Peter, and upon this rock will I build my Church" (Matt. xvi. 18); by which is not meant that any power was given to Peter, but that power belongs to truth derived from good; for in heaven all power is in truth from good, or from good by means of truth; and since all good and all truth are from the Lord and nothing from man, that all power is from the Lord.
When they heard this they replied indignantly, that they wished to be certain whether that spiritual sense is contained in the words. Whereupon the Word which is in heaven was given them, in which Word there is not the natural but the spiritual sense, because it is for the angels who are spiritual. And when they read it, they saw manifestly that Peter is not named there, but truth from good which proceeds from the Lord, instead. Seeing this, they rejected it with anger, and would have torn it in pieces with their teeth, had it not instantly been taken away from them. Hence they were convinced, although unwilling to be convinced, that that power belongs to the Lord alone, and not to any man, because it is a Divine power. . .
PRIESTLY LUST OF DOMINION.
In general, all the consultations of the Babylonish race tend to this: that they may dominate not only over heaven but over the whole earth; and thus that
