For what is a man profited, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul, or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Matthew 16:26
These words are occasioned by the pride, ignorance and unbelief of Peter, one of the chief—if not the very chief—of the disciples, whom Christ honored by making of him the rock upon which he would build his church, and making of him a chief defense of the same—that is, the chief amongst men, for although the church was built on the foundation of the prophets and apostles, yet Christ himself is the chief cornerstone—whom Christ had also honored by giving him the keys of the kingdom of heaven in a more especial manner.1 The way wherein St. Peter manifested that corruption which dwelt in him was this: our Lord, as it is said in the twenty-first verse, told his disciples, perhaps more plainly than ever before, how he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders, chief priests and scribes, and at last be killed, which was very surprising to Peter who, it seems, had been carried away hitherto with that common error of the Jews that expected when the Messiah came, that he would reign in abundance of worldly pomp and glory. And therefore, the news of [the] sufferings and death of him who he believed to be the Messiah and the Son of God, as in the sixteenth verse, was very unexpected, and very much contradicted the notion he had received and his ambitious expectation of being the chief man next to Christ himself in his earthly kingdom, because Christ had told him he should be the rock on which he would build his church and that he would give him the keys of his kingdom. Wherefore, Peter, being so much moved by the vain desire of earthly prosperity, ignorance of the nature of Christ's kingdom, and the great unbelief of what his....
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