all other Articles requiring faith no otherwise, than as founded on that.  John began first, (Mat. 3.2.) preaching only this, “The Kingdome of God is at hand.”  Then our Saviour himself (Mat. 4.17.) preached the same:  And to his Twelve Apostles, when he gave them their Commission (Mat. 10.7.) there is no mention of preaching any other Article but that.  This was the fundamentall Article, that is the Foundation of the Churches Faith.  Afterwards the Apostles being returned to him, he asketh them all, (Mat. 16.13) not Peter onely, “Who men said he was;” and they answered, that “some said he was John the Baptist, some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the Prophets:”  Then (ver. 15.) he asked them all again, (not Peter onely) “Whom say yee that I am?” Therefore Peter answered (for them all) “Thou art Christ, the Son of the Living God;” which I said is the Foundation of the Faith of the whole Church; from which our Saviour takes the occasion of saying, “Upon this stone I will build my Church;” By which it is manifest, that by the Foundation-Stone of the Church, was meant the Fundamentall Article of the Churches Faith.  But why then (will some object) doth our Saviour interpose these words, “Thou art Peter”?  If the originall of this text had been rigidly translated, the reason would easily have appeared:  We are therefore to consider, that the Apostle Simon, was surnamed Stone, (which is the signification of the Syriacke word Cephas, and of the Greek word Petrus).  Our Saviour therefore after the confession of that Fundamentall Article, alluding to his name, said (as if it were in English) thus, Thou art “Stone,” and upon this Stone I will build my Church:  which is as much as to say, this Article, that “I am the Christ,” is the Foundation of all the Faith I require in those that are to bee members of my Church:  Neither is this allusion to a name, an unusuall thing in common speech:  But it had been a strange, and obscure speech, if our Saviour intending to build his Church on the Person of St. Peter, had said, “thou art a Stone, and upon this Stone I will build my Church,” when it was so obvious without ambiguity to have said, “I will build my Church on thee; and yet there had been still the same allusion to his name.

And for the following words, “I will give thee the Keyes of Heaven, &c.” it is no more than what our Saviour gave also to all the rest of his Disciples (Matth. 18.18.) “Whatsoever yee shall bind on Earth, shall be bound in Heaven.  And whatsoever ye shall loose on Earth, shall be loosed in Heaven.”  But howsoever this be interpreted, there is no doubt but the Power here granted belongs to all Supreme Pastors; such as are all Christian Civill Soveraignes in their own Dominions.  In so much, as if St. Peter, or our Saviour himself had converted any of them to beleeve him, and to acknowledge his Kingdome; yet because his Kingdome is not of this world, he had left the supreme care of converting his subjects to none but him; or else hee must have deprived him of the Soveraignty, to which the Right of Teaching is inseparably annexed.  And thus much in refutation of his first Book, wherein hee would prove St. Peter to have been the Monarch Universall of the Church, that is to say, of all the Christians in the world.