[It was not the decree of man, but of the Most High God, that he presumed to abrogate. God had graciously sent his only-begotten Son to be the Saviour of the world : and had declared that in him should all nations be blessed. By faith in that Saviour had Abraham, the father of the faithful, been saved, hundreds of years before the Mosaic law was given : and when that law was given, it was not intended to alter the nature of the salvation before promised, but only to keep the Jews a separate people, and to prepare them for the Saviour whom they were taught to expect. Thus not even to the Jews was the observance of the Mosaic ritual enjoined for the purpose of establishing a righteousness by means of it, but only to direct their attention to that Saviour, from whom alone a saving righteousness could be obtained. Yet behold, Peter undertook to change the very way of salvation itself, and to thrust from his office that adorable Saviour, who had already come down from heaven, and " purchased the Church with his own blood." Had an angel from heaven been guilty of such presumption, he had, as St. Paul tells us, deserved to be accursed b : What then didst not thou deserve for thine impiety, unhappy Peter, when, in committing it, thou knewest that thou wast sinning against God, and subverting the very found- ations of a Christian's hope! Me thinks, if Satan exulted when he had prevailed on thee to deny thy Lord and Saviour, how much more did he shout for joy when he had seduced thee so to betray the trust reposed in thee, as to give him a hope, that through thee the Saviour's kingdom should be utterly and eternally destroyed ! Holy Paul, we thank thee for thy fidelity to thy fallen brother: we thank thee for thy zeal in thy Master's cause, and for thy love to the whole Gentile world. But above all, we adore thee, O most blessed God, who didst endue thy servant with such wisdom and grace, and enable him by his timely and courageous interposition to break the snare which Satan had laid for the whole race of mankind.]
The fact thus recorded is of infinite importance on account of,
III. The instruction to be gathered from it —
&i
Every part of this record teems with instruction. But we must content ourselves with submitting to your attention two points only ; namely,
1. That salvation is solely by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, without the works of the law —
[This forms the very ground of the reproof which Paul
b Gal. i. 8, 9.