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The grace of God, which raises men's hearts by degrees into conformity with the Divine image, does not suddenly destroy the old nature. St. Peter is still the same impulsive man who could now confess the Christ, and now, when troubles came, deny Him; who could follow Him bravely into danger, yet be overcome by the gossiping remark of a girl that met him by chance. We must not try this ease by the standard of Anglo-Saxon consistency. We sometimes perhaps run the risk of purchasing too dearly the favourite virtue, at the price of zeal and ardour. We are not naturally indulgent towards that impulsive nature which the great apostle, more Jewish in this than the Jews, derived from his race. Anxious to please, and to be in sympathy with those about him, he rejoiced at first in the Gentile freedom, until those came about him who were full of prejudice for their venerable law, its severe conditions of communion, its austere separation. Let us neither praise nor blame — let us only say grace has not yet wrought her perfect work in this apostle's heart. Nor has the other great apostle yet learned all that the school of grace can teach him. Face to face, before the whole Church, he rebukes and humbles a brother whom Christ had honoured, who had laboured much, and turned many from darkness to light. He quotes it as a proof of his independence amongst the apostles, not without complacency. All this is consistent with this bold and resolute nature, which marched straight to its objects, and refused to swerve either out of respect of persons or out of fear. His steadfast resolution, that Christ should be all in all, came from above; his manner of compassing it bears clear marks of his old nature. That blessed change under the power of grace can be perhaps more fully studied in St. Paul's career than anywhere else in the Church history. The strong, loving, fierce, harsh nature — you see the faults transformed to virtues, the angles rounded off, the strong will made obedient to the bit and bridle of love; and yet it is the same man still. You recognize the old features of the portrait, but it is transfigured by preternatural light. Again we will not praise or blame; we will rather recognize the power of the mighty Spirit of God which could use for His purposes the timid impulse of one man and the impatient zeal of another, for building up the house of God; and at the same time could take in hand the timid and the impatient natures alike, and give courage to the one and softening to the other, thus building at one time the great house of God and carving delicately each living stone of which the house is compacted. It is very common for us to look up out of our welter of troubles, our sects, and schisms, and disputations, and to see far back in the first ages nothing but peace; a united Church, offering its harmonious, universal praise; a well-drilled army, marching in obedience to a single will, a code of faith which always, everywhere, all the faithful heard, and, without questioning, believed. But, as the student draws near, the object grows more distinct, the mists disperse, the shadows separate and fall into their places; and the rose-flush of the dawn ceases to conceal the true colours of that primaeval region. Then we come to see something very different from our preconceptions, and learn — what is indeed gladness to learn — that upon the whole, in the old time as in the new, the Holy Spirit sent of the Lord has wrought in the Church in the same manner. He was a Spirit of light and life and comfort to the souls of men; but then, as now, the men were enlightened, not transformed. And the glory of God's great work lay in this — not that the powers, wishes, and passions of the actors were petrified into a lifeless uniformity, and the superseding life from heaven took their place; but rather that, using as His instruments men so weak and perverse, He built with them the Church of God. To me, I do confess, it is a comfort to know that the Church in the first age grew by the same principles as it grows by in the nineteenth; that the very divisions amongst us have their counterparts in the age of the apostles, and that our disputes, like them, may be but permitted struggles and aberrations of us who are acting out God's great commands, and that all the while He is making perfect the circle of His purpose and accomplishing His kingdom. The Church has grown, as all things seem to grow, by the life within her striving to perfect itself amidst opposing forces. So grows the acorn, pushing its weak shoot through hard ground, and its strength and dignity are not less that once the swinish jaws narrowly missed devouring the heart, and the swinish foot did actually trample it into the clay. So grew the liberties of the English people: are they less dear to us because they have been threatened, and at times, eclipsed in the past? So grow the mind and spirit of a man, passing through trials and efforts, even through falls, to the ripeness of a resolute, tolerant, patient, helpful age. So grew the Church of Christ; and her life is not less real, less secure, if she has passed sometimes through fears and fightings, and the deep waters of the proud have seemed to go even over her life. At one time has had to stand against a world; at another, a imperils the Church by making it the supreme kingdom amongst the earthly kingdoms. Worldly motives are said to have tainted the Reformation of religion in this country: and it is true. So much the greater is our reason for blessing God: that the sweet honeycomb has come from the lion's carcase; that amidst the strife and selfishness of kings, and the ignorance of peoples, the truth passed safely. So even now the Church is growing, and God dwelling in her gives the increase. We seem in deadly peril. There is unbelief on one side, and on the other that deadening system which would hand over the conscience to the priest, and the priest to a mediaeval theology, hostile to knowledge and incapable of change. "The waves of the sea are mighty and rage horribly, but yet the Lord that dwelleth on high is mightier." Yet there is one more lesson which the study of the past might bring us. By the vehemence of past disputes — nay, by the bitter hatred that they have brought in, one might think that men had lost faith in the power of the Holy Ghost to keep safe the ark of God upon the stormy waters. To "withstand to the face" has been the common remedy for emergencies. It may be permitted us reverently to doubt whether the pulse of Divine life in the Church has been hastened by one beat by the violence of the zealous, who have thought well to be angry for the cause of God. Through strife, but not by strife, the Church has passed upon her way. Struggle and conflict, and even partial failure, should not convince us that God has left us: they are the heritage of the Church from the beginning.

(Archbishop Thomson.)

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KJV: But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.

WEB: But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned.