_of the Body_."[30] But if this be so, we can say nothing more highly to exalt S. Peter's office in the Church, for he is the great bond and stay of this outward unity, as even[31] enemies confess. As surely as in a real monarchy the person of the sovereign ties together every part of the political edifice, and is endued with majesty because he is at once the type of God, and concentrates in one the power and dignity of the whole community, so it is in that divine structure in which "the manifold wisdom of God" is disclosed to all creation. The point of strength is felt alike by friend and foe. On the Rock of Peter has fallen every storm which the enmity of the evil one has raised for eighteen hundred years; but yet the gates of hell have not prevailed against it. In the Rock of Peter, and the divine promise attached to it, every heart faithful to God and the Church trusts now, as it trusted from the beginning. Many temporal monarchs in their hour of pride have risen against S. Peter's See, but the greatest of them all[32] declared that no one had ever gained honour or victory in that conflict, and he lived to be the most signal instance of his own observation. "God is patient, because He is eternal," and the Holy See prevails in its weakness over power, and in its justice over cupidity, because while temporal dominion passes from hand to hand, and stays not with any nation, following the gift of God which the poet calls fortune, Perche una gente impera, e l'altra langue, Seguendo lo giudizio di costei Che e occulta, come in l'erba l'angue,--(DANTE, _Inferno_.) the visible kingdom of Christ, which is His Church, lasts for ever, and is built upon the rock of Peter. The long line of descendants, from Constantine and from Charlemagne, have in their turn impugned and illustrated this glorious privilege of the Papal See. What is there so stable in an empire of commerce, or so solid in the nicely-balanced and delicate machinery of a constitutional monarchy, as to exempt them from the action of an universal law, or to ensure their victory in the doomed contest with the Vicar of Christ? Mightier things than they have done their worst, have oppressed, triumphed, and become extinct, and if it be allowed them in the crisis of their trial to crucify Christ afresh, He will yet reign from the cross, and "draw all men unto Him." FOOTNOTES: [1] In this chapter I have availed myself of Passaglia, b. 1, c. 25, and b. 2, c. 11. [2] Eph. i. 9, 22; 1 Cor. xi. 2; Rom. xii. 5. [3] See Petavius, De Incarn. Lib. 2, c. 7 and 8, for the following quotations. [4] Hippolytus, quoted by Anastasius, p. 216. [5] Irenaeus, Lib. iii. 18, and iv. 37. [6] De Monogamia, c. 5. [7] Augustine, 21 Tract. in Joannem. [8] Hilary on Psalm 68. [9] S. Chrys. Tom. 5, (Savile) Hom. 106. [10] Greg. Naz. Orat. 36. [11] S. Cyril, Dialog. 1, De Trin. p. 399. [12] S. Leo. 5 Serm. on Nativity, c. 4 and 5, 12th Serm. on Passion, c. 3.