being left to be made at the last dayc: but the scope of the miracle before us is rather to shew the saving effects of the Gospel, without adverting to any minute particulars respecting those in whom a difference shall be found.
And here let me remind you, that the emblem is now realized amongst you at this very hour. Whilst I preach to you the glad tidings of salvation through a crucified Redeemer, I am, in fact, spreading the Gospel net, that I may draw you from the midst of a wide and sinful world, and present you to God as a peculiar people, zealous of good works ]
2. Of the office to which Peter himself was now
definitively called —
[Peter and his partners had followed our Lord before, but not so as to remain with him as his stated attendants. But now they were to abandon their worldly calling altogether, and to become exclusively the servants of his household : they were henceforth to be by profession, as it were, " fishers of mend." In this office Peter was to be pre-eminently distin- guished : nor was either his apprehended sinfulness or his want of education to be any obstacle to his success. Accord- ingly the promise now given him was very fully accomplished in the first sermon which he preached on the day of Pentecost, when three thousand were converted to the faith of Christ. It was also again fulfilled, when he was made the honoured instrument of first opening the kingdom of heaven to the Gentile world, by the conversion of Cornelius and his com- pany. From that time to the present hour the Gospel net has been cast with different measures of success in all the quarters of the globe : and we are looking for a period, not far distant now, when Pentecostal scenes shall be renewed in every place, and " all flesh shall see the salvation of God."]
That the miracle may produce its full effects, let us contemplate it,
III. As to be improved by us —
See what it wrought on Peter and James and John : this is the effect it is to produce on us. We should all of us without exception be led by it,
1. To receive the Lord Jesus as the true Messiah —
[To his miracles the Lord Jesus himself appealed as demonstrative seals of his Divine commission. And what could convey clearer evidence of it than the miracle before us ? For, whilst it did not admit of a possibility of collusion, it shewed how unbounded was the power of the Lord over the whole
c Matt. xiii. 47—50. d Matt. iv. 19.