Why I left the communion of the Church of Rome, or A narrative of inquiries regarding the grounds of Roman Catholicism - Softcover
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1868 edition. Excerpt: ...that Peter's confession of faith, "Christ, the Son of the living God," is the firm Rock and solid foundation of the Church. It is true that other Fathers understood Peter himself to be here spoken of as the rock, but in a very different sense from what is required to support the pretension of the Roman Church. They assert that if Peter was a rock, so were the other apostles; and Origen, who understood Peter to be the rock, says that every disciple of Christ is a rock, as having drunk from the spiritual rock (Orig. in Matt.) Peter, then, was as much a rock as a foundation, for it comes to the same; and I have shown already that all the apostles were foundations. I will add now the testimony of the Fathers. Origen (in Matt. xvi.): "If you think the whole Church to be built on Peter alone, what will you say of John, the son of thunder, and of each of the Apostles?" St. Jerome (in Amos ix. 12): "Christ was the rock, and He bestowed it on the apostles that they should be called rocks." Again (in Jovin. i. 14): "You say that the Church is founded on Peter; but the same in another place is done on all the apostles." St. Basil (in Isai. ii.): "The Church is built on the foundations of the apostles and prophets; Peter also was one of the mountains, on which rock the Lord did promise to build His Church." Again, in the same book he says: "Peter's soul was called the rock, because it was firmly rooted in the faith, and did hold firm (or stiff) without giving way before the blows of temptation." Augustine: "The apostles were foundations, because their authority doth support our weakness" (in Psal. lxxxvi.) If, then, Peter was a rock, a foundation of the Church, so were the other apostles....
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