ; the things that have been founded on the fancy of the Superman have died with the dying civiliza- tions which alone have given them birth. When Christ at a symbolic moment was establishing His great society, He chose for
1 A. Ritchie, Spiritual Studies in St. Matthew's Gospel, ii. 33.
ST. MATTHEW xvi. 18 291
its corner-stone neither the brilliant Paul nor the mystic John, but a shuffler, a snob, a coward — in a word, a man. And upon this rock He has built His Church, and the gates of Hell have not prevailed against it. All the empires and the kingdoms have failed, because of this inherent and continual weakness, that they were founded by strong men and upon strong men. But this one thing, the historic Christian Church, was founded on a weak man, and for that reason it is indestructible. For no chain is stronger than its weakest link.1
T| We are all familiar with the expression " a chip of the old block." The quality of the chip bespeaks a block of like quality. The chip is a pattern or sample of the block. In the same way the evidently durable petra calls up the image of a pelros of like quality, as that which would afford an unrivalled foundation upon which to build. Thus when our Lord to His first utterance, " I also say unto thee, that thou art Petros," adds the words, " and upon this petra I will build my church," it is like the farmer taking up the sample, and declaring, " With this corn will I sow my field," or the woman viewing the pattern, and saying, " Of this stuff will I have a dress." 2
3. Although the metaphor here regards Jesus, not as the foundation, but as the Founder of the Church, yet in a real sense He is the Church's "one foundation," and Scripture generally speaks of Him as such. If you would seek a sufficient foundation for the Church, it can be found only in One who can give support and maintenance to all that the Church is ; only in One who can uphold from the first and through the ages all that enters into the parts and thought and activities of the Church ; only in One who Himself contains within Himself the substance which, when worked out by the power of living spirit, will become the manifold forms of the Church's contents — her faith, her sacraments, her worship, her activities, her many kinds and forms of grace and goodness. And He only is such a One who said " Upon this rock I will build my church." And so St. Paul says, " Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."
^| Our Lord proclaimed Himself the Founder of a world-wide and imperishable Society. He did not propose to act powerfully upon the convictions and the characters of individual men, and then to leave to them, when they believed and felt alike, the
1 G. K. Chesterton, Heretics, 66.
1 F. G. Cholmondeley, in The Expositor, 2nd Sen, Tiii. 76.
292 MY CHURCH
liberty of voluntarily forming themselves into an association, with a view to reciprocal sympathy and united action. From the first, the formation of a society was not less an essential feature of Christ's plan than was His redemptive action upon single souls. The society was not to be a school of thinkers, nor a self-associated company of enterprising fellow-workers; it was to be a Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven, or, as it is also called, the Kingdom of God.1
II.
The Structure Built upon thb Rock.
"I will build my church."
1. The word "church" was neither new nor doubtful in meaning to Jesus' disciples. It was the rendering they found in that Greek Bible Ihey had in their hands for one of the most sacred and significant terms of the Old Testament. The Greek word ecclesia is the translation of the Hebrew expression for " the congregation of the Lord." Peter and his fellow-disciples could not fail to realize that Jesus was forming the little band who had companied with Him into a definite and organized religious community. They were no longer a company of men who formed the school of a Master. They were the church, the society, the congregation of Christ. That society was seen in those twelve men who looked up with wondering eyes and flushed faces to Him whom they had confessed. It was seen again in the Upper Room at the supper table. It was seen again in Jerusalem as, together with the women, they waited on God in prayer, and the number of the names was about an hundred and twenty. It was seen again when the believers met in the first Council at Jerusalem, and the apostles and elders came together to consider. It was seen also whenever men and women met for prayer and for service to Christ.
\ Ruskin has pointed out how the New Testament use of the word " church " emphasizes this simple and unecclesiastical meaning of the term. It can be seen to-day where two or three are gathered together in His name. To be gathered together in His name means for some purpose He has ordained which can be